Does anyone remember Carlos P. Romulo?
Carlos Peña Romulo is considered as one of the most respected public servant in the history of the Philippines. His multifaceted career spanned 50 years as soldier, educator, university president (UP), journalist (Pulitzer Prize – in Journalism), diplomat and being president of the 4th General Assembly of the United Nations.
In 1982, when the man was still living, he was instituted as National Artist in the field of Literature.
A college professor in History once gave an inspiring memoir about the great Romulo which is very interesting and at the same time, very useful to English learners of this generation and for the generations to come.
During CPR’s (commonly used acronym for Carlos P. Romulo) early years as a reporter at the age of sixteen, the young lad was very much into writing. Since he was more versed with Spanish which is not uncommon to people of his generation because of strong Spanish influence then, he went out with a discipline to learn and build his English vocabulary.
Every day he included as his passion, to look into the dictionary to study and learn an English word. This given the opportunity, he would use in the next day’s casual conversation. As retained in him, the night that followed will again be another session with the dictionary which he applied orally for the day that followed. It went on and on until he built a whole treasure of English words which made the man a Pulitzer Prize winner and a national artist.
We may not be in an English speaking country, sure enough, a learner with a one-word-a-day habit can go a long way in pursuit of a career goal.
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By: Elizabeth B. Licuanan | Teacher III | Bataan National High School
