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Feature: Grezel Almogela, Mhel Sabaria: La Union SpED’s Beauty and the ‘Beast-ketball’ Idols
While surfing my facebook account, my browsing halted when I saw the trending post of a Mr. and Ms. Sportsfest pageant conducted by the Student Body Organization (SBO), an active association of student-leaders from the different schools, universities and colleges, here.
Wondering why this pageant caught my attention?
Since I am used to witnessing pageants which involve physical appearance as a requirement and question and answer portions to clinch crowns, my curiosity dragged me to their school to know what these two did to place both in the 1st runner-up spots.
Well, meet Grezel Mae Almogela and Mhel Harvey Sabaria, La Union Special Education (SpED) Center’s inborn deaf and mute beauty queen and hard court ‘beast-ket’ ball idols who bested 14 other pairs and got the nods and yesses of the judges.
With the help of their adviser and a licensed sign language interpreter, I learned that Grezel Mae is a 17-year old grade 11 student and the daughter of Engr. Gregorio Almogela and Araceli Marquez who hails from Santiago Norte village of this city but is under the care of her guardian Romana Marquez.
While Mhel Harvey is a grade 12 student and the youngest son of Maliton Sabaria and Delia delos Trinos of the three siblings and independently lives in Cabugao village in Bacnotan, La Union.
Grezel is taking up the general academic strand and dreams to be a future engineer just like his father. And guess what? She also aspires to become a famous beauty queen like Pia Wurtzbach.
She loves participating in pageants. She joined the search for Special Young Model in 2012 and ended 2nd runner-up, and is the reigning Ms. Deaf Awareness Week, a local pageant which was held in November, last year.
During my interview, she expressively hand-signed, “I am not afraid and ashamed that I cannot hear and speak because I am confident of what I can do and offer to everyone.”
“We represented our fellow PWDs during the competition without any doubts because we want to be their voice, we want to connect with the people and show that we can also be equally competitive through pageantry and sports,” Grezel added.
Twenty-three-year-old Mhel does best in basketball, he is part of the team for the Region 1 Athletic Association (R1AA) special sports division and branded as a hard court player of which he received several MVP awards through the years.
Aside from basketball, playing the shot put throw which placed him second, and third place for the 100 and 200-meter dashes in R1AA, Mhel is also into modern and folk dancing. He joined the school’s cultural dance team and performed in big venues such as the Museong Pambata and the Senate of the Philippines.
“We are very grateful that SBO promotes inclusiveness and allowed them to participate. Through this achievement, we are hoping that more of our students here will learn to adapt with the society and be courageous enough to face their own challenges as well,” said their teacher and adviser, Prisca Charisma Liwanag.
This is the first time that the SpED Center joined the said sportsfest and hopes to continue with their membership in the following years to involve other students in the center.
As described, the words kind, friendly, responsible, disciplined, diligent and respectful are Grezel Mae and Mhel Harvey’s best traits. (ajc/AHFF/PIA-1)
