BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya— After his high school graduation in 2009, Mark Anthony Tacuboy set his sights on a civil engineering course at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City, having hurdled the entrance examination there.
But his parents, worried about costs, balked at sending him to study in Metro Manila, which is 14 hours by bus from his hometown in Ballesteros town, Cagayan province.
So Tacuboy enrolled in an accountancy course at the church-run University of Saint Louis Tuguegarao (USLT) in Tuguegarao City.
It was fate.
Tacuboy topped this year’s board examination for certified public accountants (CPAs), besting 11,136 other examinees.
“Even when I was enrolling, I had doubts whether I was making the right decision,” Tacuboy said. “But I kept thinking about my family and prayed hard that God would guide me.”
Answered prayers
He credits his achievement to the prayers from his family, friends and teachers, both in college and high school, for him to top—not just pass—the examination.
“I felt so much pressure back then because they all wanted me to top it. But it eventually paid off because they were all praying fervently and those prayers were answered,” he told the Inquirer on the phone on Thursday.
A cum laude graduate, Tacuboy is the third USLT alumnus to top the CPA examinations.
Second straight year
It was also the second year in a row that a graduate from USLT topped the test. Last year, Jackson Pascual led the field of new CPAs.
In 2008, another USLT graduate, Richie Jackson Padilla, also topped the exam.
The eldest of three children, Tacuboy got his early education in a village school in Barangay Nararagan, 10 kilometers from the Ballesteros town proper.
“He was really a very studious, religious and God-fearing child,” said Tacuboy’s father, Edgar, a former grade school teacher and now principal of Nararagan Elementary School in Ballesteros. “It was a bit ironic because he never asked us, his parents, for help with his lessons in school.”
A family of devout Born Again Christians, the Tacuboys held daily prayer vigils before the October exam. His wife Perlita, also a grade school teacher, fasted for days, Edgar said.
“God has proven once more the power of prayers, that whatever his children ask for, coupled with determination and hard work, he will readily give,” he said.
2 other Cagayanos
Aside from Tacuboy, two other Cagayanos were among the topnotchers in this year’s exam: Reynald Tomas of Cagayan State University tied for second place and Mc Lein Bagunu, also of USLT, finished fourth.
Tacuboy scored 91.14 percent while Tomas, a magna cum laude graduate, got 90.71 percent.
The seventh of eight children, Bagunu said he was offering his achievement as a gift to his mother Mary Rose, a public school teacher who supported him through college after his father died seven years ago.
“The fact that only two of us eight children managed to earn a college degree really drove me to strive,” he said, as he recalled the struggle of growing up in a large family in Santa Maria town in Isabela province.
Motorcade for heroes
A hero’s welcome awaits Tacuboy, Bagunu and 56 other new accountants when the university stages a motorcade as a tribute to them on Monday, said James Pattaguan, USLT vice president for academic affairs.
“This is a lasting testimony that in the province, there is a good school that produces graduates that can compete with those from elite tertiary schools in the cities, despite the fact we collect only minimal fees from our students,” he said. With a report from Villamor Visaya Jr., Inquirer Northern Luzon
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