Former balut vendor passes American CPA exam

DINGALAN, Aurora — Back in his elementary and high schools days, he used to peddle pan de sal and balut in the streets of this town to eke out a living and support his studies. Now, all his hard work has finally paid off.

Edelio Alday of Barangay Poblacion here has perked up the sagging spirit of his townmates by passing the highly competitive board examinations of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (CPA), thus, becoming the first Auroran to do so.

Alday, 30, got a grade of 89 and was one of only 62 passers out of the 100,000 examinees in the examination administered by the State of Oregon last Nov. 14-17. The list of successful examinees was posted on the Board website recently.

Alday, more popularly called Jojo, was the only Filipino in the list of passers in the exams which covered four subjects: auditing, financial accounting and reporting, regulation and business environment and concepts.

The exams were so difficult to pass an examinee had to cough up no less than the equivalent of P300,00 just to be able to take the exam to cover air fare, accommodation, review materials, processing and examination fee.

What made the conquest doubly sweet for Alday was that he went on a self-review, merely squeezing it into his schedule while working in Riyadh as senior internal auditor in Falholdings, one of the biggest group of companies in Saudi Arabia.

Alday is the youngest in a brood of eight of Elias and Erlinda Alday. Elias, 67, is a retired police sergeant assigned in this town whose chief of police then was Jaime Ylarde, now this town’s mayor.

Since his elementary days, Alday has already shown that he is destined for greatness. He graduated valedictorian at the Dingalan Central School (DCS) in 1988 and at the St. Patrick Academy (SPA) in 1992.

In 1996, he graduated magna cum laude with a defree in accountancy from the Wesleyan University of the Philippines (WUP) in Cabanatuan City. — Manny Galvez