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Cebu

Cebu is known for its history, culture, food, tourist traps, and of course, its beaches. Being the "Queen City of the South," Cebu definitely prides itself in its natural beauty of its land, sea, and people.

Cebu is home to towering skyscrapers despite its age, and its new sleek and modern bridge connecting Cebu island to Cordova. The city was established as a Spanish colony in 1565, and despite that, it is full of modern buildings mostly found in the south of the City. Looking at these modern buildings have always been one of my favorite things to do as a child commuting from my subdivision to the south to go to Ayala.

Cebu is widely known for the annual Sinulog festival, which is a celebration of the Santo Niño every third Sunday of January. The streets of Cebu on this day would always be filled with people partying, chanting "Pit Senyor," getting henna tattoos, smothering each other with face paint, watch the street dance competition of the contingents, and the floats housing celebrities.

Of course, Cebu is not perfect. Visiting the downtown area always has you be cautious of snatchers, and the stench that comes out of the canals at the side of the roads always leaves you with a bad experience. It also always floods since these canals are always clogged. Cebu can still improve in these aspects and more, and I hope to see improvements in my lifetime.

I will always be proud to call Cebu my home. For the 18 years I have lived, Cebu is still where I feel comfortable and familiar with, and even if I would be away for a long time, I know that I can always count on Cebu to be the place for me.

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Manggagawa

Manggagawa is a song written by Gary Granada which talks about the struggles of the lower class in the Philippines. He talks about the life of the lower class people, asking people to understand their situation, and their mistreatment by this society.

The starting line asks us, middle class and upper class, to put ourselves in their shoes to be able to understand their mistreatment. They want us to hear them in their call for better treatment in the workplace, and above all, a higher pay to be able to pay for their needs and provide for their family. This song is a call for help and at the same time, a critique of the current systems in place to keep people like the lower class stay in the lower class and even get poorer, while the rich get even richer, and make the income distribution in the Philippines even more disproportionate.

In the chorus, Granada repeats the word “kulang” which means “not enough.” He says that their work days are not enough to be able to earn enough, and their efforts are not enough even if they work harder than what is expected of them, even if their whole body aches, because those who are poor will not get richer. This shows that the poor are not poor because they are lazy, as some say, but because of the people around them. They are poor whether they are lazy or even if they are the most hardworking person in the world, they will continue to be poor.

This song is an insight into the life of a person in poverty, just as Granada had intended. It gives us the perspective of the situation of the people in poverty, and the motivation to call for justice for these people that are being left behind by society, and give them a better quality of life. We must call for the government to do better in helping these people.

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Kayaking

It was a particularly regular morning. I was woken up by my mother at 8 in the morning, telling me to hurry up because we’d have to be ready to leave by 10. While my mom was packing up for our trip down the south of Cebu, I was eating my breakfast, just an egg omelet that I make a sandwich with while I watch TikToks on my phone. I brushed my teeth and went to change into my outfit and I was ready. It was a relatively mild ride south. My brother’s girlfriend was the one driving her orange Toyota Wigo, which is a tiny and very popular car, and she would count how many orange Wigos passed by hers on this 5-hour long ride. Beside her was my brother who is in control of the music, and at the back seat was my mother, me, and my father, whose birthday is the reason why we were going on this trip.

We checked in at the Fantasy Lodge in Samboan at 3 in the afternoon, where we would be staying for 2 days and one night, and we would have to check out before 12 noon. At the reception, there was a chalkboard that listed the services that they gave out, and there it was. Kayaking. I have tried kayaking before and it was one of the most fun experiences I have ever experienced. It felt as if I was free to go wherever I wanted, but of course, my parents would be worried if I had gone missing so I go back anyway. This time, I had the chance to do it again since it had been around 6 years since I last went kayaking, and I was ready to beg for my life to my mother to let me do it. She allowed me to but only the day after.

It was finally the next day, and the first thing we did after eating breakfast was go to the beach, which was full of green fuzzy things which I don’t know the name of. I was never really a fan of the beach because of the things in the water, but I do love the sand and the sea. I was still yet to get to kayak because it was still 8 am, and my mom insisted that we go to the kawa first which was a huge cauldron that could fit two adults over wood fire and is sprinkled with many roses for scent. They placed some sponges at the bottom of the cauldron so that it wouldn’t be that hot for the person sitting on the kawa. We stayed there for a very short time since we actually had to bargain to get this spot and we just took some pictures there, and then it was time for me to go kayaking.

The kayak was a long plastic boat that was made for two people, but it was just me who was going to use it. I felt that same feeling I felt when I first went kayaking, that I the freedom to go anywhere with this boat. While kayaking, I stumbled upon a few plastic bottles. I was later asked to let my brother use it with me, and later, my dad. It was really a fun experience. An hour passed by quickly and I was told to start packing, so I beached my boat as the staff told me to when I was done, and then I went up to our room and showered, and changed. We then checked out of our room at 11, and we were off to our way back home, with one side trip in Mantayupan falls in Barili, which was an overwhelming experience since I had never seen a waterfall so tall.

Having been there really made me appreciate the beauty of our place, and that we should really protect the landscape that we were graced with, and that we should really take care of our planet.

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We Go Up

Even on the verge of a pandemic that would close the whole world from each other for two years, I was lucky enough to be able to meet my favorite K-Pop idols in the most special leap day I had in my entire life. Every step of the way of being able to see them was just pure bliss. I had been a fan of theirs for almost two years and being able to see them in person, even from afar in the balcony section of New Frontier Theater, was the cherry on top. And even if one of the members had left already, seeing my ultimate bias and the other five would made me the happiest 14-year-old boy in the world who was able to see the soon-to-be one of the most popular groups in South Korea, NCT DREAM.

In 2016, they debuted as one of the youngest, if not the youngest K-Pop boy groups. NCT DREAM had an age range of 14 years old to 16 years old and debuted as a sub-unit of NCT, SM Entertainment’s most ambitious project yet. A boy group with no limits to their membership, NCT DREAM is the third sub-unit introduced in NCT, the first being NCT U, which debuted in April of that year, and NCT 127, which debuted in July. NCT DREAM was introduced to the world with a graduation system where members would be leaving or “graduating” from the group after they reach the age of 21 in South Korea, and be replaced with new members, keeping the group young and dynamic.

NCT DREAM is composed of 7 members, namely Mark Lee and Lee Haechan, both being members of NCT 127, Huang Renjun, Lee Jeno, Na Jaemin, Zhong Chenle, and Park Jisung. All members come from varied backgrounds. Mark comes all the way from the bustling city of Vancouver, Renjun comes from the humble town of Jilin in Northern China, Chenle from busy Shanghai, and Jeno, Jaemin, Haechan, and Jisung coming from the home of K-Pop itself. The group is renowned, for me at least, for their closely knitted relationship that resembles a brotherhood, which can be attributed to their debuting as young teens, as well as their music, dancing capabilities, etc. From their debut to 2018, they released 3 Mini-Albums and numerous singles all throughout, namely their debut single “Chewing Gum,” following this, NCT DREAM had to resume activities as 6 members without Jaemin as he had to rest because of severe back pain. They released their first mini-album “The First” without Jaemin in February of 2017, with the title track “My First and Last” winning at “The Show” 3 times in a row, making them the first NCT sub-unit to win an award and the youngest K-pop group at the time to win a “triple crown.” Following the success of their previous comeback, they released the mini-album We Young in August 2017, and released their final mini-album as a 7-member group being “We Go Up” in August 2018.

Being the eldest out of the septet, Mark had graduated from the group in January of 2019 when he turned 21 in the Korean age system, joining NCT 127 full time and leaving the 6 remaining. NCT DREAM moved on as a 6-member group, 6Dream as fans would like to call them. They released a collaboration with british artist HRVY in May without Haechan due to his schedule in NCT 127. They had a comeback as 6Dream, releasing another Mini-Album titled “We Boom” in July, which charted well, even better than their previous comeback as 7 members. They then kicked off their first ever world tour, “The Dream Show” in October of that year starting off in Seoul, and going around Asia, including Manila, which I attended. The groups’ four members who were set to graduate in 2020’s graduation had been delayed for the sake of the world tour. The group was set to perform in Singapore in mid-march when the COVID-19 pandemic had broken out around the world. Shops were closing, people were panic-buying for goods in supermarkets, and the world shut down.

But for them, the world kept moving, just slower than usual pace. After a few emotional ments during the world tour where the members talk about the graduation system, the system was abolished in April 2020 and announced that Mark was set to return to the group after one more comeback. 6Dream would release their last Mini-Album as 6 members on April 29 with “Ridin’.” After its release, Ridin’ was in the top 10 on all of South Korea’s streaming charts, even beating out BTS’s “On” immediately following its release. This was the start of their steady rise to fame in South Korea, solidifying their place in the history of K-Pop with their comeback as 7Dream in 2021. They released their first full-length album, “Hot Sauce” on May 10, 2021 with the return of Mark to the group, and this comeback took South Korea by storm, racking up around 1 million copies of the physical album sold within a week, which has not been done before with the exception of BTS. They proceeded to release a repackage album titled “Hello Future” on June 28, another full-length album titled “Glitch Mode” in March of 2022, its repackage “Beatbox” being released in May, a special Christmas mini-album with “Candy,” a remake of the famous song by H.O.T., SM Entertainment’s first boygroup, which also trended in South Korea during the Christmas season. They released the latest full album last July 17, 2023, with the album “ISTJ” with the title track of the same name. NCT DREAM is now one of the most popular groups in South Korea and this success can be attributed to their never-ending hardwork, perseverance, and dedication these past 8 years. They maintained stability even in the hardest times because they got each other to help themselves go up the ladder.

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Autobiography

As a child, I always thought that I would end up as a chef. I thought I would be in the kitchen rushing, sautéing over the stove while my fellow sous chefs are wasting no time to serve dishes. I even dressed up as a chef in kindergarten on the day we wore what we wanted to be when we grew up.

              As I grew up, I picked up more interests than cooking, and my dream of becoming a chef had faded. I then found a new passion in history in Grade 5. It was something I knew I was good at and I knew I would take up in college. This newfound passion in politics then spiraled into an added interest in history with all the politics present in history. These two would define my interest for the following years and would become the basis of my college applications when I decided that I would be taking up Political Science in college.

                In grade 11, the first opportunity to apply for college came. The University of the Philippines opened its applications for the school year 2024-2025 in March of 2023, and together with my friend, Claire, I applied for it. My initial decision of taking Political Science had changed when I found out while applying for UP that they offer a program in AB History. I would say that between my two big interests, history is more interesting to me than politics, so I decided to take AB History as my priority program, with AB Political Science as my backup. A few months later in August, I would then also apply for a different university, and one that I wanted to apply to for a long time, the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, with the same programs I applied to in UP.

                Both universities required us to take an entrance exam as part of the application process. The first to conduct entrance exams was UP, which happened in June of that year. I took the UP College Application Test in the UP campus here in Cebu. I remember that day very vividly. It was a very chilly morning in the middle of summer, and the sun was just about to rise. I got ready at 4 AM, and I went over to the nearest 7-eleven to buy a snack which I would eat at the duration of the test, which was a cup of Mini Oreos, and I rode a taxi to UP Cebu and arrived at 5 AM. I waited for about an hour until they let us in the testing hall, which was very cold, and then I knew that I should have brought a jacket. I took a chair directly below one of those tall AC units and luckily, the air was directed away from me, so it was not cold. I took the test for the next 4 hours, and I took my first entrance exam, which was a very fun yet stressful experience.

                The next entrance exam I had to take was UST’s exam which took place in November in Mandaue City. Unlike in UP where I took the test in an airconditioned testing hall, we took the test for UST in warm classrooms in a public high school in Mandaue. Luckily, I knew this beforehand, and I did not bring a jacket to school. It went as well as the one I took for UP but with an additional essay question for people who chose Political Science.                 I am now in Grade 12, and as of writing this, I have not received any confirmation from either university. I might have to wait for more months to know if I got in or not. I am graduating in 3 months and I am grateful for the experience.