I am 27 years old and I was born in Lamitan City, Basilan Province. In the perspective of the many, my hometown is filled with negative scars caused by the Abu Sayaf and other like-minded rebel groups in Mindanao. I had witnessed before my very eyes the Lamitan siege in 2000; the fearless exchanging of fires, the continuous bombings, the sound of the helicopters, and the anxiety that any moment our own house might explode and we will be all gone. Rooted to these experiences and exposures, I said to myself, I will act on this and in my own simplest ways, will not let any other children experience what I have gone through.

For 27 years now, my dad remains missing. His absence because of a military assignment became the driving force for me to also reach out to children in the Philippines; along with my desire to fill up the void other children might feel- one that I felt with my missing father. Having what felt like a complete, active childhood involvement in the community coupled with an issue of having an “incomplete” family somehow resonated in me through the years, which resulted to my ardent passion towards kids. This gave me the drive and heart to create and run a volunteer organization named I am (M.A.D.) Making A Difference, Inc. and work for children and youth both professionally and personally.

Since 2009, I am M.A.D. has reached 24 areas across the Philippines involving 1,450 children and has gathered more than 250 volunteers coming from different parts of the county and just recently won in the Ten Accomplished Youth Organizations (TAYO) awards. I am MAD is proof that my personal advocacy can be achieved and that people can still make a difference even if they are busy with their professional life. This is because I am also working fulltime as Program Coordinator in Metrobank Foundation, Inc., (MBFI), the corporate social responsibility of the Metrobank group. I handle the education programs of the Foundation namely: the Y.E.S. (Youth for Excellence and Service) scholarship program and the Metrobank-MTAP-DepEd Math Challenge (MMC) which is a nationwide mathematics competition for more than 500,000 elementary and secondary students. As one of the high-flyer employees of the Foundation, I was chosen to represent the Foundation to be featured in the “Dream Exhibit” of Metrobank Foundation’s 35th Anniversary celebration.