How I won P1-M by being fresh & confident

Or this piece can be retitled: How I spent my summer vacation and brought home P1 million after seeing the beauty of the Philippines for free! To think that I was planning to sign up for advanced subjects at the Ateneo last summer. Unfortunately or fortunately, the subjects that I wanted to take up were not available. As such, I was all set to be a professional bum last summer.

Until I saw an item in the newspaper about the Trip Kita search, the reality game show from ABS-CBN 2 and Colgate Fresh Confidence, on TV. It must be fate Kismet. Sheer good luck. At first, I wasn’t so keen on auditioning. Based on the previous experiences of my sister Sheena (who is more into modeling than I am), VTRs and look-sees are one big waiting game, two to three hours max of being idle. That wasn’t my cup of tea. Still, the prospect of making my summer vacation more productive greatly appealed to me. (The P1-million cash prize didn’t hurt either.)

So I trooped to the audition at the ABS-CBN 2 studio and hoped for the best. Just to play it safe, I brought along a big book on Greek Mythology (if I remember correctly), to help me while away the waiting time. Needless to say, I made the first cut of 55 aspirants, which was later trimmed down to 30, and then narrowed down to the final six.

To be honest, the chance of touring all over our lovely archipelago was my main motivation in entering this competition. My family, you see, were more of an out-of-the-country type of people. Sadly, I haven’t really traveled around the islands. As they say, we shouldn’t be tourists in our own country.

After the six-week Trip Kita adventure, I can safely say that I have learned to appreciate all the more the beauty of our beloved country. The most beautiful destination in my book is Palawan, of course. It was my first time to visit paradise and I was instantly smitten. It’s the final frontier. It’s lush and pristine. Virgin territory. Everywhere you look, you can take a picture that you can then immortalize on a postcard. It is picturesque. Breathtaking. Spectacular. It is the most pristine place I’ve ever visited in all my 18 years on this planet.

The most exciting leg of the tour was our four-day stay in Bohol. It was also in Bohol where I encountered a slight mishap during one of the challenges. Jonathan Montaño and I were asked to ride a competitive bike and, since it was a vehicle clearly designed for one person, I lost my grip and fell from the handlebars where I was sitting. It was a scene straight from America’s Funniest Home Videos, except I was not laughing. Who could, after enduring 20-plus stitches on your ruptured hand and just as numerous scratches and bruises all over your arms and legs?

Still that little misadventure taught me a lot about myself. It taught me that I had the will to go on, even when things look bleak. Although I was injured (and virtually inutile), I still decided to stay in the race and join the rest of the gang in the last heat of the competition in Palawan. If you ask me, the most exhausting part of the entire show was the Mount Banahaw chapter.

It was tiring with a capital T. We went trekking. We were running all over the place. It seemed interminable. Every step I made was torture. I actually heard myself muttering: Please stop! The weird thing was, when we finally reached our destination, the summit of Mount Banahaw, it was as if all our pain and suffering melted instantly.

To this day, I have no idea what happened. Someone told me that it must be because of the strong spiritual nature of the mountain. Must be.

Trip Kita taught me a lot of things. Aside from making me realize to trust myself and my own capabilities, it also taught me to trust other people. Especially my partner for the most part of the proceedings, Belle Moncupa. I was practically living with Belle. And, after my Bohol misadventure, I was practically dependent on her. And she never let me down. She was with me all the way. She was a partner in every sense of the word. She’s the perfect foil for me and I’m the perfect complement for her.

Unlike other girls who were just sitting casually while the men worked hard, she helped me in everything. In pitching the tent up. In rolling the tent to put it back in the package.

Modesty aside, we were the best pair, the best partners in the entire show, in the sense that we were always helping each other out.

I couldn’t have done it without her. Take a bow, Belle.

A lot of people have been asking me about my future plans. Specifically, what do I intend to do with my million-peso winnings? Suffice it to say that I am determined to make a lot of people happy. First and foremost are the people who’ve helped me make all this possible. I promised some institutions that I’d donate part of my prize to them. The rest, I intend to save and/or invest wisely.

I am looking into forex and the other proposals presented in the book, How to Invest Your Money and Profit from Inflation by Morton Schulman. In sum, I plan to be smart about it. But, don’t get me wrong; I also want to have fun with it. After all, I do deserve it, after going through what I went through. I guess, I deserve some pampering. To have a ball.

Which reminds me. If you ask me how I spent my summer vacation, I’ll surely respond, without skipping a beat: "I had a blast; it was a fantabulous summer!"