There was a year in grade school when my father promised me a bicycle if I topped my class. I studied like that bicycle was already mine. I never got it. What I remember, decades later, is that the promise itself — made by a
- June 21, 2026 · 5 min read
- September 17, 2026 · 4 min read · Life & Times
Key Takeaway I was always more comfortable making the campaign work than taking the bow — that became a management philosophy Coach, don’t command: people execute what they own, and they own what they helped figure out ‘We’, not I — the pronoun signals whether
- September 15, 2026 · 4 min read · Campaign Chronicles
MyDuterte Story Campaign Case Study: Scaling Authentic Personal Narratives Key Takeaways One instruction to volunteers: “Tell your Duterte story.” No template, no brief, no format required The most credible voice in any campaign is always an ordinary person telling the truth Stories came in every
- September 10, 2026 · 4 min read · Campaign Chronicles
Key Takeways: Content is King, Distribution is Queen, Engagement builds the Kingdom — the architecture of every campaign I’ve run Good content evokes emotion or prompts action; format matters far less than the message Filipino cultural shorthand — hugot, kilig, pride — is what makes
- September 8, 2026 · 4 min read · Campaign Chronicles
The Democratization of Media in the Philippines: How Social Media Changed Narrative Making Series: Inside the Campaign Eighth of Ten Parts Key Takeaways Before social media, narrative making was controlled by big media companies — we were just the audience Social media made every Filipino
- September 3, 2026 · 4 min read · Life & Times
Key Takeaways: I was appointed Head of Sales and Marketing at ABS-CBN in February 1997–straight into an advertiser and ad agency boycott Lesson 1: understand what the aggrieved side actually needs before you defend or counter Lesson 2: trust is rebuilt through behavior, not statements
- September 1, 2026 · 4 min read · Campaign Chronicles
Series: Inside the Campaign Seventh of Ten Parts Key Takeaways Our first TV buy was ₱8M — used to test four regional cities, not flood national airwaves The leading spender spent ₱500M+ on advocacy ads. Our official spend was ₱371M — and our real media
- August 27, 2026 · 4 min read · Life & Times
Key Takeways: I enrolled in BS Chemistry; two professors talked me into Management Engineering — the first serendipitous turn of many From activist detention in Davao to economics at CRC to Media Pulse to ABS-CBN: none of it was planned When Freddie Garcia handed me
- August 25, 2026 · 5 min read · Campaign Chronicles
Series: Inside the Campaign Sixth of 10 Parts Key Takeaways Engagement metrics are not the same as real-world impact — this distinction cost other campaigns dearly We used a three-stage framework: Arouse (emotion), Organize (structure), Mobilize (action) Online groups were aligned into four clusters: OFWs,