JUST A THOUGHT: No medicine cures what happiness cannot. – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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HE’S A DATU: Name all the odds, they worked against his favor. Yet, he faced them headlong, and survived.
Aljun Cayawan, a Manobo prince also known as Datu Agong, is a prince by birth. What he lacked in wealth, he made up for by sheer hard work and perseverance.
Abandoned by his parents since age 2, he grew up under the care of a grandmother in his home town Sibagat, Agusan del Sur.
Aljun crossed two rivers going to school by foot, literally sent himself to school as a working student. It was a good thing he discovered early on he had a gift of song, which he used to earn scholarship in both high school and college.
The rest is a success story waiting to be written. Aljun won as division champion at the 2018 World Championship of Performing Arts (WCOPA) in Los Angeles, California.
He brought home a huge trophy.
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SINGING AMBASSADOR: Facing media recently as Megasoft brand ambassador, Aljun said his advocacy Sagip Katribu gives school supplies to poor Manobo children. An arm of the same advocacy, Adopt Katribu, provides shelter to those whose homes are far away from school.
“I don’t want other children to experience the pain I went through as a child growing up poor,’’ he says.
“Isang patunay na hindi hadlang ang pagtira mo sa bundok, o kung saan man. Kung may talento ka, ipakita mo,” he says.
Aljun has been on the go as part of Megasoft’s School is Cool Tour with fellow endorsers Myrtle Saroza, Ryle Santiago and Young JV Kapunan.
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CHEERS: A portent of more sophisticated, better things to come in TV-movie production is the soft unveiling of ABS-CBN’s first ever sound stage, located in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan.
The huge, cavernous studio will be operational in April 2019, with “Darna,” starring Liza Soberano, using it as its primary location. The entire property, sprawling several hectares, will be known as ABS-CBN City.
