About Me

I'm a Filipino Canadian founder, world traveler, and first-time father writing about the things I'm building, where I came from, and what I'm trying to pass forward.

That's the present tense version.

The longer version starts on a farm.

I was born in Sayangan, a mountain town in the northern Philippines where my Lolo and Lola grew cabbages, potatoes, carrots, and radishes at an altitude where everything takes longer and nothing is wasted. Up at five. Work before sunrise. Extended family so close you never had to explain yourself because everyone already knew. I did not appreciate any of this at the time, which is exactly how the best education works.

Every summer my parents shipped me back to that farm from La Trinidad like a package that needed to be reminded where it came from. My Lola never gave speeches. She just showed up before the sun did and expected you to do the same.

Thirty years later I still do.

My mother got us to Canada in May 2009. Ottawa. I was 21 and it looked exactly like a Hollywood film set, which I took as a sign to start moving immediately.

Within three days I was handing out resumes by hand. Within a week I had a job. Over the next six years I worked more than ten different jobs, from chipping ice on the Rideau Canal in weather that felt personal, to graduating valedictorian from paralegal school, to building communities, riding motorcycles, and learning that Canadian winters are not a climate so much as a character test.

I thrived. Mostly. Then a long-term relationship ended in a way that took 20 pounds off me in two weeks and sent me somewhere dark I had not been before.

In 2014 I bought a one-way ticket to Colombia.

The reason was Narcos. I am not going to pretend otherwise.

What happened was that I arrived in Medellin unable to speak Spanish, unable to read a menu, unable to do anything requiring language, which turned out to be most things. My depression was immediately replaced by actual biological hunger, and the farm kid from Sayangan who had been buried under a decade of constructed identity surfaced in about 72 hours.

Nobody plans their breakthrough. They just follow a feeling and pay attention to what shows up.

That trip became a decade of building life differently. Remote work before it had a name. Countries as chapters. Staying conscious and intentional about where I was going and why, instead of letting circumstance drive while I sat in the back.

Six years ago I drove cross-country during Covid, Ottawa to Victoria, for reasons that made sense at the time and look like pure inevitability in hindsight. A roommate introduced me to Jasmin. We built something real.

We are now in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, where our daughter arrives in April.

She will be born Mexican, by a Filipino Canadian father who once bought a Narcos ticket with no return plans. The universe has a very specific sense of humor and I have learned to appreciate it.

This blog is where I work out what to pass forward.

Three pillars. One question underneath all of them.

Heritage is about where I came from. The mountains, the farm, the diaspora experience, the Filipino Canadian hyphen, and what it means to carry a culture the world does not always have a shelf for.

The Operator is about what I build. Companies, GTM strategies, products, and the honest behind-the-scenes of what it actually looks like to build multiple things at once without losing your mind entirely.

The Long Game is about who I am raising. Fatherhood, intentional parenting, conscious living, and the terrifying beautiful project of trying to raise a daughter with purpose when you are still figuring out your own.

They sound like separate topics. They are the same question asked three ways.

How do you build something that lasts.

I do not have the complete answer. I have a direction, a farm kid's tolerance for early mornings, and a habit of following instinct into uncomfortable places that keep turning out to be exactly right.

That is enough to start.

If any part of this sounds like your life, or the life you are trying to build, you are in the right place.

Start with the Heritage pillar if you want the full origin story. Start with The Operator if you are building something and want honest company. Start with The Long Game if you are becoming a parent and want to do it with intention rather than just survival.

Or just start wherever you feel the pull.

That has always worked better for me anyway.

I send a newsletter when I have something worth saying — usually one insight from each world. No cadence pressure. Just signals and insights.