Until one day, the current national jet ski champion (Ritchy Santos) set up a race course for him to practice and to my curiosity, I immediately tried it and felt competitive on the race course, feeling just like my idol Wayne Rainy.

Giving experienced racers a hard time on the practices, Ritchy Santos soon took me under his wing, bringing me to my first competition ever at age 14 – which was then the minimum age requirement.

Actually, I lied about my age and raced against 20-plus year old riders when I was 13 and won my first competition and soon became the Philippine jet ski child prodigy while my sister then became the Philippines’ female jet ski sensation.

I won Youth awards such as the “1995 Youth Scoop Awardee.” From age 15, the Jetski Association since then always moved me a level up quickly from Beginner to the Novice Class then to the Expert Class. Each level I entered, if I don’t win at the first season I always finished runner up and later emerge Champion the following season.
As we move a level up and riding different forms of jet skis, different types of competitions made me not just the fastest racer but even more versatile just like my idol Wayne Rainy.

Our dominance in our local competition gave me the fire to try and prove to the World that we could do it. I entered my first world finals at the age of 18 in 1998 after qualifying as a Philippine representative going head to head up against the national champions from competing countries.

We finished 25th out of 50 during my first attempt. After that experience I felt an endless pursuit to wave the Filipino flag and conquer all the races abroad to prove that we the Filipinos can.