Congrats, Raki

Congratulations to Rochelle "Raki" Vega-Siu for winning Best Performance by a New Female Recording Artist for her rendition of the Michael Jackson classic, Childhood. I'm so proud of Rochelle, one of my closest friends since high school. She's a year younger than me and we met during the auditions of the local production of Les Miserables. Since then, we have performed together a lot of times, and I have seen her grow both as a person and as a performer. It was also during the rehearsals that she met her now-husband, Jon.

She's always been very religious and a devotee to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Before singing professionally, she's been singing for the Lord and for Mama Mary. Rochelle took up Mass Communications in college while still singing and performing on the side. She eventually became Cebu's Jingle Queen with a LOT of commercials and jingles under her belt. After college, she became a Music Teacher and still continued her singing career. She won a lot of local prestigious awards, and was chosen as one of the finalists for Born Diva, a reality singing show where the contestants all underwent makeovers to really make them a Diva. Rochelle was given the name Raki because the studio said it sounded more "Diva-like."

She actually wanted to back out because she didn't want any part of her body changed, but after a lot of consultations with her family, loved ones and spiritual advisers, she agreed to have only her nose and eyelids enhanced, nothing else.

It's actually a very long story, and a long struggle, but Raki came out on top. Her winning piece was composed by the great Trina Belamide, the song composer who wrote Tell the World of His Love, the theme song for the World Youth Day '95 to celebrate the visit of Pope John Paul II to the Philippines. Trina made the song Today, and Raki more than gave justice to it, she owned the song.

It was still a struggle after she won Born Diva because of a lot of reasons, reasons that made me dislike ABS-CBN even more. But Raki never lost faith, and never gave up. She went back to theatre and honed her craft even more, this time under the guidance of theatre greats including the greatest Lea Salonga.

She continued performing both in theatre and in different shows, and received more awards and recognitions, and even made it to the short list for the Australian production of Disney's Lion King the Musical.

In 2007, she represented the Philippines in the 11th World Championships of Performing Arts in Hollywood, California. The WCOPA is like the "singing olympics" with more than 50 countries participating, and Raki bagged 2 Gold Plaques, as well as 2007 Senior Vocal Champ in the Broadway and contemporary categories; as well as 3 Gold Medals, 2 Silver Medals and 1 Industry Medal in the process.

After her success in the WCOPA, her success in our shores continued to pile up, and just recently, she was nominated and won Best Performance by a New Female Recording Artist in the longest and most prestigious music award giving body in the country, The 22nd Philippine Awit Awards.

Congratulations and More Power, Raki. You will always be the Rochelle that I know, and come what may, I will always and forever here for you.