About three weeks ago, I attended a service of Victory Church in Virra Mall in Green Hills, San Juan City. My friends and I formed a company, Kaizen Events Specialist, Inc. that caters to the people’s need for self improvement by organizing events for the purpose. We were scheduled to hear our speaker, Chinkee Tan, to talk about success. We arrived early however so that we did not only hear Chinkee Tan deliver his speech, we were also able to listen to the testimony of one of the members of the church in the person of Acel Bisa-Van Ommen, former vocalist of Moonstar 88, one of the bands that catapulted Original Filipino Music to its heights.

Acel talked about how shy she was before she became a star, such that becoming the vocalist of one of the most famous bands in the Philippines could only be described as a rapture.  In one of the gigs with her band in front of a full packed venue, however, she heard a voice asking her, “will you leave all these for me?”. She tried to ignore that voice but it kept on coming back. Since then, she lost the joy and excitement of performing in public with her band. Eventually, she resigned, got married, had a family. At present, she finds fulfillment in serving God perhaps by being a mom, by devoting time for sharing her testimony with her church mates, and also perhaps by writing songs about her insights about life and through her experiences such as the one she shared. I say perhaps because I did not hear her speak about the things she is doing now.

Acel’s story is the background against which I come to understand one of the most talented singers and song writers today, Yeng Constantino.

You see, during Acel’s testimonial, she mentioned Yeng as one of her inspirations. In fact, Acel revealed, the service before that, it was Yeng who shared her testimonial before the congregation. Yeng’s discipleship experience.

My issue with Yeng was this: every time I see her perform on TV, there is this feeling of confusion which I could not tell. Perhaps it was her looks (type her name and click images in Google and see how many times she changed her looks). Perhaps it was the clothes. But when I learned through Acel’s testimonial that Yeng is very active in Victory Church to the point that she in fact shares her testimony to the congregation, it dawned on me that the confusion I feel when watching Yeng is in fact the effect of her constantly changing her looks and style. She wears clothes that perhaps no longer reflect her personality and sing songs that perhaps no longer express the joys and desires of her heart.

Because of this confusion, I used to detest her performances. Of course, from that night onwards, I detested her no more. In fact, I’ll be watching her gratefully next time knowing that she too, like Acel, is leading the spiritual transformation of my Pilipinas. As to her songs, her looks and style, those are things that I can ignore although I doubt if constantly changing the way she looks is still part of the things she must do for a living. Of course, someday, like Acel, I hope for her to become a Gary Valenciano too. Full of integrity and charisma when she sings love songs for both man and God.