100% made in the Philippines

WITH his trademark Mohawk hairdo, and pimped out in an all black outfit and black, knee-high biker boots, Black Eyed Pea apl.de.ap a.k.a. Allan Pineda Lindo Jr. stands out in a sea of white barongs.
The cream of corporate Makati, mostly bank executives and their staff, have gathered together in a Legaspi Village penthouse ballroom to honor Apl who has been chosen one of the Bank of the Philippine Islands’ BPInoy awardees for 2011.
The annual accolade goes to Filipinos who have done their country proud in the international arena. apl has been chosen not only because of his membership in the Black Eyed Peas, a massive global pop franchise that has sold more than 56 million albums worldwide, but also because for the last few years, he has been coming home to the Philippines to give some of his blessings back to the land of his birth.
At first it was just an annual Christmas homecoming that saw apl giving out gift packages to the less fortunate residents of his hometown in Angeles City, Pampanga.
The last couple of years, however, apl has made it more formal by establishing the apl.de.ap Foundation to serve as the vehicle for his humanitarian efforts.
Last August, he donated a computer lab and library to his old school, the Sapang Bato National High School in Pampanga. He also built a music studio at the Holy Angel University, also in Angeles City, where young Filipinos can hone their talents.
But apl has set his sights beyond his hometown: he plans to take his mission nationwide. In partnership with the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation, which has appointed him a “special ambassador for education,” he has chosen to focus his efforts on an education advocacy campaign called “We Can Be Anything.” It is a perfect fit for the man who once said: “dreaming big and doing something about it can get you really far.”
To help drive the message home, apl composed and recorded the single “We Can Be Anything,” complete with inspirational music video.
“I think that with an education, you can be anything,” he says. “You could be a musician, you could be an artist, but with an education you always have a background to fall back on. It’s really important for me to give the youth an equal opportunity. I want Filipino kids to compete around the world, with technology and computers and stuff.”
He plans to continue building more computer labs and music studios.
“I want talented kids that are into music to have an outlet, to have a place to go to and record demos, and practice,” says apl. “In the future I want to be able to discover talents from the Philippines, and that’s why it’s important for me to provide technology and music studios and library. You never know, I might find the next Black Eyed Peas.”
He has also pledged to help in building 10,000 new classrooms in the next two years, to help the Department of Education put a dent in the estimated shortfall of 68,000 classrooms throughout the country. Among other things, he has been using his celebrity status to raise funds abroad for this purpose through various charities.
“I’ve also been talking to companies in the US like Google,” he says.  “There’s a Filipino team in Google who are planning to teach kids computer science and technology via the Internet.  Now that we’ve build these computer labs, we have to teach the teachers how to teach kids to work with these computers.”
Despite the Christmas rush, apl also took time out to visit calamity-stricken Cagayan de Oro, and to spend time in La Huerta, the underprivileged community in Parañaque where the video for “We Can Be Anything” was shot.
Like other celebrities who are driven to give back, he seems to be motivated by a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunities he has been given, and the realization that things could very easily have turned out differently.
Sapang Bato, where Allan Pineda Lindo Jr. was born on Nov. 28, 1974, lies on the hilly outskirts of Angeles City, near Clark Air Base. His biological father, a black American airman, abandoned the family right after Allan was born, leaving his mother Cristina Pineda to support him and six other siblings.
“We were poor, but my mom is like a superwoman—she’s just a great entrepreneur,” apl recalls.  “We used to have a store in front of the house, and she was great with turning money around.”
Being a “G.I. baby,” apl was eligible for assistance from the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, a US-based NGO founded by the author of The Good Earth and dedicated to helping Amerasian children.
Through the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, the young boy found a sponsor in Joe Ben Hudgens, a children’s rights attorney, who sent money for tuition and school supplies.  Eventually, his mother arranged for Hudgens to legally adopt her son.
apl had mixed feelings about being adopted: he was grateful for the opportunities that being in the US opened up for him, but he was also homesick and missed his family.
Going from Angeles, Pampanga to Los Angeles, California was a culture shock for the 14-year-old boy.
Music proved to be his salvation. Back in Angeles, the year before he left for the States, he had gotten into break dancing after seeing youngsters at school doing the old school popping and locking moves.
William lived in East LA, in the ghetto, and apl liked hanging out there, perhaps because it reminded him of home. In any case, the pair got deeper and deeper into music, eventually forming a group called Tribal Nation, which later evolved into A Tribe Beyond A Nation or ATBAN.
It was a struggle, specially in the early days when hip hop was dominated by gangster rap and the whole East Coast vs. West Coast rivalry. Music business types didn’t know what to make of the multicultural stew that would become the Black Eyed Peas.
            Now that the Black Eyed Peas are on a hiatus, apl’s advocacy work has gone to the forefront.
“I’m going to focus on ‘We Can Be Anything,’” he reiterates. “We’ve got two years to build 10,000 classrooms and I’m going to focus on that.  I’m also going to build my next computer lab from the apl Foundation.”
For all his globe-trotting, home for apl will always be here.
“I’m made in the Philippines all the way,” he says proudly. “I grew up here until I was 14, and I could never change that. It’s just a certain feeling. When I’m here I feel at home.” (Excerpted from an article by Eric Caruncho in the Philippine Daily Inquirer)