The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
It’s the beauty queen Pinoy-Kiwis that we’ve been hearing about, such as Victoria Vincent Velasquez who will represent New Zealand in the Miss Universe 2024 pageant. She has been competing in beauty pageants here in the Philippines for years now. Victoria is actually the 2024 Miss Philippines-Universe Charity.
“Kiwi” is how the people of New Zealand are internationally called. Kiwis who have one parent who is a Filipino labeled as “Filipino-Kiwi” or “Pinoy-Kiwi.”
The former Vivamax actress Frankie Russel is a Pinay-Kiwi. She is back in New Zealand where she is now very popular as a beauty queen.
Actually, male Filipino-Kiwis have also begun to be known as athletes in the Philippines. One of them is Kenneth Tuffin who played four seasons with Far Eastern University from 2016 to 2019 and was actually part of the “23 for 23” program instituted by coach Chot Reyes that included a list of players from the collegiate and others outside of the PBA.
We recently met a Pinoy-Kiwi who is a student athlete aspiring to play basketball at the University Athletic Association of the Philippines, more popularly known as UAAP.
His name is Mikara del Valle Nepe. His mom is a del Valle who has been living in New Zealand for more than 20 years now.
Mikara came here only five months ago since he was accepted as a student athlete in one university which is a member of the UAAP which Mikara wants to join.
*My dream is to make my parents proud of what I have become, which in this case is to be the best version of myself playing basketball and making the UAAP lineup,” Mikara told us without beating around the bush.
“I started learning to play basketball when I was around 11 years old. I became part of every basketball team from elementary to high school and I received multiple MVPs and Mythical 5 over my time in New Zealand,” he revealed.
He lives in the athlete’s dorm of the university he is enrolled in. Mikara is six feet tall and it’s needless to say he is stunningly handsome.
Mikara seems comfortable in the athletes’ dorm. He rooms with two teammates.
“We have a kitchen that at certain times has food made for us. I like what the pantry serves, though back in New Zealand, we eat more lamb,” he confides.
He readily says he is Catholic, so you can now figure out that he is on training with a Catholic university that’s a member of the UAAP.
Those are the details we managed to juice out from a brief encounter and enchantment with Mikara. He told us that we are very much welcomed to see him every now and then. We promise to share with you juicier details about Mikara soon. (Audie See)