Burrito: “Oheb, Demonkite, EMANN, and Domeng were part of my teams that competed over several seasons.”

I played on the volleyball team during my college years. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to participate in any sports leagues—they didn’t exist at all, for reasons unknown to me. Playing volleyball literally saved me, because thanks to the club, I received a 50% discount on my tuition. At the time, that was a huge savings.

Before working in the esports industry, I tried my hand at many different jobs: I worked in a restaurant and as a merchandiser in supermarkets. For a while, I served as a sales representative for a noodle company. After a while, I found another job and started working at a call center, where I was promoted to a position in the quality control department. From there, I began advising other employees on what they should do and what they should avoid.

Right at the start of my career, I organized amateur Mobile Legends: Bang Bang tournaments. Back then, I was learning everything as I went along. I had to master the art of instantly recording replays and highlights while commentating. Of course, I did all of this manually. I only had one monitor to work on. Whenever a highlight moment happened, I’d instantly cut it out, edit it, and then play it back for the viewers. Thanks to this, the participants in my tournaments were thrilled—I even heard comparisons to the MPL league.

Oheb, Demonkite, EMANN, and Domeng participated in my championships, which lasted several seasons. Of course, they dominated their opponents. At first, there weren’t that many teams—about sixteen. To participate, they paid 20 pesos per person on the team. Later, I began organizing fairly large events for thirty-two and sixty-four rosters. The winners took home the entire prize pool, which at times reached 6,400 pesos.

Now I’m going to tell you a really cute story. The nickname “Burrito” came about thanks to my child, who was born at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. He was a pretty chubby baby who looked like he was about to float away. One day, a friend of my wife’s—apparently her best friend—came over to see our baby. He was charmed by the sight of him and compared him to a burrito. So I decided to adopt that nickname.

By the way, at first I wanted to call myself Elburito, because that sounded pretty interesting. However, after two weeks of thinking it over, I decided I didn’t want that nickname because it was, so to speak, pretty crude.