Of dreams and success

Success is the fulfillment of your dreams. And when you dream, dream big.

This holds true for Nida Cabahug, a native of Danao City, who finally found herself in the position where she truly feels she's blessed!

Nida is the second child of eight of Domingo and Andrea Avila. She was schooled at the University of the Visayas where she finished Bachelor of Science in Commerce, major in Accounting. With this, she was hired by the Rural Bank of Compostela as a teller/cashier and worked there for 7 years. It was while working for the bank that she met her husband.

It has always been a dream of every couple to paint a vanilla sky of hope for their lineage and the Cabahugs are not exempt. So on November 23, 1984 Nida and her husband Jun, migrated to America in search of the proverbial greener pasture. Their search took them to the City of Carson, California, USA where she said their dreams started to unfold.

In the City of Carson they build their dreams as a family with five children, Marianne (27), Frederick (26), Neil (24), Brian (22) and Christian (20). They raised their kids in Carson with the hope of letting them finish their degrees. Nida and Jun have instilled in them the Filipino values and trained them to be better individuals. At the start, everything was in shades of black and white but the couple painted everything in vivid colors as they slowly made their dreams come true. Eventually, Marianne and Frederick successfully reached the finish line of their education and raised their own families.

Building a family in a strange city is no easy task. Thanks to the Filipino Community of Carson (FCC), under the leadership of Joselito Sapiandante, the Cabahugs felt at home and got rid of the "homesick syndrome". The Cabahug family found home in the presence of this community - a community with their kababayans whom in one way or another they have drawn strength from in times when they wanted to be home.

Between 1988 and 1990, Nida attended Allese Marshall Fashion School where she learned how to run fashion shows for various department stores. With her talents and beauty, she posed as a student model as well. Later on, she was employed in a stock brokerage company in Carson as a secretary for seven years.

All the efforts and hard work paid off well for Nida as she is now an office manager of Dr. Cecilia T. Lontoc. At present, Nida and Jun feel truly blessed that after experiencing the rumbles and overwhelming odds in life, they found themselves whole and fulfilled.

Recently, the FCC had its 17th Mrs. Philippine Independence Day 2006 Pageant (with Linda Rodriguez Mccool as the chairman) where Nida was crowned as the grand winner out of 8 hopefuls. She considers this as another precious event of her life she will cherish forever. Nida will be back in the Philippines to visit her family and relatives on September 15.

She was invited to guest in ABS-CBN's Wowowee on October 2 and she will also be in Manila to give her donations to Bantay Bata 163. She believes that it is her call to share what she has to those who have less. The pageant which she participated in also serves as a fundraiser for FCC's scholarship programs. She is so privileged to empathize with the others after looking back to where she started.

Nida embodies a woman who believes that 'without a vision, people perish,' thus, she continues to live her dreams and strives to endure all the struggles in life together with her family to attain the true meaning of success. Indeed, success is possible!