Viktoria sings a new song

Viktoria now knows what athletes have known ever since: You can’t dabble in intense sports without emerging a changed and better person. Before she joined last year’s 23rd SEA Games, the words endurance and stamina were just things she talked or read about.

But when she trained under a Thai Wai Kru boxing master in Bangkok for the games, her world took a 180-degree turn.

"I gained more than just physical strength. I learned something more important: Emotional endurance," she gushes.

And she’ll do it again for the country and fellow athletes if needed.

It came like a bolt out of the blue. Viktoria was frequenting a gym in ULTRA to keep in shape for the music video of her latest single, Nalalasing, carrier track of her latest album, Here to Stay.

Lo and behold, in stepped Robert Valdez, coach of the RP Muay team. He minced no words in asking the shocked Viktoria: Do you want to join the national team?

Viktoria did a double take. Sure, she’s been doing kickboxing for the past years to keep in shape. But the national team is something else.

She asked him, "Are you sure? But I’m a musician, not an athlete."

That lukewarm answer did not faze Valdez, who saw a determined go-getter who puts her heart in everything she does.

Viktoria knew the rest of the team already enjoyed an edge over her since they underwent several months of training. She only had three-and-a-half months to go. It was a gamble. But she held her breath and said yes. Then, she told herself, "Bahala na. I’ll just do my best, no matter what."

She and the team did nothing less. As everyone knows, the RP contingent wound up with three golds, three silvers and a bronze for the overall runner-up finish of the Muay Thai competition. Viktoria and her fellow gold medal winner split the P100,000 prize money and went home with P50,000 which has remained in the bank to this day.

Now, the Viktoria people see promoting her album is a changed woman. She can weather more storms, and has developed a heart for fellow athletes who she knows needs all the support and exposure they can get.

"I’ll do anything for the athletes," vows Viktoria.

But first, her original love: Music. Two years after she faded out from the scene to accede to her older brother’s request to join politics (she ran – and lost the bid for Sual, Pangasinan mayor), Viktoria is back. This time, her sound is less electronica, more guitar-based.

It’s an offshoot of an uncalled-for incident in Las Vegas. The car Viktoria and a friend were riding broke down, and the two suddenly found themselves stranded in a gas station right smack in the middle of a ghost town.

Luckily, the friend brought along a guitar. Viktoria jumped at the chance to strum away to her heart’s content for five straight hours. Why, she even managed to compose that song friend Ogie Alcasid has been asking her to do for him.

That song, Tanging Pag-Ibig, is part of Here to Stay, which Viktoria describes as raw, sweet and honest.

Most of the 10 tracks, she adds, were written on the road, and the product of necessity above all else.

An electronic guitar, for instance, is more of a bane in Sual, where looking for an electric socket will only stem the flow of an inspired composer’s creative juices. So out came Viktoria’s beloved guitar, and with it, new songs overflowing.

So passionate is her love affair with the instrument she borrowed a friend’s $10 guitar with a missing string in Las Vegas and strummed the blues away.

Viktoria must be so confident of her latest songs she produced the album under Warner Music herself.

This brimming confidence spills over to today’s new breed of singers.

"I’m glad OPM is back and we have fresh blood like Kitchie Nadal in our midst," says Viktoria.

Someone who keeps re-inventing herself – thanks to Kuh Ledesma, who taught Viktoria to always look out for new concepts – will never run out of things to offer. Viktoria, in presenting another facet of the musician in her, is, as the title of her album says, here to stay.