MANILA, Philippines — Reigning world jiu-jitsu champion Meggie Ochoa has gone beyond sports in leading an awareness campaign for children to fight cruelties and trauma of sexual abuse as she partnered with a group of young entrepreneurs on the musical show “Ang Huling El Bimbo” at the Newport Performing Theater on May 27.
The 30-year-old Ochoa, who ruled the women’s adult -48 kilogram category to win the gold medal in the 2022 JJIF Jiu-Jitsu World Championship last November in the United Arab Emirates and got a silver medal in last week’s 32nd Southeast Asian Games in Cambodia, has been actively leading the Fight to Protect Movement.
Her success in international tournaments, which included gold medal wins in the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games (AIMAG), as well as the 2019 and 2021 SEA Games, served as a pathway for Ochoa in opening up about her determination to help the victims, particularly of child exploitation.
“Fight to Protect is a movement that aims to fight against child sexual violence through Jiu-jitsu,” said Ochoa, who has won numerous world titles in the combat sports of jiu-jitsu.
Ochoa said that jiu-jitsu is a tremendous vehicle in helping survivors with their trauma, as well as helping raise awareness on a taboo issue.
“We use it as a tool in the recovery of survivors and as a platform for prevention, to raise awareness on this particular issue because it’s very difficult to talk about. Sports is something that interests people, so mixing those two, I think that it gets the message across in a more effective way,” she said.
According to Ochoa, who is partnering in this project with fellow athlete Matthew Royce Yu of SEAG 2019 silver medal winner water polo team, as well as Colleen Co Caswell, Princess Yap de Guzman, Racille Francisco and Cristina Co, the musical play can also help the majority to get a grasp of what may happen to the lives of the victims.
“We don’t want people to stop at awareness, and knowing the issue that’s going on out there. We want people to actually do something about it, to get involved and to be part of the fight,” she said.