THE founder of When In Manila, Vince Golangco is one of the top 100 players of the popular crypto-based game Axie Infinity. He also has about 20 Axie “scholars” and is looking to add more from the WIMPlays (When In Manila Plays) Facebook group.
Before the explosion of social media, names like Johnny Litton, Tessa Prieto-Valdes and Tim Yap dominated the society pages of newspapers and magazines as they talked about the latest events and trends in Manila.
That changed in the 2010s.
With the growth of the Internet and the rise of blogs and web sites, young Pinoys found a new source of information online via www.wheninmanila.com.
Created by Golangco on September 2009, When In Manila was originally a video blog before Vince decided to focus on written content, and the blog-turned-web site soon became the online authority of the food you should eat, the sights you should see, the places to visit, and the events you need to know about—When In Manila.
It has since become one of the most reliable online guides for Manila (and Philippines) with millions of views and an equally huge number of followers on its social media.
Vince credits their very active community to the amazing growth of When In Manila despite having only a small team. Beginning with restaurant and food reviews, the web site now covers almost every aspect of Filipino lifestyle and culture.
Surprisingly, the man who started it all was just in Manila on vacation recently to visit his relatives.
Born in the US, Vince admits he didn’t have the most comfortable childhood, and that their family were always moving.
“I had an uncle who offered me a place to stay and when I was there, I was working at Burger King, at the mall. He was the one who encouraged me to join the military. Looking back, it was a really good decision. I got a lot of discipline and grew into a man from my time in the military,” he recalled.
He served in the US Navy and eventually graduated from San Diego State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication and a minor in Business in 2008—right in the midst of the Great Recession in the US. “Most college students who put themselves through college incur hundreds of thousands in debt. Fortunately, since I served in the military, they paid for my schooling. So, I graduated with no debt but since the economy was bad, I decided to just travel the world and look for better opportunities.”
Being part Filipino, Vince recalled living in the Philippines when he was young. He decided to visit his relatives in Manila, and he said he fell in love with the country and decided to write about his experiences.
At that time, the local blogging scene was just starting out. Vince, on the other hand, had already been blogging even during college and had multiple WordPress sites where he would write about motivation, inspiration and other personal stuff.
“I guess it was about being at the right place at the right time, recognizing the opportunity and being willing to put in a lot of hard work,” he said.
THE GEEK KID INSIDE
Throughout his life, Vince has been a US military veteran, entrepreneur, restaurateur, surfer, writer, radio DJ, TV show host and a lot of other things, but the one thing that has been constant through it all is his being a geek. From superhero comics, cartoons, anime, toys, collectible cards and board games, Vince was into all the geek stuff, even putting up the Gaming Library and Boardgames café.
Vince is also a life-long gamer, but because they couldn’t buy a gaming console when he was young, Vince said he would visit friends just to play games.
“I was already in college when I was finally able to buy my own Playstation 2. The problem was I got too hooked on playing Madden NFL, and it was all I could do. My girlfriend then even threatened to breakup with me for playing too much.”
Vince says he loves action, open-world games and RPGs (role-playing-games), rattling off titles like Horizon Zero Dawn, The Batman Arkham series, Spiderman and, most recently Genshin Impact.
However, months into playing Genshin Impact, Vince said he realized he was just throwing away money on in game items, and that was when a friend introduced him to Axie infinity. (To be continued)