From Sacks of Vegetables to Topnotcher | Roi Christian T. Pachica, CPUCN Class 2026

Before Roi Christian T. Pachica became a registered nurse, before he graduated cum laude from Central Philippine University College of Nursing, and before his name appeared at Rank 4 in the Philippine Nurses Licensure Examination, there were mornings in Zarraga.

He remembers waking beside sacks of vegetables and hearing the market come alive outside as people bargained and went about their morning. Their home and his mother's workplace were one and the same. As a child, Roi did not think there was anything remarkable about it. It was simply part of growing up.

Years later, he hears those mornings differently.

"I think that sound taught me something long before I knew it: there is dignity in working hard for the people you love."

Perhaps that is where Roi's story really begins, not with a board examination or a national ranking, but with a boy quietly watching the people he loved work and sacrifice for one another.

A Family That Made Room for One Another's Dreams

Roi grew up in Imbang Pequeño, San Enrique, Iloilo, before his family later moved to Zarraga and Dumangas. He describes himself simply as an ordinary boy from a simple family who learned early to value hard work, education, and family.

His older sister once put her studies on hold so their older brother could finish college. When their brother graduated and began working, he helped their sister return to school and complete her degree. When Roi's turn came to attend college, his family helped him, too.

Those experiences shaped the way he came to understand opportunity. Whatever chance he had to study and build a future had been made possible, in part, by someone else's sacrifice. He wanted to make something of it, not because his family demanded repayment, but because he understood what had been given to him.

"You don't have to come from a perfect or extraordinary beginning to build something meaningful. Sometimes, all you need is a reason to keep going, people who believe in you, and the courage to take the next step."

“I Want to Take Care of My Mother.”

When Roi applied to CPU College of Nursing, he was asked why he wanted to become a nurse. He froze. He had no polished answer waiting and, by his own admission, had not grown up imagining that he would become a nurse at all.

Then he thought about his mother.

"I want to become a nurse because I want to be equipped with the knowledge and skills to take care of my mother."

It was the most honest answer he could give.

During his years at CPUCN, that reason gradually became larger. Through nursing school and his clinical experiences, Roi began to understand that every patient came with a family, a story, fears, hopes, and people waiting for them to get better. He learned that nursing was not only about knowing what to do. Sometimes being present, listening, explaining, or helping someone feel less afraid mattered just as much.

"I entered CPUCN wanting to learn how to take care of my mother. I left knowing that I also wanted to take care of many others."

When someone finishes nursing school cum laude and then places fourth in a national licensure examination, it is easy to imagine a student who sailed through school on sheer brilliance. That is not how Roi describes his journey.

For him, the defining word is consistency. He tried to understand what he studied rather than simply memorize it. When he answered something incorrectly, he went back and tried to understand why. He learned that he did not always have to feel motivated or ready. Sometimes he simply had to show up and do what needed to be done.

During the final months of preparation for the PNLE, Roi answered hundreds of practice questions every day. There were days when he was tired and moments when he questioned himself. His reminder during those days was wonderfully simple:

“Sige lang. Kaya na.”

And so he kept going, one question, one correction, one study session at a time.

Eventually, all those small efforts added up. Roi saw his name among the successful examinees and learned that he had placed Rank 4 nationwide with a rating of 91.60%, the highest-ranked examinee from Iloilo in the August–September 2026 Nurses Licensure Examination, bringing another proud distinction home to Central Philippine University.

Yet when Roi talks about the achievement, he keeps returning to the people behind it. His mother taught him perseverance. His siblings showed him what it meant to make room for someone else's dreams while pursuing their own. His family believed in him during the moments when he was still learning to believe in himself.

"They did not just help me reach my goals. They gave me a reason to keep going."

The Story Has Barely Begun

Look at the Before and After photographs accompanying Roi's story and you might notice something unusual about this installment of The Light They Carry: almost no time separates them.

For many of the alumni whose stories we tell, Before and After can hold years, sometimes decades, between them.

For Roi, there has barely been time for an “after” at all. The young man in one photograph and the young man in the next are standing almost at the same moment in life, right at the threshold between nursing student and registered nurse.

And that is precisely why his story belongs here.

Roi is not being featured because we already know what his legacy will be. At this point, neither does he. There are patients he has not met, hospital corridors he has not walked, mistakes he has not learned from, skills he has not yet mastered, and perhaps entire directions in nursing he has not imagined.

For now, he wants to learn, gain experience, and become better at what he does. Someday, he hopes to pass forward what others gave him, perhaps through the patients and families he serves, the colleagues beside him, or younger nurses he may one day have the opportunity to guide. He hopes that the kindness shown to him will reach someone else through him, and that the opportunities his family helped create will not stop with him.

"I want what I have been given to keep moving forward."

And perhaps that explains the third photograph, too.

For Roi, Legacy cannot yet show us what he will leave behind. His life has not given him enough time for that. Instead, it shows us where some of what he carries came from.

Beside him is his mother, the woman whose hard work filled those childhood mornings in Zarraga, and the person he thought of years later when someone asked a nervous young applicant why he wanted to become a nurse.

There is something fitting about telling his story at this moment. The Light They Carry often looks backward and discovers how a life of service illuminated the lives of others. With Roi, we have the rare privilege of looking in the other direction. We are meeting him while the story is still being written. We are witnessing his mother's legacy to him before we know what his legacy to others will be.

The light was there in a mother working among sacks of vegetables, in siblings making sacrifices for one another, in CPUCN classrooms and clinical wards, and in hundreds of practice questions answered on days when he did not necessarily feel like answering another one.

Now it is in the hands of a young registered nurse standing at the beginning of his profession.

We do not yet know where Roi Christian Pachica will carry it. Neither does he. And maybe, years from now, it will be wonderful to look back at these photographs and remember just how close together his Before and After once were.

Sige lang, Roi. Carry the light.