When she was still flying, flight attendant Pat Cardoza joined a songwriting search. She submitted songs to a competition without high expectations. In fact, she even forgot about it.
“I submitted three entries and to be honest, I really forgot about the contest until January last year when I received a call from Viva. I was told that one of my songs was chosen as winner of the search,” the 29-year-old singer-songwriter told Manila Standard Entertainment.
It was also in January when the airline company she was working for made an announcement that members of junior cabin crew would be retrenched.
“So, I lost my job but Viva opened its doors for me because they also offered me a recording contract. They wanted me to sing the songs that I wrote,” she added.
While the challenges in the airline industry have remained unrelenting, Pat decided to grab the opportunity noting that building a career in music is her childhood dream, too.
Pat began writing songs when she was just 13 years old. She was in high school when she first tried composing songs.
“I just got used to doing it when I kept writing lyrics,” said Pat, adding, “I’m passionate about it. (writing songs) was already in my system at an early age.”
Pat did start out as a singer and her first public performance was when she was in 5th grade.
“It was just a project that I needed to do for school. My mom was surprised when I did a good job at singing. So, from there she urged me to join singing contests,” Pat recalled.
When she was 16, Pat joined GMA-7’s Our Little Next Big Star. She made it far enough into the competition, but it wasn’t for her. At least it wasn’t her time yet to delve deep into music. She focused on her studies and eventually graduated and achieved her goal of becoming an international flight attendant for Philippine Airlines.
Pat was a full working flight attendant when she saw an ad from Viva for the latter’s songwriter search. She tried her luck to see if her song composing skills can pass muster. Sure enough, Pat eventually became one of the chosen songwriters in “Viva Musika.” Subsequently signed to Viva Records, her debut came via the mid-tempo ballad “Kailan Ka Babalik.”
The single, released early last year, is of Pat’s own making. Sonically, the song is reminiscent of Imago’s “Sundo.”
As a songwriter, Pat also gets asked if she can write lyrics for existing music. She did exactly that for “Nasa Puso Ko,” which became one of the theme songs for the TV drama series Encounter. The song, originally a Korean love song, was reimagined with Tagalog lyrics, was recorded by Daryl Ong and Pat, with her own female version.
And just like that, Pat is getting her momentum as a music artist. Good thing too, especially now when being an international flight attendant isn’t exactly panning out in the age of the pandemic.
“It’s truly a blessing in disguise, I thought it was already the end of the world when I got retrenched as a flight attendant because I really love what I’m doing,” shared Pat. “But I think this is God’s way of telling me, ‘o dito ka muna mag focus.’ I realized that the situation is like ‘bloom where you are planted.’ I just try to be at my best wherever I am now.”
And Pat Cardoza is doing exactly that. Her most recent song “Habang Buhay” is now the theme song for the upcoming Vivamax movie The Wife, which is directed by Denise O’Hara and stars Louise delos Reyes, Diego Loyzaga, and Cara Gonzales.
“Habang Buhay” is a lovely sounding piano-decked ballad that Pat wrote.
“I like writing love songs. And writing positive-themed tunes is more my style. My lyrics are the opposite of a ‘hugot’ song,” Pat injected with a laugh, adding “Marami nang sawi dyan, I’ more about the uplifting feeling that being in love gives.”
Needless to say, this flight attendant-turned-music artist is destined to achieve greater heights, literally and figuratively.