Wazzup Pilipinas!?
There was a time when Verniece Enciso was just the girl who kept her feelings locked away. Bullied, overlooked, and often misunderstood, she found her escape on the ice rink—where each glide and spin was both a performance and a form of protection. Ice skating was her sanctuary, a place to hide from the noise of a world she couldn’t yet face.
But eight years ago, that changed. Verniece took a leap, not on ice this time, but into the world of blogging. What began as an outlet became a platform for her to narrate her story, discover herself, and find validation beyond the superficial metrics of likes and followers. “I realized that despite the numbers of social media, the only validation that matters is the one I give myself,” she shared, recounting the journey that transformed her from a silent skater into a storyteller.
Yet behind the curated posts and inspirational words lies a controversy that refuses to be ignored. In one startlingly candid moment, Verniece remarked: “I would like to thank my Dad for being my unending ATM machine.”
For her followers, it was shocking—some dismissed it as a tone-deaf joke, while others saw it as an unguarded admission of privilege. But the statement sparked deeper questions, especially when viewed against the backdrop of long-standing allegations that her family’s affluence was tied to corruption.
Whispers have long circulated in political and business circles that the Enciso family benefited from bogus flood control projects—a web allegedly orchestrated by unscrupulous government officials, compliant DPWH insiders, and their contractor allies. These projects, critics say, were designed not to protect communities from disaster, but to line the pockets of those who colluded in their execution.
It is within this cloud of suspicion that Verniece’s controversial “ATM machine” quip takes on a sharper edge. Was it an innocent slip, a daughter’s jest about a supportive father, or a Freudian crack in the glossy veneer of privilege—a hint at wealth sourced from the very corruption that has long bled Filipino taxpayers dry?
The juxtaposition is stark: a young woman who speaks about empowerment, growth, and self-validation, yet whose rise is inexorably tied to a family name shadowed by allegations of graft. For many, it’s a reminder of how the fortunes of a privileged few are too often linked to the misfortunes of the many. While ordinary citizens wade through knee-deep floods, stories abound of families growing richer from projects supposedly meant to solve those very problems.
And yet, Verniece’s personal journey remains layered. She was once the bullied girl who struggled to find her voice. She did the hard work of opening herself up to the world, risking vulnerability in an arena where judgment is relentless. But the reality is that personal strength and public narrative do not exist in a vacuum. They are influenced, and sometimes tainted, by the sources of privilege that pave the way.
Verniece Enciso’s story, then, is both inspiring and unsettling—a portrait of a woman striving for authenticity while tethered to controversies not of her own making, but impossible to ignore. She embodies the paradox of modern influence: the pursuit of self-validation in a world where legacy, power, and privilege often set the stage long before the individual even begins the performance.
In the end, her story is a mirror held up to Philippine society itself—where beauty and grace can coexist with scandal and corruption, where voices break free even as shadows linger, and where the truth is rarely as simple as it seems.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
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