“What? You Speak Tagalog?!?’ And I’m Like, ‘Oo naman.’
Twenty-eight-year-old Steve Patrick Moore, who’d been doing hosting jobs in Manila since he was 16, thought he’d try his luck in Dubai to expand his horizon. And so, he packed up and flew in some three years back.
Of his decision to go to Dubai, Moore said he didn’t want to just go with the flow, “because if I do, I’d just be like everyone else…baka hindi mag-grow and masayang ang talent. (the talent might not grow and instead end up wasted).”
“At first I was back to zero,” recalls Moore, who speaks with that unmistakable statesider twang that he’d picked up in Los Angeles, California, where he stayed during his younger days till his American father and Filipina mother relocated to Manila for business reasons in the late 80s.
“I had no connections, no gigs, no anything… just me, my wife, a supportive family here in UAE and my dream. With guidance from God, hard work, talent and tibay ng loob (courage), I was able to slowly put my name in the market,” Moore said of his first days in the city.
Nowadays, Moore does a sports and fitness segment for a TV show, with many events lined-up for him to emcee. “As I’d always say,” he said of the path his career is taking, “if you want to grow, you have to get out of your comfort zone.”
Growing up a Fil-American in the Philippines, Moore said was “cool.”
“Some kids would ask why I have a lighter complexion or why my hair was brown.
I’d just joke around and say, ‘Maybe my mom bathed me with milk.’ Kidding aside, it wasn’t really different for me because I grew up with a lot of mixed breed Filipinos as well, so it’s cool,” he said. His family stayed in B.F. Homes – Paranaque.
Moore, who’s also into basketball just like any Filipino, said he speaks the tongue as well.
“Yes, marunong akong mag-Tagalog (Yes, I know how to speak Tagalog).
Sometimes, I just choose not to talk when I visit basketball courts because most of the time when I speak Tagalog they laugh. I’m not offended. I’d laugh as well.
“But it’s like, ‘What? You speak Tagalog?!?’ And I’m like, ‘Oo naman (Yes, of course). But, I still see their faces, sometimes a bit surprised. But as we get along, Tagalog na talaga (it’ll be Tagalog through and through), fluent po,” Moore said.
He said he takes pride in being a mixed breed. “The funny thing is, when I start talking to them (fellow Filipinos) in Tagalog, they talk to me in English. Tapos (then), when I answer in English, sila naman magta-Tagalog (they will speak Tagalog). It’s funny but I’m cool with it,” he said.
Moore, who knows how to prepare the ubiquitous Filipino version of adobo (meat boiled in soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and the works), said people with mixed breed should enjoy it.
“Not everyone in this world gets to have two ethnicities. So use it to your happiness and be proud of it. And lastly, prepare a ready- made answer everytime people ask you the classic question, ‘Where are you from?’ hahaha.”