One night, Lit Magcale, Vice President of Ivory Records, called me. She said they were already preparing early for a Christmas album, which, looking back, was probably how things were done. She asked if I could submit a demo. I said yes.
April 5, 1996. Good Friday.
I started writing. I was in my bedroom with a 4-track recorder, working on that demo.
The timing did not make sense. It was Good Friday. The house was quiet. Everything felt slow and solemn. But what I was working on was the opposite—a Christmas song.
I had my headphones on while recording, so from outside, there were no instruments. Just my voice, singing alone. “Paskong-pasko… la la lo la la…” My mom heard it and thought something was off. A Christmas song, on Good Friday, sung acapella inside a room—it did not sound normal.
But inside the headphones, it made sense. The arrangement was there. The direction was clear.
That demo became “Pass Ako,” part of the compilation album AkustiKrismas.
Around the same time, I pushed my friends’ band, Jellybeans, to join the project. They already had a song, “Santa and Me,” so they did not need to write a new one. They said yes. That became their entry point into a major label.
I even ended up doing a small voice part in their track—a simple “Ho Ho.”
Looking back, none of it lined up the way it was supposed to. Wrong season. Wrong timing. Unusual setup. But the work moved forward anyway.
The song got written. The demo got recorded. The project got filled.
The album was released in Christmas 1996.
I only thought about it now. Today is the Annunciation of the Lord, when Mary was asked and she said yes.
My yes, and my friends’ yes, did not wait for the right moment. They came before the situation made sense.
It feels close to that kind of moment when a yes is given. A call came. A response was given.
And from those yes moments, things began to move.
So it was not The End after all.
From the compilation album “AkustiKrismas”
Performed by The End
© 1996 (Tone Def) Ivory Records
Gene Pabalan: drums, triangle, lyre, tambourine, back-up vocals
Chay Sapida: piano, back-up vocals
Darem Placer: acoustic guitar, lead vocals
Additional vocals:
Apostles of Christ Through Service (ACTS) choir of Mary Immaculate Parish Nature Church
Jigs Cataluña † (In memory) “la la la lo la”
⌨ ᴛʸᵖⁱⁿᵍ ᴏᵘᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ʙˡᵘᵉ ᵈᵃʳᵉᵐ ᵐᵘˢⁱᶜ ᵇˡᵒᵍ
