Catching up with pioneer UAAP courtside reporter George Rocha-Chu

George Rocha-Chu applies to her growing food business what she learned as UAAP courtside reporter
Jan 30, 2022
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PHOTO: George Rocha Chu Facebook page

GEORGE Rocha-Chu was once the pretty face who graced the sidelines during UAAP games.

Now, she’s the determined face behind food outlet Snackalubong.

More than two decades since being part of the first batch of UAAP courtside reporters by coveror ABS-CBN, Rocha-Chu has ventured to the food business and established her own store that has favorite Filipino delicacies hopia, piaya, buchi, among others, as its specialties.

Its main branch located at Suki Market along Nicanor Roxas St. in Sta. Mesa Heights, Quezon City only opened last September, although the business first started exclusively online in 2020 at the height of the pandemic.

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    The things she was taught and trained during her stint as a courtside reporter for La Salle in 2000 to 2002, Rocha-Chu has managed to apply in her business.

    “The things that I have learned as a reporter and for someone who worked on television for a while, I see of kind of coming up in the work that I do,” she said.

    “Right now I’m in the food business. It’s not as glitzy behind the scenes of a business, but I do see myself using how I learned to communicate, and how I learned to market things, and how I learned to bring the message across especially in my business and communicating with my customers.”

    The youngest in a brood of three girls of artist Charlie and educator and art dealer Minda, Rocha-Chu said her interest in sports began at an early age when she used to tag along with her father to watch basketball games or tennis matches.

    Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

    By the time she reached 18 and a Communication Arts student at La Salle, Rocha-Chu found herself trying her hand at something which she said changed what she thought would be just a normal college experience.

    “There was a poster sa college namin looking for sportscasters. And so I thought, this is a great opportunity and I better try it,” she recalled.

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    Eventually, she was called for an audition, several of them actually, and made to undergo a series of screen tests.

    “So I was surprised when I got it,’ Rocha-Chu said when she was handpicked out of the hundreds that applied.

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      Among her batch mates as pioneer courtside reportes of ABS-CBN were Pia Arcangel, now reporter and newscaster at GMA-7, and movie actress, model, and close friend Patty Laurel.

      “It really changed my life and it introduced me to a lot of sports,” said Rocha-Chu, who also worked with the Philippine Basketball League (PBL), the Metropolitan Basketball Association (MBA), and eventually the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA).

      It was also through sports that she met her husband Gilson Chu, a frisbee player.

      “That’s a life-changing thing,” she stressed.

      Snackalubong

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      Now she’s into a new venture in which she gets to apply whatever she picked up from her stint as a courtside reporter.

      “Now I have my own business. I have become a business person instead of someone from television,” she said.

      “The things I learned there doesn’t just stay there, but stuck with me until now.”

      EDITORS' NOTE: Menu choices and orders at Snackalubong can be made through their IG account @snackalubong and FB account @snackalubong.

      Get more of the latest sports news & updates on SPIN.ph

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      PHOTO: George Rocha Chu Facebook page
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