From Prison to Brotherhood: The Story Behind ‘Hook’

Words: Hook

📸 : Hook

Today, we live in a time when some young people turn their pain into an excuse for violence. Bullying, trauma, broken relationships, rejection, or difficult experiences are sometimes used to justify hurting or even killing others. I am not saying that pain is not real. Pain is real. Trauma is real. But what we choose to do with that pain is what defines us.

I know this because I had every reason to become bitter.

When I was around ten years old, almost my entire family was imprisoned, except for my younger brother. I was given the opportunity to live with my family inside the prison during school breaks or semestral breaks in college, experiencing a world of filth, corruption, violence, and danger at an age when I should have been thinking about school, games, and ordinary childhood problems. And nobody in my circle of friends knew. 

I saw things no ten-year-old should have to see. I learned very early that the world was not always fair and that sometimes, even the systems that were supposed to protect people could themselves be broken.

Those years changed the way I looked at people.

Inside the prison, I learned that appearances could be deceiving. Some of the most dangerous people, men who had taken multiple lives, could be the simplest, skinniest, and most harmless-looking people in the room. Meanwhile, those who had committed lesser crimes could sometimes look like the dirtiest and most frightening among them.

That lesson stayed with me. I learned not to judge people solely by what they looked like. I learned to observe, to listen, and to understand that danger does not always announce itself.

At only ten years old, I was also entrusted with something else that forced me to grow up quickly: our family business. Before my grandmother eventually took over, I was already helping manage it. Responsibility came early, and childhood ended earlier than it should have.

Then came Yolanda.

The devastation of Typhoon Yolanda in Tacloban became another chapter that changed the direction of my life. Thousands of people died. Friends and relatives were among those we lost. I saw dead bodies lying along the streets and others trapped beneath the debris. The smell of rotting flesh became part of the environment. There were moments when I ate my meals while the smell of death surrounded me, not knowing when everything would finally end.

Those experiences eventually brought me to Manila.

Looking back, I realize that my life was shaped by things I never asked for. Prison, responsibility, death, destruction, and loss all came into my life far earlier than they should have.

And yet, I did not use them as an excuse to become evil.

I could have.

I could have said that the world made me this way. I could have blamed my childhood. I could have used my trauma to justify hurting other people. But I chose differently.

And somewhere along that road, I found my destiny.

BlackRiders MC.

An outlaw motorcycle club.

To some people, those words might immediately create an image of something dark or dangerous. But for me, BlackRiders became something much deeper. It became a brotherhood that taught me three things that became increasingly important as I grew older:

Love. Loyalty. Respect.

It taught me that being an outlaw does not mean being without principles. It taught me that brotherhood is not simply about wearing colors, riding motorcycles, or standing beside one another when everything is easy. It is about carrying responsibility, standing by your brothers, and understanding that loyalty has a price.

Perhaps that is why I believe BlackRiders was part of my destiny.

Because everything I experienced before I found the club had already prepared me for the values I would eventually find within it.

And that brings me to my Roadname:

Hook.

At first, it was simply a name that came from a punch, a hook. Something happened and my brothers remembered me for that event. It was Knuckles 1%er who coined it for me. 

But as the years passed, the name began to mean something much deeper to me.

A hook is something that comes at you from an angle you may not expect. It hits hard. It can hurt. And I have received more than my share of those punches throughout my life.

But here is the meaning I eventually found in the name:

No matter how many hooks life threw at me, none of them made me become evil.

Every punch could have turned me bitter. Every experience could have given me an excuse to become cruel. The prison could have taught me to become the kind of person I feared. The loss could have made me numb. The destruction could have made me believe that the world owed me something.

But it didn't.

Instead, every hook built another layer of strength.

The first hook taught me that appearances can deceive.

The next taught me responsibility.

Another taught me survival.

Another taught me loss.

Another taught me that life can take everything from you without warning.

And every hook after that taught me to stand back up.

That is why my Roadname means more to me now than it did when I first received it.

Hook isn't just about throwing a punch. It is about taking one.

I have been hit by circumstances that could have destroyed me. I have experienced things that could have changed me into someone I never wanted to become. But somehow, I kept moving forward.

The punches didn't make me evil.

They made me stronger.

They shaped the way I think. They shaped the way I see people. They shaped the way I carry responsibility. They shaped the way I understand pain, survival, brotherhood, and loyalty.

And perhaps that is the deepest meaning behind my Roadname.

Hook, because no matter how many times life swung at me, I refused to become what tried to destroy me.

Every punch was building something.

Every scar was preparing me.

Every experience was pushing me toward a destiny I could not deny.

And that destiny eventually led me to BlackRiders MC—a brotherhood where I learned that love is something you give, loyalty is something you prove, and respect is something you earn.

I may not have chosen the road that brought me here, but I chose what I would become while walking it.

After everything I've survived, I believe there is a reason I am still standing.

The hooks didn't break me. They built me for the destiny I was never meant to run from.

I am Hook. A BlackRider and an Affiliate Outlaw. 

And this is the story behind the name.

With much Love, Loyalty and Respect.