John Arvert Cadiz Is Gay
By Mikael Rizada Borres
Quotes and dialogue have been edited, shortened and/or translated from Cebuano (Bisaya) to English for clarity and length.
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He Knew It
John Arvert Cadiz thinks he always knew he wasn’t straight, harking back to memories of him at fiestas dancing to The SexBomb Girls’ “The Spagheti Song” or Bayani’s “Ocho-Ocho.” He also assumes that most of his friends and family took cues from his fiesta dancing and his other antics, connecting the dots to conclude that Cadiz is not straight.
It’s not the dancing that makes Cadiz gay, although it does require some level of physical flamboyancy to faithfully embody the lyrics, “I-spaghetting pababa, pababa nang pababa/I-spaghetting pataas, pataas nang pataas (Spaghetti-ing down, down and down/Spaghetti-ing up, up and up).” It’s more about the cheek, the nerve, the gall, the audacity, and the gumption needed to groove in front of others without much shame.
His sexuality rode in the back seat for most of his teenage life, with his mind focused on the sports he pursued, chess and volleyball. When it came to chess, he packed whatever space he had on his schedule with practice sessions and played in regional and national-level chess competitions. However, it was volleyball where he found true athletic passion. Despite starting to play competitive volleyball in high school when his contemporaries already had years of experience, he was eventually awarded a college varsity scholarship because of the hard work he had put in over the years.
“[My father] has a saying that he learned and that he repeated to me when I shifted from chess to volleyball: ‘Hard work beats talent,’” Cadiz recalled. “I didn’t grow up as someone who learned to play volleyball at first since I was playing chess. When I started to have an interest in volleyball, it was kind of unexpected though that he supported it. He was like, ‘OK, play volleyball. As long as you get a scholarship from it, I won’t have a problem with it.’ That’s why I worked hard. He said, ‘Work hard. Double time if you really want to play varsity.’”
The questions of his sexuality, nevertheless, lingered throughout his youth. Raised by a father who Cadiz describes as a “conservative” who grew up in the church, Cadiz denied any notion or inklings of possible homosexuality. By junior high school, after breaking up with his last girlfriend, he came to recognize that he was indeed gay.
He attempted to conceal who he was, yet many of his friends appeared to know Cadiz’s secret, making friendly teases alluding to his gayness. Cadiz knew his friends were willing to accept and respect him, but he felt uneasy hearing the quips about him. He was still in the closet, and those jokes were faint acknowledgements of what is now known as the truth about Cadiz. Cadiz feared acknowledging those acknowledgements.
Around senior high school, Cadiz arrived at a snail’s pace to the idea of holding onto his truth instead of shunning it and hiding from it. He grew comfortable with the teasing and opened up to a select few about his identity. This was a response to his realization that the more he would let the uneasiness get to him, the more miserable he would become. “By that time, I didn’t want to be with a woman.”
He Worked Hard
It was not the easiest decision for Cadiz to take a break from college. Due to the coronavirus pandemic’s onslaught on the world, one of its consequences was universities temporarily suspending the scholarship opportunities for college athletes. Cadiz, a varsity volleyball player for the University of San Carlos, abandoned his vision of finishing his undergraduate studies in four years. From 2020 to 2022, he left San Carlos to take on jobs and gigs that could give his parents and his siblings financial stability. He sustained their standard of living, placing most of his earnings into their savings, as well as paying part of their bills and his brother’s tuition.
Cadiz memorializes those two years in his mind as what can emblematize his capabilities. Although he had to “compromise” his dreamed future in the face of circumstances he had to encounter, he takes pride in the thought that he was his family’s breadwinner. “I thought so highly of myself at that time,” he said.
“At a very young age, I got to call myself a ‘breadwinner,’ and it’s something that I didn’t expect because before that, I was too focused on school and extracurriculars and I never had the intention to earn money outside [...]. But during the pandemic, I got ‘big money.’ It was really a lot of money, and the money wasn’t just for myself but also for my family.”
But the most salient premium to becoming a breadwinner was the gradual acquisition of his autonomy. Throughout the pandemic, as Cadiz brought more income home, his parents felt more willing to give their eldest son more freedom, allowing him to do whatever he wanted on the condition that he come home with all his “body parts intact.”
Having that premium showed Cadiz the chance to maybe come out to his parents as a gay man, hoping that what he has given to his family could result in them embracing their son’s actual identity. “I think the hardest thing for me, coming from an underprivileged family, my mindset was: in order for me to be accepted by my dad [...] – I should be a top-performing person, I should be an achiever, I should have something to show so that they don’t say anything bad.”
Cadiz says the pandemic era became the time when he gained more control of his family since he relied less on his family when it came to his finances. That era, Cadiz thought, became the right time to come out to them. Still, he didn’t feel the necessity to come out during that era, at least until he met the catalyst: his first boyfriend.
He Felt Something
When Cadiz’s ex-boyfriend, who was then an acquaintance, tried to pursue Cadiz for the nth time, Cadiz hesitated to respond. Cadiz already had an exclusive relationship with another man, although he makes the distinction that the person was not his boyfriend. Nevertheless, Cadiz stood by his belief that if he gets into some form of an exclusive relationship with someone, he rejects and even refuses to entertain other suitors.
“But the person I had an exclusive relationship with cheated on me,” Cadiz shared. “I caught him.” The clue that gave it away? The cheater had a hickey on him. “He told me, ‘I didn’t mean to do it! I didn’t want it!’
"Son of a bitch. I was like, ‘Did I want it?! I didn’t even want whatever happened to you!’”
Cadiz broke off the relationship and started talking to other guys, but he struggled to escape from the trauma he experienced from a person he thought would be his first boyfriend.
Then, the acquaintance Cadiz ignored for the longest time came into view and tried to strike up a conversation with Cadiz once again. The acquaintance recognized Cadiz’s emotional state after seeing one of Cadiz’s TikTok videos, prompting him to ask Cadiz about how he was feeling after his breakup. After much back-and-forth online, the acquaintance proposed to Cadiz that they go on a date, to which the latter agreed.
Cadiz remembers having their first date at a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf shop in Taguig City’s Bonifacio Global City (BGC). He remembers being in awe of his date’s height (the guy stood at 6’2) and looks (the guy’s a Chinito, slang for an attractive Chinese-looking Filipino) and how those two things fit into what Cadiz looked for in a man when it comes to the physical, a tall Chinito. Cadiz’s date also enjoyed playing volleyball and had the same interests as him; the two making a connection would not be a problem for them.
But Cadiz remained dubious about the possibility of falling in love again as he harboured the fear of being betrayed a second time. For that reason, he refused to be in a relationship with the Tall Chinito. “But every day, he and I would see each other, and I was like, ‘You’re so clingy!’ But I would just go along with it because his apartment was close to ours, just a one-ride commute [...]. So we kept seeing each other. I got used to it, and he got used to it.”
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Cadiz and the Tall Chinito left Manila to be with their respective families during the 2021-22 holiday season. Cadiz was with his family in Negros Oriental, while the other guy was with his family in Cagayan de Oro.
The holidays were different that year, and that was because of Super Typhoon Rai, better known in the Philippines as Super Typhoon Odette. And just like those who suffered during and after the Typhoon wreaked havoc on the affected areas, including Negros Oriental and Cagayan de Oro, they had little to no access to any water or electricity and had few capabilities to communicate with others via the internet or phone service. Cadiz and the Tall Chinito texted and called each other, but only for brief moments since Cadiz’s area carried a weak phone signal in the typhoon’s aftermath.
Cadiz remembered how worried the Tall Chinito was for him. The Tall Chinito felt so concerned that he couldn’t just stay in his hometown and only receive a few updates from Cadiz due to the weak signal and the lack of electricity. The Tall Chinito went so far as to travel from Cagayan de Oro to Negros Oriental to reunite with Cadiz. “I was like, ‘What the fuck…?’” Cadiz told me to express how astonished he was at the Tall Chinito’s decision to go to Negros for him.
And to Cadiz, after much resistance to the idea of being in another relationship, the Tall Chinito’s insistence on seeing Cadiz again gave him the security he needed to feel to let himself fall in love with someone again.
The Tall Chinito arrived in Negros Oriental on January 6th, 2022. Two days later, he and Cadiz went on a date, swimming on the beach and eating together. And while they were eating after their time at the beach, Cadiz stared at the Tall Chinito getting a cup of water for him.
“Aren’t you going to ask me?” That’s what Cadiz said to the Tall Chinito. “You’re not going to ask?”
The Tall Chinito said to Cadiz, “What should I be asking you?”
Cadiz asked again. “Nothing… You’re not going to ask?”
“Huh? What question?”
“‘Are we together? Do you want that?’”
When Cadiz told him the question, the Tall Chinito’s response could only be of giddiness and glee. The question marked the beginning of their official relationship as boyfriend and boyfriend.
Their relationship started on January 8th, 2022. The number 8 is also Cadiz’s volleyball jersey number. That tidbit was something Cadiz wanted to note to me, perhaps hinting that there was an invisible string tying the two to each other.
He Came Out
Before they became official, Cadiz introduced the Tall Chinito to his mother and her side of the family as one of his volleyball teammates. Most people bought the façade – except for one auntie who overheard Cadiz and the Tall Chinito’s late-night phone calls for days before they reunited.
On January 9th, the day after they got into a relationship, the two of them, Cadiz’s mother and his relatives sat for dinner together by the beach. He planned to introduce his new boyfriend to his family, which is, in effect, also him coming out to them. The fear he felt of telling his truth was not lost on him, and the feeling made him quiver.
“I was so scared,” he admitted. “You know the feeling of being choked, your chest feels tight? I was asking myself, ‘How do I come out to them?”
But during that dinner, he introduced his “volleyball teammate” as his boyfriend to the rest of the table. John Arvert Cadiz finally came out.
After showing everyone who he was, the first thing Cadiz did was let out a sigh.
Cadiz’s assumptions of his family knowing he was gay were proven right the night he came out. Not only did they suspect Cadiz of being gay, they also accepted Cadiz. They had already accepted him even before he had the guts to come out. His relatives have had discussions with his mother to tell her that she should continue to love her son regardless of his sexuality, something – they said – that no one can take away from him.
“They told me, ‘You know, Vert? We already knew for a long time,” said Cadiz. “My relatives told me that my mom said, ‘I already accept him.”
Knowing his family, especially his mother, did accept him, Cadiz sobbed, enveloped by the feeling of surprise, happiness, and relief.
“For me, that was the most memorable,” he reminisced. “It was like opening the doors of the closet and seeing the light, and it was an unforgettable moment.”
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“Ay, wait. What was your father’s reaction?” I asked Cadiz.
“My father wasn’t there,” said Cadiz, then explaining that his father remained in Cebu to take care of their house in the city.
On May 6, 2023, the day we conducted our interview, Cadiz said: “Out of everyone in my family, my father doesn’t know.”
As of October 26, 2023, Cadiz told me through a private Instagram message that he has yet to come out to his father.
He Loves Daddy
Some time ago, a part of the Cadiz home got converted into a “sports center” where children in their neighbourhood can learn how to play chess for free. Every weekend, the center holds tournaments for the kids to compete in and enjoy, and those who win would get small cash prizes. Just like his son, Cadiz’s father enjoys sports, specifically chess. He was the man who converted part of his family’s home into a sports center; he was the man who coached the younger Cadiz on how to play chess.
Cadiz and his father are “almost the same.” Even their names have similarities; the younger Cadiz has “Arvert” in his first name, whilst his father goes by “Arnold.”
“He’s very principled. For example, political dynasties, he doesn’t want those. They want me to run for SK (Sangguniang Kabataan, the youth council of a barangay), but he said he’s also running for barangay councilor. He said that If I ran for SK, then he won’t run to become a councilor. If he ran for councilor, then I shouldn’t be running. That’s why he really asked me, ‘So what is it? Are you running or not? If you’re not running, then I’ll run.’”
At the time, Cadiz was uncertain about whether he should join local politics as a candidate but was leaning towards not running; he also expressed that he did not plan on running, so changing his answer would create instability for himself. Based on recent social media posts before the publishing of this piece, Arnold Cadiz, the father, decided to run to be a councilor of Barangay Kamputhaw, walking through the streets and shaking hands with prospective voters to get elected. The younger Cadiz, John Arvert, has assumed the role of his father’s supportive son.
“He’s someone I really look up to not just in sports but also as a leader,” Cadiz declared. “My dad is very hands-on with his responsibilities. That’s why I think his reactions or whatever he says really matter to me.”
Cadiz’s reverence towards his father and what he thinks has become a double-edged sword. On one edge, is the high regard evidenced by Cadiz’s care, respect, and love for his father. However, the same high regard instilled within Cadiz the trepidation over how his father would react if Cadiz told him that one of his sons was gay. Cadiz himself does not know when the trepidation will no longer be felt. He tried to give me a guessed estimation of when that day of coming out would be but to no avail, failing to determine the perfect opportunity to tell his father the truth.
He surmises that his father’s reaction to him coming out would be rooted in anger and disappointment, but also believes that his father has been preparing himself for that moment. “I think he already knows,” Cadiz surmised again. “My brother has a girlfriend, and my brother always brings his girlfriend home. [...] So Daddy would start asking, ‘So where’s your girlfriend? Where’s your girl?’ I just don’t say anything, I don’t respond. It’s in those moments when I feel like I’m in high school again, where I was uncomfortable.”
Being gay is not only a part of Cadiz, it is one of the main pillars of who he is. Being gay does not define his entire being, but he surely recognizes that being himself offered him the confidence to do what he wants and share his life freely with the rest of the world.
John Arvert Cadiz is as open as steamed clams, and he’s ready to serve his openness on a silver platter. On TikTok, where he amassed more than 120 thousand followers and 2.7 million likes, he posts videos of himself jumping onto the train of the viral dance fads, getting his first tattoo (and it’s of a turtle), showing off his body like the thirst trapper he is online, and hinting at past romantic woes or previous emotional downturns.
(I appeared in one of his TikTok videos, and it’s us dancing to Ohboyprince’s “Bounce When She Walks” after our Fascinating Features interview. However, Cadiz deleted or archived it as of the release of this feature. When I discovered that fact, my soul yearned to sprint into the woods and get mauled by the wolves. But I digress.)
Wherever Cadiz is and whatever he is doing, he will always be unabashedly himself. Being himself makes him feel alive.
But Cadiz, who never filters out his thoughts, words, and actions, only self-censors when his father is around. His own home is not his “comfort zone” because he cannot be the full version of himself. And that is a tragedy. To feel restricted or cautious to share the one you love with all the true colors life gave Cadiz is the burdensome yoke that can only hurt him.
What he longs for is the day when the love of his life, whoever that may be, gets to meet his father and the three get along. What he longs for is to be able to show his father another side of him his father has yet to know. What he longs for is to live as himself without the ache of rejection from the person he looks up to.
I asked Cadiz, “What’s something you want to say to your dad?”
Cadiz replied, “That I’m gay.”
Cadiz and Mikael conducted an in-person interview on Saturday, May 6th, 2023.
Recommended Song: True Colors - Cyndi Lauper
Images from John Arvert Cadiz’s Facebook Page.
