NAGA CITY---Jay “Bugoy” Bugayan, 18, a working student of the Universidad de Sta. Isabel (USI) here, came home as a celebrity with hundreds of screaming fans trying to get near and touch him as he toured the campus from 8 o’clock to 9:30 in the morning Tuesday.

        Bugoy has been popular around the campus as he was known to sing his heart out every time he mopped floors before his incredible feat to be finalist of the reality show of the ABS-CBN Pinoy Dream Academy, according to Aidz A. Cajuday, professor of Bugoy and a family friend.

        Cajuday said Bugoy is like her mother, Myrna Rillon Bugayan, who started working at the university canteen to support their education from high school to college. Bugoy is presently enrolled in food service technology course while his mother graduated in accountancy course as working student.

        She said Bugoy is so close to her since her friendship with his mother started since she was high school and they were roommates because both of them were working students of the USI, where she works now as a university professor teaching accountancy, commerce and food service subjects wherein he is her student.

        Cajuday said since last year she had been encouraging Bugoy to try audition in Pinoy Dream Academy but he would answer her that he does not have the looks but later summoned his courage to try his luck last month until he survived as among the finalists.

        She likes Bugoy because she said he is so honest to himself that he is not ashamed to tell her his weaknesses like his lack of skills in numbers that she said made him decide t o shift from accountancy course to food service technology.

         “He told me that he would just sing to every accounting exercise that he cannot answer,” Cajuday enthused.

        Jocelyn Rillon Camain, also an employee of the USI and the younger sister of Bugoy’s mother, revealed that she was able to send her nephew some money which was originally intended for the tuition fee of her son who got scholarship from his school.

        Camain said that Bugoy’s mother scrimped some P1,500 that she sent but it was not enough to cover his transportation and other personal expenses while he was auditioning for the Pinoy Dream Academy in Quezon City at the ABS-CBN studio.

        She said she recalled that Bugoy once asked her for some money that she later learned her nephew used in starting a shoeshine service to his classmates at P10 per pair of shoes.

         Camain said that Bugoy’s father Elmer Bugayan is a farmer and his mother a plain housekeeper and that they could hardly make both ends meet for their seven siblings of which he is the middle child and the only boy.

        Sor Ma. Asuncion G. Evidente, president of the USI, has only good words for Bugoy saying he is a role model to the students of this Catholic university even though he comes from an “economically deprived family”.

        Evidente said they have discovered late the singing talent of Bugoy when he showed his singing skills while mopping floors, washing dishes, and scrubbing kitchen sinks.

        She said that because he shares his talent generously by being a choir member of the “Days with the Lord Organization”, Bugoy was granted scholarship under the Marillac program of their school.

        Bugoy said that he was happy that he was able to make it to the finals of the Pinoy Dream Academy and promised to do his best to get the grand prize.