23/08/2026
🫶
ANGAT BUHAY TOPNOTCHER! 🏛️✨
Ar. Peter Zarriz, UAP, RMP, an alumnus of Angat Buhay’s Angat Sining Arkitektura Internship Program, secured Top 6 in the June 2026 Licensure Examination for Architects with an 88.50% rating.
“My father never had the opportunity to attend college, while my mother became the first in her family to earn a degree and pursued a career in education,” Peter shared. Their family even maintained a small sari-sari store alongside their regular work.
“Despite having so little, my parents gave everything they could to one thing they believed would change our lives: my sister’s and my education. Looking back, their sacrifices became the foundation upon which I built every opportunity that followed.”
Peter did not grow up already knowing he would become an architect. What he knew was that he loved creating. He joined poster-making and writing competitions, made parols, tried food garnishing, designed festival floats, and pursued anything that allowed him to use his hands and imagination.
“Architecture would eventually become the profession where all of those interests naturally came together.”
He entered architecture school with no drafting experience and even admitted that he only learned after enrolling that the program would take five years. During his first year, he bought secondhand architecture magazines whenever he could afford them and turned to online resources to understand everything from using his first T-square to improving his perspective drawings.
At Iloilo Science and Technology University, Peter also became a staff artist and writer for The Technovator, allowing him to combine visual design with storytelling.
That creative journey eventually brought him to Angat Buhay’s Angat Sining Arkitektura Internship Program, where he trained alongside aspiring architects and learned from professionals, artists, leaders, and changemakers whose work centered communities.
For Peter, that experience changed what architecture meant.
“The training didn’t just make me a better designer, it changed the way I see architecture altogether.”
“Those experiences taught me that architecture extends far beyond drawings and buildings; it’s about people, purpose, and creating meaningful impact.”
When review season arrived, Peter returned home and transformed his room into what he described as a temporary office. He spent January rebuilding his foundations—re-sketching concepts, revisiting laws and regulations, and returning to architecture references he had encountered throughout his education.
Then something began to change.
“During review season, I happened to rank in every pre-board we took. That was the moment something shifted. The board exam stopped feeling like this distant, impossible mountain and started feeling like a real possibility.”
Instead of allowing that possibility to make him complacent, Peter doubled down.
“I gave the review everything I had and left nothing to chance.”
The actual examination, however, was far from easy. Many questions were unfamiliar and caught him by surprise. But Peter carried with him a mindset that had guided his preparation:
“If you see an exam as a task, it becomes a burden; if you see it as an event, it becomes something to embrace.”
The waiting became unusually long after the Architect Licensure Examination in Davao City was postponed because of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck Mindanao.
By the time the results were ready, Peter said he had already prepared himself for whatever appeared on the screen.
“I asked God to help me receive the result with peace, even if it did not align with my dreams. Then I saw my name on the list. I broke down in tears.”
He immediately told his parents.
What followed, he recalled, was “a mix of chaos, disbelief, and overwhelming joy that I will never forget.”
And perhaps the most important lesson Peter carried home from becoming one of the country’s architecture board topnotchers was not simply about rankings.
“That very day, I learned that I too deserve every good thing meant for me. It does not have to be forced; it arrives like a hand-wrapped gift, at the right time and in the right way.”
From a family that worked tirelessly to keep a sari-sari store running, to buying secondhand architecture magazines as a freshman, to learning how design can serve communities, and finally becoming Top 6 in the Architecture Licensure Examination—Peter’s journey was built one opportunity, one sacrifice, and one drawing at a time.
Padayon, Ar. Peter!
PARA SA EDUKASYON, PARA SA BAYAN! 🇵🇭
