‘Intentions manifested’ for Ilonggo pharmacy exam topnotchers

By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan

For Royce Arjan Fantillan of Oton and Nepth Micro Apil of Lemery, topping the April 2026 Pharmacist Licensure Examination was already in sight when they began preparing.

That is, until they opened Module I — Pharmaceutical Chemistry — on the first day of the exam.

“I did not expect that it was going to be hard. I felt that I had studied enough for Module I. Out of all six modules, I felt the most confident in Module I, so the questions that were thrown at us that moment [were] very off-putting. After the first day, I felt like I lost the chance of being a topnotcher because I was aiming for it,” Fantillan said at a press conference on April 23.

“We were confident […] but on day 1, we were bombarded with exam questions. I asked a friend if they found it difficult. I told them that I was only sure with 50 out of 100 [questions], but for them, it was 70. I didn’t think I would even pass,” Apil told Daily Guardian.

When the results of the two-day exam, held on April 18 and 19, came out three days later on April 22, both got the shock of their lives.

Fantillan, with a rating of 94.65 percent, became the University of San Agustin’s first Rank 1 since 1965, according to university officials.

The first-placer said he was in bed, scrolling on social media to pass the time, when he learned of the result.

“The waiting part was where I was nervous. I wasn’t nervous during the exam. […] I distracted myself [by] scroll[ing] a lot on TikTok. I watched movies, and everything, then I saw a notification on my tablet, then I saw the results are out. I suddenly got woken up because I was just tiring myself,” Fantillan said.

“I opened my Messenger [app], and I saw that my friends were sharing the [Professional Regulatory Commission’s] post and mentioning me. The first thing I did was to stand atop my bed and call my mom, telling them that I got the results and I got top one. We hugged and she cried,” he added.

Apil, meanwhile, placed Rank 5 with 93.50 percent — Central Philippine University’s (CPU) best placement since April Joyce Catalan landed in the same rank in 2018.

He learned of his placement through one of his teachers at the CPU College of Pharmacy, Mylyn Poral.

“When I received the results [on April 22], I woke up to [Ms. Poral] calling me. She said, ‘You’re in the Top 5!'” he shared.

The April 2026 PLE results land at a moment when pharmacy education in the Visayas continues to draw strong cohorts, and individual topnotcher placements remain a closely watched marker of program strength among regional schools.

STRATEGIES AND STRUGGLES

Both said they had set their sights on a topnotcher slot, even as they knew the climb would be steep.

Fantillan admitted that he gets easily distracted — his biggest struggle — and often had to leave the house just to focus on studying.

“I almost always lose focus, especially when I’m at home, and especially when I’m near my phone and everything like that. There are a lot of temptations on social media so I do get easily hooked by funny memes and TikTok videos,” he said.

The reduced socialization during review months, he said, suited his preference for understanding concepts rather than memorizing them, and for digging into questions whenever they came up.

He turned to artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help him simplify difficult concepts.

“I want to understand everything. I’m very thorough. I like to research a lot about things. I don’t want [to just] memorize word by word. […] I used a lot of resources,” Fantillan said.

“I used AI to explain things for me. I used prompts like, ‘Explain this to me in simpler terms that I can understand,’ especially for concepts that [were] very difficult to understand,” he added.

For him, consistency mattered more than retracing every lesson from college.

“I don’t really have a secret to share except for my experience. […] I studied and I studied a lot. I studied every day, for several hours, but not to a point where I was killing myself or I don’t socialize with people,” Fantillan said.

“It’s not about the length and the intensity of the study. It’s about the consistency, the way you do it, the way your brain wants you to understand, or the way your brain makes you understand. You should be consistent about that,” he added.

Apil, who graduated in 2025, skipped the November 2025 examinations and began studying for the April exams in July last year.

“It took me 250-plus days to prepare for the board exam. I started preparing in July 2025. For us here at CPU, we were supposed to take in November 2025, but I skipped that because I think when I was in college, I felt that I was burnt out, and at the same time, I wanted to prepare as well for my board exam,” Apil said.

Three factors pushed him to delay the boards: burnout in college, the need to prepare well, and his mother’s chemotherapy.

“My mom was also diagnosed with breast cancer in July [2025]. At the time, I had a driver’s license, so I drove her to [the Western Visayas Medical Center] at 3 a.m. just to line up at the chemo section [at 5 a.m.],” he said.

Reviewing at home in Lemery was an adjustment, given that he had lived in Iloilo City since high school.

“I reviewed in Lemery. I had a face-to-face review in the city, but I only finished one week of it because I already knew [the topics], and I took the time to study online at home,” he said.

“After Module VI, I said, ‘At least it’s finished,’ because I studied for 260 to 270 days. I studied every day, even for one to two hours, and it was demanding, mentally and emotionally,” he added.

The Centralian said reaching the upper echelons of passers was always part of the plan.

“Going into the board exams, I’ve always had it in mind that I wanted to pass, maybe not even in the Top 1 [spot], just as long as it is in the top [ranks], and I think I had that manifested in July 2025 already,” he said.

“I think the most important thing when it comes to preparing for the board exam is intention. You really have to have a fixed mindset about what you want in the board exam. If you want to top it, you have to go for it,” he added.

FAMILY

Both topnotchers credited family as central to their achievement.

Fantillan, who confessed to being disorganized, said his mother and father gave him the focus he could not summon on his own.

“I did not do the preparation of my food [and] among other things, I do not prepare my belongings at all because I myself am actually very clumsy when it comes to preparing things and I like to do things last-minute, and so my parents were actually the ones who were my guide on how to prepare,” Fantillan said.

His mother, Analen Java-Fantillan, said she often took it upon herself to wake him up because his alarm clock alone could not.

“My secret with Royce, I would wake him up early in the morning. He always set an alarm that would ring for a long time, which could be heard up to the gate of the subdivision, but he couldn’t even wake up. But when I call him, he would wake up immediately, and would answer me with what he last studied,” Analen Fantillan shared.

Apil said reviewing at home made him realize that his roles as student and son were not separate, especially when he drove his mother to chemotherapy sessions.

“As a reviewee, you’re not just a reviewee every day. You also have roles at home as a child, as a grandchild,” Apil said.

“My biggest challenge [in preparing for the board exam] was in balancing my life as a student and life as a child,” he added.

Talking about his mother’s chemotherapy, he said the experience helped him recognize concepts in the exam — but he hopes no one else has to learn that way.

“It was ironic for me because my mother was now taking [the substances] I studied before. They also say that experience is the best teacher, and I was also able to use that during the board exam, but I hope that everyone could only learn these by the book, [because] it hurts a lot more,” he said.

WHAT’S NEXT

Fantillan, whose older siblings are a general surgeon and a dentist, said he was still unsure of his next step but was considering opening his own pharmacy or teaching.

“I haven’t really planned anything. The paths in pharmacy are very, very vast. I can probably go to medicine, and pursue being a physician. I can, if I had capital, I can open my own pharmacy. [But] among the fields in pharmacy, I would really want to be [in the] academe. I’m not sure, that’s just my top three,” he said.

Apil, meanwhile, is preparing to apply to medical school — eyeing West Visayas State University — and is also considering teaching, though he said he wants to rest first.

“Maybe if I can pursue my dream of being a doctor, and could also teach, because I’ve also foreseen that, maybe I will. But in a more nearer future, I want to rest first, because I took 250-plus days to study, and I’ve poured my time for academics and family, but not for my friends,” he said.