“Saturdays at the Nature Nook Café will never feel the same again.”
After four full Saturdays of training, presentations, real-world exercises, and a lot of coffee and pancit, Batch 34 of SOVA’s AI-Powered Virtual Assistant Bootcamp – Iligan City officially crossed the finish line. On April 25, 2026, our newest cohort of work-from-home professionals received their certificates of completion at Nature Nook Café, Zone 1 Abuno, Iligan City — the same room where, just four weeks earlier, most of them walked in not entirely sure where this journey would take them.
Today, they walk out as certified, AI-fluent Virtual Assistants — and the next step is already waiting for them.
A Quick Look at Batch 34
This batch was special for one big reason: it’s the first Iligan cohort to run on SOVA’s updated AI-Powered curriculum — meaning every single module now bakes AI tools directly into the workflow, instead of treating them as an afterthought.
What Batch 34 Learned
Over four Saturdays, our students moved through SOVA’s complete AI-Powered VA framework — built specifically for the new reality of remote work, where every serious VA is also expected to be AI-fluent.
Module 1 — Foundations of Virtual Assistance + AI Awareness Where the VA industry is going, what clients actually pay for, and how AI is changing (and not changing) the role.
Module 2 — Tools, Systems, and AI-Powered Productivity The actual stack: ChatGPT, Claude, Notion, Google Workspace, Trello, Loom, plus the AI-powered workflows that compress hours into minutes.
Module 3 — High-Income VA Skills + AI Application The skills that move you from ₱20K to ₱60K+ per month — email management, content creation, research, lead generation, light project management — all rebuilt around AI.
Module 4 — Client Acquisition, Branding & Career Roadmap The part most courses skip: how to actually land clients. Personal branding, profile building, proposals, pricing, and the “Dream Client Blueprint” bonus session.
By the end, every graduate left with a complete VA portfolio, a personal brand kit, a pricing structure, and — most importantly — the confidence to send their first pitch on Monday morning.
Meet Coach Katherine
If you ask any Batch 34 graduate to name the biggest reason they made it through, you’ll hear the same name: Coach Katherine.
Katherine L. Padilla is the Co-Founder of SOVA.ph and Pipie.Co, and she’s been working in the VA field for 10 years. What makes her classroom special isn’t just the curriculum — it’s that she’s still in the trenches, still working with clients, still pitching, still problem-solving in real time. Every story she tells in class is a story from this month, not from a slide deck written years ago.
She teaches in Bisaya, Tagalog, and English — whichever one a student needs to actually understand the material.
“Hindi lang ako nag-teach ng VA skills. Nag-teach ako kung paano mag-isip na parang VA. Iba ‘yon.” — Coach Katherine
Featured Graduate: Donneley Tingbao
Among the 11 graduates of Batch 34 was Donneley Tingbao — one of the standouts of this cohort. From day one, Donneley took the work seriously: showing up early, finishing every exercise, asking the questions everyone else was too shy to ask.
Her certificate, proudly displayed at the end of the ceremony, marks the official start of her new career as an AI-Powered Virtual Assistant.
She’s not the only one. The full Batch 34 roster includes:
- Lhicia Lee R. Petallana
- Julda Marie Aliposa
- Donneley Tingbao
- Leah D. Balacuit
- Al Erickson L. Jainar
- Mohammar Hadji Omar
- Krisha T. Idera
- Ma. Jaanifer S. Trocio
- Juvy Ann G. Torres
(and the rest of our amazing cohort)
Congratulations to all of you. You earned this.
More Than a Classroom
One of the things that made Batch 34 different was the venue itself. Nature Nook Café gave us light, plants, real coffee, and — let’s be honest — really good carbonara on graduation day. There’s something about a room with floor-to-ceiling windows and banana trees outside that changes how people learn.
— A student’s laptop and graduation lunch at Nature Nook Café, where Batch 34 met every Saturday.
By the end of week 4, the cohort had become a tight little community — the kind that swaps client leads in a Messenger group at 11 PM and celebrates each other’s wins. That’s a quiet but huge benefit nobody puts in the brochure: you’re not just getting a certificate. You’re getting a network.
What Happens Next
Here’s the part that separates SOVA from a YouTube playlist or a self-paced video course:
“All onsite training participants will have a chance for internship and possible in-house hiring with our partner agency MalachiSoft.com.”
Every Batch 34 graduate now has access to:
- Internship opportunities with MalachiSoft — real client accounts, real portfolio work.
- Direct hiring pipeline through our outsourcing arm.
- Job board access — first look at every new VA role our partners post.
- Lifetime community access for peer support, leads, and continued learning.
- Unlimited client-acquisition support from Coach Katherine and the SOVA team.
This is the SOVA promise in action: we train you, we get you real experience, and we help you get hired. Not someday. Now.
To Our Batch 34 Graduates
You showed up four Saturdays in a row when you could have stayed in bed. You opened your laptop in a café when it would have been easier to scroll TikTok. You asked questions when you didn’t fully understand. You finished the work even when life got in the way.
That’s the real curriculum. Everything else is just tools.
We’re proud of every single one of you. And we can’t wait to see your “I got hired!” post in the SOVA community.
“You don’t graduate into a hope. You graduate into a job. Let’s go.” — Coach Leandro, SOVA Founder
📚 Next Batch Now Open
Inspired by Batch 34? The next AI-Powered Virtual Assistant Bootcamp in Iligan is opening soon — and based on how fast Batch 34 sold out, seats won’t last.
About SOVA
SOVA — School of Virtual Assistance is the Philippines’ only train-to-hire VA school, with campuses in Cebu, Iligan, Cagayan de Oro, Butuan, and Bukidnon. We train, we give real experience, and we hire. SOVA.ph is a brand of RKAA Corporation.