Choco Mucho Flying Titans spiker Kat Tolentino could’ve taken the rest of the year—and the whole of 2025—to take care of herself. It is well within her right. After all, health should always come first. The team’s legions of fans would’ve loved her regardless. They would’ve supported her.
But, no, Kat Tolentino didn’t choose to take a prolonged leave of absence, even when her condition—a hearing impairment in her left ear that has caused her great pain and discomfort—totally justified it. Instead, she chose to play for the Flying Titans, showing a commitment unlike no other to the team and its fans and a resilience only the strongest of us can ever have.
In a time and age when taking the easy way out is often the way for most, Tolentino chose the road very few would dare take because it is the hard one. And that alone should make her a Choco Mucho legend, a fan favorite, and an inspiration to all.
Dealing with Adversity Is Nothing New for Kat Tolentino
The hard road, of course, is nothing new for this stunning and talented Fil-Canadian, who has dealt with injuries practically her entire career. Any injury is a test of character, a test of willpower, a test of commitment. Tolentino has taken that test way too many times already—and she is just 29 years old, right at the prime of her athletic prowess.
Tolentino, mind you, didn’t just sustain the usual bumps and bruises. She tore knee ligaments not once, not twice, but thrice.
That’s right. Three ACL tears. THREE.
Going through one ruptured ligament is hard enough. Going through three almost one after the other qualifies as torture already. Those who’ve torn an ACL know the feeling of excruciating pain in the moment of impact—that horror-inducing pop, that feeling of helplessness, and the foreboding of hopelessness as the pain worsens. It gets even worse post-surgery when the long road back to recovery finally dawns. Hours of rehab. Hours of extra work. Hours of nitty-gritty.
Imagine going through that ordeal thrice. Kat Tolentino need not imagine. She lived it. She overcame it—one ACL tear after another—on her way to becoming a champion with the Ateneo Lady Eagles in the UAAP Season 81 women’s volleyball tournament.
Still Battling Adversity But Strong as Ever
Tolentino’s latest battle has been a now nine-month-long struggle with deafness in her left ear, which she only revealed after the Flying Titans’ opening-season loss to the Petro Gazz Angels to usher in the PVL All-Filipino Conference.
“I’m deaf in my left ear so all the sounds are coming from my right side and it’s pretty different. Just even as a person in the arena, it’s different but it’s not something that I can’t deal with,” Tolentino told reporters post-match. “I just have to adjust and understand that this is the condition I have so I have to get used to it. So far, it’s been okay. It’s just really loud on my right side.”
Just two games into the young PVL season and it appears the former Lady Eagle and Choco Mucho pioneer is back like she never left, firing 27 points in the Flying Titans’ first win of the PVL All-Filipino Conference—a pulsating 27-29, 25-20, 25-19, 17-25, 15-12 victory over the Galeries Tower High Risers.
Tolentino was fitting hailed as the best player of the game after her vintage performance. Then, in the post-match interview, it was clear her left ear is still giving her problems, as she had to turn her head repeatedly towards the interviewer to hear the questions.
Not that it matters to Tolentino, whose return to playing meaningful minutes for Choco Mucho has got to be the feel-good story of this young PVL season so far.
After all, it takes a special kind of person to keep fighting through adversity.
Kat Tolentino put simply, is that kind of special.
