Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco

Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco (born May 10, 1992), best known as Charice Pempengco, or simply Charice (a portmanteau of her first two names), is a Filipina singer who rose to popularity through YouTube.

Pempengco was born in San Pedro, Laguna, Philippines.She and her younger brother, Carl, were raised solely by their mother, Raquel, after they left their father due to domestic violence when Pempengco was three years old.
To help support the family, she began competing in amateur singing contests at age seven, from town fiestas in their province of Laguna to several vocal competitions on TV. She is said to have joined over 80 singing contests.
In 2005, Pempengco joined ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation's Little Big Star, a talent show in the Philippines loosely patterned after American Idol. Eliminated after her first performance, she was later called back as a wildcard contender and eventually became a finalist. Although she was a consistent top scorer in the final rounds, she only finished in third place via SMS voting.
Pempengco made minor appearances in local television shows and TV commercials, but essentially had fallen off the radar after her stint at Little Big Star. It was not until 2007 that Pempengco gained worldwide recognition after Dave Duenas, an avid supporter, started posting videos of her live performances onto YouTube under the username FalseVoice. The videos garnered millions of hits making Pempengco an internet phenomenon.