Chico Loco, Now Kuya Chico: The Many Voices and Radio Journeys of Mark Jimel Gales
From a childhood fascination with DJs to Yes! Diaries, Dubai radio, MOR, Energy FM, and DWIZ, meet the broadcaster behind several familiar names.
A listener hearing Chico Loco for the first time might think several people have joined him inside the studio. A childlike voice, an elderly character, or a mischievous fictional personality can enter the conversation, changing its mood before the host returns to speaking as himself. That ability to build a small cast around a microphone became one of the defining features of his radio work.
Behind those voices is Mark Jimel Gales, known professionally as Chico Loco, Kuya Chico, and, during his MOR years, Chico Martin. His career has taken him through Philippine FM radio, a Filipino station in Dubai, digital broadcasting, and an AM assignment at DWIZ.
For a newcomer, the different names are worth understanding immediately: they belong to the same broadcaster, used at different stages of his career.
His interest in radio began in childhood. In an interview published by The Daily Digger, he recalled becoming fascinated in Grade 4 by China Heart, later known as Chinapaps, whose voice, music introductions, and conversations with callers made the job seem exciting. His father, Mang Jaime, had brought home a cassette player from Saudi Arabia, and the young Gales enjoyed switching between stations. By Grade 5, he was already thinking of a media-related college course.
That recollection places two people near the beginning of his story: a father whose cassette player opened a listening world, and a broadcaster who gave him an example of what he wanted to become.
Gales pursued Broadcast Journalism at De La Salle University–Dasmariñas. The same interview describes a young radio enthusiast who traveled from Laguna to visit a station, joined contests, and participated in greeting portions before becoming a broadcaster himself. The interview-based profile dates his on-air beginnings to June 2009.
His preparation also included campus radio. DLSU-D’s official history of 95.9 Green FM identifies Chico Loco as one of its alumni announcers and DJs. The university station, which began broadcasting in 2005, combines music, entertainment, news, and public-affairs programming produced by students and faculty. Its record of a 2015 anniversary homecoming includes both Chico Loco and Maria Maldita among the alumni who returned to participate.
The campus connection is important because it gives his career a beginning before the commercial-radio persona. There was a period of learning broadcasting in a university setting before audiences encountered the entertainer on a Manila frequency.
By March 2010, 101.1 Yes FM was publicly listing Chico Loco among its DJs. A Philippine Star report on the launch of the station’s website named him alongside Maria Maldita, Totoy Bato, Emma Harot, Diego Bandido, Vilma Taray, and Biboy Bibo. The same report announced upcoming music-and-advice segments called Yes Diary and described plans for DJs to interact with listeners online.
The program later widely remembered as Yes! Diaries gave him a setting in which music, conversation, personal problems, and comedy could meet.
A contemporary listener account from 2014 describes callers sharing their difficulties while Chico used the Roleta ng Kapalaran, or Wheel of Fortune, to determine which fictional character would join the exchange. Sound effects helped turn the selection into a recurring event within the show.
His cast included Notnot, Madam Chiki, Chiklet, Kapitan Tutan, Lola Kerps, and Koyang, with spellings varying across fan accounts and recordings. A 2014 listener’s write-up documented the contrasting identities, including a child, an elderly woman, a fortune-teller figure, and a parody of television’s Big Brother.
The format gave listeners two conversations at once: the caller’s account and the comic world surrounding it. A change in voice could introduce a joke, interrupt a serious moment, or create an unexpected response. The host’s performance became part of what people returned to hear.
It also helps explain why describing him only as a love adviser would leave out a large part of his work. Character voices and improvised exchanges were part of the program’s structure, alongside the advice.
One of his most recognizable collaborations began in 2013, when he teamed up with Papa Jack, the Love Radio personality later known as Papa Jackson. Their Friday-night program was Gabi Na, Gising Na! An episode archive preserves listings dating back to February 2013, documenting the early broadcasts and their mixture of callers, characters, games, and musical exchanges.
For readers unfamiliar with the tandem, Papa Jack is John Gemperle. The two hosts came from different stations within the same broadcasting group: Papa Jack from Love Radio and Chico Loco from Yes FM. Their shared program brought their individual styles into one conversation.
Papa Jack would become a recurring creative partner through later station changes. Their history is therefore more than a single successful show; it is one of the continuing professional relationships in Gales’s career.
The Yes FM chapter ended in 2015. Contemporary radio commentary recorded his resignation and the end of the original Gabi Na, Gising Na! partnership. It also documented the next move: TAG 91.1 in Dubai.
At TAG, he worked with Maria Maldita on Uwian Na. The station’s own promotional material named both presenters together. In a later recollection posted in September 2025, Maria looked back on sharing the microphone with Chico Loco during that show in 2015.
Maria Maldita was already part of his professional circle before Dubai. A 2012 Philippine Star report identified them as DLSU-D alumni and Yes FM DJs who helped host the university’s Human Lasallian Star event. Their paths therefore intersected through their university, Philippine radio work, and eventually an overseas station.
The Dubai stint added a different audience setting to his experience. He was now broadcasting within a Filipino community overseas, carrying a familiar language and style beyond the Philippine radio market.
In May 2017, he joined 106.7 Energy FM and became known as Kuya Chico. Station histories place his arrival on May 8, following Papa Jackson’s move to Energy earlier that year.
His Energy work included Locomotion, a morning program. An official October 2017 promotion for its Spooky Edition shows that the show also made space for frightening stories and seasonal specials.
The new name changed the introduction listeners heard, while the familiar performer remained behind it. “Kuya,” the Filipino term for an older brother, suited a host whose work involved speaking directly with an audience.
Energy also reunited him with Papa Jackson. By November 2017, coverage of their work identified their shared program as Gabi Na, Umaga Na! and noted that it could be watched through Facebook Live. The partnership was continuing across both a radio frequency and a screen.
That first Energy stint did not continue uninterrupted until 2026. The station’s official YouTube channel published “Ang huling EXTRO ng Monarch of Philippine Radio – Kuya Chico” in December 2019, marking a farewell from that period of his Energy work.
The next chapter introduced a third familiar name: Chico Martin.
By 2020, he was part of MOR 101.9. ABS-CBN’s announcement for the station’s August 28 farewell special included Chico Martin among its participating DJs. The company described the event as the end of MOR’s operations following its loss of a broadcast franchise and the station’s earlier departure from the airwaves.
The disruption changed the platform available to him and his colleagues. His MOR association continued through the network’s digital work.
Under the Chico Martin name, his program SLR: Sex, Love, and Relationships carried his conversational approach into online audio. MOR Entertainment’s official podcast listing also uses the expression So De ’Yun Nga!, linking that familiar introduction to the show.
The topics extended beyond romance. Published episode descriptions from 2022 included difficulty introducing a partner to the family, feeling less successful than one’s contemporaries, and the challenges of being a father working overseas. Those subjects show a format concerned with everyday relationships and personal dilemmas as well as love stories.
ABS-CBN’s April 2022 announcement of its podcast lineup explicitly included Sex Love and Relationships with Chico Martin. He also appeared as part of MOR’s Team Manila in the company’s 2021 Christmas project, alongside broadcasters including DJ Onse, DJ Bea, DJ Popoy, Chanitalakera, and Chinaheart.
The MOR period belongs firmly in his career history. His online work had developed well before his eventual move to DWIZ, and his return to Energy was a return from another substantial broadcasting chapter.
Energy FM publicly welcomed him back in January 2023, posting “WilKam Back Kuya Chico!” on its official page. In April, its verified YouTube channel published “Notnot Is Back!”, documenting the return of one of the characters associated with his earlier work.
For longtime listeners, such returns connected different eras of his career. A broadcaster might change employer or on-air name, but a character could carry an audience’s memory from one program into another.
His later public appearances also placed him within the growing Philippine podcast scene. He guested with The KoolPals, whose official channel featured him in January 2024. In September 2025, he appeared on Para Normal Podcast for “The Midnight DJ,” with the show’s description referring listeners to his horror specials and online accounts.
The frightening-story format had become another recognizable part of his work. It offered a different kind of listening experience from the comic exchanges of Yes! Diaries, while still depending on voice, timing, and storytelling.
Across these moves, the people most clearly connected to his public career include his early inspiration Chinapaps, his father, his university broadcasting community, Maria Maldita, and Papa Jackson. They appear at different turning points: discovering radio, learning it, sharing a microphone, moving overseas, and rebuilding a partnership.
By March 2026, another move was underway. Philippines Graphic reported that an Aliw Broadcasting contract-signing event included Kuya Chico and Papa Jackson among the personalities joining its planned broadcast and digital programming. The report identified Gales by his real name and placed him within the company’s new lineup.
His DWIZ work subsequently became an actual on-air program. The station’s official YouTube archive contains Night Talks with Kuya Chico dated June 15, 2026.
The latest official schedule checked for this profile, updated September 7, 2026, lists Night Talks with Kuya Chico on DWIZ 882, Monday to Friday, from 9 p.m. to midnight.
That is his confirmed current radio assignment as of this article’s research date. His own Facebook page also promotes the program.
His digital activity continues alongside it. On October 6, 2026, Para Normal Podcast released “Midnight DJ: Part 2,” welcoming him back and directing audiences to Night Talks and his personal YouTube channel. The episode description highlights another round of frightening stories and comic conversation.
For someone just discovering him, the career can be followed through three principal names: Chico Loco at Yes FM and TAG, Kuya Chico at Energy FM and DWIZ, and Chico Martin during his MOR chapter. The names mark changes of setting, while the recurring work remains recognizable: music, listener interaction, advice, character comedy, and storytelling.
His story began with a child listening closely to the radio and deciding that he wanted to be the person speaking from it. Years later, listeners can find him on another frequency and another screen, still creating the sense that a conversation—and sometimes an entire cast of characters—is waiting on the other side.
