Will Survivor Philippines deliver a surprise ending?

Tonight, the first-ever Pinoy Sole Survivor will be revealed live. Will Survivor Philippines pull a surprise ending? At this point, we doubt it. Calling to mind the spoiler that came out from a showbiz-oriented website some months ago, there’s every reason to believe now that the 23-year-old college basketball player JC Tiuseco will be declared winner.

Come to think of it, despite GMA 7 roundly denying the rumor when it first surfaced, JC’s name was “leaked” at a time when stronger favorites—Kiko! Verns! Jace! Zita!—were still very much around in the game, very much surviving. And here he is now, one of the two last castaways standing together with Rob Sy, the 30-year-old sales officer from Davao City.

Since it is the jury—made up of the last eight castaways voted off—who gets to vote for the winner, JC would outnumber Rob in votes for the simple reason that the latter is perceived to be least liked by most of jury members. (Or at least based on what we’ve seen on TV.)

Even with the viewer text votes coming in today and collectively counted as the 9th vote, it makes a whole lot of sense that JC would win for his friendlier and more likeable image. Plus, he has also proven to be a good strategist who seemingly maximized the power of the underdog by flying under the radar so much so he never was targeted as a threat. He also played fair, working his butt off to win immunity and reward challenges.

But this is not to discount the fact that Rob, who won the last and most crucial immunity challenge, stayed true to a promise to bring JC to the final two in the game. Rob had the power to take out his biggest threat for that shot at the P3M cash prize but he didn’t.

This goes to say that in spite of the string of “betrayals” on the island, it’s worth noting that it was still the trust and the promise that Rob and JC made to each other that brought them all the way to the end of the game. 

Survivor Philippines is expected to culminate tonight on a high note in terms of ratings. Whether or not it would have been a more thrilling show had there been no spoiler of any sort is now out of the question as the show managed to move past that damper of a spoiler to follow an exponential curve—giving viewers excitement via shocking twists, blindsides, overt schemers and other elements of a top-rating reality-game show.

Still, it doesn’t hurt to hope for a surprise ending. Like in “Survivor: Micronesia: Fans vs. Favorites,” wherein the castaway who received the most tongue lashing from the jury emerged as the winner in the end.

That could be the case for the localized version of the longest-running reality TV series in the world. That is if there’s actually more to the show than what meets the eye. – NMT