Now it can be Wikileaked: For the 15th anniversary of Bb. Pilipinas, I was asked to judge — the talent competition.
I was very tickled pink (in the appropriate pink parts, mind you) that the organizers deemed me worthy enough to judge the competition. Of course, I am so glad that the Bb. Pilipinas organizers did not check my criminal records with the NBI, the Interpol, and the CBCP.
However, there was a possibility that some recalcitrant beauty pageant devotees might deem my participation in the judges panel sacrilegious and turn my pink parts into a handbag. Buti na lang, I came with protection. I brought self-confessed beauty pageant fanatic and Fashion Institute of Design and Marketing alumnus Voltaire Tayag, a man who has archived every possible beauty competition dating back to the early Sixties (transferred from Betamax to blue ray dibidi, I might add), a man who performs a regression analysis during major beauty pageant contests (to anyone who will listen), and a man who will bitch slap any rabid beauty pageant devotees into submission so that I can brace myself to judge the talent show.
And the operative word here is “brace.†While sitting on the same panel with esteemed judges with the likes of Bb. Pilipinas founder Stella Araneta, fellow Philippine STAR columnist and ABS-CBN VP for corporate communications Bong Osorio, Shamsey Supsup and Samboy Lim, I admit that I felt as inadequate as Nicki Minaj on American Idol. So I needed Voltaire to provide me with some context, some glamour and some snark.
So what should we expect in a talent competition, Volts? Aside from the walang kamatayang Hawaiian hula hula dance?
Oh, this is where all the “good stuff†happens.
What do you mean by the good stuff? Baton-twirling? Fire-walking? Ritual sacrifices?
In the past, unfortunately, some of the contestants are not as prepared or not as talented as they should be.
Did they sustain any third-degree burns during the fire walk?
But the good thing is, a lot of the previous winners actually won the Ms. Talent competition. Ms. Universe 2012 first runner-up Janine Tugonon is a ballet dancer; Ms. Universe 2011 third runner-up Shamcey Supsup did a painting; and Bb. Pilipinas Tourism 2012 Katrina Dimaranan sang last year and won Bb. Pilipinas Tourism.
Wow! Can you imagine if regular men joined talent competitions like these? The only talent they might come up with is producing noises from our armpits and other bodily orifices.
So what are men supposed to look here as I look at the different talents, as the people are performing?
The talent portion isn’t really part of the scoring for the eventual winner. But it’s always good to look for a girl who has star quality. Sometimes you may not have the most attractive girl but when her talent and personality shines, she can really stand out.
Wait, wait. You’re saying that the talent competition isn’t included when choosing the winner? Does the Comelec know this?
To my complete surprise, all 16 performances had none of the “good stuff†that Voltaire had feared: There was nothing that would make the judges do a faceplam. There was nothing that would make the audience cringe. There was no performance that would go viral on the Internet for the wrong reasons. Nothing major major at all. In fact, I actually gained a few tips about stage presence from these ladies that I can use the next time I shimmy onstage. The first was perkiness — you must be perky enough onstage to wake up the walking dead. The second is projection — you must have enough projection to fill up an IMAX screen. And finally, pumps — your pumps must be at least eight inches tall so that you can tower over Samboy Lim.
Although none of the ladies went one-on-one with Samboy Lim, there were some noteworthy performances from the candidates. Several girls gave multiple renditions of Rihanna’s Shine Bright Like a Diamond (which is the reason that many of the girls wore fabulous shimmery form-fitting evening gowns that cost several disco balls their lives).
Other contestants performed Broadway numbers like Phantom of the Opera’s Think of Me, Les Miserables’ On My Own and George Gershwin’s Someone to Watch Over Me, heartwarming songs that talk about obsessive love and stalking. There was even a candidate who sang an opera aria, which lent the talent competition some gravitas. I’m very glad that none of those candidates reverted to novelty for their song numbers (I’m sorry yaya, you’ll have to scrap your Harlem Shake number and wait it out for another year).
The dance numbers also made quite an impression on me. And not because a hula hoop flew in my direction. The modern pandanggo was performed to the tune of the Black Eyed Peas’ Bebot (minus the flamethrowers). The ballet slash gymnastics performance was an interesting mishmash of interpretative dance, religious ritual (as she danced to Ave Maria) and technical glitch as the contestant was lying poised on stage for several minutes while the production team searched for the correct song to play (kudos to her!). The traditional Kalinga banga (pot) dance where the contestant suspensefully balanced seven earthen pots on her head while languidly moving across the stage. As the pots swayed to and fro on her head, I thought Bong Osorio and I would go into cardiac arrest. Finally, the magic performance that was set to music had the candidate producing glitters, colorful strings and live doves out of thin air. The candidate even offered to chop off my head, but I wasn’t sure if this would still be part of the magic act.
After the organizers used some scotch tape and Vicks Vaporub to re-attach my head, the next was the declamation. The contestant came out dressed in a raggedy outfit (well, as raggedy as you can get for a beauty pageant contestant) and faux dirt painted on her face, stretched out her arms and uttered, “Alms, alms, spare me a piece of bread†(As a declamation veteran in grade school, those lines from Vengeance is not ours, it’s God’s are forever embedded in the reptilian portion of my brain). I personally think that it takes a lot of cojones to perform a declamation for a beauty pageant competition. I’m just glad that those cojones are purely metaphorical.
It appears that our crop of beauty pageant contestants is taking the talent competitions to the next level. At the rate that they’re going, we might see candidates who will be levitating on air with the power of their minds, doing full-blown one-woman musicals, performing surgeries and presenting a plan that will effectively resolve the Sabah situation, the disputed ownership of islands in the South China Sea, the de-militarization of of North Korea, the civil war in Syria and eventually, world peace.
Since I’ve had a taste of what it’s like to be a judge for Bb. Pilipinas, I hope the organizers consider me for the actual Bb. Pilipinas coronation night. Even for a portion of the coronation night. Like the swimsuit competition. My wife even says it’s okay for me to judge the swimsuit competition. As long as I become a eunuch.
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