First I must begin by apologizing to my son. I’m sorry, you may not like this piece but it is my opinion based on my personal taste and 33 years working in advertising. To all who may or may not like what I say, please don’t hold it against my son who has absolutely no control over his mother. Blame me. This is my opinion.
My son sent text inviting me to the PhilPop. I didn’t know what PhilPop was but I knew he and his partner, Jeff Arcilla, had written a song and it had made it to the final 12. Maybe that was the PhilPop. The event was at the Meralco Theater. He told me the show would start promptly at 6 p.m. I got there by 5:45 p.m., just when the big drops of rain began to fall and it fell harder and harder and tied up traffic in massive knots, which delayed the beginning of the show.
I saw Leslie and Menchie Abelardo, two of my writing students, talked until the doors opened and we were allowed to enter. That was around 6:30 p.m. We had different tickets so we had to part and I sat alone in my row for a while, a reward for being on time. Dingdong Avanzado was stuck in traffic and he was part of the opening number so the show began at almost 8 p.m. By then we had watched all the videos of the 12 finalists and could have gone home.
The opening number reminded me of my younger days. It was VST & Company medley and we had used them for Coke launches when I was in my middle-30s and they were going out of fashion. The laser lights and the dancing reminded me of an opening in the Ad Congress in Baguio in the ‘80s. Twenty-five years have passed and nothing much has changed.
The program finally began with almost everyone singing sounding like screaming. I’ll tell you what I liked. I liked Kilig, the video, sang by an unhappy housewife whose sloppily dressed husband with a big stomach, uncombed hair, long shorts and a sando, stood indifferently in the background. This is my interpretation — she laments that romance (kilig) has gone out of her marriage and how she misses it but once in a rare while it surfaces. The song was real, exactly like life. Ask anybody who has been married more than seven years. Sometimes you would rather eat chicharon or lechon than be with your mate. That was a good song. It deserved to win. Did it? No.
I also liked For the Rest of My Life, which was a ballad similar to but not close to the styles of Frank Sinatra, Jack jones, Andy Williams, crooners close to my teetering old heart but they sang the finest ballads and in my book they will never die. It is a sweet song written for the songwriter’s wife where he says he will love her forever. Maybe they have been married less than two years. I liked that song and the way it was sung. Really reminded me of when love songs were sang not shouted.
Then I also liked Paratingin Mo Na Siya, a song sung by a young man asking the Lord to please send him the girl of his dreams already. I saw myself singing that song, making that plea and the Lord answering my prayers by sending me a tall immensely intelligent man with a terrific sense of humor on a cloud entering through my 20th floor window to keep me company. This made me want to burst into giggles but I controlled myself. The people around me will never understand.
And whether or not my son composed it I liked Apat na Buwang Pasko best because it was different. It was a song complaining about Christmas festivities in the Philippines beginning in September and possibly ending after Chinese New Year. I liked it because it was witty, different, not the usual love or heartbreak that songs are written about. Once again it is really about life. Jon Santos did such a marvelous job singing and dancing to it, reminding me of Hollywood, of chorus girls lifting their legs in unison. I hate to say it but this presentation had class. Did they win? No!
Instead what won was a love song I didn’t like because I could not understand the words they sang so I did not know what they were singing about and they were screaming and caterwauling like cats making love. They won P1 million for that!
Oh well, what can I do? I think I should just grow old gracefully and alone and never go to any of those concerts again until they develop a little more class. They will not make their worldwide ambitions until they do.
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