Friday, February 29, 2008

going up, going down

After Jasmine Trias, it looks like the Philippines will, once again, show the world how talented Filipinos are. That’s via Ramiele Malubay, 20 years old from Miami, Florida who, with her black hair, chinky eyes and very cute height is undeniably carrying Pinoy blood all over her.

She made it to the top 20 of American Idol season 7 after the first elimination round where 2 guys and 2 girls were eliminated from the 24 qualifiers.

Judging from the AI site, she’s quite popular. Discussions on various forums are always focused on Ramiele. Or maybe this is Pinoy bayanihan in full force again. Something Simon Cowell poked at during Jasmin’s time when he said ‘the whole of Hawaii must have voted twice to keep you here’. … or something like that. Coz he thought Jasmin didn’t deserve to be in the top 3 spot of AI season 3.

What Simon didn’t know is that talented or not, Jasmin deserves that spot because of the ‘kuyog’ voting system all Pinoy-blooded Americans must have used to keep her in the competition. In fact, if AI will only allow internet voting, Jasmin will win by a thousand miles from Fantasia.

Pinoys support each other fiercely especially if it touches upon Pinoy pride and identity. Especially on international stage. Something that the organizers of Miss Universe beauty pageant has realized after one of their minor awards (was it Miss Photogenic?), which was done via internet voting, was won by the Philippines two years in a row. They immediately scrapped the voting system the following year.

Actually, that shouldn’t be a surprise anymore. We are the inventor of People Power. An original phenomenon no other country has ever done before. Until we showed them how powerful it can be.

This leads me to the current situation in the Philippines where mass protest actions are going on again. Al-Jazeera news channel just showed footages of the rallies that went on today. It estimated the protesters to be at 75,000 strong. Gloria must be having sleepless nights. She’s seen this before. And she knows it’s ominous for someone who’s at the receiving end of the booing.

And so I’ve started from AI and ended up with the Philippine political climate. What’s the connection, you might ask.

Well, Pinoy power can put two ladies in the exact opposite of fortunes. Ramiele to the top spot of AI in the entertainment scene and Gloria to the bottom of the pits in the political arena. Let’s just see what happens. In the meantime, go go go Pinoy People Power!

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