amazing race philippines season 2 leg 3 review

the third leg started at taal, batangas and teams were instructed to board charter buses to manaoag, pangasinan. the first bus contains team dating couple, team magkapatid, team nerds, team chefs and team mag-ama. In the second bus were team mr. pogi, team juan direction, team sexy besties and team blondies. During the bus ride, the teams in the second bus were plotting to work together to eliminate team magkapatid because they think they are rich and don't need the prizes anymore. But team sexy besties declined the alliance and wanted to race fair.

upon arrival at the our lady of manaoag church, teams have to ask the stalls in front of the church "may clue ka ba para sa akin?" if they ask the correct stall, they will be given the next clue. the next clue instructed the teams to get a car key from the store and go to the back of the church, they need to find the kia sportage car that will be opened by the key and memorize a prayer. once they memorized the prayer, they will recite it to a priest that will perform the blessing rite to the car.

the 2 charter buses arrived only minutes apart so the lead that the first five teams got was gone. it was chaos at the market stall but almost all teams quickly found the stall. once again, it was team juan direction that made another mistake of not reading the clue as they did not get the car key before going to the back of the church. i do not know if they are not reading the clue of they simply do not understand the clue. fortunately, team blondies saved them and told them to get the keys from the store.

at the task, most of the teams did not actually memorize the prayer. only a few of them did. but the priest was quite easy to please and still made the blessing and gave them the next clue.

the teams then faced their roadblock at the magsaysay fish market in dagupan city. one of the team members need to carry two large buckets of fish from a marked boat to a marked stall inside the market. they need to transfer the fish into another large container before they receive their next clue. this challenge is very similar to one of the detour task in amazing race season 21 leg 2 (fish by the barrel task) in indonesia. in this task, it was team magkapatid who did not read the clue correctly they went directly to the market and not to the port where the boats are. yna even dropped one of the buckets in the water. and also team juan direction only brought 1 bucket of fish and had to go back which affected their performance in the race.

the next clue instructed them to proceed to the giant clam statue at the dagupan city plaza where they need to perform a dance routine from the bangus festival. this is the 2nd performance task after the priscilla task in leg 1. most of the teams (even team mag-ama who had a difficult time in priscilla) got the approval of the mayor. surprisingly, it was the performers (team sexy besties, team blondies and team juan direction) who had to repeat the routine.

the teams were then instructed to proceed to the blue beach in bonuan and find the statue of douglas macarthur. once they get the clue, they need to find macarthur's old office in pangasinan. his old office is now the west central elementary school. most of the teams opted to use the internet to find this place but it was team mr. pogi who had a heated argument in their car that almost led into a fist fight. nut fortunately, they were able to control their temper and moved on.

once at the school, teams need to find macarthur and pick up 3 items on his desk that is not related to world war 2. this is a hard task, even for the nerds. the first 5 teams (dating couple, magkapatid, nerds, chefs and mag-ama) immediately decided to work together and tell each other once one of them get the correct answer. team magkapatid reiterated to not give the clue to the otehr four teams which team sexy besties overheard.

it was team dating couple who got the answer correct. unfortunately for the nerds, the couple went inside after them, relegating them to the back of the line. being friends with team juan direction, edward of team dating couple also gave them the correct answer, making them ahead of the nerds.

the detour was next and the teams was asked to choose between inspection or operation. in inspection, teams need to get 5 evidences correctly in a murder crime scene. in operation, team needs to give the doctor the correct medical instruments that he needs. both task have a mandatory lecture or briefing before proceeding to the task. some of the teams did not get the task on their first try and needs to repeat it. in the operation task, since the nerds already memorized the instruments, they went out of the briefing without finishing it. team sexy besties complained about this and the nerds were told they need to finish the briefing and were put into last place.

after the detour, the teams need to find the u-turn board before they can proceed to the next destination. and again, it was team mr. pogi who was u-turned. contrary to the fight that they had before the detour, they remained calm and positive and finished the task quickly.

the teams were then instructed to go to bella's calasiao puto factory where they need to find a marked base of the puto amongst trays of 100's. this is another challenge that needs a lot of patience. ost of the teams had a a hard time finding the marked base and had to do more than 5 trays. i think it was only team nerds and team mr. pogi who got it on their first tray.

the teams then needs to proceed to the next pit stop, the lingayen capitol center where derek and ritz azul is waiting on the mat.

the final team standings after this leg is as follows:

1st - team dating couple
2nd - team chefs
3rd - team magkapatid
4th - team mag-ama
5th - team nerds
6th - team sexy besties
7th - team mr. pogi
8th - team blondies
9th - team juan direction

it was sad to see the most relaxed racers go and eliminated.

it is laso good to note that team chefs has barged into the top 3 in this leg and team nerds are nowin 5th place. this is team dating couples' 2nd first place finish. i would also like to commend team mr. pogi because of finishing 7th despite the u-turn in back to back legs.

what is very striking in this leg is the talk of making alliances. the top teams and the bottom teams attempted to form alliances in this leg of the race. being a fan of the show, in its history, alliances do not work in the race. your alliances can help you but it can also slow you dow and can even lead to your elimination. in this case, team dating couple is stuck between their alliance with the top teams and their friendship with team juan direction. this will really make them a target in the next legs.

tempers are still flaring here and there in this leg. team mag-ama and team mr. pogi need to watch their tempers in the next legs. team chefs are also starting to bicker when they are driving. team blondies also needs to find a way to get out of the bottom pack, same as team sexy besties and team mr. pogi. team mr. pogi needs to convince the other teams that they are not the biggest physical threat in the game to avoid any more u-turns or yield.

videos are from amazing race philippines official you tube channel

team teddy, billy and jugs wins it's showtime's magpasikat 2014

the team of teddy, billy and jugs wins this year's magpasikat competition of it's showtime as part of the show's 5th anniversary celebration. performing last among five teams, the trio's performance started with spoof of all the other previous performances. then it gets into a conceptualized gameshow called "whatchamacul8" where they showed their hosting, singing, dancing and acting skills. teddy wrote the lyrics of the show's theme song and jugs provided the music.

the team's guests were popular love team and new kapamilya stars nadine lustre and pbb teen clash big winner james reed and the kalokalikes of jugs and teddy. the game show also choose someone from the madlang pipol as contestant who won PhP90,000 cash.

here is the video of their performance of the team from the abs cbn youtube channel :

the hurados for the week were the concert queen pops fernandez, apo hiking society member jim paredes and the primera contrabida cherrie gil. team vhong jhong got 2nd place with their contemporary dance number which ended with the two painting each other's faces. 3rd place went to team anne coleen with their aerial acrobatic number.

this is jugs and teddy's fourth win in 5 years.

all prizes will go to their chosen charities.

the voice of the philippines is back!

the voice of the philippines is back with its 2nd season. who will be winning this season after team lea's mitoy yonting? the show will premiere on sunday, october 26.

here are the preview videos from the official youtube channel of the voice of the philippines :

the voice 2014: katriz trinidad wins battle round

filipina american wins the battle round in the voice 2014. under the new mentor pharell williams, katriz was matched up against blessing offor. according to pharell, they were paired up because they both sing from the heart.

here is the video of the battle from the official youtube channel of the voice :

after the battle, gwen stefani and adam levine pushed the steal button. blessing choose adam is now part of team adam.

the amazing race philippines 2 leg 2 review

the second leg of the amazing race philippines started at resorts world manila even though leg 1 pit stop was at the manila post office. i don't know if this was a production error but this is the first time that a leg started in another location as compared to the pit stop the previous leg.

the teams were instructed to go to the city kart racing circuit in makati city. teams have to race individually against 4 other teams in the go kart race course. the top 3 teams with the fastest combined time of the 2 members will get the clue. the 2 remaining teams will again race against 3 other teams. aj of team mag-ama was formerly a race driver but his experience proved not to be an advantage as they lost the first round. pinay world champ also encountered difficulty in this challenge. the 2 teams that were left were team pinay world champs and team sexy besties. as a consequence, they have to complete 6 laps around the course before they receive their next clue. here is the teaser on the task for the october 13 episode:

the next clue instructed teams to proceed to the urban peak rock climbing gym at the lotus central mall in imus, cavite. this is the leg's roadblock. one member of the team needs to climb a wall and retrieve a bottle of summit mineral water at the top of the wall. the bottle has a number under the cap which they need to keep and will be used in the next challenges. most of the teams struggled in this challenge but it was only jeck of team sexy besties who gave up. they opted to get the 4 hour penalty. here is the video of jeck's moment at the wall:

the teams were then instructed to proceed bauan public market. the u-turn board is in play here. what is unique here is that all teams needs to vote who they want to u-turn, and the teams with the highest votes gets u-turned. unlike in the us version, only 1 team (or 2 if double u turn) can exercise the u-turn.

when the teams arrived at bauan public market, it was closed and will open only the next morning, allowing team sexy besties to catch up. the next task was a detour, a choice between fashion or fruits. in fashion, teams needs to dress up a manequin with clothes they bought at the market. the catch is when they finish, they will receive another envelope instructing them that they need to trade the clothes with clothes from the people in the market. in fruits, team has to buy a specified list of fruits with a given budget which they will trade for their next clue. here is the teaser for the episode showing the fruits detour task:

most teams initially choose fruits but due to the high price of the fruits in the market and also due to the heavy load, some teams switched detours. at the end of the task, teams were instructed to check out the u-turn board at the shrine of the our lady of lourdes to see who get u-turned. in this task, it was team mr. pogi and team juan direction who were u-turned.

in the next task, teams have to ride in one of the gondolas of the sky eye ferris wheel at the sky ranch in tagaytay city. each gondola has a clue envelope. some are the next clue but some will say try again. if they get the wrong clue envelope, they must go to the end of the line and ride again until they get the correct clue. the number of the gondola they will ride first will be the number at the cap of the summit mineral water that they retrieved in the roadblock. this is a similar challenge to amazing race season 1 episode 12 which they did at the singapore flyer.

it was really hard for the teams to find the right gondola but some of the teams got lucky. but team pinay world champ got the worst luck. they did not read the clue completely at the roadblock and they did not keep the bottle that they got at the wall climb.

as a consequence, all other teams needs to finish the task before the pinay world champ can start, which is a big blow to their time.

the next clue instructed the teams to go to the canyon cove resort where they need to dig for a clue amongst 100 sand castles. if they dig the wrong sand castle, they need to rebuild it before digging up another one. this is another similar challenge that was done in amazing race season 22 episode 1 which used 400 sand castles and 3 teams gave up and opted for the penalty.

this is a really hard challenge and tested the team's patience. most of the teams have to dig more than 70 sand castles to get the clue. some of the teams even fought during this challenge. it was really difficult once frustration sets in.

once they retrieve a souvenir item buried in the sand castle, they will need to go to the basilica de san martin de tours in taal, batangas which is the 2nd pit stop in this race. the order of arrival at the pit stop is as follows:

1st - team dating couple
2nd - team magkapatid
3rd - team nerds
4th - team chefs
5th - team mag-ama
6th - team blondies
7th - team mr. pogi
8th - team sexy besties
9th - team juan direction
10th - team pinay world champs

team pinay world champs did not recover from the error of throwing away the mineral water bottle. they arrived last at the pit stop and was eliminated. what was surprising was the video shown after the pit stop. luz and chen had a bitter exchange of unpleasantries and led to chen walking out. it was also revealed that the pair has not yet reconciled and has not talked to each other after the race. it is really sad that a fun race can end a friendship in an instant. i think it is their competitive nature as athletes that led to this argument.

this leg was a very exciting one. last week was a test of everything, this week was more of a test of patience. the gondola and sand castle task was clearly hard and was as challenging as their counterparts in the previous seasons of the US version. one thing unique is the u-turn execution. the u-turn will be voted by all teams and not by just one team.

it is also good to note that the top 3 teams remained the same, following a strong race from the dating couple, magkapatid and the nerds (surprise again!). the biggest climber in the standings was team chefs who climbed from 7th to 4th place. i am also impressed with team mr. pogi since they did not finished in the bottom 3 even after the u-turn. they got lot of luck in the sand castle task and easily found the clue. they even coined my line of the leg - "kapag hindi mo hinahanap, nagpapakita".

what also surfaced here is the character of the teams. jeck gave up on the wall climbing challenge can be an indication that she is not fully committed to the race. the temper of team mag-ama and team chefs are starting to manifest as well, which can harm them further in the race. i liked the positive attitude of team mr. pogi even after the u-turn.

i am really looking forward to the next leg and they will be moving to a new timeslot during weekdays at 9pm. this will be a better timeslot for me since I do not have to hurry home after work.

videos are from the Amazing Race Philippines YouTube channel

marlisa punzalan is named the winner of x factor australia 2014

after rose fostanes won x factor israel, another filipina captured the x factor title not in the philippines but in australia. 15 year old marliza punzalan, who was mentored by ronan keating, was named the winner of the x factor australia 2014.

she bested dean ray (who place 2nd) and the wild card group brothers 3 (who placed 3rd) in a nation wide voting that was decided in the slimmest of margins. according to the host, this is the closest race in x factor australia history.

marlisa came a long way from her first audition as a shy girl that sang "yesterday" to a great performer. i really think that she did not have a weak performance in the competiotion and she only landed in the bottom 2 once, which was during the top 4 semifinals week.

here is marlisa's winning moment:

marlisa's winner's single, "stand by you" is now available in itunes. here is marlisa performing the song during the grand finals performance show:

hoping that marlisa's career will take off from here and hope she visits the philippines soon!

videos are from J1MZO7's YouTube channel and image is from X Factor Australia Facebook page

terence romeo makes waves in fiba 3x3 world tour

pro-basketball player terence bill romeo made waves in the recently concluded fiba 3x3 world tour championship in tokyo, japan. romeo was part of the manila west team with rey guevarra, kaldrech ramos and kg canaleta that qualified by topping the manila leg of the qualifiers.

despite being one of the smallest players in the tournament, romeo was able to make a mark with his ankle breaking move and steady shooting. here is a feature on romeo posted in the 3x3 planet youtube site :

romeo was also in 2 of the 5 top plays of the tournament. he got the number 5 and number 2 play in this video in the same youtube channel :

despite winning only 1 game in the tokyo finals, manila west ranked 5th in the final ranking. this is a good placing considering the fact that the team was only formed a few months before and this is their first world championship. after the tournament, romeo's world ranking rose from number 150 to 64. hope he continues to participate in 3x3 tournaments to further boost his rankings.

the amazing race philippines season 2 first leg review

the second season of the amazing race philippines kicked off last week with a very eventful first leg. the race started with all eleven teams (meet the eleven teams here) started the race at the baluarte de san diego in the famous intramuros, manila.

the teams got their first clue which instructed them them to go to the sm aura office tower in bonifacio global city, taguig. it was then a mad scramble to get taxis to sm aura. upon arrival at sm aura, they encountered their first roadblock. one of the team members needs to rapel face first down the sm aura office tower.

in this roadblock, the chefs made a critical mistake when chef roch went down the tower without getting the number. thus, chef eji have to go down to fetch her and up again. this made them go from top 5 (i think number 3) to number 9. most of the teams easily finished the task.

once they completed the task, they received the next route info which instructed them to go the imperial ice bar in fort strip, still inside the bonifacio global city. this is just a kilometer away from the sm aura. once there, the teams needs to go inside the frozen bar and figure out a word puzzle. they need to form words from letters inside an ice cube without any clues.

this mental challenge proved to be hard for the teams. they only have 30 minutes per turn and only 3 teams are allowed inside. if their time runs out, they will again go the end of the line. almost all teams failed to get the word on their first try. then some teams took the time waiting to strategize. team sexy besties befriended team nerds since they knew that they are smart. they lent them their jackets for the answer to the puzzle. but it was not the nerds that answered the puzzle first, it was team magkapatid who got the words "stock exchange". after that, the answer was passed on from one team to the other except for the team mr. pogi (who peked at another team's answer and eventually figured it out) and team blondies. the blondes were the last team out and was able to decode it by themselves.

the teams were then instructed to go to the philippine stock exchange in makati where another mental puzzle awaits them. they were given a series of codes and they needed to find the equivalent letters from the trading board. it was a hard puzzle for all of them but the team nerds succeeded to decode it as "find green coat at fountain" which means they need to find the girl in a green coat at the fountain in front of the building.

the girl in the green coat then hands them their next clue which instructed teams to go to the university of makati where they need to change to running gear and battle the next team head to head in a 100m sprint. the team that wins gets the clue and the team that loses battles the next team. the first match was between team nerds and team magkapatid. it was jet who finished first but the nerds both beat yna, making the nerds win. it was the same case in the next round when team magkapatid went against team magama. on their 3rd attempt, team magkapatid begged pinay world champs to make them win. surprisingly, they agreed and let team magkapatid beat them. they were next up against team travel buddies which they easily beat. the team travel buddies encountered a series of losses until they are the last team left. as a consequence, they need to complete 1 lap around the 400m oval track before they receive their next clue.

the teams then encountered their first detour : serve or souffle. in serve, they need to get 8 orders and serve them correctly in a japanese restaurant; in souffle, they need to cook a perfect souffle. all teams decided to do serve, which proved very difficult as well. the food they got to serve was really difficult to memorize and was really not common japanese food. but most of the teams finished it quickly.

it was already raining hard when teams next reached the newport performing arts theater at the resorts world manila in pasay. here, the teams need to perform a dance routine from priscilla: queen of the desert and satisfy the judges before they receive their next clue. they have to dress up and puttheir own make up and learn the dance moves. most of the first teams' first attempt was rejected by the judges but it was team mag-ama who argued the most, jody even shouting at his dad. some of the teams that performed well were team mr. pogi, team sexy besties and team blondies.

the teams then headed to the first pit stop at the manila post office. despite the floods and the heavy rains, teams was able to reach the pit stop. it was team nerds who placed first and won the express pass. the standings after the first leg was:

1st - team nerds
2nd - team magkapatid
3rd - team dating couple
4th - team pinay world champs
5th - team mag-ama
6th - team mr. pogi
7th - team chefs
8th - team blondies
9th - team juan direction
10th - team sexy besties
11th - team travel buddies

team travel buddies is the first team eliminated this season. what hurt them the most was the sprint challenge in umak. from 5th place, they went down to last and never really recovered.

this leg was a big improvement from the last season. eventhough there is an episode everyday, there was a new challenge everyday which the viewers looked forward too. last season, episodes were cut in between challenges and that was quite disappointing. this is a jampacked leg as well, having 6 challenges in a span of 12 hours is quite draining for the racers.

the challenges themselves were not easy. from physical, to mental, to sports, to performing; this leg have it. and the challenges were quite unique. except for the rapel challenge in sm aura, for an amazing race fan like me who watched all the seasons of the us version, none of the other challenges were copied from their us counterpart. kudos to the creative team!

some of the teams made a good impression on me in this leg. i was really impressed by the team nerds, finishing first over the more physically fit teams is an accomplishment. hope they put the express pass into good use. team blondies also made their mark by bouncing back from the last place finish in the first 2 challenges. team chefs and team magkapatid both have a very good and friendly vibe in them and i like their attitude in the race. team sexy besties is proving to be very strategic and innovative by using their charms.

team dating couple could be a force to reckon with if they can get their act together and not work hastily. the competitive side of the athletes team mag-ama and team pinay world champs can cause a lot of arguments with in their own teams. i think the one teams that is flying low key right now are team mr. pogi and team juan direction. they are both strong teams but they are currently in the middle of the pack. hope they get their groove and race to the top of the leaderboard soon.

i also like the fact that the teams are live tweeting the episode and are replying to the tweets of the fans. it makes the fan feel that they are part of the race.

my only problem is that the timeslot is quite early. i am coming out of work at 6pm and i have to rush home everyday just to catch it at 7pm. hope they can move it to a later timeslot.

as a whole, i am very satisfied with the first leg. looking forward to the next legs of the race!

 photos are from margie natividad's twitter page

daniel caluag of bmx cycling gives philippines its first gold medal

london olympian daniel caluag gave the philippines its first gold medal in the 2014 asian games in incheon, south korea.

caluag dominated the bmx cycling event by topping all three moto races in the event. in moto 1, he clocked 35.27sec. in moto 2 his time was 35.36 and finished the 3rd and last race at 35.43sec.

the newly registered nurse in the united states and was also a new father a week before he left for the games, caluag was really expected to win the gold medal despite his lack of uci accredited races.

the silver medal went to a japaneses rider and the bronze medal went to china.

daniel's younger brother, cj caluag just missed a podium finish and settled for 4th place.

with caluag's win, the philippine national anthem was heard in the incheon games for the first time. we are really praying that this will not be the last time, with only the boxers, taekwondo jins and the karatekas left to contend for the gold medals.

until the end, i know that the filipino spirit will remain fighting. laban pilipinas!

pics are from the following:
http://sports.inquirer.net/165314/caluag-ends-ph-gold-drought
https://twitter.com/francistjochoa (special thanks to mr. francis ochoa for allowing me to use his picture)