It's a back-to-back celebration for South Luzon as two contestants from Laguna -- Jeric Gonzales and Thea Tolentino -- were hailed as the grand winners of GMA's biggest and grandest artista search, "Protege: The Battle For The Big Artista Break," during its live finale held on Sunday at the GMA Network Studios.
Several years ago, I joined a feedback contest in one of the talk shows in the country. The question was, are stars made or born? I texted my answer / entry: "Actors are made. Stars are born. To be an actor, you need craftsmanship. To be a star, you need all the luck in the world." And, I won that contest and I got a bag from Khumbella. :)
Anyway, that statement I made is very relevant in the recent TV program I covered. Yesterday, TaDi was invited to the First Gala Night of PROTEGE: The Battle for the Big Artista Break of GMA Network! And I guess that statement above is something that the show's mentors need to balance well in able for their proteges survive and win this competition.
The search for the next big Kapuso stars officially begins as Protégé makes its highly-anticipated and star-studded premiere on Philippine television this Sunday, August 5. The first live gala night happens after IBilib on GMA's Sunday Grande block.
After several months of its intensive nationwide hunt, Protégé will finally unveil the coveted TOP 20 aspirants who will go head-to-head in the weekly elimination nights and outdo each other in hopes of winning over the judges' and the viewers' votes.
Protégé: The Battle For The Big Break’s very first grand champion Krizza Neri is finally reaping the rewards of her talent and hard work as she recently launched her first album!
Her self-titled album consists of 11 tracks including "The Good Daughter", a GMA TV series, theme song "Ba’t di ko ba nasabi?" It was produced by her Protégé mentor Aiza Seguerra and distributed by Universal Records.
We never run out of reality singing search programs. It's either there are too many talented Filipinos or this type of show is really a hit among us. Well, even the before the arrival of Reality TV, Pinoys are already followers of singing contests, not just on TV but on across all barangays in the country! :)
GMA was among the firsts to introduce reality singing search programs but for a while it took a back seat in this genre. 'But a few months back, it returned to the competition via PROTÉGÉ: The Battle for the Big Break.
PROTÉGÉ tapped 10 professional singers in the Philippines to look for their respective proteges and become mentors to them. A province was assigned to each singer. From three proteges per mentor, one remained to be his or her talent. And the final 10 stayed in a quarter where they prepared to compete for weekly live performances. Each week, one protege and mentor gets eliminated.
After weeks of live performances and nerve-wracking elimination nights, Krizza Neri of Cagayan de Oro (mentored by Aiza Seguerra, Lirah Bermudez of Iloilo (mentored by Janno Gibbs) and Lovely Embuscado of Davao (mentored by Jaya) are now headed for the Grand Finals of GMA’s hit reality singing search, PROTÉGÉ!
Following the elimination of Jensen Teñoso of Batangas (mentored by Claire de la Fuente) and Nomer Limatog, Jr. of Cebu (mentored by Rachel Ann Go and Arnel Pineda), the competition is now down to the Top 3 finalists who will compete to clinch the much coveted prizes in the program’s finale on December 18 to be held at the Centerstage of SM Mall of Asia.
