Mau Marcelo- A Philippine Idol Cinderella Story

A fairy tale ending to a provincial lass who has struggled most of her life to enter the music industry and make a name for herself. Mau Marcelo, the First Philippine Idol beat city boys, Jan Nieto and Gian Magdangal. As soon as Ryan Agoncillo announced Mau’s name, the audience cheered and gave a standing ovation. Mau was beyond disbelief and her knees buckled over as she teared over the announcement.

The Idol concept has always been geared to the srtuggling and talented artist. Mau fits the concept of an Idol who gathered more than two hundred trophies later,but has not really made a career out of her talents. The Philippine Idol is the break she needs. Mau deserves to win this title. There must have been fans out there generous enough to pool resources to ensure she got votes. It was a close fight for all three. Imagine Mau won by a mere 1.42% . The more detailed info was that the winner had gotten 36.26 percent of the text-votes, the runner-up garnered 33.84 percent, and the third placer got a still respectable 30.90 percent.This also means that the other two finalists were deserving of the Philippine Idol title. That’s why I had no finalist in particular during the Results Night. Mau wins one million pesos plus a recording contract with BMG-Sony and management contract with FremantleMedia who developed the highly-successful American Idol reality singing competition. That’s quite a boost to her financial situation.

Mau winning the Philippine Idol competition could bring in mass appeal which might bring in high financial returns to any recording contract . It reminds me of Nora Aunor who had the talent but limited financial capability. This petite woman appealed to the masses. Mau will surely drive her own appeal with this big break. Let’s just hope Mau learns to have more self-esteem with this title.

A few hours before the show, my husband and I talked who might be the Philippine Idol. I said that if were were to follow the concept of the Idol reality TV show, the winner should be a nobody struggling to make it. I believed Mau was it but feared the votes were not enough. Not that Gian or Jan were undeserving struggling artists. Compared to Mau, Gian and jan led a better off economic existence. So yes, Mau is truly a Philippine Idol, one that the public can look up to, a role model for any struggling singer.

Results on Asian Idol Results

Hady Mirza's win came as a surprise, as at least three of the judges predicted that the winner would either be Mau Marcelo, Mike Mohede, or Jacklyn Victor.

There were claims that Hady may have gotten the crucial second vote outside of his home country, wherein it is claimed that votes for strong candidates were paired with weak ones like Hady and Sawant who were trailing in Asian Idol's online survey. This voting tactic was said to avoid viewers' home Idols be beaten by their closest rivals.

In Singapore, the victory stirred hopes of a revival of the country's golden age of music during the 1960's and 70's. Taufik Batisah, first season winner of Singapore Idol, said that the win is something their country should be proud of and hopefully this would "open the eyes and ears" of listeners. However, there were viewers in Singapore who still doubt Hady's singing ability, claiming that his performance in Asian Idol was not as strong as other competitors and it was a matter of "luck over talent". Singapore Idol judge Ken Lim reiterated that "looks and voice" had won the title for Hady.

Meanwhile, Hady shrugged off speculations that he won because he was a "non-threat", but considered himself an underdog and that he did "pretty well" in terms of sincerity and connecting with the audience.

Filipino TV and movie critic Nestor U. Torre mentioned that he was not surprised about Hady's win, even lauding him for his "impressively cool yet dynamic" performances. He also appreciated Victor and Phuong Vy's performances. While Torre was also equally impressed by Marcelo and Mohede's voices, he also said that their girth worked to their disadvantage. On Sawant, Torre noted that his "balladeer" projection was "less dynamic" with his country's large voting population failing him. Despite the surprises and disappointments in the competition, Torre regarded Asian Idol a success as it produced relatively new talents in the Asian and international music scene.

Asian Idol Participation

The first season was hosted by Amelia "Ata" Natasha and Daniel Mananta, both from Indonesian Idol, and Malaysian Idol's Soo Kui Jien.

Each participating country had its own system of determining its representative.

As a kickoff to Asian Idol, all six contestants were introduced through a special presentation called Road to Asian Idol on December 8, 2007. Meanwhile, fans of each contestant will be able to choose the song they want their Idol to perform before the Asian Idol performance show. The Idols performed two songs each—one in English and another in their native language.

In addition to the coverage of Asian Idol, RCTI ran a series of features called Asian Idol Extra between late November to mid-December 2007.

Every competing country sent a judge to serve as the contestants' critics, but comments from only three judges on each performer were shown due to time constraints.

Special guests in the Results Show included American Idol winner Taylor Hicks, Australian Idol winner Guy Sebastian, Indian Idol judge Alisha Chinai, and Vietnam Idol judge Siu Black. It also featured performances by Rivermaya, Peterpan, and Agnes Monica.

The production of Asian Idol was put up with the help of the production crew from Australian Idol.

Participation details

The table below lists the contenders in Asian Idol and the songs that each performed. It also lists the representative judges and the TV networks that participated in the show. Kazakhstan's franchise is also listed below because it was originally in the line-up of countries for the show. Gold background indicates the winner of the competition and the songs performed.

Asian Idol Franchise - Representative Idol - English song:

Indian Idol - Abhijeet Sawant - (Everything I Do) I Do It For You
Indonesian Idol - Mike Mohede - I Believe I Can Fly
Malaysian Idol - Jaclyn Victor - For Once in My Life
Philippine Idol - Mau Marcelo - Reach
Singapore Idol - Hady Mirza - Beautiful Day
Vietnam Idol - Phuong Vy - River Deep - Mountain High

Inside the Philippine Idol Finale Night at the Big Dome

The Philippine Idol Finale at the Big Dome , the Araneta Coliseum rocked!
Jan Nieto, Gian Carlo Magdangal and Mau Marcelo hug each other after their Finale number. After all these months of hard work , tears and laughter, it must be a relief for them to have reached this far.

It is a close fight for all three of them. Since Philippine Idol started, it was Gian whom I thought will be the First Philippine Idol . The Finale show revealed a lot. Though I have never really liked Jan Nieto from the start, he grew on me the last 3 shows, Tonight, I liked him because he showed so much energy in his songs. He definitely raised the bar for the finale. I will not be surprised if he wins the Philippine Idol title.

Before anything else, I was wondering why there were many vacant seats in the Araneta Coliseum. I thought all the tickets were out. Sadly, there were so many vacant seats at the upper boxes. The Philippine Idol fans were looking all over for tickets. So I am wondering, what happened to these empty seats?

As usual I didn’t get my reserved tickets because of some miscommunication. But thanks to Evelyn Joseph who recognized me and my husband at the gate. We got patron seats and got seated a few seats behind the jduges.

The sounds were terrible. In fact at the beginning I could barely hear the judges’ comments. The venue rocked with the cheering fans of Jan , Mau and Gian. The noisiest and most organized belonged to Jan Nieto. In blue and silver pompons, the fans rooted and yelled loudly.

The songs sang by the Top 3 were as follows:

1. Gian Magdangal: Impossible Dream, Volare, Flying Without Wings
3. Jan Nieto: My Love Will Always Be with You , Sway, Evergreen
3. Mau Marcelo: Love Takes Time To Heal, Balut, On My Own

And the winner for each round in my opinion are as follows:

First Round- Jan Nieto
Second Round- Jan Nieto
Third Round- Mau Marcelo

Philipine Idol Top 12 Finalists

1.Armarie Cruz, 27
2.Jellica Marie Mateo, 23
3.Cherry Ann “Apple” Chiu, 22
4.Paula Patricia Chavez, 23
5.Reymond Sajor, 27
6.Paul Andrae Ybañez, 26
7.Miguel Mendoza, 17
8.Jan Kurt Nieto, 24

with the wildcard winners

9.Kenneth Dingle , 23
10. Gian Magdangal, 24
11. Stephanie Lazaro, 27
12. Maureen Marcelo, 26