Pinoy Survivor

Pinoy Survivors starts in a few days, and I thought now would be a good time to write about my failed attempt at joining when they held the audition last May. Ok... ok... so I got lazy busy last May--it was my birth month after all. Better late than never right?

Anyway, I went on a Wednesday at SM North EDSA after work. I got there around 6pm and I was astounded by the number of people queuing for it.

If you've never been to SM North, that's the line to the food court. That line reaches the end of that block and continues to the front entrance and each line was 4 person thick!


And that was only to secure an application form!


This is the next stage, hundreds of people waiting to be pre-screened.

At this point, I've decided that Pinoy Survivor is not for me. I decided to act all reporter-y and snoop around instead. Wearing a dark coat, a small bag by my side and camera in hand I actually got mistaken for a reporter.

They are then asked questions and have their forms reviewed, if they pass this part, they then proceed to the interview portion. There was about 7 in each group, only 1 or 2 proceeds to the next part from those 7, and sometimes none at all.

A person who got knocked out after the pre-screening actually approached me to tell his tale.

Aspirant: "It's too bad, I think I almost made it. I just didn't want to be the odd man out so I repeated their answers."
Me: "So what happened?"
A: "We all got booted out."
M: "What was the question anyway? "
A: "If you knew you'd be the next to be voted off, what would you do?"
M: "What did you say?"
A: "What the others did--I will give them the food and beg them to let me stay."

Obviously, he never watched Survivor. He assured me though that he will come back the next day and try again. Entertained, I tried to give him a friendly advice, I said next time try framing somebody up.

Now if you managed to get in to the next round, you get to line up some more. Just look at her number, 10352?!! There must've been at least 50,000 who came in just that day!


"So why should we pick you?" "Because I'm a Pinay, and I want to show the world that Pinays are strong and are no push0ver yada yada yada..."

So how long did they fall in line? The lady in wearing the striped blue shirt said she's been in line since 8am. Whoa! 8am? I took this photo at a few minutes before 6:30pm and she'd not even being pre-screened yet! The guy (yes, that's a guy) behind her got in just a mere 5 minutes later. I got to talk to them again later on, they managed to get themselves to the next round.

And after all that, skipping work, forgetting lunch and dinner, risking UTI, (urinary track infection) there's a huge chance that you still won't get picked. They're only looking for 16 castaways after all. I guess if you can't survive standing in line the whole day, forget the island.

After seeing the effort these hopefuls put into it, I guess the least I can do is watch the pilot. If you were as moved as I am, the show starts on Monday at GMA 7. I just hope JC does Pinoy Survior recaps.