Complacency Has No Place In Philippine Idol

This post was delayed for two days. Yes, I must admit, I was lost for words.

The contestant who was tagged by Ryan Cayabyab as the best performer during last Saturday's Soul Night was one of two who were eliminated yesterday! Drae Ybanez, along with Fil-Aussie Stephanie Lazaro, got the boot.

Shockwaves rippled through the Net with fans complaining on the results, pointing the blame on anything from the lenient judges who complemented bad performers (and making underdogs out of them), to the power-voting relatives of certain contestants.

Personally, I have no problem with relatives voting for their anak, pamangkin, or pinsan, just as long as they buy all of his or her album and make it platinum records.

In my opinion, two male contestants should not have been in the Top 24 in the first place. Put sensational Yova Alonzo instead of mediocre Jan, and place jazzy Emman Omaga instead of immature Miguel Mendoza, and we would have had a very good competition.

Anyway, enough of the grunting and the complaining. This just proves that COMPLACENCY HAS NO PLACE IN PHILIPPINE IDOL. If you want your bets to stay in the competition, vote more, more, and more. If we have to spend hundreds, even thousands, of pesos just to outvote those candidates with so-called "relative support," then we should.

In addition, here are my suggestions to the good staff of Philippine Idol:

* Ban the phrase "I hope to see you next week."

* Have the judges criticize ALL performers. Make them look at the tiniest of errors just like what they do in Indonesian Idol, and eventually making all contenders underdogs. And you know in our culture, we love underdogs. Besides, the finalists need that criticism for them to grow as an artist.

* And finally, have Rich Ilustre glue his butt at the director's chair.

Anyway, I am currently transferring the Idol Radio to a new site, including Drae's performance of "You're Not A Young Man Anymore." I apologize for the inconvenience.