The Pinoy Dream Academy

With its success on its season one edition where Yeng Constantino was declared as the Grand Star Winner, ABS-CBN launches its Season 2 Edition of the Pinoy Dream Academy last June 14, 2008. It is hosted by Nikki Gil and Toni Gonzaga and Billy Crawford will be hosting its late afternoon edition Pinoy Dream Academy Overture.
And last July 6, 2008, a new edition was open for children ages 6-10 for this season “Little Dreamers”. Only twelve children were chosen to become the Academy’s Resident Scholar.
The thirty-two potential scholars were first introduce with their background documented as part of the Pinoy Big Brother Teen Edition Plus. They then went through a primary elimination to select the final roster of scholars.
The elimination begins last June 9 to 13, 2008 and was aired as “Dream Begins” episode. From thirty-two potential scholars it went down to twenty-five after the primary eliminations.
The final lists of resident scholars were announced last June 14, 2008 on its Grand Opening Night. Only sixteen scholars will enter the Academy. One of the finalists, Maria Consuelo Osorio backed out the competition and the slot was given to one of the four wait-listers that was chosen by the viewers through text after 24 hours.
Jet Singh top the four with 51% votes, while Lambert Reyes, Poy Palma and Hera Baring got 20.16%, 17.46% and 10.68% of the votes respectively.
Poy Palma was also chosen to become an honorary scholar and enter the Academy to challenge the Head Master’s list in becoming the Top scholar in every gala night. Every time she won she will be earning 50,000 pesos that will be deducted in the Three Grand Prize winners’ total prizes.
If she will be the top scholar for three times, not necessarily consecutive, she will win 150,000 pesos or a chance to stay inside the house as an official scholar forfeiting her cash prize but can be able to grab the chance of becoming the Grand Star winner in the end of the Season.
The Sixteen Scholars who survive the elimination and got the chance to stay in the Academy were: Apple Abarquez, of Cebu City, Bugoy Bugayan of Camarines Sur, Liezel Garcia OFW in Dubai UAE, Laarni Losala of Sultan Kudarat, Bunny Mulanda of Negros Oriental, Miguel Mendoza of Muntinlupa, Bea Muňoz of Muntinlupa and the girlfriend of Miguel, Jet Singh from Rizal, sheng Belmonte from Quezon City, Jun Ross Dio of Quezon city and Chivas Malunda from Negros Oriental and the husband of Bunny.
The Academy’s faculty includes Mr. Ryan Cayabyab as the Headmaster, Jose Javier Reyes as Media Performance Mentor, Kitchy Molina as Over-all Voice Mentor, Monet Silvestre as the Academy-in-charge with Lindy and Anna, Von Arroyo as Diction and Speech Mentor, and the Dance Mentors, Nesh, Sherwin and Georcelle Dapat.
Every Gala night will be judge by the Resident Jurors Mr. Gerard Salonga and Mr. Louie Ocampo and different guest jurors in every weeks competitions. They will judge every performance of the scholar. The Star Scholar will also be chosen on the same night and four scholars having the lowest grade will be in the bottom list of four.
One of the four will be saved by the mentors and another one from the three will be saved by their co-scholars. The two remaining will be the week’s probationary scholar and will be saved by the viewer’s text votes or SMS. The probationary scholar who will get the highest percentage of text vote on the next Gala nights will be retained in the Academy.
The scholar should not be nominated for more than three times and if happen will receive an expulsion.
The scholars were group into two divisions or organization which they shortened into orgs, The Pupilars and One Voice. Each member of the org will receive P500 as their weekly budget. The budget could only be obtained if they will get a total average score of 7.5 during the gala night. The scholars will be grade according to each of their performance and each member’s score will be totaled to obtain the average. The scholars are provided with their daily basic necessities and the orgs budget will be use for their additional expenses.
Initial members of The Pupilars were Van, Sen, Bugoy, Chevas, Chris, Liezel and Cheng and One Voice are compose of Bea, Miguel, Bunny, Christian, Apple, Laarne, Iňaki and Ross. Jet that is the last to enter the house was given a chance to choose his group from which he chose One Voice. The Odd number of the Scholars and Jet’s decision to enter One Voice, there was uneven number of members. One Voice wins a challenge and has to give up one member to transfer to the other group. They chose Bunny to transfer to reunite with his husband Chevas. Laarne also volunteered to move to The Pupilars as consequences after losing challenge. The final changing happened when One Voice chose Liezel as exchange of Apple after winning an inter-org competition and has the chance to swap one member from the other.
But later on July 9, 2008, Mr. Ryan Cayabyab has officially announced that all scholars should work as one org or team from that day onwards and should have the GPA of 7.0 or above to obtain their weekly budget as a new rule. The two groups then merged as one and now called as the “Academians”.
Chevas was the first to have a voluntary exit due to health conditions that was brought to the hospital twice with her wife Bunny who is now also having a cyst in her throat. Ross also decided to go out the Academy not handling the pressure inside the Academy. Sheng and Jet were evicted in two different weeks followed by Bea who also got his fourth nomination during her eviction and followed by Christian that completes the Academy’s Master List of Ten.
The Master List of Ten was Liezel, Apple, Miguel, Cris, Van, Sen, Laarne, Bugoy, Iňaki and Bunny. Added as a twist was the announcement for Poy to enter the house to challenge the scholars on every gala night performance. She also chose one scholar to compete her in a one song number on the same night.
At the end of the Season, five scholars will be left to compete for the grand prize of a cash prize, a condominium unit a recording and contract and much more bigger prizes to be won plus a chance to be chosen as the Season II Grand Star Dreamer.
Pinoy Dream Academy with its tagline “Ang drama sa likod ng pangarap” or “Drama behind the dreams” will not only build the dream of every scholar but also help them reach for the star.