Pinoy Dream Academy (season 2)
"Pinoy Dream Academy" is a Philippine television program similar to "Big Brother". The second season began on June 14, 2008. Nikki Gil and Toni Gonzaga reprised their roles as hosts of the show, but Gonzaga now handled the main hosting plum while Gil appeared both on the Probation Nights and Little Dreamers Gala/Expulsion Night. Billy Crawford joined this season as the host of the late afternoon edition "Pinoy Dream Academy Überture". A new logo was introduced on the second season, featuring an old-fashioned microphone and the word "Dream" using a different font than  the rest of the title. Also, a new version of the theme song "Awit ng Pangarap" sung by first season winner Yeng Constantino was used, although the original version was also used, especially during Gala Nights. Thirty-two potential scholars for the show were introduced with their backgrounds documented in a primer segment aired as part of "". They were also interviewed on the radio segment "Pinoy Dream Academy Dream Minute" on WRR 101.9. These thirty-two went through a primary elimination selection from which the final roster of scholars was chosen. These eliminations were aired as a series of episodes  called "The Dream BIGins" from June 9 to 13, 2008. New to this season was a "Little Dreamers" competition for children aged 6 to 10. On July 6, 2008, twelve children were chosen to become the Academy's resident Little Scholars. In this end, a new puppet named Billilit (portmanteau of "Billy" and "bulilit" or kid) joins the show as semi-host and Billy's sidekick on "Übertube" as far as any topic regarding this side competition is concerned. Scholars. From the thirty-two potential scholars, the primary eliminations saw the number dwindle to twenty-five. From that number, the  faculty re-examined the performances of the scholars to choose the final list of scholars who would enter the Academy. The final roster was announced one-by-one on the Grand Opening Night on June 14, 2008. Only fifteen were chosen and entered the Academy on that day; the sixteenth chosen scholar, Maria Consuelo Osorio, backed out of the competition and the slot left behind would be occupied by one of four "wait-listers" to be decided by the viewers. The "wait-lister" chosen to be the new sixteenth scholar would enter the Academy the next day. The chosen "wait -lister" was Ranjit "Jet" Singh with 51.70% of the overnight voting. The other three wait-listers Lamberto "Lambert" Reyes (currently known as "David Idol"), Catherine "Poy" Palma, and Hera "Banig" Redoblado got 20.16%, 17.46%, and 10.68% of the votes respectively. Palma later entered the Academy as an honorary scholar. Her assignment as the honorary scholar was to try to become a Star Scholar in the Gala Performance Nights. In each time she successfully achieved her goal and become the Star Scholar of the week, she would earn P50,000, which would be deducted from the total cash pool reserved for the  Top Three Scholars at the end of the season. If she would become the Star Scholar for three weeks (not necessarily consecutive), she had the option of leaving the Academy and taking home the P150,000 she would accumulate or stay on as an official scholar, therefore forfeiting her winnings. Eventually, she left the Academy without becoming the Star Scholar. From the Seventh Gala Night onwards, being a Star Scholar entailed having a duet in ASAP with a celebrity a week after. Included dates are the dates when they performed in ASAP. On the last week, three scholars with very awkward -sounding surnames were given stage names by teacher Jose Javier Reyes. Van and Laarni each had several letters of their surnames changed while Bugoy obtained his based on his mother's maiden name. On the Pinoy Dream Academy Season 2 Grand Dream Night, the Awards Night, Laarni Lozada was awarded the title Grand Star Dreamer. Bugoy Drilon was the 2nd Star Dreamer while Miguel Mendoza became the 3rd Star Dreamer. Liezel Garcia, Van Roxas and Cris Pastor were the Top 4, 5 and 6 Finalists of the Academy, respectively. Laarni Losala a. k. a. Laarni Lozada (22, working student from  Sultan Kudarat) "Face-Off Performances" "ASAP Performances" Jay Drilon Bogayan a. k. a. Bugoy Drilon (18, canteen janitor and farm hand from Camarines Sur) "Face-Off Performances" "ASAP Performances" Miguel Mendoza (19, former "Philippine Idol" finalist from Muntinlupa) "ASAP Performance" Maria Liezel "Zhel" Garcia (23, OFW from Dubai, United Arab Emirates) "Face-Off Performances" "ASAP Performances" Van Louelle Pojas a. k. a. Van Roxas (18, Physical Therapy student and band vocalist from Cebu) "ASAP Performance" Cristina "Cris" Pastor (21, interior designer from Parañaque) "ASAP Performance" Hansen "Sen" Nichols (24, thyroid cancer survivor from Taguig City) Rafael Ignacio "Iñaki" Salvador-Ting  (18, stage performer from Pasig) Catherine "Poy" Palma (22, Registered Nurse from Zamboanga City; Academy Honorary Scholar) "Face-Off Performances" Jovannie "Bunny" Malunda (22, teacher and mother from Negros Oriental; Chivas' wife) Apple Abarquez (18, college student from Cebu) Christian Alvear (25, voice dubber, singer, and actor with a growth hormone deficiency from Taguig City) Beatriz "Bea" Muñoz (18, HRIM student from Muntinlupa; Miguel's girlfriend) Ranjit "Jet" Singh (26, former VJ and perennial reality show auditioner/contestant from Rizal) Michelle "Sheng" Belmonte (25, stand-up comic from Quezon City) Jun Ross Dio (25, band singer and stylist's son  from Quezon City) Chivas Anton Malunda (22, college student, father, and husband from Negros Oriental) Organizations. Unique to the season is the division of the scholars into two groups called "organizations" (sometimes shortened to "orgs"). The two orgs, Pupilars and One Voice, compete against each other in inter-org games wherein members of the losing org would do the domestic chores inside the Academy, such as maintenance and cooking, while members of the winning org will not only have no chores, they will also get to assist the teachers and mentors during classes. The orgs each have a weekly budget  of P500 per member. During the gala nights, points are scored for each student as usual. Then, the scores for each of an org's members are totaled and the average is obtained. An average score of 7.5 should be obtained for the org to have a new budget for the week. The org's budget is used for any additional expenses as the Academy provides them with basic necessities every week. Initial members of Pupilars are Chivas, Van, Sen, Bugoy, Cris, Zhel and Sheng. Initial members of One Voice are Bunny, Apple, Bea, Miguel, Iñaki, Ross, Christian and Laarni . As Jet entered the academy, he was given a chance to choose his organization and he chose One Voice. Because of the odd number of initial scholars in the Academy and the subsequent decision by the last scholar to enter, there was an uneven distribution of scholars in the two orgs. Bunny was the first scholar to change orgs. With One Voice's win, they have to give away one member of their org and chose Bunny to go to Pupilars to reunite with her husband, Chivas. Laarni was the second scholar moved from One Voice to Pupilars as a  result of One Voice losing a challenge and Laarni volunteering to do the consequence. The final change in orgs happened when One Voice won an inter-org competition and had an option to swap a team member with a member of the other org. One Voice chose Zhel from Pupilars in exchange for Apple of their own org. On July 9, 2008, Mr. Ryan Cayabyab officially announced that all scholars should work as one team/organization from that day onwards. As a new rule, the GPA of the scholars should be 7.0 or above to have their weekly budget. Because  of this, the two orgs merged into one: Acadreamians. Weekly Song Themes. Each week, the scholars will sing songs that fit a specific weekly theme. The dates shown are the dates of the Gala Nights. Jurors. Resident Jurors Guest Jurors Grades. The grades shown below are the grades of the scholars from the 1st Gala Night to the 10th Gala Night. For the 10th Gala Night, the scholars will be graded not only by the set of jurors but also by their mentors, Media Performance mentor Joey Reyes, Over-all Voice mentor Kitchy Molina and Headmaster Ryan Cayabyab. It should  also be noted that the 10th Gala Night is the last time the jurors will be giving a grade to the scholars. Grades for first 3 weeks of scholars with YELLOW bar beside their name are counted for Pupilar's GPA. Grades for first 3 weeks of scholars with BLUE bar beside their name are counted for One Voice's GPA. Grades for the remaining weeks of scholars with GREEN bar beside their name are counted for Acadreamians' GPA. Laarni's 1st grade is counted for One Voice's GPA while 2nd and 3rd grades are counted for Pupilar's  GPA. Grades in RED indicate that the scholar is on probationary status. Grades in DARK GREEN indicate that the contestant was the Star Scholar of the week. Grades in YELLOW GREEN indicate that the scholar received the highest grade for the week, but was not the Star Scholar. Grades highlighted in BLACK indicate that the scholar's grade was not counted for the organization's grade and their average grade. Organizations' Average Grades. Black numbers indicate that the organization obtained its budget for the next week; red ones mean that the organization failed to win its weekly budget. For the  first three weeks, each organization had to get a GPA of 7.50 or higher to have a weekly budget. Starting week 4, the organizations were dissolved and all scholars now belong to one org. The org should get a GPA of 7.00 or higher to have a weekly budget. Expulsion Nights Elimination Chart. For this season, the voting procedure has been altered. Among the bottom four scholars, the mentors will save one. Among the remaining three scholars during the first probationary night, the other scholars will vote for who they want to save. The scholar with the highest votes from  his/her peers will be saved. In case of ties, the vote of the scholar saved by the mentors will be counted twice. The last two scholars will be up for public voting, and hence be the probationary scholars of the week. By the next gala performance night, the scholar with the higher number of public votes will be saved. In the second probationary night, the other scholars would vote from the three remaining probationary scholars on who they want to stay as a probationary student. The one with the "lowest" number of votes is saved from being subjected to  viewer's votes. In the 7th Gala Night, instead of a bottom four, there was a bottom five to accommodate for the losers in the face-offs while in the 10th Gala Night, there was a bottom two due to the discontinuation of saving processes of by the mentors and their fellow scholars, respectively. Finale Weekend. On September 13 and 14, 2008, the two-day finale, known as the "Grand Dream Nights," were held in the Cuneta Astrodome in Pasay. The first night, known as the Performance Night, showed the final performances of the Top 6 Scholars, overseen by both  the mentors and the resident judges. Unlike the past Gala Nights, however, the performances were only for the appeal for votes. This show also saw performances from the hosts and the other scholars who left the Academy (Honorary Scholar Poy Palma was present and was with the other scholars, but Ross Dio and Jet Singh were absent). The next night, dubbed the Awards Night, Vina Morales and Wency Cornejo performed with the scholars (again including Poy and excluding Jet and Ross) in their opening number. The show also included an early Christmas number by the show's Little Dreamers and  several children from Childhope Asia Philippines, as well as a song and dance performance from Billy Crawford and the female mainstays of the upcoming comedy show "Banana Split". Among the Top 6 Scholars, Bugoy Drilon, Laarni Lozada, and Miguel Mendoza were declared the Top Three. Of the Three, Laarni was declared the winner. She takes home a condominium unit, a business package from Crystal Clear worth P1,500,000, appliances, Sony products and P1,000,000 cash. Bugoy declared the first runner-up and received P500,000 including products from Sony and Whirlpool, while Miguel declared the second runner-up and received P300,000 including products  from Sony and Whirlpool. All votes were gathered from the start of the open voting from the night of August 30 to 2:00 pm of September 14. This table shows the summary of votes as obtained by each of the Top 6 Scholars in the Awards Night. Little Dreamers. The Little Dreamers competition was started on July 6, 2008, for children who are six to ten years old. Twelve children were chosen to compete in this side competition, taking place within the duration of this season. Understandably, they do not stay at the Academy due to regular schooling on weekdays , entering it during weekends to have voice lessons from the Voice Mentors.