September 15, 2008

The first season of Survivor Philippines premiered on September 15, 2008, and ended its run on December 14 of the same year. Auditions for this season were held in six Philippine cities in May 2008. From these auditions, 18 contestants were selected to participate on the show in June 2008. The show was shot in Ko Tarutao, the same island where Survivor: Thailand took place, from July to August, 2008. The names of the tribes were derived from the Thai language: Naak, Jarakay and Chalam, meaning snake, crocodile and shark respectively. The tribes were initially divided by gender, with Jarakay composed of the nine male contestants, and Naak of the females. On Day 19, the two tribes were merged into Chalam, composed of the ten remaining castaways. The season was won by John Carlo "JC" Tiuseco, defeating Robert Vincent "Rob" Sy, 7-2, with the seventh vote resulting from him winning the popularity vote mentioned above. JC's win was already leaked months earlier after a showbiz-oriented website published the alleged results of the Final Tribal Council on October 2008 after two of the show's staff were overheard in a coffee shop about the show's outcome. Bediones labeled that website's report as a spoiler and insisted that only the program manager knew the identity of the winner, as the results would be revealed live on its finale.

August 17, 2009

Survivor Philippines: Palau is the second season of the Philippine version of the reality television series Survivor. The show started airing on August 17, 2009 on GMA Network. Auditions were held in key cities in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The winner will receive ₱3,000,000, the largest ever cash prize in the history of Philippine reality game shows, and the title Pinoy Sole Survivor. Paolo Bediones returned as the host of the show. Reports of the season being shot in Palau were leaked by local media in the said country when its president, Johnson Toribiong, reversed an order which required members of the Philippine crew to pay US$500 each, saying that the fee was discriminatory and his actions were the result for his desire to promote tourism in his country. The show later confirmed the reports and the location on its blog on July 26, 2009, further elaborating that the season would take place in the island of Peleliu, located southwest of Koror, where Survivor: Palau and Survivor: Micronesia took place. The tribes for this season, initial tribes Airai and Koror and the merged tribe Sonsorol, are named after three of the sixteen states that make up Palau, along with Peleliu. Interestingly, both names of the initial tribes are also tribe names previously used in the US version: "Koror" in Survivor: Palau and "Airai" in Survivor: Micronesia.