PHILIPPINES Win Big at Acer's Asia Pacific Predator League 2024

From a gamer spectator such as me, I always knew the Philippines would fare well in the recent regional competition, Acer's Predator League 2024. At the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City Philippines, fans flocked to this venue to watch DOTA 2 and Valorant country representatives (in Asia Pacific) as they battle it out to see who's best in this region.

There were over 26 world class teams who were raring to do their best in the 2 day event. The prelims was fun albeit being a bit uneasy for some teams because they had only one match to qualify for the next round. It certainly wasn't easy to adjust that fast but those who did took advantage of the format and won their respective rounds. It was also fun to also talk to the eSports athletes before they went into the actual match, here's some of them on video!

The international eSports teams also talked about their experience doing the tournament here in Manila. They did expect matches would be hard since some of them are Tier 1 franchise teams, and a lot of them wanted to experience what it feels like being in a match with them. Although some of them lost their matches, they learned a lot in the process and promise to be back with an even greater team soon.

Aside from that, executives from different regions went on to tell us how it's been actually very beneficial to run these events in their respective countries. To say the least, business has been good and they are planning to do the regional Predator League in Malaysia next year. They also want to do it bigger and better in the coming years as they find big value in knowing how name recall plays in the gaming industry and that's exactly why they're number 1 in the market!

PABLO was super good!

The Asia Pacific Predator League was also the best in entertainment. World class Filipino performers showed up and got us partying at the start, between games and in the finale. On day 1 alone, I got my dose of Valorant fare as Ylona Garcia who sang "Entertain Me" when NEON was launched as a character, oh how I love her! Aside from that, Urbanddub, Al James and Donny Pangilinan joined in the fun plus a full Valorant game with SB19 and other Acer influencers made the evening extra epic! Asia's Popstar Royalty Sarah Geronimo also ended the day with her performance, people were at awe! 

Day 2 had Josh Cullen, bands Sandwich and Spongecola, Pablo (who did a new single on stage) and KZ Tandingan give us the absolute best in Philippine talents, it was like a full blown concert with the games on the finale day.

And in the end, it was a sweet day for the Philippines as Team Secret won the Valorant championship and Blacklist International Rivalry won the DOTA2 championship. Both teams from the Philippines won 65,000 dollars and their own Predator Shield. Initially, BOOM Esports was actually favored to challenge Team Secret, but Japan's FAV Gaming surprised them all. They got 20,000 dollars together with Execration (for DOTA2), and BOOM Esports + Team Flash got 3rd Place with a 7,500 pot each. Team Aster and IHC Esports got the same for DOTA2. Intel MVP awards went to Jeremy “Jremy” Cabrera (for Valorant) and Marc Polo “Raven”Fausto (for DOTA2), getting a prize of 10,000 dollars too.

If you're up to it, some of the performances are already up on my TikTok account so just search @kumagcow there, and some of the country interviews were done live on my FB page (just search kumagcow) as it's all there!

 

#TEAMLOVE with BANINAY BAUTISTA and BONT BRYAN

People have definitely fascinated with the lives of Baninay Bautista and Bont Bryan Oropel on YouTube. With almost 4 Million subscribers on the platform, they've continued to delight the public and their subscribers especially those invested about their relationship. They're going to take it up a notch this year as they start a full on YouTube reality series called "TEAM LOVE: THE REALITY" premiering this April 1st on their respective YouTube channels.

As you may know, theirs ain't a perfect relationship. They've been on an off in different times, and you'll see this raw on the show. They will include several important people from their families, and also several celebrity friends (which they will divulge later). This event was attended by over 100 YouTubers, influencers, friends and family (and media people). 

We watched the first episode, and surely, it was so surprising that they didn't leave out the stressful fights and personal moments which might be very interesting for some.

We got to interview them before the screening and here's what transpired on video:

 

 

This will be 6 episodes that will be released in the consecutive Sundays after April 1st, so make sure you subscribe to their channels and see what's happening with TEAM LOVE in front and behind the scenes.

Kelvin Miranda and Ally Gonzales for "Gusto Kita"

If you haven't heard "Gusto Kita" sung by Kelvin Miranda and Ally Gonzales, I suggest you do so on Spotify and other streaming platforms. We had the opportunity to talk to them a few days ago in Tomas Morato, Quezon City. It turned out to be very romantic that some of the press were wondering... if there's something else between the two artists. Or are they just friends?

Here's our coverage on video:

 

Ally says "I'd like to thank Mr. Gino Padilla for the wonderful song that we were able to collaborate in. Kevin is such a good person, very much a gentleman. He's also very fun to talk to, and I'm just grateful to have been able to work with him. Originally we were just looking for the song where Kevin and I would be able to sing together. We all liked "Gusto Kita" and we tried to revise it a couple of times to fit what we wanted to do because this wasn't intended to be a duet. I'm still very young, I just turned 18. I remember the days when my Mom used to teach me how to sing. I was also able to train with Coach Keith Martin and his wife. I was put under the wing of Vehnee Saturno since I was around 13-14. I had difficulties maintaining my low notes and that's what I had to train hard for. I also have a voice coach in case I also needed to do more training because this is a continuing thing, I need to learn new songs almost every day. I don't compete with other singers, I compete with myself because I want to improve and become better. Self love is the key, because if I had that, I'll have confidence and I feel, it all starts with myself."   


Kelvin adds "The song was awesome, and it has recall. When I first heard it, I knew that it was a good opportunity to do our version of it. Ally is very sweet, I'm very happy that she's beginning to achieve her dreams in such a short amount of time. Ally already knows her music, her genre, I had the chance to choose this Filipino song in a long list we had for covers. I am really grateful to have been able to work with Ally on this single. In our group, we talked about what we need to do covers for, something that fit our personality, something that we can interpret and connect with. In this generation, any music is a little hard to sustain because people are looking for new things everyday. This is done differently, I realized how I wasn't listening much of OPM songs but this made me realize there's so much out there to listen to. Hopefully I could do both acting and singing, train for it, because I know experience is the best teacher. When there are opportunities, I don't want to pass on them especially when it's on GMA. This chance to partner up with different actresses, singers, it's part of how I could develop as an artist."

The version was something off a teen romance novel. It kinda makes you feel all fuzzy inside and wish you also had someone say the line to you. Again, "Gusto Kita" is available on Spotify and other streaming platforms. Their music video is also available at the GMA Music YouTube channel so go ahead, indulge on what could be a start of something big. I would want to see if this could start some new show, or series for them. I bet their respective fans would want to see that. This is under GMA Music and Universal Records Publishing.