Cuneta Astrodome was indeed filled with tension tonight as the much awaited announcement of Pinoy Dream Academy Season 2’s Grand Star Dreamer has finally arrived. The Top Six Scholars were joined by their former co-Scholars, Vina Morales and Wency Cornejo to open the show with their rendition of Bon Jovi’s It’s My Life and the legendary group Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’.

Tonight, the Little Dreamers’ Little Dream Bigayan Project was also launched. In the spirit of Christmas, the Academy kids imparted a collection of Christmas songs as the former Scholars roamed around the dome in order to collect donations to be given to the kids’ charity—Childhope Asia Philippines.

Instead of jumping with joy after hearing of the supposed good news, Jet couldn’t help but fall into his sea of sadness upon returning to the Academy. According to him, he was very expectant that he will be the one leaving the Academy tonight, and he believed that his family felt the same way.

With much excitement, he even started to pack his things early on, so that he could leave as early as possible upon hearing of his exit. But upon hearing the public’s decision, he couldn’t help but tell his co-Scholars that Sheng needed his position more than he does.

According to him, the source of his eagerness to leave the Academy is primarily his family. He kept on saying that his family needed financial support—his financial support for that matter–something that he couldn’t provide them while staying inside the Academy.

His dilemma, on the other hand, was that he couldn’t be firm with his decision to give up because he was somehow concerned that this move may disappoint his supporters. Aside from that, he also admitted that doesn’t want to be labeled a quitter.

Since Jet seemed to be problematic, Teacher Monet and Headmaster Ryan Cayabyab decided to comfort him. Direk Joey was also invited to join them, but he declined. His last words before actually walking out the Academy door expressed great displease on what was happening.

Inside the boys’ room, the two Mentors made their way towards Jet. Headmaster Ryan did most of the talking. He tried his best to get Jet out of his overwhelming emotion.

The Third Gala Night’s theme deals with friendship. And based on the performances that the Scholars put on stage, it seemed as if they really value friendship to the extent that they were able to push through a good show inspired by the people they consider their best friends.

The infamous resident juror, Gerard Salonga, was back on the scene together with his co-resident juror Louie Ocampo and another guest juror, Rachelle Anne Go. As all may know, Gerard Salonga became very well-known for his harsh and tactless comments last Saturday on the Scholars’ Second Gala Performance Night. Surprisingly, Christian somehow broke the curse after he received a good comment for his effort to keep with the melody’s pace—it was definitely the first positive feedback from the notorious critic. Same went with Van’s performance. Aside from the good comment, Gerard Salonga even added that the Van has a very impressive star quality.

Among the bunch of performers, Liezel, Christian, and Van stood out as they fill in the spots for the Top Three performers of the night. And for the third time in a row, Liezel earned the Star Scholar of the Week title. It would also be her third time to fulfill the small dream of a close family member, this time it will be a rechargeable toy car for her little brother.

And while Liezel was on a happy mode, Sheng, on the other hand, received a bad news. Text votes have it, Sheng is officially expelled from the Academy. With a total score of 51.7 percent, it was given that the public has decided that Jet should stay inside the Academy to pursue his Scholarship.

For their very first Diction Class with Teacher Von, the Scholars ran in a little late, but this didn’t hold the said Dream Mentor to do what he was supposed to, and that is to teach them proper diction. For starter, Teacher Von started with the proper pronunciation of vowels. According to him, this is where singers usually commit mistakes, so one by one, he asked them to sing the vowels, and he insisted to do so, until all pronounced the said set of letters correctly.

As for his next class activity, he asked all the Scholars to write five words for each vowel. After the writing activity, they were asked to sing it in front of the classmates. Among all the Scholars, Laarni seemed to have the strangest choice of words. As Teacher Von said it himself, Laarni’s choice of words are classified to be “very inappropriate.”

Speaking of writing, Headmaster Ryan Cayabyab showed the Scholars his new composition entitled Another Goodbye Song. According to him, he personally composed the said song for them. One by one, he asked the Scholars to sing it using different emotions to further explain his point on bringing life to a song with the use of emotions.

As for team Pupilars’ problem with Laarni, Cris finally decided to bring this to Laarni’s attention. Their supposed small talk, unfortunately, turned out to be a heating argument. Laarni wasn’t happy with the said confrontation. Unfortunately, Cris somehow lost her temper at some point. But despite the exchange of raised voices, they finally sorted things out on the table, and somehow settled it. Luckily for them, even with the bad experiences they were able to stumble into, their hard work earned them the Best Music Video award.

Today, the Scholars had a chance to meet the Little Dreamers in a party that they themselves set up. Each of them had a designated child to look after, based on the draw lots held earlier.

Friday is supposed to be a “no-talk” day for the Scholars, but having kids around them made the task of staying silent a hard one. As designated guardians of the kids, it is also part of their duty to teach the kids different singing techniques, based on the lessons they have learned from the Dream Mentors.

After calling it a night, the Scholars still couldn’t stop talking about their foster children. Cris, couldn’t help but be touched how sweet her “baby” was. She added that the child seemed to be getting too attached to her, to the extent that wherever she went, the kid was always behind her.

Some kids, on the other hand, seemed to portray a mini version of their custodians. Van couldn’t help but be amazed how he and his “child” are very much alike. Cris agreed with Van’s observation. According to her, both of them are playful, cheerful and nosy.

As for Bugoy and the kid under his care, the Scholars couldn’t help but see a resemblance on the two’s facial features. Liezel’s kid, on the other hand, seemed to have adopted her guardian’s Star Scholar aura.

Aside from the physical attributes, there are other types of similarities that they were able to encounter. Similarity in voice quality was what made Bunny and her “baby” pretty much alike. For Jet and his foster kid, on the other hand, the common denominator has to be Jet’s bad habit of looking upward while singing.

Though it was a long day for all of them, the Scholars claimed that being around with the kids somehow helped them overcome the stress and pressure of the upcoming Third Gala Performance Night.

When Laarni was still in team One Voice, members of Pupilars org were defensive of her. They kept on claiming that her former team was somehow being too hard on her. Her misery ended after the transfer. But unfortunately for team Pupilars, it seemed as if that theirs just started.

Team Pupilars claimed that they never had any troubles dealing with their members before, up until Laarni came in to join them. Even Cris, one of Laarni’s allies inside the Academy before, was starting to get annoyed of Laarni’s undesirable attitude.

Their conflict started when Laarni was chosen to direct their music video, wherein she had a little misunderstanding with Bunny. At some point of the activity, some of her teammates found her a little hot-headed, an attitude that they find very displeasing.

To further flare up the building dispute inside the org, another incident during a class activity yesterday made most of the members witness the ugly face of Laarni’s attitude. While they were in the middle of a song number practice, Bugoy couldn’t help but speak out his dismay towards Laarni. According to Bugoy, he didn’t like the way Laarni raised her voice at him. Due to the said event, Bugoy would have walked out if not for the plea of his other teammates.

Upon noticing this sudden change in Laarni’s attitude, most of its members couldn’t help but talk about it from time to time. Some assume that the more they treat Laarni nicely, the more she gets worse. One by one, issues on her were raised, including the petty ones.

After hearing of the other team’s problem, One Voice org couldn’t help but mock them and feel sorry for them at the same time.

Despite their tight schedule brought about by their music video making activity, the Scholars are up for another inter-org activity. But unlike their inter-org activities before that were mostly physical, tonight’s activity was more of a vocal training than a game. The title of the game is Tongue Twister Vocals.

As their teachers noticed, most Scholars have problems with enunciation, thus resulting to Teacher Von’s return inside the Academy. Aside from having the teacher back to correct their errors, tonight’s activity somehow dealt with the problem itself through a practical application. As stated by the name of the game itself, the participants have to vocalize while uttering tongue twisters displayed on the screen. The team with most numbers of correct phrase articulations while hitting the right notes within the span of thirty seconds wins.

To even up the teams, Bunny and Bugoy didn’t participate on the said activity, leaving the two teams with six members each. But at the end of the activity, the exempted Scholars also tried to challenge themselves with some tongue twisters just for fun. Bugoy obviously had a really hard time pronouncing the words, so his co-Scholars, and even Teacher Monet, couldn’t help but burst out with laughter.

Though enjoying the laugh trip of Bugoy’s attempt to perform the exercise, Teacher Monet didn’t escape the Scholars’ insistence to have him on the floor. He too tried to do one of the tongue twisters. And same with all the Scholars, it was indeed a challenge for him.

What consequence will it be this time? Will Pupilars be the working class for the third time in a row, or will they be handing over the chores to One Voice? Catch the results of the said inter-org activity tomorrow on Pinoy Dream Academy Season 2.

While holding a dumbbell with two hands as a form of punishment due to their loss over Pupilars on the Treadmill Singing Activity, Ross blurted out to his co-Scholars his decision to voluntarily move out.

It came as a great shocker for everyone, since they never thought Ross was really serious about it. According to Ross, he couldn’t stand the pressures of conflicting parties inside the Academy anymore. And to further worsen his misery, his extreme homesickness made him more vulnerable, bringing him down to the said decision.

The other Scholars couldn’t help but be emotional with Ross’ confession. Upon hearing his story, they couldn’t help but break into tears.

Teacher Monet had a word with Ross after the revelation. He tried to convince Ross not to be compulsive, but unfortunately, he wasn’t able to persuade him. Ross stood by his decision, and with Teacher Monet’s dismay, he just ended up letting him go.

Before he stepped out of the Academy, he went into the counseling room to have a word with his father. His goal then was to inform his family that he was already on his way home, but upon hearing his father’s words, he suddenly fell apart. His father wanted him to stay, and he didn’t want to break his father’s heart so he withdrew himself from blurting the bad news right then and there.

Though Ross decided to voluntarily exit, it wouldn’t count as a reason to suspend next Saturday’s Expulsion Night. Since Ross dropped out, unlike Chivas who was forcefully expelled, Jet and Sheng’s probation will not be affected in anyway. For more updates, stay tuned on Pinoy Dream Academy Season 2, and find out on Saturday who will be the first Probationary Scholar to be expelled.

Tonight was definitely a long night for all the Scholars. With Christian and Laarni as directors for each team, the Scholars spent their whole night coming up with a minute-long music videos.

Though there were only six of them in the group, One Voice took the challenge with great confidence. It was very much evident how pressured they were with the new activity as they kept on running around from one spot to another just to shoot their scenes. The story was somehow focused on a love story, wherein Bea and Miguel play the lead roles. While shooting one scene to another, everyone in their team openly shared comments and suggestions that could be used for the betterment of their project.

Pupilars, on the other hand, under Laarni’s supervision was just as busy as One Voice. With their song’s theme in touch with friendship, they decided to incorporate three stories related to it inside their video. Due to their aim to finish the activity as early as possible, they had to eat dinner later than usual. Upon resumption of their shooting, their team was somehow disturbed by a slight spark of conflict between Bunny and Laarni.

In the middle of their shoot, Bunny suggested that having three stories within a minute-long music video may be too much. She claimed that having too many storylines could actually cause confusion on the part of their viewers. Laarni immediately regarded this issue, and she was quite irritated that it was brought to their attention after they’ve shot a lot of scenes already. She also added that Bunny confuses her with her sudden change of mind after she herself made the script. Bunny immediately reacted regarding the accusation, because according to her, she didn’t make the script. She also claimed that before they even started, she was pretty much insistent of the idea that they stick with one storyline for their video.