A second victory for Coach Lea

MANILA, Philippines – Broadway star Lea Salonga couldn’t be any prouder when her young talent, Joshua Oliveros, bagged the trophy in The Voice Kids Season 3 Sunday night at the Newport Performing Arts Theater of Resorts World Manila.

Eleven-year-old Joshua, who hails from Antique, rendered Yeng Constantino’s Salamat in the power ballads round of the competition. The song turned out to be a lucky piece for him as he did a winning encore singing that powerful Tagalog hit.

Joshua won P1M cash, fashion package and P1M trust fund from H&M, a house-and-lot and recording contract from MCA Music. In second place was Antonetthe Tismo from Tambo, Parañaque of Team Sharon Cuneta, while in third place was Justin Alva from Lucena, Quezon of Team Bamboo.

It was the second victory of Coach Lea in The Voice. She was the first one to nail a winner three years ago with Mitoy Yonting. Meanwhile, the first two winners of The Voice Kids were Lyca Gairanod (a talent of erstwhile coach Sarah Geronimo) and Ehla Nympha (from Team Bamboo).

The night before, each young artist in The Voice Kids 3 performed with his/her coach. Justin sang Shawn Mendes’ Stitches with Coach Bamboo, Joshua did a duet of Basil Valdez’s Nais Ko (a Ryan Cayabyab composition earlier recorded by Basil Valdez) with Coach Lea and Antonetthe crooned Apo Hiking Society’s classic hit, Batang-Bata Ka Pa with Coach Sharon.

When it was time for the contestants to go solo with an upbeat ditty, Antonetthe sang a la Jennifer Lopez with Let’s Get Loud, Justin rendered Monster and Lose Yourself while Joshua belted out Mangarap Ka.

On the second night, the young singers did power ballads for the third and final round of the competition — Joshua with Salamat, Antonetthe with Regine Velasquez’s Pangako and Justin with How Will I Know, Sam Smith’s version of a Whitney Houston original.

From the Blind Auditions, 24 young talents were chosen by each coach to complete their team. In the past two seasons, only 18 artists completed the team of each coach. For the third season, the coaches formed a team of three artists each who competed and the ones chosen advanced to the Battles.

Six artists from each coach slugged it out in the Sing-Offs and nine advanced to the Live Shows. A week before the finals, one artist from each team was chosen through public votes and three lucky artists competed in the two-night showdown.

Auditions this season were held all over the Philippines as early as September last year. The search for the next young singing star covered Luzon (Lucena in Quezon, Puerto Princesa in Palawan, Legazpi in Albay, San Jose del Monte in Bulacan, Lipa in Batangas, Calasiao and San Fernando in Pampanga), Visayas (Mandaue and Consolacion in Cebu, Jaro in Iloilo, Roxas City in Capiz), Mindanao (Davao City) and Metro Manila.

The Voice Kids Season 3 was hosted by Luis Manzano, with Robi Domingo joined by Kim Chiu (who replaced Yeng Constantino). In case Kim will be asked to return for the fourth season of The Voice Kids, we trust that she will be less hyper and not too over-excited in hosting, especially the Live Shows. The audience doesn’t need a host who shouts or screams her spiels on live TV.