Ginoong Mangatarem 2024

Congratulations to Ginoong Mangatarem 2024 - Christopher John Pascua Edwards.

By Jeremy Yu

In a tale that seems straight out of a sitcom, Christopher John Pascua Edwards, known in BSM as John Edwards, stumbled into the limelight of the Ginoong Mangatarem 2024 competition.

Starting on the 22nd of January, 2024, John Edwards arrived in Mangatarem, a municipality in the Philippines which has a yearly competition called “Ginoong Mangatarem”. It is a celebration of Filipino culture, heritage, and the promising potential of its young men. In this competition, the participants had to display their range of talents, share their aspirations, and describe the essence of being a Filipino man.

The competition had various segments, from showcasing your talent, swimwear parades, best dressed in a barong tagalog, and frame by frame picture analysis of their physique. John also attended multiple rehearsals about “positioning on stage, production dance move rehearsals, and walking and posing”.

The following is an interview between John and Winston Roars.

How did you get into Ginoong Mangaterm?

I got scouted out kind of? Essentially, my younger sister was doing a pageant and the organisers of the event happened to be running the Ginoong Mangatarem pageant due to circumstances I was asked to join to fill up the vacant slots

Can you describe the format of the competition? What were some of the activities that you participated in?

The format of the competition was basically split into two halves, I'd say? there's where all 10 compete into 4 categories, there's talent, swimwear, Barong Tagalog and picture analysis, for activities that we participated in, essentially there were a lot of rehearsals about positioning on stage, production dance move rehearsals, and walking and posing

How did you prepare for the competition? Were there any challenges that you faced during the preparation process?

I prepared by mainly practising the way I walk, then afterwards to prepare for the question and answer sequence and picture analysis. I had help from an instructor to know the places around the province of Mangatarem, how to structure my answer, and how to pose myself during my answer. On top of all that, I practised singing for my talent production which really put me out of my comfort zone since I am not very good at singing

What was your most memorable experience during the competition?

My most memorable part of the competition was winning cliche enough. I genuinely didn't think I would make it past the top 6 participants let alone in the top 3, so it was a really big surprise too. also seeing all my family supporting and cheering me, made me feel really grateful and happy

What qualities do you think are important for someone who wants to succeed in the competition?

Aside from the obvious, the two most important things I'd say are primarily confidence and clarity. confidence can be manifested through the whole posing routine, how you walk on the stage, how you answer questions, facial expressions, body language, etc etc. For clarity, it's most important in the picture analysis part and the question and answer part, where you have to be able to quickly understand what you have been asked or what you are looking at, and come up with an answer that either talks about the significance of the photo and what it is, or how to answer the question while also managing to incorporate yourself in to sell yourself to why you want to be the winning candidate.

How did you feel when you were announced as the winner of the competition?

I felt really happy, but at the same time I felt some guilt for the people who worked harder than me, and people who I thought should've won didn't win, but I guess that's the nature of any competition

What was the most challenging part of the competition for you?

The most challenging part of the competition for me was the posing in swimwear. I don't usually go around many people or places with anything less than my shirt and shorts on, but being on a stage, in front of hundred-something people completely shirtless and in swimming trunks really brought me way out of my comfort zone and it was challenging trying to upkeep a look of confidence while doing all of it

What was the most difficult question that you were asked during the competition?

The most difficult question that I was asked during the competition was "If you wanted men to be described in ONE word, what word would it be and why?", this is mainly because there's a plethora of words that could be attributed to men and what I want men to be recognised and described as, however, being able to build upon my reasoning and justification about why i chose that word, and on top of that trying to not stutter and stay concise and coherent throughout, I also had to try and sell myself as to why I should win and how my answer links to me.

What was the most interesting activity that you participated in during the competition?

The most interesting activity I participated in during the competition was 100% the talent portion, i have not seen any of the other candidates perform as it was all rehearsed at their own times, but the creativity and skill in each of the performances were definitely the most interesting and the creative, the variety of talents shown from dances, to song performances, to traditional performances was really exciting

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