Leyte IDOL Bulilit Grand champ lands in ABS-CBN Star Power Search Top 20

By Provincial Media Relations Center
October 27, 2010

TACLOBAN CITY  –  One of Leyte’s Singing IDOL recently made it to the Top 20 of the recently launched ABS-CBN Show, a weekly nationwide female singing contest search called “STAR POWER: Sharon’s Search for the next Female Pop Superstar.”

Monica Cuenco, 16 years old of Kananga town, was Leyte IDOL Season 2 Bulilit Category Grand Champion in 2007, made it among other would-be singing sensations in the country after auditioning in Cebu.

Cuenco was among the star wannabes who lined up in the preliminary auditions last Augusr 19-21 and got the nod of the search panel judges that included  Executive Producer Crissy Baluyut, ABS-CBN Regional Network Executive Roland Padriga and ABS-CBN singing talent Christian Bautista himself a product of the famous 2003 reality search singing contest “Star In A Million”.

In the Cebu leg of the audition, many female contestants shared on-camera interesting personal stories about their lives, their struggles and triumphs while going through the process of auditions.

Cuenco sang in her Star Power audition in Cebu the song “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, the same piece she sang in 2007 which won her the grand prize in the Leyte IDOL Bulilit Category. She was 12 years old then when she joined Leyte IDOL.

According to Loloy Loreto, who manages the Leyte IDOL talent pool, this is one of those opportunities that the provincial singing search would like to provide the local talents – exposure in nationwide singing search, possibly pass the qualifying round and hopefully making it to the top.

“Hopefully, she can make it to the final stage of the search. But by just getting in to the qualifying round and making it to the Top 20 from among the hundreds who auditioned, is already a big feat. We are very, very proud of her,” Loreto said.