The second season of the reality game show Pinoy Big Brother aired on ABS-CBN for 126 days from February 25 to June 30, 2007, replacing the first season of Kapamilya, Deal or No Deal and was replaced by Be Bench / The Model Search, U Can Dance and Nagmamahal, Kapamilya. This season is the second civilian season and fourth season overall to air on the network. This season broke the previous season's record of fourteen days, which was the longest stay of housemates inside the house until it was broken by the next civilian season by only seven days. The season was won by Beatriz Saw, who garnered over 1.5 million votes, or about 30.29% of total votes cast during the open voting, which started on June 17, 2007. This is also the record-breaking highest total of actual votes in the history of Pinoy Big Brother and other all text-based votes reality programs in the Philippines as of now.

Overview

House Concept

The concept of the house is a pop-art scheme, with a predominantly lime green living area with pastel colors. It has been equipped with 42 cameras and 42 overhead microphones. The men's bedroom have the beds in a linear pattern, while the women's beds in their bedroom are in a circular pattern. Rocking chairs and other furniture have also been added, as well as gym equipment, a large bathroom with showers and a jacuzzi, separate restrooms for the men and women, a separate prayer room, and a bridge over the swimming pool. The confession (aka diary) room is now tangerine-colored and expanded. Furthermore, the front doors to the house are now located at the garden, leading to the eviction hall next door. There are two secret areas in the house. The first secret area is separated from the garden by a gate. It is initially filled with sand and had bamboo furniture and an area for urination. The secret housemates occupied this area in their first five days of stay in the house. Afterwards, the location became common knowledge for the housemates and it has been used as an activity area. The other secret area is adjacent to the confession room. It has been previously used by Gee-Ann, Wendy, and Mickey as a "quarantine area" when they caught Robert's "disease" on Week 5. The interiors of the various rooms were designed by students from the Philippine School of Interior Design. The revamped larger layout of the House could be attributed to the fact that the House was previously used as the academy during the filming of Pinoy Dream Academy. Major renovations had to be done for the second season.

Hosts

Toni Gonzaga and Mariel Rodriguez reprised their roles as primetime and UpLate hosts respectively, while Celebrity Edition housemate Bianca Gonzalez hosted the Update reports. First season housemate Jason Gainza joined the hosts as the Man-of-the-Street reporter. Meanwhile, Asia Agcaoili again took hosting chores for the show's companion program on Studio 23, along with the puppet Pining. They shared hosting chores with new host Sitti Navarro. Also for the show's new season, the theme song Pinoy Ako had been rehashed, this time performed by the band Cebalo, composed of Yvan Lambatan, Panky Trinidad, Eman Abatayo, and Davey Langit of Pinoy Dream Academy. The show also used the songs Time In by Yeng Constantino and Arigatou Tomodachi by Jun Hirano, Jay-R Siaboc and Eman Abatayo as part of the background music. Aside from Gonzalez's Updates aired throughout the day, the morning show Magandang Umaga, Pilipinas and its successor Umagang Kay Ganda also reported updates from inside the House.

Edition Twists

Housemates and houseguests

On Day 1, only six housemates entered the house. The next six housemates entered the house on Days 7 to 12. The final four housemates entered the house on Day 14. The number of housemates thus reached 16, although only 14 were promised in the pre-season teasers. This last batch of housemates were put up for public voting. Two of the final four housemates were eventually voted to stay in the house, thus completing the list of 14 housemates. Due to the unprecedented Forced Eviction of Maricris, an additional housemate was scheduled to enter the house. Instead of just one housemate, Big Brother decided to let two mothers enter, deviating from the young group of housemates that were already in the house. By the end of the week, one of the two mothers was chosen by the housemates to stay in the house. Conversely, the other housemate was evicted from the house. All in all, there were 18 housemates for this season, 15 of which were official housemates and 3 sub-official housemates.

Houseguests

Aside from the housemates, three houseguests entered the Big Brother House on this season. The first houseguest is Tina Semolič, as part of the Big Brother Swap with Slovenia. The second houseguest is Hanna Eunice Rodriguez, as the winner of the Globe promotion on being a housemate for a week. The third houseguest is Uma Khouny.

Weekly tasks

The Big Red Phone

On Day 23 (March 19, 2007), a large red telephone was placed inside the House. It was announced the day before that the phone would ring in different instances, and each call would inform the housemate who would answer the call of a different reward or punishment. The housemate who would answer each call would receive any of the following news:

Big Brother Swap

The official website announced on Day 47 that one Philippine housemate would trade places with a housemate from the Slovenian version. Days later, Tina was chosen to swap with Bruce. Promotion ads for this event likened this to an alien abduction because the Philippine housemates were not be aware that Bruce will trade places with Tina, a foreigner, until Tina entered the Philippine House. On the other hand, the Slovenian housemates already knew of the Swap and prepared for this event, which was expected to be a cultural exchange of sorts for both sides. The swap took place starting Day 56 (April 21) and ended on Day 61 (April 26), when the swapped housemates returned to their respective Houses. Tina Semolič, a 22-year-old former beauty queen, was chosen by the Philippine version's staff because of her personality "would fit well" with the Filipino housemates, as well as being nice and not too aggressive. On the other hand, Bruce was chosen by the Slovenian staff because of his physique and his "very Filipino" characteristics that would stir up competition among the men there. To let Filipino viewers know about Bruce's situation in the Slovenian House, some footage from the Slovenian version related to Bruce was also shown, aside from the events inside the Philippine House. English conversations recorded on both Houses were subtitled into Filipino, while any Slovenian conversation and comment was dubbed over by Filipino voice actors to let the Filipino viewers understand better. Below is a list of activities each swapped housemate did in their respective host country's Houses, aside from introductions and trading of basic phrases: While Tina left the Philippines without much incident, Bruce left Slovenia with controversy brewing up behind him. Slovenian housemates Miha and Pero made inappropriate remarks about Bruce — remarks that did not sit well with both Big Brother and the viewers there. Because of that and Pero's "plan" of "stabbing Big Brother," Big Brother removed Pero from the Slovenian House and then added Miha to the list of nominees for eviction, which already included Jasmina and Sonja. Tina was eventually evicted from the Slovenian House on Day 63 of the Slovenian version, about five weeks after the Swap. On Day 125 of the Philippine version, Tina returned to the Pinoy Big Brother house to have a celebratory dinner with the Big 4, Bea, Gee-Ann, Mickey and Wendy. She left the house the same night and participated in the Finale, where she danced various Philippine dances and took part in the awarding ceremony for the Big 4.

Nomination history

The housemate first mentioned in each nomination gets two points, while the second gets one point. Special Voting: Mommy Elections

Big Night at the Big Dome

On June 30, 2007, the season finale, dubbed "The Big Night at the Big Dome" was held at the Smart Araneta Coliseum, also known as the Big Dome. The housemates were transported by vintage cars on the way to the venue. During the program, the fourteen other housemates, as well as Tina Semolic from the Slovenian version, danced various Philippine dances and even the polka. Also present in the event were previous Pinoy Big Brother winners Nene Plamio (née Tamayo) of the first season, Keanna Reeves of the Celebrity Edition, and Kim Chiu of the Teen Edition, as well as Zanjoe Marudo of the Celebrity Edition, and Sam Milby of the first season. Aside from the opening number, the only other huge number in the mostly formal and story-driven finale was the "final four housemates," played by Jon Santos as Mickey, Candy Pangilinan as Bea, Giselle Sanchez as Gee-Ann and R. S. Francisco as Wendy, engaging on a debate on who should be the winner. In the end, Beatriz was declared the winner, garnering 1,571,556 votes or 30.29% of total votes cast. Mickey came in second with 1,286,166 votes (24.79%), Wendy, visibly booed by the audience, came up third with 1,209,978 votes (23.32%), and Gee-Ann ended up last at 1,119,714 votes (21.58%). The total number of votes, which were amassed since the start of the open voting on June 17, 2007, broke all records held by all previous editions. For dramatic effect, Beatriz was brought into the stage in a giant disco ball. This table shows the summary of votes as obtained by each of the Big 4 in the Big Night.

Official website