The Amazing Race Philippines Celebrity Edition 2 (DryedMangoez Edition Season 14) – Meet the Teams

Introduction → Meet the Teams → Leg 1 → Leg 2 → Leg 3 → Leg 4 → Leg 5 → Leg 6 → Leg 7 → Leg 8A → Leg 8B → Leg 9 → Leg 10 → Leg 11 → Leg 12

Before we set off though, how about meeting our 12! celebrity teams? If you’re new to The Amazing Race Philippines: DryedMangoez Edition, this is actually the 2nd celebrity season. The first one was pretty successful with a solid cast. Take a look HERE!

But this time, we’ve got an even better cast! So much better that this season even as its own opening credits! Take a look and meet our 12 celebrity teams:

Ruffa & Raymond Gutierrez, Siblings/Actress and TV Host – #TeamGutz
Jeric & Jeron Teng, Brothers/PBA and Philippine national basketball players – #TeamTeng
Alwyn & Jennica Uytingco, Married parents/Actors – #TeamUytingco
Kean Cipriano & Chynna Ortaleza, Married parents/Singer and actress – #TeamStellar
LA Aguinaldo & Richard Juan, Friends/models and TV host/actor – #TeamLAandRichard
Melanie Marquez & Michelle Dee, Mother & Daughter/Actress, former Miss International and model – #TeamLongLegged
Tuesday Vargas & Coy Placido, Married/Actress, comedienne and musician – #TeamTuesCo
Maine & Coleen Mendoza, Sisters/Actress and businesswoman – #TeamMendoza
Marx Topacio & Maxine Medina, Dating/Actor, model and Miss Universe Philippines 2016 – #TeamMarMax
Mara & Maria Isabel Lopez, Mother & Daughter/Actresses – #TeamSurvivor
Super Tekla & Donita Nose, Friends/Comedians and TV hosts – #TeamWowowin
Ryan & Judy Ann Agoncillo, Married/Actors and TV hosts – #TeamAgoncillo

That’s a pretty solid cast, if I do say so myself. Which I am saying myself. =)

“Casting Director’s” Commentary

So, I’ve been thinking about possible celebrity teams for a while now. But it wasn’t until Eat Bulaga started relying on celebrity pairs for their tired Pinoy Henyo segment that I suddenly got a flood of possible teams. And as you can see from the opening credits above, four of the teams are solely because I saw them on Eat Bulaga. lol

The 2nd biggest consideration in choosing teams was whether or not they had some opening credits-ready videos of them two on YouTube so we could actually have opening credits this time. Making the opening credits for TARPHDM13 was a lot of fun, so I wanted to do it again and of course celebrities would be better than finding videos of random people. lol At the same time, other celeb teams I had in mind had ZERO possible videos of them I could plug into an opening credits sequence.

But anyway, I think this cast turned out pretty well. And I would definitely want to watch a season with them on.

I’ve only seen maybe 10 minutes total of It Takes Gutz to be a Gutierrez. But even if you’ve never heard of their Kardashian-esque E! Asia reality show, you know the Gutierrez family is certainly full of entertaining personalities. Of them all, Ruffa and Raymond are probably the most likely to ever run on The Amazing Race. (They totally should do TARA or something.) Ruffa & Annabelle Rama would be hilarious, but I think they wouldn’t be long for the Race. Sorry Annabelle. Ruffa though you just know will provide hilarious entertainment while still being game to do difficult or gross things. She’s done shows like that in the past. With Raymond, he’s certainly outspoken and doesn’t care what people think of him. And he’s in the “news” lately after he unveiled his big weight loss and fit body. So a good team all around.

Of course, with any Philippine reality show, you need young, hot guys since, I will guess, about 65% of your audience will be attracted to hot, young guys. And of course any celebrity season should have a pair of athletes. So the Teng brothers are a good choice to have here. Maybe a little more popular a year or two ago, they’re certainly only just starting their pro careers while still doing the showbiz stuff on the side.

The other young eye candy for the ladies (and others) should be LA Aguinaldo and Richard Juan. I actually had Richard Juan on the shortlist for the first celeb season since he loves traveling and has a huge following. But I didn’t know who to pair him with. So thanks to SM Youth clothing, he and LA are good friends, both models and perfect for the show.

So we have a few married couples of course. Alwyn and Jennica I think would be a great, competitive couple. Kean and Chynna are the musician/actor hybrid of a couple. And Tuesday and Coy (who were very fun on Eat Bulaga) should be a very fun team here who could easily do very well.

Our pair of mother/daughter teams should definitely deliver. Both mothers, Melanie Marquez and Maria Isabel Lopez, should be fun and maybe provide some great, hilarious moments. Their daughters meanwhile would be the steadying force of their respective teams. Mara Lopez though, along with her mother, could be one of the more competitive and cutthroat teams since they are Survivor Philippines alums, after all.

I had Maine Mendoza on the shortlist for the first season with Alden Richards, just to try and capture a bit of that Aldub magic. Well, fast forward to today and that Aldub fever is now cold and probably wouldn’t make much of a difference for a TARPH. So Maine pairing up with her Ate Coleen should be a much better and more interesting team. It also gives us our team of sisters and they could be a strong team together without any faux-loveteam stuff.

Marx and Maxine are our requisite young dating couple/beauty queen. If we were to see any couple fireworks, it could come from them. I’m not too familiar with either of their personalities. So we cast with that hope in mind. =)

Of course you need some great comedians on the cast and there are none hotter today than Wowowin‘s Super Tekla and Donita Nose. They’re absolutely hilarious. And despite the risk of them not taking things seriously on the Race, I think they’d be very competitive while still providing the laughs along the way.

And finally, our biggest get this season is Ryan and Judy Ann. They’re one of the most popular and well-liked couples in the Philippines. They’re both health-conscious and active. They are a team you could root for and with many fans. They’d be a great team to have and a likely contender for the win.

So overall, I think this could make for a great cast if this were real life. They may not be the BIGGEST, MOST POPULAR celebrities in the Philippines. But really, the biggest and most popular celebrities, especially Filipino ones, likely would be horrible casting choices.

They may not take the Race seriously (I mean, RR was a D-list – if that – celeb on TARPH2 – the real one – and she didn’t take the Race seriously). And worse, they may be too overly conscious about their image or have their image be overly controlled by managers that they’d be completely fake and scripted on the Race.

I honestly don’t think anyone on this cast would be that way. They’d take the Race seriously and none of them would ever take their public image as a priority over giving it their all on the Race. They wouldn’t have other agendas other than having fun and competing on the Race. No pressure either to “look good” for fans and no pressure from a home network to play a certain role or character on a REALITY show.

So there you go. What do you think? =)
Good casting? Poor casting? Crazy? Insane? Da whos? Though I know whos. These are pretty solid whos for a Race.