Pinoy Big Brother: Second edition ends season filled with controversy, love

"Pinoy Big Brother" Season 2 has to be the most controversial edition in the history of ABS-CBN’s hit reality show so far.

Aside from catching the attention of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, it was only in Season 2 that the management was forced to issue a statement disproving allegations that text votes were rigged in order to favor one contestant.

E-mails and text messages swamped ABS-CBN when housemates Wendy Valdez, Maria Beatriz "Bea" Saw and Gianina Maria "Gee-Ann" Abrahan were caught up in bickering after a face-to-face nomination a couple of weeks before the contest's finale, dubbed the Big Night.

Wendy returned to the show last May a mere two weeks after she got the boot after the public voted her to be one of the two "balik-bahay" housemates. This development spawned percentions that she is Big Brother's "favorite" housemate, a claim that PBB denied.

The beauty queen from Navotas already made peace with Bea and Gee-Ann, but the public clamor for her eviction has continued.

In the last three eviction nights, the people had expected Wendy to be the unlucky housemate, but ABS-CBN Interactive, which receives and tallies the text votes, said she had actually beaten Ronel "Nel' Rapiz, Bruce Angelo Quebral and Elmo "Bodie" Cruz in the text voting when each of the three men left the house.

Recently an e-mail which contains a "confirmation" by an alleged PBB staff member of the tampering of the results of the text voting started circulating on the Internet. This prompted Lauenti Dyogi, PBB director and ABS-CBN business unit head; and Paolo Pineda, managing director of ABS-CBN Interactive, to come forward and deny the claims in the controversial e-mail.

Who would forget Dionne Dennia Monsanto, her feelings for Ezekiel Joshua "Zeke" Dimaguila and the eyebrow-raising "sunblock incident" that threatened her stay inside the house?

Or the forced eviction of Maricris Dizon who in the middle of her emotional outburst threatened to hurt Bea?

A policeman's son, Nel, meanwhile, had to shrug off rumors that he is gay.

New rules, new housemates

PBB's management promised a whole new ballgame when the second season of the hit reality show kicked off on February 25.

For starters, the housemates lived in a bigger and newly renovated house. The tasks were tougher and the rules were stricter. New twists and surprises also attracted more viewers.

Bruce was flown to Slovenia for the one-week "Big Brother Swap" while Slovenian Tina Semolic took his place at PBB.

Big Brother also assigned some tasks that not only challenged the residents' endurance but also shaped their character.

Bodie, a former child actor and a son of character actor Tirso Cruz III, admitted that he is now a stronger person than when he entered the house. He attributed this to a task that required him to look for wedding rings at the bottom of the sea.

Twenty-one-year-old Gee-Ann, on the other hand, had to give up her doll Pamela, which she owned since she was a child, to be able to make a less fortunate girl happy.

Love teams were also formed inside the house. Wendy and Bruce fell in love right before the viewers' eyes. The brewing romance between Nel and Maricris was rudely interrupted when she was meted a forced eviction.

Robert James Woods II just could not help but be attracted to Saicy Dimaguila, the samba diva who left the PBB house a week before he did.

Bodie was paired with Jasmin Engracia, but she was evicted from the house much too soon.

In recent weeks, he was seen vying for the attention of Gee-Ann, who is the apple of the eyes of two other male housemates - Michael Richard Perz and Kian Kazemi.

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