MANILA, Philippines?It was definitely ?mixed emotions? time for me when I caught the ?Starstruck 5? finals last week. Ever since the talent discovery tilt started, my eye was on female bets Sarah Lahbati and Princess Snell, so I was pleased as punch when Sarah romped off with the top female plum.

On the other hand, male winner Steven Silva was on my least likely to succeed list, so I was surprised, to say the least, when he bagged the top male award.

Why such a contradictory combination of winners? Well, when a tilt?s verdict is largely decided by viewers? votes (and the subjective output of ?vote-generating machines?), expect the completely unexpected!

We developed an early preference for Sarah not just because she was a looker, but also because she was one of the best singers in the competition. That may not be saying much, because many of the finalists couldn?t sing a note to save their lives, but due notice must nevertheless be paid to one of the better vocalists in the atonal bunch.

And, much to her credit, Sarah was one of the few (or was she the only one?) to sing live in the tilt?s final show, so bully for her.

What about Steven that didn?t allow us to warm up to him? He was aw-shucks skittish, awkward and unfocused, and like many other Fil-Am imports, couldn?t speak Tagalog well.

Frankly, we?ve had it up to here with Fil-Ams who don?t bother to learn to speak the language before they come here to try their luck in local show biz, so we dismissed Steven as the latest cultural carpetbagger to hit our shores.

To be fair, his Tagalog did ?improve? in the course of the tilt ?but not nearly well enough for him to do well as an actor in the biz right after winning the ?Starstruck? tilt.

Having said all that, we must conclude that ?Starstruck 5? wasn?t the tilt?s best edition?not by a long shot. Therefore, we believe that its selection process should be drastically overhauled, to produce better and stronger discoveries, to wit:

Instead of calling for auditions and then announcing its finalists for its next edition, ?Starstruck? should insert a long post-audition but pre-finalist step, during which the best 100 auditionees will be given extensive training in different aspects of performance.

Periodically, the 100 initial survivors will be whittled down to the best 70, 60, then 50 ? during which their training continues. This process can take months, because its objective is to produce, not raw finalists, but talents who have already undergone rigorous training and evaluating long before they are even introduced to the viewing and voting public.

If the long training and selection process we are suggesting is done well, the tilt?s 50 survivors should already be a pretty good bunch of talents.

But, the winnowing-down process should continue ?down to the best 40, 30, 20?and then the ?official? 12 finalists.

It is hoped that, with this longer and much more rigorous training and selection process, the tilt will be able to produce finalists who not only look good, but are also truly gifted singers, actors and/or dancers. Otherwise, ?Starstruck? will just continue to be stuck.