Philippine Flair Open 2013 Event Summary
Here in the Philippines, this event has been considered as the competition that "paved the way" for the Filipino flairtender to penetrate the international competition circuit.This competition was made to LEARN,
ELEVATE and EXPOSE our country to the FLAIRBARTENDING PROFESSION. as
well as develop TRUST, SPORTSMANSHIP, FRIENDSHIP and FAIR GAME among our
brothers whether participant or judge.
This year, we had new sets of judges coming from Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and Korea as well as from our own country.
November 28, 2013 was the elimination round where in there were 18 local competitors and the top 5 will advance to the finals. We are grateful to have one participant from Cebu and one from Davao.
Our top 5 finalists were: Joseph Anthony Apostol, Mike Rabago, Darwin Deguzman,Shallum Recto, and new addition Joe Mari Castillo.
November 30, 2013 was the finals which included new players from Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam and Russia.Apart from the top 3 we gave out special awards which included the BIGGEST MOVE which was bagged by Darwin De Guzman, and the PEOPLE'S CHOICE which Shallum Recto took home.
On paper, the top 3 were 1st and 2nd Taiwan, and 3rd place was Joe Mari Castillo.
Mixed reactions and emotions were expressed for deep in their hearts our top 5 deserved to be included there as well. As organizers, we value and respect that which is why we released the raw scores for the finals of all the judges as well as their videos so everything would be transparent.
Looking back at the objectives, we were able to achieve all of them.Learning, is a never ending process even in "organizing" a big event such as an international competition.Attention to details play an important factor that can lead to the overall experience of each competitor.Learning how to judge properly is also a constant learning experience.We have achieved this since this year 4 Filipinos participated in well known competitions in Asia and we were able to finish in the top 5. These include, Joseph Apostol, Darwin de Guzman, Shallum Recto, Joe Mari Castillo, and Jerwin Calayag, all of which participated in PFO this year.We as a country will not stop learning since we already started accepting everything that our brothers advised us.
We are not perfect but we will strive for perfection.Friendship is indeed seen in every competition. In fact our brothers from Russia was kind of unexpected as participants since they are miles way from our country.But they even extended there stay and went to Palawan, a place which our friend Tomek Malek went to as well.
If there is one thing that we learned here is one advise which one of our judges gave "If you don't have monetary support, better not hold a competition." This actually makes a lot of sense. An international competition is BIG. We cannot just let the money revolve as funds like we have always been used to here. In line with this, we are still thankful for all our sponsors that includes: Noel Bazaar, Cut Unlimited, BACARDI, Monin, Coca Cola, Hilik Boutique Hostel, Outback, Flairbar.com, F&B World, HNM Magazine, N20 Gastropub, World Class Concepts Corporation, Ocean Glassware and of course Liquid Concepts and Razor Chef.Thank you for all your help since we were able to push through with the competition successfully.
Philippine Flair Open will always be part of Philippine Bartending history and rest assured we will be back even better.
As a final word, we would like to apologize for all the people who we might have caused inconvenienced, thank you to all our local and foreign participants, all the friends we gained, all the people who watched and cheered.As organizer, we will continue to support even the underground and small competitions in the country. Do not hesitate to approach us for we only have one goal, one dream....international recognition. Mabuhay!!!!!!
Here are the pictures of Philippine Flair Open 2013
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