A Chaster's Experience in Las Vegas

By: Lola Elrem

It was a crisp early Thursday morning, the 29th of September 2011, when I left YYZ (Pearson Toronto Intl Airport) to fly to Las Vegas not only to watch Charice sings at the David Foster and Friends Concert; but to meet with other chasters. I arrived at the McCarran Airport (LAS) at 11AM to a hot dry weather towering the 90’s. I almost fainted while waiting for a shuttle to take me to the ORLEANS Hotel -- where a good chaster-benefactor awaited me at the lobby. I was the earliest chaster to arrive in town, per Aloha-Sailor’s roster of Chasters-coming-to-Vegas-to-watch-DFF.

Evening of Thursday: while trying my luck at the nickel-slots, a miracle did happen. No I didn’t win, LOL! It was my kumare whom I haven’t seen for 23 years and she won a jackpot! She offered me to join her to the Grand Canyons on her own expense, so we could bond more. Isn’t that wonderful?

Friday the 30th, off I toured the Grand Canyons; at the same time that Aloha Sailor flew in from Seattle. He said he was hoping to barge into my hotel room; but I was not answering my hotel phone, well because I was like 250 miles away. Chasters were one by one arriving in the Entertainment Capital of the World.

Early morning Saturday, first day of October, I was down at the Orleans coffee shop for breakfast and free WIFI connections. A lady came up to me and asked, ARE YOU LOLA ELREM? She was a New York chaster! Then a group of L.A. chasters approached me, ARE YOU LOLA ELREM? And much later two ladies who claimed to be from Ohio looked at my face and asked – ARE YOU LOLA ELREM? and my reply was, how did you know it was me? And their usual answer was “BECAUSE WE RECOGNIZED YOUR FACE”. OMC .. I am famous here in Las Vegas :zap: (And mind you, each group that came up to me fed me. That was nice! J )

Thanks to the postings of Deadly Sweet on dates and venues of the Chaster meetings in Las Vegas, chasters were well informed.

First CHASTER meeting, the Raffles coffee shop at the Mandalay Bay hotel, from 3:00 to 6:00 P.M.
I warily walked into that eating crowd of seemingly chaster-looking-people; slowly I did just to make sure I am coming to the right group and not into total strangers. And even before I had figured out who was whom, thischaster-looking-people cheered – LOLA ELREM! LOLA ELREM! And a young man who looked like UCLA-JAY welcomed me with open arms and an ear to ear smile. OMC I didn’t even have the chance to introduce myself and they know me already?? :zap:

A gracious host that he was, UCLA-JAY named the chasters : TE33 of Hawaii, Sideburner Sol of LA, gussy, the L.A. girls who adopted me at the Orleans; FOGH of Denmark, ALOHA-SAILOR, EDDIE formerly of LA, EBJ of Minnesota, ATE-FE of Nevada; JAZZY of LA; this pretty Thai chaster whose name I couldn’t recall; Christine-Di of LA; Ruby of NY who saw me at the Orleans Coffee Shop; Penny of Ohio; the ever-present Angelia of RI opkors who else; NYChaster, Sweete, Doc Ed, Arz Bayani; and the big surprise of all -- the pretty ABBonita who flew in from PI!!!!

From that gathering, we trooped into the Concert Arena. Sir David Foster as usual started narrating his musical life; first introduced Kenny Loggins. Then he broke protocol by calling in whom else but our dear princess Charice. My heart leaped when Cha walked in and began singing the Power of Love by Celine. She treated the song differently and I admired the way she wove into the song; then my tears started welling.. oh my Lord my Charice is serenading me again. Cha followed it with Toni Braxton’s UN-BREAK MY HEART. David Foster explained that it was the first time Charice sang the song and called her once again a laser beam. Then Bruno Mars’ BEFORE IT EXPLODES; and ended it up with Michael Jackson’s EARTH SONG. Her finale was so powerfully sang; I was welling in tears again!

Charice had to sing earlier in the show because she had to fly to Japan, yes to the other side of the globe where she came from a day ago. Wow! I am almost tempted to think that Charice is not human LOL! What ordinary human being, much more a little girl (yeah, DF and Oprah call her THE LITTLE GIRL), that petite girl to render a flawless performance with such power and emotion – live; after flying 20 hours from the other side of the globe. Who else? No one else but our special girl that GIFT FROM GOD, our dear Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco.

The programme ended quickly, as I thought it did, because all that mattered to me was Charice. I am so biased, but indeed because no other singer had that kind of magnetic charm enough to uproot me from the comforts of Toronto and fly me into hot Las Vegas just to watch her perform. No one, and nobody else except Charice.

After the concert, the happy chasters transferred to the California hotel where we had the oxtail soup a.k.a. bulalo. Yes Virginia, we had the graveyard menu so called BULALO at midnightime. It was fun teaching the non-pinoys how to pronounce BULALO the Filipino way. More chasters joined us, Anthony and his group from Utah, Starbucks and his wife; and our beloved DJ-DRAKE!! We were one bunch of noisy ever-hungry chasters exchanging opinions of how the concert went.

We broke ranks at past 2A.M.. Eddie of now Bay Area, was very gentlemanly driving some of us back to our respective hotels, especially lola.

Sunday the 2nd, the chasters once again met at the Asian Buffet for lunch. Yes again Virginia, another eating-meeting for chasters and lotsa picture taking! LDMovies and his wife finally made it to the gathering. Some members were flying back to their respective nests hours from there but we just couldn’t bear separating ways. Our love for Charice had forged our friendship, and nothing can take us away from loving her the way we do.

For all chasters out there who were not able to join us -- you were with us in spirits. I hope this little narrative of mine would give you an idea what a happy meeting we had in that little town that literally never sleeps, that desert city called LAS VEGAS.

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The Little Dynamo from Asia - CHARICE

By: Camo

Image by α is for äpΩL † via Flickr

I am here lying in bed recovering from surgery and watching these amazing videos of Charice from her various events and cannot help but be overwhelmed how she inspires us all. this dynamo of a talent from Asia continues to wow the world with her talent and oozes the epitome of confidence and humility. Just recently she was awarded the BPNOY AWARD in her country for her philanthropic efforts and the PIs version off Hollywood star. Now she has been recognized as she should be, well its just about time.

Having said that there are still some ignorant and Pinoy haters who go out of their way to make hateful twitter, facebook accounts and every social networking site they can find to denigrate one of their own. How low these people can be. Maybe they have such miserable lives, they were not taught how to love and give love so they perpetuate the hate and became antagonists. How can they hate someone who has done something in her life to help others while those fools go around spreading hate? All we can do is pray that they will change their ways. They don’t even have to like Charice and haters please get real lives, and in the process don’t have any kids, they may just be like you who don’t know how to love and we are subject to another generation of hate.

Image by α is for äpΩL † via Flickr

Haters you can hate her all you want but Charice will be at the top for a very long time. Charice is being groomed for longevity not a one year wonder, you can’t rush greatness and she is on her way to that. Chasters just pray that she’ll remain healthy and may God give our princess the strength to go further so she can continue to share her talent to us for more years ahead.

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An Open Letter to Charice's Filipino Haters

By: Aeon Jelsey

Image via Wikipedia

I am not into celebrities until I saw and heard Charice sings. It was a curiosity at first when I heard news about this young and petite singer whose belting (BTW “belting” is different from “shouting”) difficult songs. I opened my browser turned to Youtube, search “Charice” and voila! That was the start of my never ending thirst for her performances.

I’ve been using twitter for a very long time now to promote my blog and my followers are mostly writers and poets and to avoid alienating them with my tweets about Charice, I decided to make another twitter account to tweet only about Charice. That’s when I began to see these hate tweets about her. It saddens me that while other nationals praise and rave about Charice, there are some Filipinos that keep on bashing a person who has done nothing but to work hard to realize her dreams. It’s a depressing reality that most of Charice’s haters are Filipinos bashing her looks and scrutinizing her to find even trivial things so they can just say something bad about her.

When I have the time, I analyze twitter profiles of those that are “defaming” Charice. Most are accounts that are just created to tweet nothing but hate towards her, some are students or graduates of some of the expensive private schools in the Philippines which I assume belong to the higher strata of Philippine society. Some are those with Filipino lineage living in other countries.

I am trying to understand those who “trash tweet” Ms. Pempengco because they are fans of some local celebrities but come to think of it they are not helping to promote their idols rather they unconsciously dragging them down.

In the Philippines, some of the students or graduates of “esteemed” universities which are mostly for the privileged few tend to see themselves as above the rest. To speak with them in “lame” English would mean it’s either they’ll laugh at you or ignore you. And so they bash Charice’s accent, the fillers and pronunciations as if she has done a great crime. Why would laugh at someone who can express herself with a foreign language? She may not be as good as the “set standards” made by some elitists, what matter is she’s slowly becoming more articulate. Let me quote myself below.

“ Filipinos are one of the most critical people when it comes to English grammar and sometimes fluency in it is being used a gauge of an individual’s intelligence which is so perverse, when it’s not even their native tongue after all. But when a Filipino stayed in America and would probably adopt the American accent, speaking in English with a foreign accent would invite criticism that this “fella” has forgotten about his/her roots.”

There is a figure of speech use in the Philippines “Sala sa init, sala sa lamig” which means that no matter how you will try to please everyone, they will keep on looking for faults. Charice came to America knowing only basic conversational English but she needs to learn and be fluent with it as it is required for her International career, then she learned fast adopting the accent, what does she got from Filipinos? “Lumaki na raw ang ulo, yumabang na” (she’s a swell-head and conceited) How some Filipinos can be so narrow-minded?

When it comes to musicality it’s hard to find flaws on Charice so the haters went low by criticizing her looks. The Filipino definition of beautiful is so screwed up and kinda shallow. What are the standards of beauty anyway? Is it lighter skin? Then why westerners developed tanning machine? Is it pointed nose? If it is, then majority of Filipinos are ugly. Is it the height? Then most Filipinos can never be beautiful. Charice is the epitome of a pure Filipina beauty but Filipinos are so into western kind of beauty which made them despise their own. I guess TV programs and magazines have changed the perception of the majority of Pinoys towards beauty.

Why can’t they just be happy and be proud of Charice? They don’t have to like her but they can respect her the way they want others to respect them. The problem is most of them are more updated about Charice and are always ahead on every articles and videos about her even beating the “Chasters” (collective term for Charice’s fans). They seem to have made their mission to leave defamatory comments on every articles and youtube videos of Charice. That is so pathetic!

Compilation of my tweets that lead me to write this article:

As long as there are people who love "Real Music" Charice will be in the music industry for a very long time.

All these negativities from some Pinoys are dragging me down, Wise yet ignorant, aware yet blind, critical yet dumb.

Some Filipinos are so dumb that they cannot appreciate their own beauty and the uniqueness of their own heritage. And it saddens me.

I could care less, but the thing is they're not hurting Charice, it's the image of us as a people that's being tarnished.

All things taboo before are becoming way of life these days. And kids are so wise yet ignorant.

You don't have to like her, just respect her, is that hard to do? She’s just a kid living her dreams.

There is a difference between opinion and insult. I may not like everybody but I refrain from insulting anyone.

Joke? I don't consider phrases defaming someone as jokes. Better say nothing at all if you have nothing good to say.


I never imagine this article will be this long and I haven’t said enough. I just wish that these Filipino haters will realize that they are not hurting Charice’s career but blatantly staining the image of Filipinos as a people. When asked by non-Filipino fans why some Filipinos are are so harsh on Charice? I fumble and I’m lost for words because I am asking the same question myself.

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