It was while watching Miss Cebu 2008 that Bong started toying with the idea of coming up with an all-male pageant-for-a-cause. Realizing its potential to grow into a pageant with a strong socio-cultural commitment to Cebu, he began to ask around for consensus. Encouraged by positive feedbacks from across different sections of the Cebuano Community, Bong decided to develop the idea and engage BCB Productions into the project. "The rest, as they say, is history," Bong says. Just recently, Mr. Cebu 2008 was launched amidst strong pledges of support from goverment and private sector group alike. For such a new undertaking, the project already promises to become a much-awaited spectacle in Cebu.
It helps, of course, that the pageant seeks to showcase the positive qualities and virtues of the Cebuano male. "The pageant envision to create role models out of its young and active participants," Bong enthuses. "Far from being an ordinary event, Mr. Cebu is about promoting Cebuano cultural awareness and to bring out the best of Cebu for the entire world to appreciate," he adds. Bong explains that to be crowned Mr. Cebu entails a great deal of responsibility in that one has to be role model to the youth. "You have to be some strong enough to stand and carry the banner of Mr. Cebu and pursue the vision and mission of BCB Productions," he stresses. In short, he explains that Mr. Cebu captures the essence of everything positive that Cebuanos represent. "He must reign with pride and dignity by living up to the finer features of being a Cebuano," Bong emphasizes.
To attain its goal, the pageant aims for nothing less than perfection. Aside from its stringent screening process where mere physical appearance is not enough to guarantee one's ticket to the competition, the pageant requires its contestants to attend extensive workshops and other personality development activities. Completing the grand production is a workaholic and creative team that pays attention to every pageant plan and details. Fortunately, Bong says that he has "the best talents in Cebu" to help him deliver a big promise. "My team's firm commitments to the vision of Mr. Cebu pageant is simply increadible," he says with a smile.
In fact, one of the working team's goal is to make MR. Cebu play a serious role in uplifting the lives of the less fortunate. As such, the pageant supports various charitable organizations such as the Clothes for Life Foundation. It also plans to send ten underpreviledge children to school each year. "We believe that education is an effective means of breaking the cycle of ignorance and poverty for poor children," Bong says.
Thus, the pageant apparently has more than just good looks and toned muscle. Far from being just another glamorous event, Mr. Cebu does have a heart - and a very big one at that.
