Betong tops ‘Survivor Philippines’

First thing comedian Albert “Betong” Sumaya intends to do with his P3-million cash prize is settle his bills.

“I have to pay my credit card dues, real estate tax…” he enumerates. “I also want to give my family a crack at the good life.”

Betong’s plans for the tax-free prize precisely sums up his winning strategy in the GMA 7 reality show “Survivor Philippines: Celebrity Doubles Showdown,” concluded Friday night.

He won not through cunning, but by being his clownish self. That was also crafty of him, he admits. He and partner Mae Bautista, a fellow comic, managed to shift alliances without raising suspicion among the castaways. Betong says they disarmed the others with humor and humility.

“It wasn’t really strategy,” he explains, “but that was an advantage. In spite of the hardships in the camp, we made the others laugh. We were always ready to help. We made them feel we were not a threat.”

He said they didn’t mind performing menial tasks, either. “Mae and I knew that we couldn’t win in the challenges, so we made ourselves useful on the island.”

Betong, a writer and executive producer on GMA News TV shows, played the role of reliable gofer to the hilt. It worked. He bested finalists Mara Yokohama and Stef Prescott, who didn’t shirk their being portrayed as anti-heroines. He won four votes from the seven-man jury of former castaways.

Betong insists he wouldn’t step on others to get to the top. “In ‘Survivor Philippines,’ good guys always win, unlike in the US,” he says. “Only difference was, past local winners were physically strong, whereas, I never won a single immunity or reward challenge.”

Waterworks

Prayers were another secret weapon, he adds. “My faith was the only thing I could rely on out there.”

The comedian, who started as production assistant in hard-hitting investigative shows like “Probe,” turned on the waterworks by choosing a friend, colon cancer patient Joel Boringot, as beneficiary in one game. Sadly, he lost in that challenge, and Boringot passed away right after the taping in Palawan ended last October. “I still want to help Joel’s family in any way I can,” Betong says.

Days before the grand finals, he was busy preparing his farewell gift for fellow castaways. “I’m the only one who has yet to hand out gifts,” he notes. “I want to give them photos from the island.”

Nice guys finish first, too.