X Factor audience outraged at shock elimination of Filipino singer Mamaclay

The shock elimination of Filipino X Factor Malta contestant Mamaclay outraged TVM viewers on Sunday evening, after a televoting audience appeared to have favoured Maltese semi-finalists over their foreign competitors.

Rose Marielle Mamaclay was eliminated on Sunday’s semi-final together with Sean Kamati, leaving social media in uproar over the surprise elimination of the talented voice: many seemed to agree that the Maltese televoting audience had ‘penalised’ Mamaclay for being a foreign contestant.

Even X Factor judge and producer Howard Keith Debono was of the opinion that Mamaclay’s elimination was undeserved.

“Super surprised. I had faith. I was wrong to have faith that a non-Maltese could win,” Debono said on Sunday evening.

“It’s bittersweet for me: super-happy for Richard Aquilina but equally disappointed because we all know that both should have been in the final. That said, last time we had a foreigner who was great, was eliminated in week one, so having two contestants in the semi-final makes me super proud nonetheless.”

Another talented semi-finalist under Debono’s guidance, also foreign – Sean Kamati – was eliminated. “I’m super honoured to have even made it this far... Mother Nature decided to give me a struggle this time but thank you so much Howard Keith Debono for believing in me and having me in your team,” Kamati later said on Facebook.

But the reactions of the online audience was that Filipino starlet Mamaclay had the right package to take herself into the X Factor Malta finals with her powerful voice. Comparisons were inevitably drawn with the other Maltese finalists, rapper Lapes, and Richard Aquilina.

Other voices, such as the outspoken activist Omar Rababah, suggested on Facebook that Mamaclay had suffered the cost of being a foreign-born pretender to the X Factor Malta title. “It was our usual inferiorirty complex that led to her tarnishing… the fact that she had already competed abroad, that she was established, that the Filipino community would vote her in droves…everybody knows her talent was far greater than the rest of the rivals’. God forbid someone who is foreign wins a local competition.”