Atasha Muhlach as Annie Batungbakal. Handout
“Bongga Ka, ’Day!: The Annie Batungbakal Musical” looked like a train wreck waiting to happen. Instead, it turned out to be a genuinely enjoyable ride through the glamorous disco era of 1979 Manila.
After months of online criticism, Newport World Resorts' latest jukebox musical opened last September 18 to a surprisingly warm reception, with the cast greeted by a standing ovation at the end of the nearly three-hour show.
Much of the pre-opening bashing centered on the casting of Atasha Muhlach in the title role of Annie Batungbakal. Critics questioned whether she'd been cast primarily because she's the daughter of showbiz royalty Aga Muhlach and Charlene Gonzalez — and a viral video of her singing "Pers Lab" at the press conference gave skeptics further ammunition to argue she wasn't ready for a major musical.
Muhlach, however, turned out to be a surprise. She clearly spent the months leading up to opening night working on her craft, particularly her singing, and delivers an exuberant, energetic performance. Her rendition of "Pers Lab" onstage lands clean this time, proof of how much work went into fixing it. There are moments when her American twang is noticeable, but overall she comes across as eager to please, and you find yourself rooting for her throughout — both as Muhlach the performer and as Annie the character.
KD Estrada as Burn Rivera and Atasha Muhlach as Annie Batungbakal. Handout
Was she the best choice for the role? Honestly, no — when the musical was first announced in 2019, Annie was meant to be played by Gab Pangilinan, Anna Luna, and Nicole Omillo. But given the casting that was actually made, Muhlach earns it, helped along by songs rearranged to suit her range.
One clarification: despite the shared title character, this isn't a stage adaptation of the Nora Aunor film “Annie Batungbakal.” Both draw on the same Hotdog hit, but the story here is entirely different.
Where the show actually sags is in Liza Magtoto's book. It's not bad, exactly — just lightweight. Annie is a dispatsadora by day, angling to get into Coco Banana by night — a Filipinized Cinderella (the Camila Cabello version), in effect, with the club standing in for the ball. She even has a fairy godmather disguised as an itinerant vendor in a pedicab. Annie dreams not of parties but of becoming a fashion designer, with Coco Banana as her entry point into Manila's fashionable client base.
The secondary plot is a romantic triangle: Burn, her childhood friend and a folk-rock musician back from a stint in Japan, and Romer, flight-attendant heir to the House of Pasion, where Annie works. That's the basic story, and it doesn't need three hours to tell.
Atasha Muhlach as Annie Batungbakal and Sam Concepcion as Romer Pasion. Handout
And yet the three hours move quickly — carried almost entirely by the production's craft. Ohm David's opening visual sequence is a genuine jolt: tall, cabinet-like towers dotted with black-and-white TV sets and metallic-clad performers, some with disco balls on their heads, establishing a cityscape that's at once retro and dual-natured — evoking both Manila's working-class neighborhoods and glamorous Malate. Stephen Viñas's choreography does similar work, pulling from the era's dance vocabulary — from “Saturday Night Fever” flash mobs to wild gay-club abandon — with enough discipline that it reads as theater, not variety-show production number.
Director Chris Millado treats the material not as a nostalgia trip but as a period piece — 1970s Malate, curfew has been lifted, and Manila is finally allowed to breathe a little. Martial law is present but not litigated; the closest the show comes to an explicit social theme is its treatment of overseas Filipino workers, handled without speeches. It's a defensible choice for a jukebox musical built around romance and ambition rather than politics, though it does mean the show asks little of its audience beyond enjoying the party.
John Lapus as Tarurit. Handout
The supporting cast backs this up with specific, not generic, work. KD Estrada — improving steadily from “Walang Aray” through “Bagets” to this — captures a laid-back, working-class ease that makes him one of the more convincingly period-accurate performers onstage. Sam Concepcion's Romer struts with a macho, '70s-matinee-idol swagger. John Lapus, as Coco Banana's bitchy manager, gatekeeps the club's reputation by screening — and screaming at — the likes of Annie, funny enough that it's genuinely hard to tell where the script ends and Lapus begins.
What Millado and Magtoto also get right is giving that Cinderella arc a more contemporary flavor amid the flared pants and sequins: Annie isn't just chasing a dream, she's chasing validation and belonging. Millennials and Gen Z can relate.
“Bongga Ka, ’Day!” isn't the best musical of the year, but it's an easy one to enjoy — you leave the theater energized, like you've just come from the party the show is throwing. For newcomers to Hotdog, it's a solid entry point into the Manila Sound catalog; for longtime fans, a new context for familiar songs.
I'd love to see it paired someday with Ballet Philippines' “Awitin Mo, Isasayaw Ko,” the VST & Company ballet musical that offered, I thought, an even more evocative portrait of the same era — together they'd make for a sharp conversation about two very different ways of staging 1970s Manila.
For all its narrative simplicity, “Bongga Ka, ’Day!” delivers what a jukebox musical should: good music, big performances, and a genuinely entertaining night out.
The cast of ‘Bongga Ka, ’Day!’ during opening night curtain call. Handout
“Bongga Ka, ’Day!: The Annie Batungbakal Musical” runs until October 31, 2026 at the Newport Performing Arts Theater.