Emerald Avenue in Pasig, the Philippines, turned pink on Sunday, March 20, as hundreds of thousands (137,000, to be exact) gathered to show their support to presidential candidate Vice President Leni Robredo, and her running mate Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan.
a global smash hit 🇵🇭🤩pic.twitter.com/wWIfa32NBz
— Ariana Grande Today (@ArianaToday) March 20, 2022
In their pink ‘fits and carrying their wittiest signboards, attendees sang and danced to empowering performances. But one of the moments that truly stood out was when the crowd sang in unison to the Grammy Award winner Ariana Grande’s hit Break Free.
More than just catching the vibe, the sing-along was symbolic—it was a resistance, a call to stand against oppression and injustice in the country. Robredo is running against Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the former dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, Sr.
The “Break Free Moment” was so exhilarating, Ari herself shared the video of the performance on her Instagram stories, saying: “I could not believe this was real (teary-eyed emojis). I love you more than words.” She also shared another video of the crowd jumping along to her hit song, as if in a concert, and captioned it with three pleading face emojis.
MISS ARIANA POSTED MY VID ON HER IG STORY?/!/?/?/ im shaking https://t.co/awe5fTa4mQ
— martha gabrielle (@marthawilsona) March 20, 2022
“Ari reposted my video! My Ari heaaarrttt 🥺💖”
NI REPOST NI ARI YUNG VIDEO KOOOO SHET MY ARI HEAAARRTTTT!!!!! 🥺💖 https://t.co/c3PeBztaUz
— 𝐏 𝐎 𝐓 𝐀 𝐓 𝐎 (@haarvzxc) March 20, 2022
The epic moment was led by Filipino drag artist Min Ortiz, a.k.a Minty Fresh. Clad in a recreation of the outfit Ariana wore for the Sweetener World Tour, Minty Fresh did, in legendary drag queen RuPaul’s words, “lip-sync for [her] life.”
When asked by Preen.ph about why she chose the song, Minty Fresh said: I just felt like it was the right song to perform. There are a lot of negative things happening the past few years and personally I wanted to break free from those things. Also. it’s a very hype and positive song very fitting for [the] event.
Minty Fresh’s message to everyone? “We will win this! Let us all break free to a brighter future for this country.”