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Sounds good, huh? I have to admit it also sounded a little strange to me considering that I never actually won anything huge in my life to merit representing the country in any kind of competition or occasion.  Well, there were a few raffle prizes here and there but I don’t think any of that actually counts.

So there I was in the Lion City last week, along with two other fellow lifestyle journalists namely fellow Bulletin columnist and Metro writer Jane Kingsu and the Philippine Star’s Luis Carlo San Juan, playing the high stakes game of our lives–all for the love of God, for the love of country and oh, yes, for the love of money.

You know life is good when you’ve just been invited to participate and be your nation’s flag carrier in the Great Singapore Sale Challenge. The object of the game is fairly simple: a team is given a MasterCard prepaid card worth S$1,000 and shop at four designated malls in a span of three shopping hours. The team must buy at least one item from each designated category (i.e. men’s wear, ladies wear, children’s wear, toys, electronics or IT, jewelry, household items) and can only buy a maximum of 10 pieces for the same item. The team with the biggest savings after the game wins the top prize of S$10,000 in cash. Other big savers can also settle for the 2nd or 3rd prizes of S$6,000 and S$3,000 respectively. Oh, and did I mention that all participating teams get to keep all their S$1,000 purchases? Well, I did say life is good, right?

To spice up the game, the teams must redeem a FIFA World Cup Challenge coupon upon reaching a purchase of US$300 then after finishing all four designated malls (Wisma Atria, Centrepoint, Plaza Singapura and Millenia Walk) must go to either Chinatown or Little India (in our case, it was Chinatown) and buy an ethnic costume for one team member to wear. They must also pick-up a recipe of a popular local dish in Singapore which in our case turned out to be the Chili Crab. A S$50 transportation allowance is given to each team to use as they see fit–whether we take the bus, cab or MRT is of no consequence to the judges as long as we get back in time or else, we’ll be disqualified.

After a nerve-wracking three hours of running, shopping and in the case of some teams, some haggling and cajoling in between purchases, it was the Australian team which emerged on top with a total savings of over S$2,800 and beat 16 other teams from 12 countries including as far back as Dubai and Germany aside from the usual Asian participants. One of two Malaysian teams took second place honors with a total savings of over S$2,500. Given their close proximity and familiarity with Singapore, I thought the Malaysians would be a top contender for this contest and I was right.

And third place? With a total savings of over S$2,200, the prize actually went to tadah! the "official Philippine representatives." How about that, huh? The Philippine team (not the same players, er, shoppers) actually won this event last year and we thought we really had a good shot of repeating the feat as our savings was much higher than the S$1,700 that they had. But I guess at least two other teams came prepared for us. What can I say? We lost to the better team or in this case, the better shoppers.

I can’t help but still feel good about the whole thing, though. Considering that I myself came to Singapore with only P4,500 of pocket money and went back home with so much more, I have to admit that this has got to be the best media trip I have had the good fortune of being a part with.  Me and my fellow writers get to shop for stuff we actually like, then we get to be rewarded with even more shopping ammunition. The best part is of course, we get to represent our country for doing this. Official Philippine Representative. It does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? What more can I ask for? Well, can I do this again soon?