By Shirley Farmer 
The RTP competition selected the first five songs to reach the finals. The Ukrainian war was remembered live.
The first five songs were selected from the Kankao Festival. Saturday night, on RTP1, the first semi-final match that selected songs was held “tomorrow” (thirty-four), “Why?” (Aurea), “How good it is to wait for someone” (FF), “Ginger” (Diana Castro) and “Welcome Welcome(Maru) for final decision on March 12.
Sonia Araujo and Jorge Gabriel performed the party which recalled the war in Ukraine and showed solidarity with that country invaded by Russia. First by two participants – TheMisterDriver wore a blue and yellow sash and Maru learned that the Ukrainian feels comfortable in his music – and later to a standing ovation from the audience marking the end of the first part of the show broadcast from Estúdio 1 of RTP.
Once again, the vote was split between 50% of the audience and 50% of the jury, which this year were Dolce Pontes, Dino D’Santiago, Surma, Teresa Salguero, Pedro Granger, Miguel Cadet and Tatanca.
The second semi-final of Festival da Canção 2022 will take place on Monday, March 7, the channel’s anniversary. The winner will be present in May at the Eurovision Song Contest, which will take place this year in Turin, Italy, after Maneskins won the event last year.