No time to play ostrich with beauty pageants

By Alex P. Vidal

“You are a woman. You are the fire! You are all conquering. You are all powerful! You are Supreme! You were not born to be a mere beauty queen!” ― Avijeet Das

THE Philippines has become a country of beauty pageants.

Every year, even if the economy is sometimes in a tailspin, almost four to five beauty pageants (aside from the regular Miss Philippines Universe) are held, and the country produces dozens of beauty “crown holders” who are sent to compete in different international competitions abroad.

Corporate sponsors and commercial advertisers like travel agencies, shoes, jewelry and cosmetic companies see to it that the pageants have abundance when it comes to cash prizes, hotel accommodations, air travel privileges, first class amenities, among other pelfs and privileges for participants and their entourages.

The amount of national attention and publicity poured for beauty pageants in the Philippines has been overwhelming like the concerts of Tylor Swift, Nicki Minaj, Bruno Mars, Ariana Grande, and Justin Timberlake; it’s not easy to produce the next superstars from these events.

Some of these beauty titlists become role models for the younger aspiring pageant candidates especially if they turn out to be truly beauty and brains.

The exposure from the beauty pageants of these talented lasses has either landed them in showbiz and TV hosting jobs, or earned them lucrative modeling contracts abroad.

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If they turn our to be mere flies in the ointment, they become a shame and embarrassment.

Like the two famous beauty queens who became bold stars in the 80s (and end up as “call girls” thereafter) and the two others who were collared in the different airports abroad and spent years in jail for transporting (they became actually drug dependents) illegal drugs in the 90s.

Two others became part of the shocking and scandalous “Brunei Beauties” scandal where they reportedly became sex slaves of the Sultan’s playboy brother for a certain period in exchange for a large cash.

Another one was nabbed recently in a police entrapment operation somewhere in Manila and was jailed for estafa.

The other became a mistress of an alleged drug lord politician somewhere in Luzon who allegedly committed suicide (although some people believed she was murdered by the alleged politician drug lord). And so and so forth.

The good thing about producing quality beauty pageants is that most of them became ambassadresses for peace and goodwill and they promote the Philippine tourism, Filipino values, culture and heritage in other countries.

Other than beauty queens, we are also known for producing A1 nurses and OFWs with outstanding technical skills, which is a terrific achievement.

Beauty queens are good, but what if one day as the automation and robotics mechanics advance like what we experiencing today with the advent of AI (artificial intelligence) chatbot and microchip technology, aliens will invade the Earth?

Shall we parade our beauty queens and ask them to dance while our Asian neighbors that produce scientists and Information Technology (IT) experts, who are equipped with knowledge and technology, nip those invited guests in the bud?

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DUMPING OF GARBAGES. In a nutshell, that’s how we can best describe what happened recently in the Senate inquiry on the killings in Negros Oriental headed by the Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs chaired by Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.

The inquiry was supposed to be to ferret out the truth in aid of legislation about the series of killings—mostly allegedly politically motivated—including the March 4, 2023 massacre in Pamplona where Governor Roel Degamo and eight others were killed.

But what happened in the committee’s most recent sessions was both sides—the warring Degamo and Teves political clans—brought and presented characters—ordinary folks in the province—with damning but dubious testimonies meant to disparage or assassinate the characters both of the Teves and Degamo families.

And Dela Rosa allowed the spectacle.

Obviously, both sides have succeeded and dumping garbages to the committee hearing which has already extended wasted the taxpayers money while the alleged mastermind, suspended Rep. Arnie Teves is hiding abroad.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)