Too soon to host Miss Universe 2018

This is a reaction to Kristoffer “Kisses” Poblacion’s letter “Hurrah for Rachel Peters” (12/11/17).

The support that Rachel Peters received from many Filipinos all over the world, especially with online votes that helped her advance to the top 16 of the Miss Universe pageant (though she would have made it on her own merits, for sure), is a manifestation of our national obsession with beauty contests. And I don’t see anything wrong with that at all.

However, what bothers me as a citizen of this nation is the prospect of having the event staged here again next year, which I think would be too soon after the Philippines hosted the 2016 edition early this year.

The fact that the Miss Universe Organization is again wooing the Department of Tourism (DOT) to make this a reality is a testament to our world-renowned and incomparable hospitality, which the candidates who competed here experienced to its fullest extent.

The mesmerizingly eloquent Miss Universe 1994 Sushmita Sen spoke lovingly about this kind of adoration that’s uniquely Filipino in an interview with broadcast journalist Jessica Soho a few days before her Miss Universe judging stint in January. She said: “In the past 23 years, it’s not been a country, Philippines, where I won Miss Universe and then we forgot about each other. It’s been a journey where I don’t think too many Miss Universe winners have a journey like mine where press from the Philippines has come back to India, come to my sets when I have been filming, to interview and see, ‘Where is our Sushmita now, what is she doing?’ and come back to telecast it here.” I love her!

There’s nothing more to prove in terms of our capability to host the Miss Universe pageant. Filipinos surely go all out to let foreign beauties experience one helluva time during the course of the two- to three-week competition, so much so that a number of them stay on for a few more days after the finals night to visit more of our tourist attractions.

So I urge the DOT to just focus its energies, creativity and passion on conceiving several other ways to increase tourist arrivals and fix whatever tourism-related woes here. That shouldn’t be a tall order, should it, since the DOT secretary and company belong to what President Duterte touted as “the best and the brightest” (debatable though).

Considering the Miss Universe Organization’s apparent eagerness regarding this, I suggest that the DOT graciously decline and just offer to host again a few years from now.

Besides, as many Filipino and foreign Miss Universe fans alike frown upon the idea of a candidate winning in her home country (like Miss Puerto Rico 2001), declining would be a good move because, per the grapevine, we might just end up sending a particular girl who has a high chance of winning—Catriona Gray, who shockingly just placed as a runner-up at last year’s Miss World.

So think about it, DOT. Resist getting flattered or tickled by preference for us as possible 2018 host. Wait for a few more years yet.

ANTHONY LEON CABASAG,
aleoncabasag@gmail.com