Every time I find out that there’s a beauty pageant on television I make sure that I watch it. It is hard for me to pass up this kind of competition because it only happens once a year. My husband is not a fan but every time I ask him to record it for me he does it without objection. I always root for the Philippines and the USA in every competition. Philippines because it is my home country and the USA because it is my current country of residence.

I thought that Miss Philippines wouldn’t make it to the top 15 because there was only one spot left after fourteen had been announced. I was pretty sure that the last spot would go to Miss USA. When the host called Miss Philippines for the final spot, I screamed at the top of my lungs to my surprise.

When the swimsuit competition started, I was paying close attention to the scores that were flashed on the screen after every candidate. I wanted to see if Miss Philippines had a chance to make it to the top 10. Miss Philippines was one of the top three highest for the swimsuit competition. When the top ten were revealed she was called up third but that was in random order and not an indication of the score.

There were ten candidates competing in the evening gown competition. The top five candidates who received the highest scores would move on. Miss Philippines had chosen an elegant flowing white gown and that got her to the last group. I was hoping that she could pull off the win in the Q & A portion because she has brains and graduated from college with honors. Unfortunately, she randomly picked the worst questions of all the girls. The question was, “What was the biggest mistake of your life and what did you do to make it right?” I did not like the question in the first place because it was too personal and invasive, especially compared to the questions that the other girls got. She answered that she had never made a really big mistake in her life which may or may not have been true, but it came across as self righteous and proud. As a result she ended up as fourth runner up.

Congratulations Miss Philippines, Venus Raj. Even though you did not get the crown, you are still a winner. By the way, Miss Philippines was the crowd favorite of the night. One of the hosts even said that it felt like the whole country of the Philippines was there that evening. It was obvious that there was a large contingency of Filipinos in the audience that night. Probably because these kinds of competitions are very popular in the Philippines.