Samantha Lo leads in best in swimsuit voting
Miss Philippines Samantha Ashley Lo is leading the votes for top 10 best in swimsuit special award at the Miss Grand International 2019 pre-pageant activity being held in Caracas, Venezuela.
By the looks of it, Lo could top the best in swimsuit category as she already received more than 300,000 likes on Facebook as of October 21.
Distant second is Miss Myanmar who has garnered more than 50,000 FB likes.
The best in swimsuit award is only one of five special awards presented in the 7th edition of the international pageant.
Other special awards are: Best in National Costume, Best in Evening Gown, Best in Social Media, and Miss Popular Vote Award.
The grand coronation of the Miss Grand International 2019 pageant will be held on October 25 (October 26 Manila time). Sixty candidates from around the world are competing for the crown.
No Filipino has won the crown. The highest placement the Philippines achieved was 1st runner-up won by Binibini Nicole Cordovez in 2016.
Lo, 26, is an ESL (English as second language) instructor at Enderun College at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City. She is a nursing graduate from the University of Cebu.
BPCI airs side
Meanwhile, the Binibining Pilipinas Charities, Inc. which organizes the annual Bb. Pilipinas beauty pageant yesterday aired its side over the unfortunate travel issues involving Lo.
In an official statement released through Annie S. Alejo, Communications and Public Relations Manager, The Araneta Group, the BPCI revealed that Lo’s Philippine passport was “tampered with and altered.”
“During a meeting last week with Samantha, her parents and officials from the DFA and BPCI, it was admitted by Ms. Lo’s parents, that she secured her passport through a ‘fixer,’” the BPCI said.
“Ms. Lo also holds a US passport and, therefore, a transit visa is not needed. Past Binibini Queens have done this and have encountered no problems in their travels without transit visas,” it added.
The BPCI also denied allegations that it did not assist Lo when she was detained in Paris, France and later deported.
“It is also not true that BPCI did nothing to assist her. Upon hearing of her situation in Paris, we immediately called upon DFA to assist her, and they did. We are grateful for the intervention of Undersecretary Dulay, which otherwise would have resulted in very serious consequences for Samantha. We wanted to support Samantha and help her resolve this. However, in the last few days, we were no longer able to contact her or her family,” the statement said. (With a report from Roy C. Mabasa)