Miss Philippines is Miss Earth, again
It’s a back-to-back win for the Philippines in the Miss Earth beauty pageant.
Miss Philippines Angelia Ong was crowned Miss Earth 2015 during a televised pageant held in Vienna, Austria last Saturday night (early Sunday morning, Manila time).
Jamie Herrell of Cebu City crowned Ong, 25, who beat 85 contestants from around the world in the environment-driven beauty pageant.
The Filipino-Chinese beauty queen is a marketing management student from the De La Salle-College of St. Benilde on Taft Avenue in Manila who wants to promote eco-tourism in order to save the planet and create jobs and revenues for the people.
At the question and answer portion of the contest, Ong was asked to come up with slogan for the next 15 years of Miss Earth. She answered: “We will, because we can.”
Ong explained: “I want to let everybody know that all things are possible and all things are feasible if we work together. We will, because we can.”
Dayana Grageda, of Australia, was named Miss Earth-
Air; Britanny Payne, USA, Miss Earth-Water; and Thiessa Sickert, Brazil, Miss Earth-Fire.
Winners of special awards include Mongolia, Miss Photogenic; Colombia, Best in Swimsuit; and Austria, Darling of the Press.
Other contestants in the Top 16 are delegates from Austria, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Czech Republic, France, Guam, Hungary, Mauritius, Mongolia, Scotland and Ukraine.
This is the third time that the Philippines won in the 15-year history of the beauty contest. The first was Karla Henry in 2008.
All the three Filipino Miss Earth titleholders were trained under the Kagandahang Flores beauty camp led by pageant guru Rodgil Flores.
Advocacy “My advocacy is restoration, reforestation, and minimizing carbon footprints through ecotourism. Educating them on how we can minimize carbon footprints in our own simple ways and how we can consistently maintain reforestation and restoration projects would definitely go a long way,” said Ong.
She believes that being Miss Philippines Earth 2015 is the perfect venue to express herself.
“I feel that there are so many things to do to save our planet. The crown, aside from all the prestige that comes with it, will empower me to encourage others to get up and do something about our dying planet,’’ Ong said.
“It will give me the authority and legitimacy to inspire people on a personal level and up to encouraging them not to take Mother Earth for granted,” added Ong, who joined the Bb. Pilipinas contest in 2011 that was won by Shamcey Supsup.
In 2014, Ong placed second runner-up in the Miss Manila beauty contest. She is also a part-time model and does consultancy work at the Manila City Hall.