Island cruisin' with Miss Earth beauties

CEBU, Philippines - Eight Miss Earth 2011 delegates were flown in to Cebu by Philippine Airlines recently and treated to some local pampering and hospitality.

They were billeted at the lovely Maribago Bluewater Resort in Mactan and enjoyed a Sunset Chillout Cruise courtesy of the Aldeguer-owned Islands Banca Cruises. Cebuana beauties Miss Earth 2008 Karla Henry and Miss Cebu 2008 Sian Maynard were on-hand to welcome the beautiful bevy.

One of the girls, Miss Turkey Merve Saribas, was feeling quite ill so we only got to meet seven of them, namely Misses China, USA, India, Canada, England, Sweden and Singapore. A good and strong mix of contenders, we would later find out during our face time with them aboard the banca.

Miss China Yu Jun Liu employed the good ‘ol I’m-talking-on-my-cellphone strategy the whole time to avoid interviews, and her fellow Asian Miss Singapore explained afterwards that her friend did not speak English.

While taking in the sea breeze and Mactan channel sunset, and while the candidates were busy posing for posterity, we took the chance to chat with one of the known figures of Miss Earth-Philippines, Catherine Untalan, who chaperoned the girls for this visit.

Untalan is the executive director of the Miss Earth Foundation, the environmental-social-humanitarian outreach arm of Miss Earth. She won the title of Miss Philippines Earth 2006 and the international Miss Earth-Water (2nd runner-up) of the same year.

She was in Thailand, initial host of this year’s Miss Earth, to do the media rounds, visit sponsors and promote the coronation night, when the said country’s flood situation worsened.

“Entering the second week of October, we went to Ayutthaya and saw for ourselves how bad the condition was. The water level kept on rising. We couldn’t believe it; everything was just underwater! I told myself nothing could be worse than Ondoy, but when I saw the situation there, I took that back. When it floods here, two weeks is already too long, but there it floods for months,” recalled Untalan of the reportedly worst flood Thailand had experienced in the past 50 years, with more than 400 lives lost and millions of people displaced from their work and homes.

So Miss Earth officials decided to transfer the venue from Bangkok, Thailand to its original home in Manila. “When we finally decided to move it back here, we knew we were going to do the almost impossible by staging it in the Philippines at the last minute. It was only two weeks of preparation time. But we told ourselves to just be hopeful, and now we’re very happy that everything fell into place,” Untalan said.

Of the official list of 90 finalists, 88 “earth warriors” will be competing on grand coronation night this Saturday, December 3, at the University of the Philippines Theater. The rest canceled for one reason or another.

This year’s theme being “Making the Earth Smile,” Untalan reveals there is one part of the show that Miss Earth will be doing for the very first time to underscore the fact that theirs is not just a beauty pageant, but an organization that is dead serious about environmental advocacy. The program will also showcase the Philippines as an eco-tourism destination.

Untalan, a psychologist by profession and a staunch environmentalist, shared how she felt proud listening to the girls talk among themselves at times because it proved they were indeed beauties with genuine advocacies. “Usually, when beauty pageant candidates talk, it’s ‘What make-up do you use?’ or ‘How did you train for the pageant?’ But what you hear them talking about is ‘Before I came here, I did this environmental project…’ So at least now, they’re really living up to that expectation.”

Asked if our own bet, the 24-year-old Miss Philippines Athena Mae Imperial, is so far holding her own, Untalan said that our host candidate appears very confident despite criticisms on her diminutive height. “She’s not very tall, but you can feel her presence when she’s in a crowd. She doesn’t blend in, she’s actually a stand out, and it helps that Athena is very knowledgeable about what she’s doing. Athena knows herself well enough; she knows her limitations and how to bring out her strengths.”

On her advice for Athena, she told her the same thing she tells Philippine candidates each time our country is the host. “I tell them that I think one of the biggest achievements you can ever have is the fact that your co-candidates will have a memorable stay here in the Philippines.”

Athena will be donning a tinalak costume made from South Cotabato for her national wear, to veer away from the traditional Filipiñiana and the notion that the Filipino costume only comes from Luzon.

Aside from Athena, Untalan named as early stand-outs for her the following: Misses Crimea (“She’s very active in the environmental activities we’ve had, enthusiastic and asks a lot of questions.”), Venezuela, Mexico and Sweden (she was batchmates with Bianca Manalo at the 2009 Miss Universe where she landed at the Top 15).

Below are excerpts of our interviews with the visiting Miss Earth bets regarding their advocacies and their homeland environmental practices that our country would do well to emulate:

MISS CANADA Ashlea Moor: “The program I created back home is called the Go Green Initiative. It is to compel others to make small changes for the environment. I believe that a lot of environmental issues we’re facing are important, but not necessarily any more important than the other one. If everybody can see what they can do to make a difference and commit to making that small change, such as utilizing public transportation, turning off electronics when not in use, and conserving water, the overall effect is profound. Canada is taking some good steps, but because we’re such a spread-out country, our houses are very big, our cars aren’t as fuel-economic as they should be.”

MISS SWEDEN Renate Cerljen: “I have a very simple principle, which is to reduce, reuse, and recycle. I don’t want to brag, but we have a very good environmental standard back home. When I’m here, I realized that more. I knew it before, but it made sense to me even more. When it comes to sustainability, we have a very rich recycling system. For example, every apartment has its own recycling station. So I’m calling on everyone to just take responsibility for your actions. You always have a choice to recycle, a choice to put your garbage in the trash can.”

MISS SINGAPORE Felicia Orvalla Anggasaputri: “In Asia especially, I think air pollution is a major concern. We can help keep our air clean by installing technologies that could reduce vehicle emissions. Compared to other countries, Singapore is considered very clean. When it comes to environmental pollution, I'm proud to say that we have set a very good example by keeping our environment in such a wonderfully unpolluted state despite the fact that we are highly urbanized. Singaporeans have been very obedient when it comes to cleanliness; since strict rules, such as banning of chewing gums are implemented to keep our country clean and green. I feel though, that we need to have more trees as there are more land used for buildings and development.”

MISS USA Nicole Kelley: “My main focus is making agriculture more green and sustainable. We need to address issues about chemical fertilizers and over-trading. My platform Food for Thought advocates for lessening the impact that agriculture practices have on the environment. I promote environmental awareness through teaching children the connection between what we eat and the land that produces such food. Safe agriculture practices are essential to our survival. Educating our future farmers on environmental practices will ensure these safe practices are applied and enforced.”

MISS INDIA Hasleen Kaur: “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Consume only the things we need and not contribute to the garbage problems. Instead, we must learn to use and reuse our resources to the optimum level. Harness the power of sun, water and wind to sustain life.”

MISS ENGLAND Roxanne Smith: “I want to reduce emissions around the world to protect the ozone layer. Protecting the forests and wood lands is also very important to me, not only do they supply Mother Earth with what it needs to grow but the animals that live within that environment play a huge part in keeping the forests healthy. I am a big believer in personal responsibility. From a school child throwing litter to a millionaire businessman making money by destroying large sites of natural beauty such as the rainforest, everyone needs to know that sometimes the damage cannot be reversed and if things don't change we will lose some of the world's most amazing and beautiful animals.”

(The Miss Earth 2011 finals will be televised live at 8 p.m. on Star World, while ABS-CBN will air it this Sunday, December 4 at 10:30 p.m.) (FREEMAN)