70th Edition

Bumpy ride to the Universe stage

By Earl D.C. Bracamonte

A month from now, the 70th Miss Universe preliminaries will begin to unfold. After Nov 20, candidates will start arriving in the resort city of Eilat in Israel. This week, henceforth, the national titleholders will be finalizing their suitcases.  

Miss Universe Philippines 2021 Beatrice Luigi Gomez is back in training, after her homecoming reception in Cebu last week. "I still find it hard to really interact with other people because I was very much an introvert. I just pushed myself way past the limits to get into the Miss Universe Philippines competition.

"And if there's something that I really want to improve on is my public speaking skills. So I hope that after my training, when I get to Israel, that I would be a good spokesperson for the Philippines and the representative of the causes I stand for," enthused the proud Cebuana.

On the day of the Emirati queen's coronation, pageant fans waited for news on the eventual winner. Netizens scoured the Web for links to the final show - to no avail. The day after, this post appeared on social media - "The Miss Universe UAE organization would like to announce the cancellation of the live coronation night of the Miss Universe UAE on Sunday, Nov 7, 2021 due to time constraint."

It's still not apparent if the pageant will push through to another date, to catch up with the Nov 20 deadline of the Miss Universe guidelines in crowning the national winners, or if they'll simply appoint a representative (or nobody at all) . . .

With Laos and Malaysia backing out of the Miss Universe this year, Nelson Mandela's grandson, Mandla Mandela, has also urged Miss Universe South Africa 2021 Lalela Mswane not to participate in the pageant this year.

For its part, the Miss South Africa organization told TshisalLIVE it was not "getting involved in a political war of words and looks forward to watching Miss South Africa make the country proud on an international stage."

The IOL reported that the young Mandela urged the South African beauty queen to boycott the Miss Universe for the "occupation and treatment of Palestinians at the hands of the apartheid Israel regime."

Stay tuned for more updates leading to the Miss Universe 70th edition final show on Dec. 12.