beauty contests

the other weekend, gaye desperately texted ron to give her some questions she can ask in a beauty contest in barili where she was asked to judge as part of the town fiesta. ron texted her a minute after:

"you are trapped in an island with brad pitt, tom cruise, collin farrel and george clooney. the question is, HOW DID YOU GET THERE?!"

june is the month of barangay fiestas. Cebu is known to have the most number of fiestas compared to any province as each and every barangay would stage their own. in my stretch in v. rama there are three barangays and one weekend after the other, part of the road ends up getting used for the makeshift stage.

the most popular and riotous fiesta activity is the gay beauty contest. one late night, i went out to buy bread from the 24-hour bakeshop near my house and ended up watching one. during the question answer portion, the emcee asked one of the top five finalists:

q: "do you think we are facing an economic crisis?"
a: "i... i... i thank you!"

next question:

q: "how can we uplift our economy today even though we are under economic crisis?"
a: "da oi! abi nako ms gay ni, quiz bee man di ay!" - ah.. i thought this was a beauty contest not the quiz bee.

q: "if you are to invite to dinner one person that is important to you, who would that be and why?"
a: "pers ob all, i want jud to thanks my mader, fader and most of all, my ferents. but ef i hab to enbayts someone, i would layk to enbayt governess guen garcia..." that's GOVERNOR to you iha.

another contestant was asked:

q: "what is the essence of a woman?"
a: "I think being a woman, by itself, the very fact that you’re a woman, is a gift of god which we all must appreciate. The origin of a child is a mother, and is a woman, and a woman is one who shares love and who shares and shows a man what love, caring and sharing is all about. Thank you." - an amazing word for word quote used by sushmita sen when she won her title as ms. unibers

the judge then made a follow up question:

q: "so what is the essence of a gay?"
a: "everything i said... plus a DICK."

suffice to say that this contestant won ms. gay barangay barok 2007.

sometimes we laugh at the apparent slip of the (literal) tongue by the contestants. on the other hand, there are situations where the emcee may have done a better job as a stand-up comedian rather than host a show.

in the 2006 mr. and ms. jamaica nights (portofino, mactan) the organizers decided to cut budgets by having the producer double as the emcee of the event. at the start of the show, the crowd was squeezing into the front area and sitting on the chairs reserved for sponsors. in an effort to control the unruly audience, the emcee called out:

"excuse me but des es a stand-up show! ples! let me remind you dat space es for da esfonsors, des es a stand-up show!"

at one point of the show, she introduced the judges:

"I would like to introduce our BORED judges. perst of all, he's a writer, a journalist and a... PORENER!" the poor man was red in the face as he stood up to acknowledge the hooting crowd.

after introducting the judges the emcee continued to acknowledge the sponsors:

"we would be back after a few reminders from our esfonsors..." she quickly disappeared from the stage and a voice came on.

"we would layk to thanks our sponsors, smart communication, our official communication! e be es ce be en channel 2, our official channel; speedo swimwear, our official swimwear..." it was obviously the same emcee who was doing her darndest best to murder the english language doing the voice over.

during the announcement of the winners, "por da terd place, payb thousand pesos and one thousand gept certipikayt from shoemart. for da second place, ten thousand pesos and 2 thousand gept certipikayt from shoemart. for the perst place, twenty thousand pesos, 5 thousand gept certipikayy from shoemart, a sit of jewelry and atchara!"

we were wondering why would anyone give a lifetime supply of atchara (pickled vegetables) as part of a bikini contest until we realized that she meant tiara.

when the show was aired on local tv, most of the footage showed my friends literally rolling in laughter. it was well worth the 100 pesos we paid to this stand-up show.

getting back to gaye, we sent her a message to ask the question: "what makes a beauty contest relevant in a world that is faced with a severe crisis?"

good luck na lang sa contestant. i thank you.

picture: taken during the 2007 Sinulog Queen Festival. The one on the extreme right won the title after the initial winner from southwestern university(second from left)was disqualified because she did not join the sinulog parade the next day.