LAST week, we were so fortunate our city was visited by Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurztbach as well as some of the candidates of Miss Universe 2016.
Thousands upon thousands of residents of the city and nearby towns and provinces flocked to the city streets to have a glimpse of some of the most beautiful ladies in the world, I mean, the universe. They were not disappointed as they did not only get a glimpse of these ladies but also got some smiles, waves and flying kisses from them.
The whole stretch of Upper Session Road and South Drive was crowded by Miss Universe fans and curious spectators alike. I braved the crowd and the heat of the mid-morning sun to take some photos and to personally see Pia and the other beauties.
I am amazed at the creativity of those who built the floats where the ladies rode on, as well as the creativity of those who participated in the parade. I believe they got short notice for this, yet they made fantastic masterpieces. Congratulations!
It was like the whole of Baguio literally stood still when the beauties arrived, especially that classes in schools and universities were cancelled. I was taking pictures of the beauties as their float passed in front of me. Suddenly, time slowed down as if images were in slow motion.
I was given the opportunity to attend the gala that night, thanks to the best high school batchmate, Jeff Cheng. Armored with a white tuxedo with Grace Villanueva with me, I was able to meet the beauties up close, took a lot of photos to be shared on social media, and selfies as well.
The organizers and sponsors did a very great job in welcoming and accommodating the beauties here in Baguio. Of course, congratulations are in order for the Baguio Country Club headed by their GM, Anthony de Leon, and the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Baguio (HRAB).
The Cordillera Convention Center of the Baguio Country Club was full of excited guests waiting to meet the Miss Universe contestants. It did not matter at all that even if the tickets were a bit pricey and the program started a little late. When the candidates arrived, all were up and about.
It was announced early in the program that Pia might not be able to grace the occasion as she was feeling a bit under the weather. This disappointed us. However, towards the second half of the program, Pia arrived and the crowd went crazy. She was just so lovely. She gave a short speech which was also very meaningful.
Time again stopped.
Other highlights of the show are the speeches of the undersecretary of the Department of Tourism, Gov. Chavit Singson (whose face is all over), Jeff Ng of Hotel Supreme and HRAB, and BCC GM Anthony de Leon.
The sponsors of the show were also acknowledged. NARDA’s was among the sponsors of the show. One of the tokens given to the candidates were placed inside a Narda’s paper bag. I am so proud that a local enterprise such as Narda’s is world-renowed and represent every Baguio boy and girl around the world.
Another highlight of the show was a fantastic audio-video presentation of the event here in Baguio shown at the early part of the program. This same video was later on edited to include the highlights of the gala.
In as much as this video done by CinEmotion Digital Film was great, highlighting the best of the Baguio leg of Miss Universe 2016, I was greatly saddened that an ERROR was made, mentioning Easter Weaving instead of Narda's weaving in the voice over narration. It was caught by Mia Longid. Of course being a niece of Leonarda Capuyan, for whom the weaving business was named after, she called the attention of the creators but they fail to see the importance of being recognized and credited.
The comment thread in the original post was full of misinformation and outright dishonest reasons, even after their attention was called. They refused to rectify this mistake, and were even strong in their stand not to edit the video just because the video had already more than 200k views, more than 7k likes and reactions, and almost 8k shares at that time.
I even gave a situation saying what if Jason Magbanua was mentioned instead of their production outfit, how would they feel? Guess what? They deleted the thread.
I am not one who would like to highlight one error over all the successes of the event that is why I highlighted them throughout this column. However, it all boils down to ETHICS.
I greatly emphasize teaching business ethics to my students, the future business leaders of the world, and hopefully, they would not end up like this production outfit who was more concerned of their “likes”, “shares” and “comments” and of course, profits than respecting other people and organizations.
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