The Philippines, having the longest streak of candidates consecutively entering the semifinals in the past Miss Universe pageants, has earned its reputation as one of the pageant powerhouses in the world.
Pageant fans all over the world are always waiting on who will represent the Philippines in Miss Universe as they know that she will be one of the strong contenders.
However, several Facebook posts have been circulating online questioning the ethnicity of some of the representatives of Philippines since some of them are not pure Filipinas.
Some fans think that the candidate from the Philippines should be a full-blooded Filipino unlike some of the recent Miss Universe Philippines titleholders like Maria Venus Raj who is Filipino-Indian, Mary Jean Lastimosa who is Filipino-Arabian, and Rachel Peters who is Filipino-British.
Recent Miss Universe winners from the Philippines are also not full-blooded Filipinos. Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach is Filipino-German, while Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray is Filipino-Australian.
Because of this, several countries allegedly joined a petition to ban half-blooded candidates from joining the said prestigious pageant.
The viral news that has been circulating on social media states that 16 countries including Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Poland, and South Korea have joined the said petition.
The report also claimed that some of the countries said that sending half-blooded contestants to Miss Universe is “unethical” and “insulting”.
“We really think this is an insult not only to the organization but to the whole Asian region. The Philippines is the only Asian country to use half-Filipina contestant in the last five years. There is no law that has been violated but it is ethically unacceptable,” the viral Facebook post said.
However, media outlet Rappler, the official fact-checking partner of Facebook, issued a report debunking such claim.
Rappler reported that the Miss Universe Organization has not made any changes in its rules regarding the citizenship of its candidates.
It added that Binibining Pilipinas, the franchose holder of the Miss Universe pageant in the Philippines, has also not announced any rule on banning half-blooded Filipinas from competing and representing the Philippines in international pageants.
Rappler added that the Philippines is not the only Asian country that sent biracial candidates to the pageant.
“Ariana Miyamoto, who represented Japan in the 2015 competition and placed in the Top 10, was of Japanese and African American descent. Miss Universe Malaysia 2017 Samantha Katie James is also of mixed ethnicity,” the report stated.
