Miss World-PHL candidates added glitter to Independence day rites

MALOLOS CITY—President Benigno Aquino III is not the only person who provided color and glitter to the 114th Independence Day celebrations at the historic Barasoain church here on Tuesday.

There is also the 25 Miss World-Philippines pageant candidates led by the Cory Quirino, the country franchisee of the pageant that send the most talented, intelligent and beautiful Filipina to the world stage.

Clad in colorful upper garments and shawls, the 25 candidates including the lone Bulakenya Ivy Ocampo of Paombong sat by the stage where the President spoke while facing the Barasoain church.

Participants to the celebrations, including journalists cannot help but look at the President, then to the pageant candidates.

Bulakenyos hailed the President for leading the annual rites here.

This is due to fact that n the past years, guest speakers to the annual rites have range from a sitting senator of the republic to an undersecretary, which historian objected noting it reduced the importance of the Barasoain church where the first Congress was convened in 1898.

Housed at Barasoain, said Congress ratified on September 1898 the independence declared by the late General Emilio Aguinaldo in Kawit, Cavite months earlier.

The following year, on January 23, 1899, the Malolos Congress ratified the first republican Constitution that gave birth to the first democratic republic in Asia and Africa.

The said events gave Barasoain the honor of having the Senate President or the House Speaker as guest speaker in the annual rites, but receding sense of history led to lower officials to lead the annual rites.

This was reversed for the first time on Tuesday with the President leading the annual rites.

His presence was made more colorful by the pageant candidates, but some Bulakenyos cited their lower garments as too short, thereby showing more skin of their legs.

Cora Sityar, said that the lower garments candidates were inappropriate for the occasion.

But other Bulakenyos would careless.

After the President delivered his Independence Day message and walked down the stage for the recessional honors, the pageant candidates also walked across the plaza in the hope for a brief group photo session with the President.

But I didn’t happen as photographers along with other people with cameras came flashing and clicking, thereby blocking the space between the candidates and the President who was then shaking hands of Bulakenyo supporters at the other end of the plaza.

In the end, the candidates just stood by the walkway where the President entered earlier and individually shook hands with the President as walk out of the plaza.