While Filipino pageant fans have yet to completely move on from their recent Miss Universe heartbreak in Florida, back here at the home-front, things are heating up with the country’s biggest local beauty searches now finalizing their casting requirements. 

Late last week, members of the pageant press got the shock of their lives when two of the country’s most prestigious pageants both announced their coronation nights to be on July 11, 2021. Binibining Pilipinas and Miss World Philippines will be staging their one year-delayed 2020 finales on the same Sunday night.

Obviously shocked with the development, a seasoned and respected pageant correspondent posted his thoughts on social media: “Nampucha! Ano, toss coin na lang which one to cover?”

Such reaction is understandable.  Having two huge national beauty competitions crowning their queens on the same night has never been seen in the country’s long and rich pageant history.  Back in the 1970s, when only Binibining Pilipinas and Mutya ng Pilipinas lorded it over Philippine pageantry, simultaneous crowning of the Binibinis and Mutyas was obviously unheard of, with the concluding rites of the two searches always scheduled months apart.  When the Miss Philippines Earth (MPE) competition was launched in 2001, such “coronation night-distancing” was still observed, with Binibining Pilipinas always given first dibs in mounting its show.  This is why ladies who want vindication from not getting crowned as a Binibini can actually cross-over to MPE on the same pageant season.

Pageant mentor Rodgil Flores describes this development “mind boggling:” “Now lang po nangyari na all four national pageants are overlapping in activities, notwithstanding po na pandemic and may restrictions po talaga sa acivities.” Aside from Binibining Pilipinas and Miss World Philippines, Miss Philippines Earth and Miss Universe Philippines have also started with their pre-pageant selections and activities.    

The clashing schedules of Binibining Pilipinas and Miss World Philippines could have been avoided if the former only stuck to its original crowning schedule of June 27, 2021.  However, the latest lockdowns affected its timetable and resulted in the coronation schedule to slide to a later date.  Binibining Pilipinas is set to crown the country’s representatives to the Miss International, Miss Grand International, Miss Globe and Miss Intercontinental pageants.  Aside from looking for the Filipina who will raise the country’s flag in the Miss World pageant, Miss World Philippines will elect seven other queens including, Miss Supranational Philippines, Miss EcoInternational Philippines, Reina Hispanoamericana Filipinas, among others.

A marketing communications expert who also follows pageantry notes the pros and cons of all of these pageant activities all happening at the same time: “On one hand, this shows that not even the pandemic can kill the Filipinos’ enthusiasm on pageantry.  Beauty pageants are still very much alive as an industry in the country.  However, staging these much-anticipated events side by side will definitely divide the market, which will surely not redound to positive revenue figures for the organizers.”

With the collision of the two big pageant events now seemingly inevitable, unless one gives way to the other, pageant followers could only wish for a “compromise” that can actually allow them to still patronize the two.

“Sana magkalapit po ng venue.  I will definitely go to the two venues.  I haven’t decided yet kung ano uunahin ko,” Flores says.  His Kagandahang Flores camp actually has 24 ladies fielded in Binibining Pilipinas and 16 candidates vying for crowns in Miss World Philippines.  “I will probably watch the opening until the mid-part for one and then go to the other venue to watch the finale and crowning,” he adds.

No one ever expected for pageantry to be this complicated.  Really.