In the Philippine setting, beauty queens who come home as international winners, be it as top crown holders or runners up, are always accorded a hero’s welcome. And why not? For pageant-crazed Filipinos, every competing pageant queen is given all out support such that when she eventually wins in her competition, the victory is considered collective and officially stamps, not just the delegate but the entire nation as among the world’s best.
For recent pageant representative, Roberta Tamondong, however, the story of winning took a rather sharp turn from what has been tradition. Initially getting much love from her local pageant followers when she started her campaign in this year’s Miss Grand International Pageant held in Indonesia, she received the motivational boost she needed to perform really well in every stage of her competition. After she easily landed a spot in the first cut, she failed to advance further to the final winners’ circle. While her exclusion enraged Filipino pageant fans, Roberta got an unexpected break from the MGI organization when she was offered to step up to the 5th Runner Up position of the Queen’s Court. Thinking it will make her kababayans happy to see her wear a runner-up tiara, she accepted the offer.
“I really fought for our country and I really did the best that I could. My decision was made by me, I also talked to Binibini, my family and my Aces and Queens family, so I knew I’m in the right hands,” said Roberta.
Such a decision, however, did not sit well with the pageant fans, who thought she should not have settled for a “mere” consolation prize. Instead of earning public applause for her move up, she was bashed, and cancelled by her own former fans and supporters. She lamented: “I felt hopeless. At one point I didn’t know what to do because the Filipino people have shunned away from me and are not supporting me. But I hope in the future they will see the reason why I made this decision. I know it is a hard pill to swallow, yes, but I did this for my family, for my hardwork and for the Filipino people and I just want to make them proud. If accepting the fifth runner up made them less of a Filipino like I’m really sorry. I thought I did the very best that I could and I accepted it.”
As 5th Runner Up, Roberta is now under contract with MGI until the end of this year. While attending to her duties as a member of the royal court, she says she is happy both with the way she is being treated by the organization as well as with her compensation.
“Fortunately, malaki laki rin sya to pay for all of my bills, to pay my parents back, and for the hard work my parents put into this pageant.,” she shared without declaring any numbers.
Despite all the benefits and perks she now enjoys as a runner-up, she still hopes her fans will eventually understand and accept the choice she made of still being a part of MGI: “Hopefully in the future they will accept. Every single day I’ve been thinking about this. Every single day I ask myself how they are handling this, because what my decision is will reflect on my countrymen, and I don’t know how to react if my countrymen are against me. I hope in the future they open their arms again for this pageant because I know this pageant has a lot of potential. It has a lot of controversies but I know it’ll be one of those pageants that we should lookout for in the future.”
From the looks of it, Roberta indeed has to win back her pageant fans. By her own admission, Miss Grand is not going to be her last stop in pageantry: “Maybe if the universe will agree with me in three year’s time, I’ll join another pageant that concerns the universe.”