The meeting between President Rodrigo Duterte and Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach during the beauty queen’s courtesy call at Malacañang no doubt makes an interesting picture.
The reigning Miss Universe, who won the crown in December, came with organizers of the pageant to convince the President of the merits of conducting the contest here.
Miss Universe was last held in the Philippines in 1994.
After exchanging niceties about how they were, the first President and the first Miss Universe from Mindanao and Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon Teo talked about how the cooperation of the private sector would ensure that the event would entail no expense on the part of the government.
Teo added that if the plans push through, parts of the pageant will showcase the country’s top tourist destinations like Boracay and Palawan. All this sounds fine and would no doubt create a spike in the tourism industry here.
The bigger question, however, is whether we can showcase more than just our stunning natural resources and Filipino hospitality.
The memory of what happened in November 2015, when the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit was held here, is still fresh in our minds. At the time, the previous administration hoped the APEC summit would be an opportunity to showcase the strides that the Philippines has made.
But in its effort to smooth traffic in Metro Manila for the sake of the visitors, the government suspended classes and work for a few days, closed some roads and rounded up street children to hide them from view.
A flyover constructed for the purpose was not finished on time, and the comings and goings of the delegates affected flight schedules. The airport, once dubbed by travelers as one of the worst in the world, received some cosmetic touch-ups—but these did not last.
