PH bet crowned Miss Earth 2017
Miss Earth Philippines Karen Ibasco was hailed Miss Earth 2017 on Saturday, November 4.
Photo from Rappler
Ibasco, an alumna and former faculty member of the University of Santo Tomas - College of Science, stood out among 84 women from around the globe in the pageant held at the Mall of Asia Arena.
The candidates faced three rounds of pre-judging process— the preliminary judging in figure and form, beauty of face and poise, and intelligence and environmental awareness.
Each contestant was dressed as an environmental warrior to match this year’s theme: Heroines Fighting Climate Change.
Ibasco made it to to Top 16 of figure and form and intelligence and environmental awareness with her advocacy concerning the conservation of energy and the embracement of renewable sources of energy in exchange for fossil fuel.
When the pageant was already down to eight semi-finalists from the countries Australia, Philippines, Thailand, Venezuela, Colombia, Czech Republic, Netherlands and Russia--they were tasked to talk about specific topics which they would pick from a bowl.
Ibasco’s topic on the the Earth Talk segment revolves around #biodiversity.
“Biodiversity is very important. We are very known in the Philippines to have a lot of biodiversity and they are very important because they also balance the ecosystem. It’s very important to protect them because as we protect them, we protect the environment to help save our home, our planet, our earth to be a better place to live in,” Ibasco explained.
This answer gave her a spot in the final four together with Miss Colombia, Miss Australia and Miss Russia.
For the final question, all of them were asked: “who or what is the biggest enemy of Mother Earth and why?”
The 26-year-old beauty queen responded, “I believe that the real problem is not climate change. The real problem is us, because of our ignorance and apathy. What we have to do is to start changing our ways, to start recalibrating our minds and redirecting our steps because together as a global community our micro efforts will have a macro effect to help save our home, our planet.”
Miss Earth 2016 Katherine Espin from Ecuador crowned her successor, Karen Ibasco, after having her final walk.
The title of Miss Earth Water 2017 was nabbed by Juliana Franco from Colombia, Miss Earth Air 2017 by Nina Robertson from Australia, and Miss Earth Fire 2017 by Lada Akimova from Russia.
These three elemental queens have equal titles and whoever of them may take the place of Miss Earth should she fail to do her obligation.
Overall, the Philippines has already won four Miss Earth pageants— Filipino-Canadian Karla Henry being the first to seize the crown in 2008. The country had also bagged the Miss Earth title for two consecutive years last 2014 and 2015 after Jamie Herrell and Angelia Ong were crowned, respectively.
