Maria Luisa Varela is Miss Planet International 2022
In spite of the controversies surrounding her participation, it didn’t stop her from clinching the crown! Congratulations to Philippine bet Maria Luisa Varela for winning Miss Planet International 2022. She becomes the first Filipina to bring home the title.
The pageant was held on Sunday, January 29 at the Koh Pich Theater in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Besting out 13 other candidates, she gave an impressive answer during the question and answer portion.
When asked about what she would like to add to the existing sustainable goals of the 2023 agenda by the United Nations, here is her response:
If I had the chance to add one more goal, that would be promoting education using social media as a key platform. We all know that social media plays an important role in our daily lives. But we are using this for our monetary advances, entertainment. So, as an advocate of youth empowerment, I [want to] use this platform to promote the importance education. I [want to] use this tool to encourage, to promote, and to develop awareness towards a responsible and productive citizen of our sustainable planet.
In addition to the crown, Maria Luisa also won the award for Miss Social Media. Completing her runners-up are the following:
1st runner-up: Jemima Mandemwa, Zimbabwe
2nd runner-up: Ono Aya, Japan
3rd runner-up: Tiffany Hà, Vietnam
4th runner-up: Katariina Juselius, Finland
5th runner-up: Alina Safronova, Latvia
6th runner-up: Sreyleak Pok, Cambodia.
Prior to her win, Maria Luisa had to deal with speculations regarding her appointment. This is due to the fact that the original representative, Herlene Budol had to withdraw from the competition last year in Uganda and her manager, Wilbert Tolentino currently holds the local franchise for the pageant,.
Wilbert raises concerns over Maria Luisa’s participation, leading to numerous call outs on social media. Herlene, herself would eventually respond to the situation.
While we await for that problem to be resolved, what’s important now is we have another crown! Again, congratulations to you, Maria Luisa! Hope you have a purposeful and wonderful reign ahead.
