The latest public statement by ionoco, the multimedia company responsible for the graphics during the final telecast of Miss World came a little too late. It did not address several issues including but not limited to:

a.)   The weblink that supposedly contains the preliminary scores as mentioned by Steve Douglas at the telecast were removed days before the finals.

b.)  The final results of the Designer Award, one of the key components in determining the semifinalists were never disclosed to the public

c.)   Miss Mexico Mariana Berumen came into the semis as the second best contestant but was booted out at the Top 7 in an instant

There is no doubt that 2012 is the all time low for Miss World since Jennifer Hosten was crowned as Miss World in 1970. The trust that many people had put into the pageant was terribly eroded.  While, Missosology.Org believes Wenxia Yu has all the qualities that makes her a deserving Miss World titleholder, it officially questions the process that allowed her to be crowned.  Miss World must be aware that majority in the general public believe that Miss World 2012 was rigged. All the issues raised above and many more support this view.

It is crucial that Miss World must clean its act otherwise the belief that the pageant can be manipulated would persist. Already, it is slowly rising from the notion that it is a boring pageant. Julia Morley should ensure that momentum by shoring up the international image of Miss World and not just simply sweep the issues under the rug.

Missosology believes in thorough analysis of a situation and believes that a pageant can have its low and high moments. The mere fact that there are evidences that Miss World scores and outcomes can be manipulated will not compel us to remove the pageant from the Big4 listing. It is consistent on the same issue that we are not removing Miss Earth on the basis that there is a possibility that the crown can be bought.

There is no doubt though that the official statement issued today comes all too little and all too late. Miss World 2012 was crowned in August last year and it took almost half a year to figure out and divulge to the public on what went wrong. On top of that, so many spurious occurrences that begged to be answered remained unanswered.

The official statement would even be an insult to an injury for National Directors like Lupita Jones who openly questioned the scoring system. But poor Lupita because instead of getting answers she got an I-don’t-know and a directive to hold a separate pageant which would costs her additional thousands of pesos.

Even more painful is to watch so many blind supporters and zombie fans that all vehemently deny the issues that hounded Miss World in 2012. It is without doubt that Miss World owes the public a thorough explanation not a half-baked statement of somebody else pinning on human error. It is crucial for the pageant to do so in order to remain successful, reliable and with integrity.