Miss World 2018: If Only She Were There…

Text by R. Galvez

Katarina Rodriguez had an unfortunate role to play. Confident, experienced, beautiful, and eloquent, she is a formidable candidate. But the stars and circumstances connived against her and the unthinkable happened. Katarina broke in what was supposed to be an unbroken streak of the Philippines at Miss World which was running for 7 years!

How and why Katarina failed to make it in the semis of Miss World 2018 is huge injustice to her as a contestant. Ever since the respected national director Cory Quirino exited the Philippine pageantry scene, Miss World Philippines was beset by mismanagement and incompetence. The current National Director, Arnold Vegafaria seems to be more contended cozying up with Julia Morley as one of the panel of judges than managing on what was required for her contestant.

At first, Katarina Rodriguez came out strong. She was one of the 32 finalists of the crucial Top Model contest. Then she made it to the Round 2 of the Head to Head challenge which determines who will make it to the semis. But cracks began to appear when the Beauty with a Purpose challenge came into the picture. Katarina failed to make it in the semis of the award. Then she lost to Miss Venezuela Veruska Ljubisavljević in the Round 2 of the Head to Head Challenge which involves defending and explaining the contestant’s Beauty with a Purpose (BWAP) project.

Katarina’s project was about helping the victims of the war in city of Marawi in the Philippines. According to Miss World guidelines, the BWAP video of a Miss World contestant should not feature soldiers or head of states. These guidelines were given to National Directors but Katarina was not duly informed about this. Ill-advisedly, her project video did contain images of soldiers plus her country’s president which led to the disqualification of her project. This is also a possible reason why she lost to Miss Venezuela in the Head to Head challenge.

Pageant analysts believe that if Katarina were there among the semifinalists, she could at least make it to the Top 5. The unbiased assessment of her performance shows that she is passionate and crown-worthy candidate. Indeed, one can only feel sorry that her ultimate role is to end her country’s stellar performance at Miss World.