Beauty and Beyond

What beauty means are differentiated by how a person perceive what beauty is?  Many says beauty lies on the eye of the beholder. To some, natural and exotic is beauty. A handful says beauty and brains are tops. Others say beauty is just skin deep.  Beauty organizers around the world seek far and wide who will stand out from its set of criteria and deserve to wear their prestigious crown and be named as the ‘most beautiful’ among women from different nations of the world who came to participate and compete for the coveted title at stake. However, based on the outcome and history of winning the title crowns there are only a handful of countries in the world who are consistently winning most of the crowns offered by these beauty pageant organizers. And in the year 2013, the Philippines have garnered and was enlisted in the elite list of countries having won the major beauty contests crowns. The elite group consist of Venezuela, the US and the Philippines with Venezuela having won 21 major crowns on top of the list followed by the US with 14 and the Philippines with 9.  The Philippines was also the lone Asian nation to have entered into the elite circle. Qualifying to be listed in the elite circle was winning the top four major beauty title namely: Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss International and Miss Earth.

Assessing and measuring beauty by these ‘big four’ world beauty pageant organizers were based on tabulated score sheets filled up by the assigned contest judges during the pageant. In some instances public polls and voting are being conducted online as aid in the popularity aspect of criteria but this aspect was not a guaranty nor will wholly be the basis of the overall judging criteria. Organizers and pageant benefactors also play a big role though these will never be something to be taken into context since ‘unbiased’ decisions are always claimed and vital for the trust rating satisfaction of the pageant organizers mainly due to the interest of the viewing public.

The inclusion of the Philippines in the elite circle of the ‘big four’ has broken the traditional ‘western countries’ domination of the beauty pageant crowns. With the shift from west to eastern beauty domination, many beauty pageant followers are also unto the quest of what beauty will be based on the historic shifting of winners.  Many eastern countries are hopeful that if Philippines had made it to the elite circle, the feat can still be repeated.  A hope for women in the east or probably the middle, north or south have something to be challenged with.  This all lead to conclude that beauty is an exciting competition being watched and awaited by all people from all corners of the world.  Beautiful women not because they are poised, charming, witty and intelligent but most fitting of all was that they were representatives of making all the countries unite and respect each other as a nation and people of this world.  Beauty maybe in the eye of a person, but each women participant in these beauty contests does not only represent beauty but their respective country, their values, their culture and most significantly people united and one. A quality that radiates beyond what beauty mean.