I am not good at this.
My Miss Universe Philippines last year was the Bicolana accountant Yvethe Marie Santiago, except that I never really liked how her red lips went as red as red could go.
To my eyes, she glowed every time the camera hit her, even from the opening number—where the ladies, year after year after year, spend most of the time clapping while marching.
After the preliminary swimsuit and gown contests, and the parusa commercial breaks, almost all the Top 15 ladies I had listed made the cut. Must be a lucky year, I thought.
But my Final 7 was just miserable.
I had the Filipino-speaking Pia Wurtzbach in, no MJ Lastimosa or Parul Shah. Santiago ultimately flew to the Miss Supranational pageant, only to get cut after a Top 20 placement.
Nowadays, with pageants mushrooming like crazy, everyone sees patterns, archetypes.
The Miss International bet should be the modern-day Maria Clara, the Miss Universe delegate should be from Aces and Queens because they’ve mastered the pattern there, etc.
I don’t know the statistics they talk about. I am not good at math. I just combine my feelings and vibrations and, uhm, guess, intelligently.
But my emotions are so strong—at walang pagsisidlan—and my downtimes so boring that I decided to scour the Internet.
I went on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and those pageant blogs—even one that claims to predict with real psychics—to whittle down the 34 to my personal Top 15.
Here’s what I came up with.
(Click here to view a larger version.)
Confusing, eh? Yeah, it’s a jungle out there.
If my list turns out bad, do know that even as a child betting at the “running lights” during our barangay fiesta, I was never lucky with predictions.
How do you find the list? Who do you want to win? Please, do not kill me.