There’s a lot of buzz on whether Miss Philippines Maxine Medina should get a translator for the Miss Universe pageant which will be on Jan. 30 in Mall of Asia Arena.
1969 Miss Universe Gloria Diaz was one of the people who advised Maxine to get an interpreter. “This is the first time I will meet Maxine and the first thing I will tell her is to get an interpreter if she feels that she can better express her thoughts using our vernacular language,” she said during an interview at Governor’s Ball. Gloria stressed that using Filipino doesn’t make her less of a beauty queen.
The comment has impact given that a lot of netizens expressed their worry that our candidate Maxine reportedly has poor English skills.
“Napakaganda ng Tagalog (Tagalog is a beautiful language). Wala namang masama kung mag-translator tayo. (There’s nothing wrong if we request a translator). I’m here also to win,” said Maxine during the “Rise Against Hunger” event held in Baguio. She even shared that she had a talk with reigning Miss Universe Pia Wurtzbach that there was nothing wrong in using Filipino, even if Pia preferred to answer her question in English due to time constraints. Pia also shared that it may come as a bonus that the candidate speaks in English, but again, “go with what you’re comfortable with.”
When Maxine was asked if she will indeed get a translator, she responded with, “I will request if I have to.” If so, she will be the first Miss Philippines candidate to get one.
So, can we now lay this to rest and support our beauty queen?
Photo courtesy of Inquirer.net’s Facebook page
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