Boxing, billiards, and beauty queens?

by Gabriel la Ó

The Philippines has placed in the top five of Miss Universe the past four years. (Shelley Panzarella/ Flickr/ http://flic.kr/p/2gEiPF)

Add another “B” to the list of things Filipinos are really good at. Among our accolades for 2013: Miss World, Miss International, and a runner-up finish to Miss Earth. And while we may not have won the Miss Universe crown recently, we’re always pretty close.

In fact, we’ve gotten so good at it that it’s starting to turn into an industry all to itself. From an excellent feature by the BBC on the Philippines and our beauty queens:

 

“In the old days, an untrained candidate may end up winning a title either because she is a great beauty or is someone from a pedigreed family,” he said. “These days, there are talent scouts and modelling agencies who actually train some of the girls, months, even years, before the national competition.”

 

One of the most successful beauty camps is headed by Jonas Gaffud, who is CEO of a large modelling agency, Mercator.

 

He and a teams of mentors field an average of 10 candidates a year. The mentors work for free, and many of the women dominate the national pageants and go on to place well internationally.”

A few other interesting insights about beauty queens — looking pretty isn’t easy, no matter how effortless they make it look. Again via the BBC:

 

She did calisthenics exercises and walking training, which included “doing weird lunges and wiggling”.

 

“So when we do these lunges, and we wiggle our hips, it’s really tiresome. And we all do this in four-inch heels minimum. It helps us to lengthen our stride and to put more sway in our hips,” Ms Maynard said.

 

Sometimes she had to do the high-heeled lunges while answering questions called out by her mentors.