Missed Universe

For foreigners looking in, the Miss Universe is like soccer in the Philippines because of how Filipinos feel strongly about it. Next to a Manny Pacquiao fight at his peak and the best of seven series of the ultimate basketball league, the annual beautylympics empties congested streets and immobilizes a people busy surviving hunger. Last Monday was no different, Beatrice Gomez awed a country in distress.

Asked if she agrees to mandatory vaccination passport, the Cebuana seeking universal crown affirmed her resolve for protection against the viral crown. Public health is everybody’s responsibility. She nailed the substance, but not the articulation. Conversely, those who advanced were not as responsive but sounded persuasive.

Regardless, she spoke her mind and heart to a tricky question that could divide a divided nation apart. Yes or no, she would still be right, depending on how the answer is qualified. No right or wrong answer to why and how. It is about reason and logic, both lost among the blind, dumb and stupid. See social media for easy reference. The jury does not even have to agree, they only need to see if the woman on the spot communicates well to be the woman on top. Wisdom to queendom.

Ms. Gomez thrilled the Filipinos at the edge of their seat each time Steve Harvey announced the qualifiers, until he didn’t say Ms. Philippines. Many must have hoped he bungled again. But he didn’t do a Britney Spears. Cheer up, pageant junkies. A few other Filipinas already captured the universe elsewhere. They may not fit beauty queen template, but commanding just the same, for different but more empowering reasons.

Like strength. She who built muscles to carry the burden of winning the gold that eluded the country for a century, only to realize she had to bulk up to endure insensitivity. Courage too. She who ditches long locks for a pixie cut, elegant gown for power look, who challenged the world to continue the fight for truth, freedom and democracy. Not everyone likes her though, especially those who can’t handle the truth. Just like Bea, now disliked by people opposed to vaccination.

Why, it includes religion we have no choice but to respect, even if it is beyond reason. Or understand, like those who fear the unknown, they just need more time and persuasion. Or those who doubt its efficacy, the fully inoculated are still infected. Beatrice said mitigate, not eliminate.

But not those who conspire theories, that there is no crowned virus to begin with, apolitical scientists all over the world created a medical hoax. Or that the human body has natural immunity, like the study of science and medicine is useless, the cure to all human illness is after all found within. Or those plucked from a scary movie plot, vaccines morphing humans into zombies. Don’t even laugh. Just disengage, lest we dignify the brain dead fearing the living dead.