This photo was taken on August 26, 2022 during our 4D3N stay at Boracay for the 6th Philippine Women Engineers' Summit. I won Fourth Runner-Up and Miss Friendship in the 7th Lakambining Inhinyera 2022 Pageant where Women Engineers from different disciplines chemical, civil, mechanical, metallurgical, sanitary, electrical, electronics and communication, agricultural and biosystems, and geodetic battle it out for money, beauty and brains.
But instead of telling you about what went on with that pageant, I would like to tell you about how I got into beauty pageants in the first place.
It was during my third year in college when the path of pageantry was opened up to me by our then council president. Before that, I have never imagined myself to become a pageant candidate, nor was I a fan of the world of pageantry. But our council president was persistent and she wasn't taking no for an answer and I was someone who was open to new experiences and I wanted to give it a shot. Mind you, I was third year in college as an undergraduate student of the chemical engineering program and subjects were getting harder. I was the council secretary and I still had the nerve to take on this opportunity. Call it ambition, unconscious incompetence, or maybe even addiction to multitasking - but I was willing to embark on this path.
My mindset at that time was focused on "I may not be the prettiest nor the tallest but I will make damn sure that I will be the smartest." It helped that the representative for the men's category for the previous year's pageant was also my classmate so I had a first-hand information about how the criteria for judging was going to go. He mentioned that it was really important to answer smartly and concisely in the personal interviews, in the pageant casual interview, and of course the question and answer portion. True enough, the pageant criteria put more weight on the question and answer portion compared to the other parts of which focused on the aesthetics and performance.
Being a newbie into pageantry, I did not expect much but there was that goal to get the crown. It was the finals night and everybody was rooting for the other candidate as she won almost all of the minor awards. I didn't get any minor award at all, but I still wanted to answer the question smartly so I can secure my position as the grand winner. The judges must have loved my answer because it was right then and there in my first ever pageant that I won as the miss TC 2013.
It gave me a confidence boost, I guess. It was then that I renewed my faith in my ability to dream and to pour my heart out on something that would require me to step out of my comfort zone. Since then, my organization had pitched me as their candidate whenever a pageant related to my course comes up. I won a national competition amongst my fellow chemical engineers back in 2020 I also won an intercompany competition amongst American Chamber of Commerce companies in Cebu. There were also competitions that I did not win but I would place as first runner-up. It was fun and I liked where pageantry took me until this recent competition - the Lakambining Inhinyera 2022.
Lakambining Inhinyera is a national pageant among different engineering organizations in the country which included mechanical engineering, agricultural and biosystems engineering, electronics and communications engineering, electrical engineering, metallurgical engineering, geodetic engineering, sanitary engineering, and civil engineering. The representatives came from the three islands of the Philippines: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. It was the biggest pageant that I have ever taken part in. The reason why I was chosen to represent my organization was my winning of the nationwide chemical engineering ambassadress contest in 2020. The Lakambining Inhinyera pageant was in a huge part a fundraising effort of the Women Engineer's Network to fund their social welfare efforts. The criteria for judging was split equally to 50% the pool of money accumulated by the candidate and 50% showmanship during the pageant proper. The chemical engineering community in the Philippines is not as huge as other organizations like civil and mechanical engineering so I know that I wasn't going to win in the first criteria. What I had the chance to shine on though was the showmanship. If I can give the judges and the people watching the pageant a good show, I could then secure a spot in the final round. There were also other minor awards that were up for grabs - Miss Friendship, Miss Photogenic, Miss Videogenic, Best in Course Wear, Best in Sportswear, Best in Production Number, and Best in Filipiniana. The opportunity that I saw at that time was to expand my network and open up doors to new opportunities that weren't open to me before. I wasn't looking to pursue pageantry on a much larger scale than this because I know that there was a height requirement, and I am not actually a tall person. Pageantry was more on a short-term opportunity for me and so I didn't think far off of it.
I was supposed to represent in the year prior, in 2021. My organization, the Philippine Institute of Chemical Engineers thought it was risky to go when COVID-19 cases have just subsided and it is just me and nobody will be out there to support and cheer me on. I agreed. Being a beauty queen was hard enough, what more traveling to a city you barely even knew, fend for yourself, and cheer yourself on? Joining next year will also give me more time to prepare and strategize my fundraising efforts. I also had to prepare my advocacy. The photoshoot, video shoot and pasarella walk. The costumes had to be ready too. I also had to think of possible questions that we would have to answer in the best way that we knew how to stand out. It took a great deal of preparation and I certainly couldn't have done it alone.
I had a great time representing my undergraduate course chemical engineering to the national stage. I could also liken my chemical engineering experience to my experience with the pageant. I was meant to walk those two paths, but maybe I was never meant to follow it down to where it would supposedly end. Those roads were there for me for a season, but maybe they were meant to transform me and they had already done their job.
During my beauty pageant journey, I met wonderful people and wonderful personalities. I gained new sets of connections with every batch of men and women that I compete against. I had the pleasure of working with the talented Richard Pozon 
During the Lakambining Inhinyera stint, I could bring a personal assistant with me and I chose to bring my sister. It was her first time to ride a plane. It was heartwarming to see this experience and to share this competition with her. The highlight of the trip was perhaps her little adventure with the beach cats. I would also like to thank my family for allowing me to take on paths that aren't conventional and are unheard of in our family. I would also like to thank my kindergarten teacher who by some unknown force told me that she can see me joining beauty pageants to which our family friend laughed at. Only now am I beginning to realized that that teacher could have been the reason why I went into pageantry in the first place. I want to thank my husband 
This has been a really long realization and recollection of my beauty pageant experience and it has further cemented my realization that nobody is ever really a self-made man or a woman, somewhere along the road, a path, an achievement, or a milestone is achieved by you because someone or everyone helped you get there. And perhaps this is my way of saying farewell to this part of my life. The path was quite long and wacky and fun and now I am choosing to close this chapter because as it's been said that “everything you lose is this step you take.” I am ready for the new paths that will open up for me. I hope you are too.
She is on a mission to become better than who she was yesterday. A candidate for Masters in Business Administration and a Financial Advisor, she hopes to give value to this space as a motivated individual. She found the perfect marriage between what she wants to do in life and her mission in financial advising. She balances her work and life in the comforts of her home, co-working spaces, and cafes. She loves to meet like-minded people and live her life to the fullest. Watch this space for tales of self-improvement and self-acceptance, per Mark Manson, "the philosophical tightrope."
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