CEBU CITY, Philippines — While the rest of the people in the venue restlessly waited for the live Miss Universe 2019 broadcast to commence, one voice stood out in delivering the message that beauty needs to be deeply understood.
Award-winning actress Pilar Pilapil, the first Cebuana who represented the Philippines in the Miss Universe pageant, shared this insight a few minutes before the Gazini Ganados competed for the international pageant and landed as one of the Top 20 semi-finalists.
Pilapil, who hails from Liloan town, shared that she was only a runner-up in the local pageant when she was invited to compete for Miss Philippines in 1967.
She came out as the winner and earned the right to represent the country in Miss Universe 1967.
“I want to be able to share to the young people, men and women… that beauty is something that needs to be understood… that beauty is not used just for selfless reasons… that beauty is a good symbol for this country… that we can grow together and be beautiful as a whole,” she tells 407 people inside the Grand Ballroom of Marco Polo Plaza Cebu for the private viewing of the Miss Universe 2019.
After her stint as a beauty queen, movie offers landed on Pilapil’s lap. She went on to become an award-winning actress. She also gave birth to a daughter, Pia, with Salvador “Doy” Laurel, former vice president of the Philippines, as her partner.
But Pilapil emphasized that beauty can be a curse; the same beauty became the reason why she made one wrong decision after another as the spotlight shone on her.
“My life in Cebu was better than my life as a beauty queen,” she bluntly declares.
In a pronouncement that is rare for many beauty queens, Pilapil says: “Beauty can be a curse. Sometimes, beauty can destroy relationships.”
She went on to share that the men in her life did not see what was truly inside her.
“Men, it’s important for you to see that beauty is to be appreciated in the right manner. [It is] not according to how selfish you can be about desiring the woman,” she says.
She ended her short talk with a lingering thought: “It is important to know what your beauty really means.”