QUEZON City, Philippines (December 23) – There’s no such thing as a perfect human being, everyone of us has made a mistake. We cannot deny that, but what makes making a mistake wrong is when you don’t make any effort to correct it. Making a mistake is part of the process of learning new things. No person is born knowing all the things that he should know. There are steps and procedure that will help us learn new things and these include making mistakes. We just have to make sure that we learn from it and try not to repeat it.
Miss Universe 2015 was held in Las Vegas, USA. Overall, the pageant runs smoothly until that last crucial moment when the host, Steve Harvey mistakenly announced Ms. Colombia as the winner. Then, a minute later, after she had been crowned, Harvey walks back onstage and makes an apology: “OK, folks, um, I have to apologise,” he said, while Colombia’s Ariadna Gutierrez-Arevalo was proudly waving to fans, holding the winner’s bouquet and wearing the Miss Universe sash. “The first runner-up is Colombia,” he went on, as one of the most surreal moments in television history unfolded, “Miss Universe 2015 is Philippines.”
As the host of one of the most prestigious beauty pageants in the – pardon my exaggeration – universe, Steve Harvey has the huge responsibility, and that is announcing who Miss Universe 2015 is. As such, you must not – I don’t know – just glance distractedly at the contents of the envelope. You have to read it, giving it your full attention, to avoid what has transpired.
But I actually salute Harvey as he is brave enough to own up his honest mistake and apologize in front of all that people and face the consequences. Because we all know that, yes, ultimately, it’s just a beauty pageant but people are very passionate about it and such epic fail can suffer a lot of backlash.
As for the one-minute Miss Universe, Ariadna Gutierrez-Arevalo of Colombia, we all know that you did your best but maybe the judges saw things differently and thus decided that the crown was not for you. For the fans of Miss Colombia, don’t be mad with Pia Wurtzbach. Like the rest of the contestants, she also just did her best. Don’t scorn her for a mistake that she did not make.
In the end, I think that the lesson that we can learn from all of this is -other than what I’ve already mentioned earlier – is that we should be thankful for what we have and try hard and give your best. If you do that you’re already a winner – being crowned Miss Universe is just a reward.
(written by Amabelle Lopez, edited by Jay Paul Carlos, additional research by Lovely Ann Cruz)