Reigning Miss Universe Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach is expected to visit the country once again to celebrate her 27th birth anniversary here on September 24.
This was announced by reigning Miss USA Deshauna Barber who made a slip of tongue during a live Facebook chat with Wurtzbach in New York last Monday night.
“Your birthday is coming up and I have a surprise gift for you and I won’t tell you what it is cause I’m not good at surprises. But she’s gonna love it. ‘Cause you’re going to the Philippines, I can’t wait for you to get back,” said Barber, who shares the New York flat with Wurtzbach.
“And booo! …. I’m not supposed to say that?” asked Barber, as Wurtzbach reacted with a laugh.
“Anyway, she’s not going to be here on her birthday,” said the beauty queen from District of Columbia.
Wurtzbach asked: “So you’re going to Manila?” Barber replied: “No! I’m not going!”
The Filipino-beauty queen smiled and asked her again: “Is that your surprise?” Barber answered: “No.”
During the FB chat, the beauty queens talked about food, fashion, music, charities, and pets.
But Barber said that she is learning how to speak Tagalog, including “pakganern,” a Filipino game.
Barber also said that she is excited to represent USA in the Miss Universe pageant soon.
“Pia keeps me afloat whenever I get nervous. She says all these words to help me get my confidence up. It gets really scary to represent the country. Before it was just D.C., now it’s the nation. It’s scary, but I’ll make you guys proud,” the American beauty queen said.
Both beauty queens have nice words to each other.
“Pia’s really goofy and I like that because sometimes I’m really serious, or I have a dry sarcasm. She’s always laughing, cracking jokes, very relaxed. I think we get along really well because we’re both the same age, we’re simple, very low-maintenance. Pia is very, very sweet,” Barber said.
Of her roommate, Wurtzbach said: “I like Deshauna’s taste in music, her taste in food because she eats everything. I also like that she laughs at my jokes. Her body is also nice.”
* Wait-and-See
During the live FB chat, Wurtzbach and Barber did not touch on the issue of the staging of the Miss Universe beauty pageant in Manila.
Pageant fans around the world are still divided as to whether the Miss Universe beauty contest would really be held in Manila due to lack of confirmation from pageant organizers in the US.
On July 28, Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo announced that the Miss Universe 2016 contest would be staged in Manila.
Almost two months now since the announcement was made, US organizers were still mum about the Manila venue. Even Wurtzbach who campaigned heavily for the Philippines as the next venue for the contest has never mentioned Manila on her IG posts.
A source affiliated to a major local beauty pageant in the Philippines believes that the US organizers of the pageant are keeping a “wait and see attitude” on the Philippines.