Beauty queen Julieane Aya Fernandez comes home
A student of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City was crowned Dream Girl of the Year International 2018 during the Miss Tourism International 2018 pageant held in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia recently.
Julieane Aya Fernandez was one of the five major winners in the beauty contest dubbed the "holiday pageant" because the Miss Tourism International contest is usually staged around the holiday season.
Other winners were: Astari Vernideani of Indonesia, Miss Tourism International; Sarah Pkyach of Kenya; Miss Tourism Metropolitan International; Sandra Callahan, Australia, Miss Tourism Global; and Laura Skutane, Latvia, Miss Tourism Cosmopolitan International.
Host delegate Caenne Ng of Malaysia won the special title of Miss Southeast Asia Tourism Ambassadress.
Aya is a broadcast communication student from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. She is also a recipient of the Most Promising Youth Social Enterprise for the year 2017.
Before she joined "Mutya," Aya also won the Miss Teen Earth pageant in 2015. She promotes her environmental project for the local community dubbed "Project Lily PH," a livelihood project for Persons with Disabilities (PWD) who are engaged in the production of eco-friendly charcoals from water lily and other agri forest wastes.
Aya's sister, Patricia Fernandez, a model and television host, is also a graduate of the state university where she finished speech communication. She was one of the semi-finalists in the Miss International 2008 beauty contest held in Macau.
Hemilyn Escudero-Tamayo, president of the Mutya ng Pilipinas Organization, congratulated Aya for her achievement.
"I'm very Happy and thankful that Aya placed in the Miss Tourism International. For me, she answered the final question very well. This is another gift for the Filipino people. Truly the beauty of a Filipina always shine," says Tamayo in a text message following Aya's win. "I'm proud to say that all the Queens in my term got something from the international Competition. All them are winners."
Aya said she was asked during the close-door preliminary judging the secret of Filipino beauty queens winning the pageants.
"Why do you always win? I remember answering that what makes us, Filipinos shine is our story. Our story of resilience. We face several tragedies and challenges as a nation but at the end of the day, Filipinos choose to stand and continue the fight. And thus every Filipina beauty queen radiates that story from within her," she says.
When asked if she would try other pageants in the future, Aya smiled and said: "I don't know. We'll see."
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