After two decades, the Miss Universe pageant will be held again in the Philippines, this, despite President Rodrigo Duterte's statement that he will not waste government funds for such event.
"I would like to inform everybody that the Miss Universe pageant will be on January 30, 2017 in the Philippines. The government is not going to spend any single centavo. It will be the private sector who would shoulder the expenses," Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo during a presscon on Thursday, July 28.
Teo also said that funding will be coming from the private sector and confirms that among the sponsors are Henry Sy and Japanese casino mogul Kazuo Okada.
The pageant was first held in Manila in 1974 when Miss Universe 1973 Margarita Moran crowned Amparo Muñoz of Spain. In 1994, the pageant came back to the country where India's Sushmita Sen was crowned by Miss Universe 1993 Dayanara Torres.
In 2017, the reigning Miss Universe, the Philippines' own Pia Wurtzbach, will crown her successor.Could this be a back-to-back glory for the Philippines?
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