Miss Universe Canada organization breaks silence, apologizes to Filipino designers

Following Michael Cinco's "ungrateful rant" towards the Miss Universe Canada (MUC) organization, another Filipino designer shared his "awful experience" with the Canadian team during Miss Universe 2018 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The feud between parties involved became a hot topic among news outlets especially in the Philippines and the netizens came swarming into social media pages in support of the Filipino designers.

In a lengthy post on its official social media page on Monday, MUC has finally broken its silence over the controversy that recently rocked the beauty pageant community.

Below is the full statement from the organization:

We at the Miss Universe Canada organization are deeply saddened to read the recent negative online comments directed at us, the current Miss Universe Canada titleholder, some of our designer supporters and third-party organizations.

The Miss Universe Canada (MUC) organization appreciates the relationships we have worked hard to build and maintain with designers all over the world. Like any organization in the pageant business, we enter into agreements with designers, in exchange for products we provide exposure and recognition to their brand. We recognize the significant contribution they make, not only with beautiful couture gowns, but also financially with work hours, time and shipping costs that they absorb. Our designer partners are very important to us, we are always overwhelmed by the tremendous support and multiple design options we receive every year. As a result we do not commit to any specific design for any specific event; instead we collaborate with the reigning MUC titleholder, and based on her input and comfortability in each outfit we decide which outfit to wear at which event. As a result of that, we are not able to wear all of the beautiful designs sent to us. We strive to ensure our designer partners such as Michael Cinco and Rian Fernandez are always aware of our gratitude for their tremendous support. However, based on recent online statements others believe that we as an organization are not doing as well as we thought. We will strive to do better going forward. We thank and appreciate our design partners tremendously for their ongoing support. We specifically want to apologise to Michael Cinco and Rian Fernandez for any damage these recent incidents have caused to them or to their brand.

The MUC organization works with many third-party supporters. Due to the active and busy schedule of the MUC titleholder, our third-party supporters help keep that schedule on track. They help us to ensure our titleholders arrive at meetings and interact with the public and different media outlets. They also sometimes work closely with our design partners to ensure the MUC titleholders will always look their best at different events. While we rely heavily on the collaboration efforts of our third party supporters, it is important to recognize, they are not official representatives of the MUC organization; and while we respect their opinions, those opinions are not necessarily the opinions of the MUC organization. If something is not published by the MUC organization directly, we ask that it not be considered an official statement from our organization.

We believe in, and strongly support the right of free speech for everyone; however, as a result of recent online comments, the MUC organization, the current MUC titleholder and other supporters have been receiving thousands of online messages filled with hate, racism and death threats. This type of behaviour is unacceptable, and nobody should be subjected to this level of cyber bullying, hate and violence. The MUC organization strongly objects to this level of abuse, and we refuse to partake in stooping to that level of ugliness.

The Miss Universe Canada organization is a collaborative organization valuing all the people we have worked with over the last 18 years. We continuously strive to provide the best opportunities each year for the annual MUC titleholders, and to maintain strong positive relationships with them and other third-party organizations and sponsors. We are always working to make things better year over year, and we thank you all for your continued support through the good and bad times. Thanks and love to all with beauty and strength.

Photo: Michael Cinco