Philippines has now the spotlight and the obvious once-in-a-blue moon opportunity to host the prestigious Miss Universe for this year. It may be due to the reigning queen Ms.Pia Wurtzbach's luck, some would say.
Now that the candidates are already in the Philippines for the upcoming event, for sure they will be able to appreciate the hidden treasures the country has been boasting around the globe. However, this recent news may have given a bad shape to the team of Miss Universe: Some environmental groups slammed the swimming of some candidates together with the endangered whale shark in the waters of Cebu.
For Greenpeace Southeast Asia, particularly Vince Cinches in his statement to Rappler, that the recent activity involving the Miss Universe candidates indirectly implied that there was a bad practice in promoting tourism in the country. They reiterated, that the action taken by the organizers with the candidates had given an implied message that it's not entirely bad interacting with animals which are slowly coming into extinction.
The site has also reported about Marine Wildlife's opposition to the candidates' swimming with the whale sharks, locally called as Butanding.
The group's director AA Yaptinchay had detailed that such action has no compliance to norms and even laws that everyone should abide.
Not only environmental groups had expressed concern about this issue. The once Philippines' bet for Miss Earth 2006 Catherine Untal-Vitalan said at CNN Philippines, about the negative impact it would give not only to the wildlife, but to the country's reputation as well, regarding its mission in protecting the environment.
But, it seemed that the event of Miss Universe's candidates swimming with the Butandings had a nod from the high officials. This report had published at Morning News USA, telling that the organizers had still pursued that particular event, in spite of the possible drawbacks they may gain from it.