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By Rome Jorge, Lifestyle
Editor
Everything is interconnected.
Talk about replanting trees on hillside watershed areas and the
issues of overdevelopment and climate change arise. Recall a seminal
childhood experience and conversation touches upon the poor public
educational system we have. Look for an exemplary environmental
advocate willing to tackle the grim and grimy details among the
grassroots and you uncover a gorgeous beauty queen.
The Miss Earth Pageant proves
that no degree of separation removes divinely gorgeous beauty queens
from the world and its troubles. We all share the same planet, the
pageant highlights. Sultry allure, regal composure, keen intellect,
disarming candidness, down-to-earth humility and genuine conviction
can coexist in the same woman. So proves 22-year-old Karla Paula
Ginteroy Henry, newly crowned Miss Earth 2008.
Well beyond putting a pretty face
on environmentalism and lending her name to projects, Miss Earth
wants to be directly involved in programs. She wants to get her
hands dirty, be it with planting trees, cleaning up shores or
educating youths in depressed areas. Speaking on an audacious plan
to plant 20,000 trees, “If we get others to help it should be very
easy. But what my group and I are talking about is that the point is
that we do it ourselves. We represent. I don’t mind the sun.”
Beyond the initial excitement of
starting projects and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, Henry demonstrates
concern for the long-term perpetuation of her various projects.
“That’s what we ask from the government. We’ll do that. But in
return, they have to make sure that the trees will not be chopped
down.”
The land on which the 20,000
trees are to be planted has yet to be decided. Though she hopes for
public land, she is open to the idea of a reforestation effort in
private property. Her preference for location highlights her roots:
“The mountain areas of Cebu.” The island she fondly calls home
has been almost completely denuded and overpopulated, rendering the
island dry and hot. Ironically, it is those same hillsides—the
island’s watershed that is vital to all—that are being bulldozed
and developed as luxury residences today to benefit the few.
“That’s why we have our work cut out for us,” she says.
Henry is aware of the issues that
surround the seemingly uncomplicated effort of planting trees. She
insists on planting only indigenous tree species. Imported
fast-growing trees such as gemelina do not support local wildlife.
She has learned much about the environment since her entry as a
contestant to this year’s pageant.
Asked if she had prior
involvement in any environmental advocacy before the beauty contest,
she confesses, “To be really honest with you, no. I didn’t.
Actually, since I joined this, I really have become aware. I don’t
just talk about it. We have been doing a lot for the environment.”
Such candor is refreshing most
especially for a beauty queen, the stereotype for which has been
less than intellectual or sincere. When Miss Earth talks, it’s
definitely not some canned spiel about world peace.
She recalls how the pageant
awakened her passion: “When I joined Miss Philippines, there was a
very funny story about the first day I saw the other girls, the
contract-signing day with Carousel [pageant organizer]. Ms. [Cathy]
Untalan [executive director of environmental projects] warned me,
‘If you’re here for the fame and glamour of being a beauty
queen, then you’re in the wrong pageant. Here, we’re really
serious about our advocacy. We really do get down and dirty with the
activities that we do.’ I said, these guys are really serious. I
should really join this. I pursued it and I have no regrets.”
“As I went through the pageant,
the schools and barangays we visited and the environmental
activities we did as a candidate, it awoke something in me,” she
reveals.
Back to school
“The one thing that I would
like to pursue even after the pageant is the school course [Miss
Earth Foundation’s I Love My Planet Earth School Tour]. They
really matter. It doesn’t take a lot of your time even after your
reign. We go around public school once a week a teach grade-school
kids,” she says.
Despite living in the rarified
atmosphere of beauty queens she is free from any of airs. Her voice,
free from the petty bourgeois (kikay) inflection so common in other
candidates, allows her to connect and disarm. This half-Canadian
Cebuana is quite comfortable speaking in Tagalog. Though
conspicuously stunning, she does not allow vanity to mar her beauty.
More than just an outreach,
Henry’s involvement with public-school children is a return of
sorts. She studied in a public school in Cebu as a 14-year-old for
one year upon her family’s return from Canada. “My dad thought
public schools here were the same as those abroad. My father travels
a lot, and I really had to transfer school most of the time,” she
explains. Her father, Dennis Henry, is in the business of exporting
handicrafts to Canada. Her mother Nanette Ginteroy is a Filipina.
Her year at a public school was a
formative experience. She confides, “It was uncomfortable at
first. To my classmates, I was more white than Filipino. It was more
of curiosity than anything. But it turned to be my funnest year in
high school. I made a lot of friends there. We still keep in touch
even now. They knew me before all the fame and attention of being a
beauty queen.”
There are many little bits of
this archipelago in Henry. Born in Limay, Bataan, she was raised by
her grandparents until the age of four when her family went to
reside in Tsawwassen, Canada until she was 14. Even then, she would
visit the Philippines every summer and Christmas. Upon her
family’s return to the country, they first lived in Albay, Bicol
for a year before residing permanently in Cebu City.
Nonetheless, it is advocacy and
not fondness for her roots that has led to her preference for
environmental values formation for public-school children. “There
is a lack of awareness about climate change and global warming even
in some private schools,” she notes, adding, “It’s all about
promoting the green lifestyle. Of course the children aren’t the
ones buying for the family. But they are innocent voices that can
influence parents.”
Children can insist that their
parents buy products in bulk; doing so means less packaging that
ends up as post- consumer waste. They can also insist on products
certified as eco-friendly such as tuna that was caught without
injury to dolphins or organic vegetables raised without artificial
pesticides, herbicides or fertilizer. And as Henry notes children
themselves can collectively make great reductions in waste. She
examples: “They can choose not to get plastic straws for their
drinks, unless they’re drinking them in the car. Miss Earth
promotes practical ways to minimize our impact on the
environment.”
The Miss Earth Pageant has
transformed Henry’s own lifestyle as well. “The greatest change
I’ve had is realizing the need for not using plastics. It’s
amazing how when you buy even the smallest items in a mall, they
have to put it all in plastic bags. Now I’m more conscious about
these and say, ‘No, I don’t need those.’ Little things like
that really matter.”
My generation
As the first Philippine candidate
to win the Miss Earth pageant, Henry has not only brought honor to
the country, she has also highlighted a new assertive multicultural
generation.
She has a global outlook. She
began studying for a degree in Tourism at the University of Cebu in
2005 and was working with Marco Polo Plaza Hotel when she was
invited to join the Miss Earth pageant. She recently studied the
Spanish language. Her closest friend among this year’s top four
runner-up winners—named after the four elements—is Miriam Odemba,
Miss Earth-Air from Tanzania. She plans to visit Odemba’s homeland
soon. “We plan to climb Mount Kilimanjaro,” she reveals.
Tellingly, her winning answer to
the pageant’s final question touched upon another icon of the
multicultural generation: Barack Obama.
The finalists were asked, “What
would you tell US President-elect Barack Obama about the state of
the global environment if ever you were to meet him?”
Henry answered, “Environmental
knowledge is something that all of us must share, but most
importantly we must teach the youth that this is something that we
should instill in them so that in the near future they will be the
ones to take care of our mother Earth.” Fittingly, Henry’s
statement is backed up by her actions.
“It’s been surreal. All I
ever wanted was to compete on the international stage. To win
against 85 beautiful women from across the globe—I thought it
wasn’t possible,” she says.
Her first foray into the world of
beauty pageants was as a student representing her school for Miss
Intramurals and Miss Milo Olympics. She joined her first
professional beauty contest at age 17 in October 2003. However, her
next foray would not be until 2006 when she placed second runner-up
in the Miss Cebu pageant.
Undaunted
Henry’s win is also a personal
vindication. She has achieved all this success despite many
heartaches.
Her parents’ marriage fell
apart a few months after they returned to the Philippines when she
was but 13 years old. She confides, “I stayed with my father after
they separated. I was given a choice and I opted to stay with my
dad.”
In March 2008, she competed for
the title of Miss Philippines but failed to place. “After
Binibining Pilipinas, a lot of people were telling me not to join
pageants anymore,” she reveals. Undaunted, she enters Miss Earth
despite her father’s disapproval—the same reason for the long
pause between her win at Miss Cebu and her forays this year.
“I did not get his blessing for
Miss Philippines, Binibining Pilipinas or any other pageant before
that. He never watched a single pageant, not even Miss Earth,” she
reveals. Further angering her father was the fact that her busy
schedule as a beauty contestant took away from their time together
during his brief stays in the country.
Nonetheless, after her
coronation, she received a call from her father congratulating her.
“I am very proud you did what you wanted to do and you didn’t
listen to anybody else,” he said. She declares, “The one thing I
learned from my dad is to think for myself. He’s stubborn
sometimes. He goes his own way and that’s something I really
admire.”
It will take a strong will and
willingness to go against the tide to heal this planet. It is with
her character and independent spirit that Karla Paula Ginteroy Henry
best exemplifies Earth’s best hope: a new generation with a new
way of thinking and living. 
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