Miriam Quiambao was originally crowned as Bb. Pilipinas World 1999.
She also had one of the most memorable journeys in the pageant. During the preliminaries, she tripped, but her graceful recovery was much talked about, that it did help in creating buzz and hype towards her advantage. Unfortunately, after acing round after round in the finals, she fell short in winning the crown, after a terrible performance at the Q&A. In the 1990s, Miriam became the most celebrated Miss Universe Pinay contestant (due to her almost winning the crown) until Venus Raj in 2010, who became the first Pinay to place after 10 consecutive years of the country being shut out in the finals.
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The top three of Miss Universe 1999.
1999 was the only year the Philippines placed first runner-up (the highest finish since Gloria Diaz winning in 1969 and Margie Moran winning in 1973) which is also why Miriam was viewed as the last great Miss Philippines to enter the said pageant at the time.
Quaimbao made waves again in 2012 when she commented negatively on Miss Canada Universe allowing transgender Jenna Talackova to compete in the national level. If Talackova won, she would have been given the chance to compete in Miss Universe 2012, and be the first transgender to officially become a Miss Universe candidate.
Miriam's comments on the LGBT community.
She even went far by directly tweeting Donald Trump in a series of tweets.
@realDonaldTrump in my humble opinion, the decision to include transgenders in the @MissUniverse pageant sends the wrong message.
“This may set a precedent that one day most participants in @MissUniverse are transgenders. #essenceofawoman? #majormistake @realDonaldTrump”
Fast forward to 2020, Miriam is interviewed online to talk about her pageant experience. I already predicted the interview to go that route of talking about God and being a born again Christian, but I never thought that it would be a cringe-worthy interview which focused on Miriam incorporating and injecting her religious beliefs in every aspect and topic discussed.
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The interview (based on the comments) seemed to put off many of the pageant fans as it didn't focus on the experience but on Miriam trying to invite people to join her congregation. The interviewer's face says it all. LOL!