{"id":188824,"date":"2018-11-08T22:42:51","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T03:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=188824"},"modified":"2018-11-08T22:42:51","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T03:42:51","slug":"miss-earth-2018-contestants-speak-out-about-sexual-harassment-by-philippine-sponsor-during-pageant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/11\/08\/miss-earth-2018-contestants-speak-out-about-sexual-harassment-by-philippine-sponsor-during-pageant\/","title":{"rendered":"Ms. Earth 2018 contestants speak out about alleged sexual harassment during pageant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: Miss Earth Canada Jaime VandenBerg: \u201cI went through almost two weeks of sexual harassment before anything was done about it.” (Photo<\/a>: Miss Earth<\/a>\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Miss Earth 2018 may have ended during the coronation night that occurred last Saturday, November 3, but talk about the pageant still continues as numerous contestants\u00a0open up about their supposed horrific experiences encountering sexual harassment incidents by Amado S. Cruz, a restaurant owner associated with the Manila Yacht Club who sponsored the event.<\/span><\/p>\n

Miss Earth Canada Jaime VandenBerg, Miss Earth Great Britain Abbey-Anne Gyles-Brown, and Miss Earth Guam Emma Mae Sheedy all express through posts on their social media accounts after the pageant concluded. All of them pointed to Cruz \u201ctaking all of the delegates to his yacht and having [them] take sultry photos\u201d during a Manila Yacht Club event, \u201ctelling [the] girls he could take them to Boracay,\u201d and \u201cgetting upset if [they] were not dancing with him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jaime, who began the discussion, expressed how she \u201cdid not feel safe under [the organization\u2019s] care.\u201d She said she was \u201cdisgusted\u201d how Cruz \u201c<\/span>showed up to almost all of the events telling [her] he could take care of [her] needs and asked for sexual favours in exchange to get [her] further in the pageant.\u201d She also said, \u201cI went through almost two weeks of sexual harassment before anything was done about it,\u201d only receiving action after talking to the founder and executive vice president of Miss Earth 2018, Lorraine Schuck.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

British representative Abbey adds, \u201cMyself and Canada approached Team Managers to express our disgust only to be laughed at.\u201d She describes her generally pleasant stay in the Philippines, however, in her words, \u201cBut the other 50% [of my trip] was overshadowed by feeling exploited, vulnerable, unnerved, and sexually harassed as I was approached by a sponsor on many occasions who asked for sexual favors in exchange for the Crown.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Miss Earth England Emma\u2019s account reports, \u201cFrom the moment the pageant started until coronation night, Cruz was at every event and dinner he could physically get to,\u201d concluding, \u201cSince other delegates have posted, multiple other queens from past years have come out about the same behaviour.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Cruz has yet to comment about the situation, while the Miss Earth Organization posted an official statement on its Facebook page.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miss Earth 2018 may have ended during the coronation night that occurred last Saturday, November 3, but talk about the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":188825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,2,5927,46,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-entertainment","category-environment-nature","category-entertainment-ph","category-news-ph","mauthors-gianna-llanes","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}