During a television interview with popular television host Boy Abunda, Venus Maria Raj, 21, said she will fight for her beauty title even if it takes her to court.
MANILA, Philippine - A Miss Universe aspirant, who was stripped of her title because of inconsistencies in her birth records, has vowed to fight her case.
During a television interview with popular television host Boy Abunda, Venus Maria Raj, 21, said she will fight for her beauty title even if it takes her to court.
"I worked hard to get this [crown]," she said during the interview.
- The dusky beauty from Bicol had been crowned during the ceremony on March 6, following a rigorous selection process that pitted her intelligence, personality as well as beauty against other contestants.
- She was to represent the Philippines at the Miss Universe pageant. But several weeks after she was crowned by Binibining Pilipinas Charities Incorporated (BPCI), they announced that she would be replaced by Helen Nicolette Henson who was the pageant's second runner-up.
- BPCI announced that her title had been recalled because of questions over Raj's nationality. According to rules set by the pageant's organising body, contestants must be Filipino citizens.
- Raj, during the interview with Abunda on his talk show Buzz, said she considers herself a Filipina from the beginning, even though she was born in Qatar of a Filipino mother and an Indian father.
- "What hurts me most was when they said that I had been disqualified because I was born out of wedlock and that I was not born in the Philippines. If there were any inconsistencies in my birth records, I do not think it was my fault," Raj said.
- Raj admitted that her parents were not married at the time of her conception and that she was illegitimate.
- "I was born in Doha. I was taken to the Philippines when I was one month old and I was baptised there. That was the truth and I never hid that fact," she said.
- She added that although she was born in Qatar, what was noted in her birth record was she was born in Bato town, Camarines Sur province.
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