CZECH Republic’s Natalie Puskinova was crowned Miss Earth 2025 at the coronation night held in Okada Manila on November 5.
Puskinova delighted Filipino pageant fans during the final question and answer round when she incorporated the Filipino language in her response to the question, “Bill Gates, who is the leading proponent for carbon emissions reduction, recently proposed that resources must be shifted away from the battle against climate change to efforts that prevent disease and hunger. Do you agree?”
“I’m not here today to pick a finger and choose what is worst, whether it is environmental causes or social problems. I believe that even though I live in the other side of the world, we are still facing the same climate change and we are facing this issue together. I believe that if we all unite, we can prevent both hunger and environmental causes,” the beauty queen began.
She then ended her answer with, “And one message I wanna say, protektahan natin ang kalikasan.”
In a social media post, Puskinova recognized the help of her Q&A coach JV Canta in her success.
“We made it! Thanks, a huge thanks to JV,” she said.
Joining Puskinova are the elemental queens, Soldis Ivarsdottir of Iceland as Miss Earth-Air, My Anh Trinh of Vietnam as Miss Earth-Water, and Waree Ngamkham of Thailand as Miss Earth-Fire.
PH’s Joy Barcoma remains grateful
Despite not winning the top crown, the Filipina bet, Joy Barcoma remained grateful for her journey in the Miss Earth competition.
“Talaga namang tinayo natin ang bandila ng Pinas sa Miss Earth 2025. Masaya ako na nakapagdala ako ng karangalan sa Pilipinas,” she said after the coronation night.
The Bacooreña beauty queen finished as a runner up, but made sure that her voice would be heard.
During the Top 8 question and answer portion, candidates were given a single word to expound. But before starting, Barcoma requested for a time to appeal to the public about the ongoing devastation caused by Typhoon Tino in the country.
“I’m just waiting for this moment to encourage everybody to offer prayers to the victims of the typhoon in Cebu. A lot of people have died, a lot of people have experienced the catastrophe of the typhoon and the flashflood has brought to our countrymen. So I hope you take this time, as we celebrate taking care of Mother Earth, that we also think about and remember the lives of the people we lost because Filipinos deserve better lives, Filipinos deserve to be safe in their country,” Barcoma said.
She was then given the word “law” to expound.
To which she responded, “No one is above the law. And we hope that everyone can hear this message, every decision that our politicians are making, every policy that our government officials are passing for our people, affects the lives of everybody. Social justice, environmental justice is also human justice. And so we must make sure that every law we pass is a right for every person on Earth.”