Will the bevy of Miss Philippine Australia beauty candidates for this year’s Philippine Grand Fiesta Kultura help maintain the gathering’s box office success as the prime calendar event in Sydney’s Philippine community, without the traditional imported celebrity stars from Manila? Scheduled on 6th October 2014, NSW long weekend Labour Day public holiday, the Fiesta Kultura had developed into its brand of one-day fare of entertainment, nostalgia, fellowship, food festival, glamour display and grandstanding by local and Philippine based politicians during the past 26 years. It is considered as an annual iconic one day community event.
As claimed by its convenor Philippine Australian Sports and Culture, (PASC), Inc. the Fiesta attracts a crowd attendance of about 20,000 on a single day. This year’s venue is the Fairfield Showground in Fairfield, NSW.
But that was during its glory years when many visitors rated the Fiesta event with many passing A or B marks for such regular features as entertainment, food festival, celebrity appearances and to some extent the venue.
Fiesta’s Miss Philippine Australia Beauty Pageant which will eventually select the Miss Philippine Australia and Miss Charity Queen for the year and conclude on the night of October 6th the Fiesta celebration has been avidly followed by many. It is an attraction next only to personal appearance by visiting Philippine TV-movie stars.
No announcement yet had come from organisers as to the name of Filipino celebrities invited to the Fiesta.
Furthermore, one other first time community Fiesta has been announced for September 28th, only eight days before the Fiesta Kultura on October 6th. This is the ABS-CBN promotional caravan called “Go Kapamilya Go Sydney” headlined by Philippine veteran entertainer Gary Valenciano and a number of other popular TV star, to be held at the Rosehill Racecourse in Rosehill, NSW.
Candidates of the Miss Philippine Australia Pageant had been busy promoting the Fiesta in many community functions, appearing in their resplendent clothes and prominently sashed for their candidacies.
The twelve Miss Philippines Australia candidates in alphabetical order are: Hannah Arnold(ACT); Athena Bozinakis (NSW), Micah Caballes (NSW), Christine Ferrer (VIC), Sarah-Anne Johnstone (NSW), Meegan Jones, Glyssa Perez (NSW), Astrud Anne Ryan (Vic), Desa Santos (NSW), Heressa Schrapel (SA), Arriane Tan (NSW) and Rebecca Lee Woods (Vic)
Community leader and prominent Fiesta organiser Mrs Lolita Farmer OAM said,” Beauties with a purpose. Giving time and efforts for charitable causes. Give them a hand up for supporting Fiesta Kultura. They are the real celebrities. There are 14 of them engaging in community spirit. Cheer for all these role models.”
One can say the prospect of the tradition of bringing over Philippine celebrities has already diminished since the advertisers who used to sponsor them have likewise diminished. Phone card companies and the cable TV enterprises either had become disinterested or gone out of business to bring the “foreign stars.”
Only this year’s Fiesta admission gates statistics on the day will show that PASC’s bet on home grown beauties is enough to shore up organiser’s reputation and goodwill in hosting a successful Fiesta.