EDITORIAL - Enough

Enough already. So much anger has been expended as a result of that controversial Texters Choice Award in the last Miss Cebu Pageant that whatever emerges from the fiasco is no longer worth it.

Even if the award eventually ends up with the rightful winner, and admissions are made regarding allegations of manipulated results, and the expected apologies are made, the bad vibes that arose from the whole episode have rendered everything tasteless.

There are people who, for one reason or another, were never sold to the idea of holding beauty contests. We expect them to come out clucking and wagging their fingers. Let them. They have a right to their satisfaction.

We do not go along with them, however. Regardless of what happened, we do not subscribe to the idea that beauty contests are absolutely worthless. We believe that, handled properly, and held for worthy causes and motives, these activities do contribute some goodness.

Maybe what happened is a blessing in disguise. Maybe what happened did so with a purpose, and that the personalities that got caught in the mess were just players unknowingly acting out roles in some preordained but unseen plot.

But if it is a blessing, then it should be something from which everyone, not just those involved in the controversy, can derive some lasting good and benefit. It should be something from which we all can learn a valuable lesson.

If we refuse to learn from it, then the whole thing is not a blessing but a scourge, something that will taint any future edition of the same pageant or others like it. And that is not what we want.

Cebu has always prided itself as a land whose people are generally and genuinely righteous and upright. Let not this one irritant to our gracefulness bring unwanted and unwarranted woe to our name. Let us move on already.