Image: Instagram/@bea.santiago
Miss International 2013 Bea Rose Santiago on Monday broke her silence and spoke about her sexual harassment experiences in the past.
“Sexual Harassment is REAL. NOT JUST IN PAGEANTS BUT EVERYWHERE!” Santiago wrote in a Facebook post.
The beauty queen and actress recounted the times when she was allegedly sexually molested by a priest when she was still a child.
Santiago claimed the priest “is still preaching somewhere in Masbate.”
She also recalled how a 21-year-old male pageant winner told her when she was 12: “Why are you born too late! Or sus sayang ka Bea, kung napanganak ka lang mas maaga.”
She further told about another experience getting “touched inappropriately by a well-known businessman” who was also a “CEO of a big company.”
“The next time I met him I was a candidate and the organizers were there to see things thoroughly. He couldn’t interact with us because the chairwoman was present and so as the chaperones. Still he was talking nonsense to us,” Santiago added.
The 28-year-old beauty also shared witnessing a similar experience at “Congress or Senate.”
“When a Queen was touched (her behind) while taking a photo, she immediately told me (with a help me look) so I put my hand covering her back protecting her from the ‘old well-known perv,’” she recollected.
There was also one time when a middle-aged man asked for a photo and Santiago had a feeling he was a “perv” so she “put both hands behind” her, but the man still managed to “accidentally swing his hand touching my behind,” according to her.
“It happens,” Santiago said. “No matter how careful you are. No matter how Big/ popular/old/‘religious’ a person is, HE CAN STILL BE A PERVERT.”
She added she felt “guilty for not speaking up and file complaints or SLAP THE HELL OUT OF THEM.”
Nonetheless, she hoped that speaking up now will help future beauty queens even if she also admitted being scared of coming forward and hoped she won’t regret it. /kga