The evolution of the Miss Asia Pacific International pageant

Miss Asia Pacific International candidates. Image: INQUIRER.net/Armin P. Adina

The oldest global beauty contest to be based in the Philippines, the Miss Asia Pacific International pageant, is back and ready to crown another queen this year, a woman who will champion its current thrust of embracing the beauty in diversity.

Delegates from around the world are competing this year, to mark the pageant’s 56th anniversary. But it had not always been that way for the Manila-based global tilt. It was established in 1968 as the Miss Asia Quest, gathering women from across the continent.

In 1984, the competition expanded to welcome delegates from countries in the Pacific region and was renamed the Miss Asia Pacific pageant.

After two decades since the expansion, it further widened its scope in 2005 to cover countries all around the world. To signify this, the competition was rebranded as the Miss Asia Pacific International pageant.

This year’s staging of the international pageant is its comeback edition, mounting a competition five years since holding the last contest in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic compelled the organizers to cancel plans from 2020 to 2022. The break extended to 2023.

But it was not the first time for the international competition to have a hiatus. No pageant was held in 1990 and 1991 because of the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, then later took an even longer break from 2006 to 2015 while undergoing reorganization and with the ownership changing hands.

When the Miss Asia Pacific International pageant resumed in 2016, it also launched a new campaign that would serve as the global contest’s main thrust — “beauty in diversity.”

And to further champion inclusivity under its main advocacy, the competition raised its maximum age limit to 30 years old and has now also opened its doors to mothers and married women.

Cheyenne Huisman, the winner in the 2019 staging of the competition, will crown her successor who will carry on the torch for diversity at the culmination of the 2024 Miss Asia Pacific International coronation night at the Newport Performing Arts Theater in Pasay City on Monday, Oct. 7.