December 23, 2025 | 4:00pm
MANILA, Philippines — After Ahtisa Manalo shared about her “worst” pageant experience, an executive from Miss Cosmo International posted his sentiments about the incident that occured during the Miss Cosmo 2024 edition in Vietnam.
Ahtisa represented the Philippines at the first-ever Miss Cosmo last year, finishing in the Top 10 as Indonesia’s Ketut Permata Juliastrid won the crown.
The Filipina beauty queen brought up her experience during an interview with host-comedian Vice Ganda after being asked to share her worst experience in pageantry. The interview was uploaded on Monday, December 22, two days after Miss Cosmo 2025 crowned its new queen. USA’s Yolina Serafina Lindquist won the crown, while the Philippines’ Chelsea Fernandez was her runner-up.
Ahtisa did not name the pageant, where she said she sustained a sprain after a stage collapsed. The beauty queen shared that it was found out that fluid entered her bone marrow and made it difficult for her to walk. For a time, she even had to use a wheelchair.
“Lumaban ako ng prelims and finals na masakit ‘yung ankles ko as in halos hindi ako makalakad,” Ahtisa said, quipping the incident could have been pulled from a “Final Destination” movie. “Kasi nag-takbuhan kami… As in I don’t know why no one, pero may mga pictures eh. … Tapos sabi ng mga tao nag-iinarte daw ako.”
After the interview went up on social media, Miss Cosmo’s head of marketing and communications Jay Luu took to Instagram stories where he detailed about the 2024 incident without naming personalities.
Jay Luu via Instagram
“Turning an accident into a joke doesn’t make you brave, it only proves how small your perspective is,” Luu said in an Instagram story on December 22, confirming there was indeed an accident during stage construction last year.
Luu, however, pointed out that the person he is referring to in his post “conveniently ignored” that within 48 hours two new stages were completed, “If you want to speak the truth, speak all of it, not the part that feeds your mockery while erasing your own failures from the conversation.”
“Mocking someone else’s setback is easy when you’ve never built anything that carries real risk, real pressure, or real responsibility,” Luu continued, accepting they learn from failure. “Clinging to the past, replaying it as a joke, only proves one thing: you stopped growing the moment it happened.”
“We accept failure to rise and we let go to become better so laugh if you want, we will keep building and results, as always, speak louder than noise,” he ended.
International pageant fans began reposting Luu’s statement, while Filipinos were quick to defend Ahtisa pointing out Vice’s interview intentionally had a humorous tone. They also pointed out that it was Vice who namedropped Miss Cosmo, and Ahtisa herself never outright mocked the pageant.
After Miss Cosmo 2024, Ahtisa represented the Philippines at last month’s Miss Universe 2025 finals where she finished as third runner-up.
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