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ACTING Cebu City Vice Mayor Hilario Davide III has scheduled a meeting on Monday to initiate his investigation into the awarding mixup in last week’s Miss Cebu pageant.
Invited to the meeting were those involved in the awarding of the Globe Texters’ Choice, which went to Kris Janson instead to Kimberly Therese Burden who was ahead by over 21,000 votes.
“I will have to get into the bottom of the whole incident,” Davide said.
The acting vice mayor yesterday talked with Councilor Gerardo Carillo, chairman of the Sinulog 2009 legal and arbitration committee, to discuss the details of Monday’s meeting.
Davide, to whom Rama relegated the position of chairman of the Cebu City Tourism Council (CCTC), said investigating the mixup was his first task as chairman.
The CCTC organizes the annual Miss Cebu pageant, which is held as part of the annual Sinulog festival.
Davide said he would get a copy of a video of the pageant so that he could see how the error was made.
On the pageant night, the Globe Texters’ Choice special award was given to Janson, who was crowned Miss Cebu 2009 later that night.
The Burden family, however, complained to the organizers and showed the result through the text poll feedback.
Burden was then named as the second winner of the texters’ choice award.
Humiliated, Burden later relinquished her title as Miss Cebu 2nd runner-up.
Rama said he would look into the matter first before accepting Burden’s withdrawal.
Organizers later acknowledged that Burden was the winner of the texters’ choice special award, which was based on the number of votes a contestant received through text messages.
Bruce Bollozo, marketing consultant of the CCTC issued a public apology that appeared in Cebu dailies on Jan. 17.
He said he made an “honest mistake” when he misread the text poll result which was later announced on stage.
The final tally showed that Burden had 117,797 votes while Janson had 95,830.
