Rodriguez wants Harding declared persona non grata

By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent

REP. Rufus Rodriguez of the city’s 2nd District yesterday filed a proposed House resolution to declare Miss New Zealand-Pancontinental Nicole Harding persona non grata over her rants on social media that placed the city in a bad light.

Rodriguez filed the three-page proposed resolution at the House Committee on Tourism.

Harding quit the international beauty pageant, and left the city two Sundays ago due to poor accommodation and lack of preparation by organizers. She compared the city to Afghanistan, and alleged that a local official told her that the city was dangerous to foreigners like her.

Rodriguez also asked the House tourism committee to start an investigation into the controversial pageant, and to look into Harding’s claims of shabby treatment by organizers.

According to Rodriguez, Harding’s complaint was “malicious and false,” and harmed the city’s reputation.

“There is a further need to look into the malicious and irresponsible statement made by Ms. Harding in order to verify if such statement are true and if proven otherwise, to hold her persona non grata for disparaging the city of Cagayan de Oro and to request the Bureau of Immigration to put her name on the blacklist that she may never be admitted in the Philippines,” reads part of Rodriguez’s proposal.

He also asked the House to summon the pageant’s national organizer Mylene Miranda, local organizers Lourdes Stanley and Cheryl Macale, and tourism officials  in Misamis Oriental and Cagayan de Oro. (nitz arancon)