NICOLE’S ROOM. Budgetel manager Kassandra Arbuis shows the room where Kiwi Nicole Harding slept on Saturday. Harding, who quit the search for Miss Pancontinental 2015 and flew out on Sunday, complained of the alleged shabby treatment she and her fellow contestants received from organizers of the pageant here (PHOTOS BY NITZ ARANCON)
By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent
NOT just one, but four.
Miss New Zealand-Pancontinental Nicole Harding did not fly out of Cagayan de Oro alone on Sunday. She quit the international beauty pageant and left with Miss USA-Pancontinental Ashley Clark.
But there’s more. On Tuesday, Miss Belgium-Pancontinental Derya Emre and Miss Benelux-Pancontinental (Belgium- Netherlands-Luxembourg) Tiffany Boone also called it quits, and left.
This was confirmed to the Gold Star Daily yesterday by Mylene Miranda, international events coordinator of Mr. and Ms. Pancontenintal 2015.
Harding and Clark were roommates at Budgetel, an inexpensive place for travelers.
The 22-year old Kiwi said they were made to sleep in a room which she compared to a prison cell in New Zealand, with a mattress on a floor and “crawling bugs.”
Miranda said the other candidates were having second thoughts about quitting but they were advised by their respective pageant directors to leave after Harding walked out and started complaining about the alleged shabby treatment of the candidates on their arrival to the city from Manila.
Harding and her counterpart from the US left after they had their lunch at Xavier Estates Country Club.
Miranda said Harding convinced Clark to fly with her back to Manila on Sunday after they were forced to spend the night inside Room 216 of Budgetel.
Miranda said Embre and Boone left on Tuesday after they were called by their respective pageant directors who became worried after Harding’s complaints went viral in social media.
Miranda said she and her group were contemplating on suing Harding.
“We will really go after her, and bring her to court” after the coronation night in Makati on Nov. 29, said Miranda, claiming that the Kiwi breached their contract.
She alleged that the other contestants breached their contracts with the organizers, too, but they would not go after them because her group was aware that they left against their will.
Miranda has filed a complaint for breach of contract against the local organizer, Lourdes Stanley, before the city prosecutor’s office.
She blamed Stanley for the mess, and for not shouldering the costs of providing hotel accommodations and food to the 32 candidates here.
Miranda said, “She (Stanley) did not stick to our agreement. She merely said that she doesn’t have money.”
“She deceived me. She has to pay for what she did to me,” Miranda said.
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