Our very own Miss Universe 2017 bet Rachel Peters and Miss Indonesia Bunga Jelitha finally spoke up about the Twitter war among Pinoy and Indonesian netizens rooting for their own country to win the online voting. In video interviews with ABS-CBN reporter MJ Felipe, the beauties appealed to their supporters to promote love instead of hate online.
Contrary to the online drama, Rachel revealed that she and Miss Indonesia are, in fact, roommates and happen to be really good friends. She said, "I think that it is great that they did put us as roommates because we, beauty queens, we're supposed to be role models. And so hopefully we can just show people that there is no war between Indonesia and the Philippines. We are close. We are really, really good friends. We help each other, we share things."
Miss Indonesia also shared the same sentiments when she talked about how she and Rachel are best friends in the competition. Bunga Jelitha said, "In here, Rachel and I are roommates. Rachel is so lovely and so helpful. I love Rachel. And I want to prove that Rachel is a best friend."
The online voting for the Miss Universe 2017 pageant, to be held on November 26 (November 27 Manila time) in Las Vegas, opened this week via the pageant's official website and Twitter using the official hashtags: #MissUniverse and the #COUNTRY of the candidate. Whoever wins the online voting gets a sure spot as one of the Top 16 finalists.
The issue sprung from the supposed deliberate misspelled hashtags on Twitter that were directed at the Philippines. The official Twitter page of Miss Universe has since reminded the public to use the correct spelling of the countries for the votes to be counted.
Celebrities backed Rachel on her campaign to win when they showed support online. Maine Mendoza went the extra mile when she called for the power of the AlDubnation to rally behind Rachel.
Celebs like Anne Curtis and Vice Ganda also rooted for Rachel to win the crown:
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