Beauty pageant contestants quit, flee PHL —report

Several beauty contestants have pulled out of the Miss Pancontinental pageant due to security concerns and alleged bad handling of the pageant organizers.

In a report by stuff.co.nz, Miss New Zealand Nicole Harding several pageant queens including her and Miss USA Ashley Clark pulled out of the contest.

The report said that according to Harding, at least three other contestants did not finish the beauty pageant.

The New Zealand beauty queen said that they were promised five-star and free accomodation in the Philippines by the organizers.

However, Harding claimed three people had to share a room at a hotel in Cagayan de Oro City with one of the bed set on the floor with a slim matress.

She added that the room was "crawling with bugs."

"No one had any idea this was going to happen, if anyone knew half the delegates wouldn't have been sent there," she said in the report.

Harding also said in the report that when they were transferring to another hotel, two of the pageant organizers, their luggage and the pageant photographer were detained by the management because their stay have not been paid for.

The report quoted Harding as saying that the pageant was just "a Mickey Mouse outfit" and that it was organized just for profit.

Harding was also quoted in the report as saying that they met with the provincial governor and were told "it was not safe to be here (Cagayan de Oro City), this place is more unsafe than Afghanistan."

"He told us, where we were, they kidnap people and use them as sex slaves, it's the number one place for human trafficking and we needed to get these girls out of here," the report quoted the New Zealand beauty queen as saying.

The report also said that another government official advised them to just leave the country.

Harding was also quoted in the report as saying that she spent $7,000 for the trip.

GMA News Online tried to get a reaction from the organizers through the pageant's Facebook account, but we have yet to get a reply as of posting. —ALG, GMA News