Vlad Bunoan

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Joy Barcoma and Karen Ibasco

ABS-CBN News

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:950px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/176249513524507112025-combo4.jpg" style="width:950px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Miss Philippines Earth 2025 Joy Barcoma (left) and Miss Earth 2017 Karen Ibasco. <em>Instagram: @joymayanne, @karenibasco</em></span></span></span>&quot;What went wrong?&quot;</div><p>This was the question that has been all over social media the past few days as the Philippines&#x27; Joy Barcoma finished as a runner-up in the Miss Earth 2025 pageant. </p><p>Many fans believed that the 26-year-old host and government consultant had what it takes to win the crown, which eventually went to <a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/pageants-beauty-queens/2025/11/5/czech-republic-wins-miss-earth-2025-ph-s-joy-barcoma-finishes-as-runner-up-2152">Natalie Puskinova of Czech Republic</a>.</p><p>Karen Ibasco, <a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/2025/8/9/meet-the-filipinas-who-brought-home-the-miss-earth-crown-0913">one of the Philippines&#x27; four Miss Earth titleholders</a>, was the one who placed the runner-up sash on Barcoma and four other delegates.</p><p>Since then, she has been asked by netizens to share her thoughts about the results of the pageant. And on Thursday, November 6, she finally did.</p><div><br/></div><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1762489571155runnerup.PNG" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Miss Earth 2017 Karen Ibasco (leftmost) places sashes on this year&#x27;s runners-up, which include the Philippines&#x27; Joy Barcoma (second from right). Miss Earth/YouTube</span></span></span></div><p>In a TikTok video, Ibasco began by clarifying that she is speaking as a former Miss Earth titleholder and not as a representative of the organization, pointing out that she was not a judge in this year&#x27;s competition.</p><p>She then proceeded to mention three reasons why things did not end well for the Philippines during the coronation night.</p><p>&quot;First one is that you can&#x27;t overdo your performance. Not in your walk, not in your Q&amp;A, not in the communication skills, or anyhow. Balance is key. That is completely important,&quot; she said. </p><p>&quot;Second one, you can&#x27;t answer when you&#x27;re not asked. Because sometimes it can portray that you&#x27;re arrogant or you&#x27;re rude even though you&#x27;re not. So it&#x27;s important only to speak when you&#x27;re asked,&quot; she added.</p><p>In her second point, Ibasco was referring to the moment during the Q&amp;A round where Barcoma took the opportunity on stage to request for prayers for those who have been affected by the recent typhoon in Cebu. </p><p>&quot;A lot of people have died, a lot of people have experienced the catastrophe... I hope that you take this time as we celebrate taking care of Mother Earth, we also remember the lives of the people we&#x27;ve lost,&quot; she said.</p><div><br/></div><div><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FabscbnNEWS%2Fposts%2Fpfbid0W6rBVRuV64XxxgAmhvEJqVPwcr29LV5H6cXUzWr9G8BKmei99Laf7Tj8ZUNnoEhjl&amp;show_text=true&amp;width=500" width="500" height="709" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div><p>From there, Ibasco went on to explain her third point: the proper use of social media and the pageant stage, which are two different platforms. </p><p>&quot;Social media is good to be used by everyone as appropriately how you want to say things, how long you want to say things... But the stage is used for competition and there&#x27;s an airtime,&quot; she said. &quot;So every competition, every candidate is only given a few seconds for the Q&amp;A, and a few minutes to do your walk for the gowns, and also for the swimsuit.&quot; </p><p>&quot;But if you overdo that, what happens is that the organization can pay more because of the airtime. So you need to understand it&#x27;s also a business, and you need to follow the rules.&quot;</p><p>Ibasco acknowledged that &quot;it&#x27;s been hard&quot; for pageant fans in the Philippines to accept the outcome of the recent Miss Earth, and hopes that &quot;we will take this lesson so that it won&#x27;t happen again.&quot;</p><p>&quot;To Joy, I want to congratulate you for giving a good performance and representing the Philippines very well,&quot; she ended.</p><p>Barcoma, for her part, appreciated Ibasco&#x27;s feedback but stood by her decision to speak unprompted on stage. </p><p>&quot;Thank you for this, Ms. Karen! But given a chance to do it again, I&#x27;ll never change what I’ve done. The Earth needs to hear what&#x27;s happening in the Philippines, especially these tragedies are repercussions of climate change and environmental abuse,&quot; she said. </p><p>&quot;Still, I won&#x27;t question the decision of the org. I wasn&#x27;t who they wanted for the crown and that&#x27;s okay.&quot;</p><p>To which the Miss Earth 2017 titleholder replied: &quot;Continue to use your platform to help spread worthy causes such as that of the environment.&quot;</p><p>Watch Ibasco&#x27;s video below:</p><blockquote cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@karenibasco/video/7569472775316917522" class="tiktok-embed" data-video-id="7569472775316917522" id="v57342821760312776" style="max-width:605px;min-width:325px"><iframe name="__tt_embed__v57342821760312776" sandbox="allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-same-origin" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7569472775316917522?lang=en-US&amp;referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fod2-workbench-web.abs-cbn.com%2F%23%2Fworkspace%2Fmonitoring%3Fitem%3Durn%3Anewsml%3Aod2-workbench-api.abs-cbn.com%3A2025-11-07T04%3A03%3A18.919390%3A935a7350-2ac8-4a06-ba8b-395dd6b76816%26action%3Dedit" style="width:100%;height:758px;display:block;visibility:unset"></iframe></blockquote><script async="" src="https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js"></script>

<p>Many fans believed that the 26-year-old host and government consultant had what it takes to win the crown, which eventually went to Natalie Puskinova of Czech Republic.</p>

Many fans believed that the 26-year-old host and government consultant had what it takes to win the crown, which eventually went to Natalie Puskinova of Czech Republic.

Why didn't Joy Barcoma win the crown? Former Miss Earth Karen Ibasco shares thoughts

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Why didn't Joy Barcoma win the crown? Former Miss Earth Karen Ibasco shares thoughts

ABS-CBN News

Published Nov 07, 2025 02:18 PM PHT

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Karen Ibasco

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