Binibining Pilipinas Charities, Inc. has already released a statement regarding the controversial passport issue of Miss Grand International Philippines 2019 Samantha Lo.
Lo got detained in Paris, France while on her way to Venezuela for the Miss Grand International 2019 pageant due to a fake passport.
According to Binibining Pilipinas, “Ms. Lo was detained by immigration officials in Paris and was eventually sent back to Manila due to issues with her Philippine passport.”
The statement also revealed that “the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) officially stated that Ms. Lo’s Philippine passport had been “tampered with and altered.” During a meeting last week with Samantha, her parents and officials from the DFA and BPCI, it was admitted by Ms. Lo’s parents, that she secured her passport through a “fixer.” Ms. Lo also holds a US passport and, therefore, a transit visa is not needed.”
Meanwhile, according to the beauty queen’s Instagram post, her local organizer allegedly failed to equip her with proper transit visa “that may have enabled me to complete my earlier trip to this host country [Venezuela].”
BPCI also said that it’s not true that they did nothing to assist Lo.
“Upon hearing of her situation in Paris, we immediately called upon DFA to assist her, and they did. We are grateful for the intervention of Undersecretary Dulay, which otherwise would have resulted in very serious consequences for Samantha.”
The statement also said that they were no longer able to contact Lo or her family in the last few days.
Well, whoever is telling the truth, I believe we should be supporting Samantha Lo right now for she is in another country trying to bring honor to the Philippines.
Trying to bring honor but used a fake passport, you may ask? Well, she already said (through the IG post) that it was unintentional.