The Philippine-based Mister International Organization has released a statement Monday night regarding the accusations made against them by Angel Olaya, one of the contestants of the pageant’s 2023 edition.
Angel Olaya represented Argentina during Mister International 2023 which had its finale in Baguio City.
According to his social media post, he used his own money to buy his plane ticket in going to the Philippines for the pageant, and was promised by the org to have it refunded to him. Unfortunately, the money hasn’t been reimbursed.
Within the same day, The MI Organization president Manuel Deldio also released a statement clearing the org’s reputation.
According to the statement, the contestant’s airfare should be shouldered by his National Director Luis Trujillo.
“I talked to Trujilo and he said that he will talk to Olaya and he said not to worry about the plane ticket because he will handle it,” Deldio wrote in the statement. He also wrote that he “confronted” the ND because Angel said the ND was not helping in his preparations, which the ND denied.
There was also an issue of someone who presented documents and pictures that could have caused Angel’s disqualification from the pageant. They, however, didn’t do so because they didn’t want to embarrass him.
Deldio didn’t go into “sensitive details” regarding the document and photo that were presented to them, and will refrain from doing so “unless necessary.”
The statement also touched on how Angel has been saying negative things about the organization and how a certain pageant media uses his interview to discredit the whole organization.
“This leads me to ask whether this move is premeditated or not,” Deldio further wrote.
Despite what has been happening, however, Deldio assured that “a representative of the organization is in touch with [Angel].”
