About People | CJ Hirro - Miss Global Philippines 2016
Camille “CJ” Hirro on having your own story.
As
Camille or CJ have said, when one has her story to tell, then she can join a
beauty pageant, and this here is her story.
CJ
grew up in family with a brood of eight.
Having a large family is full of stories, and hers were full of love and
respect. Her parents raised them valuing
family over money, this then is the core by which guide a Hirro to be
respectful and being helpful. She grew
in a middle class household, however with a growing family, they would run into
some financial difficulty at times.
Having maturity early, they felt, not pressured, they need to be honor
students so they can get scholarships or at least get discounts on tuition. It was no problem for the Hirro household as
their Mom made learning fun and all siblings help each other with their
studies. This environment plus hard work
propelled the Hirros to be the best as they can be.
In her
early years, she idolized her sister who was an athlete, so it was no surprise
she was one as well. Running for both
sisters was their way of life and they were very good at it. Winning awards for
it and however she was always playing second fiddle to her sister until the
latter graduated. With her sister in
high school, she felt that it was not her time to shine in athletics. Lo and behold, life took a different turn for
her. She was asked to give up her
uniform and become a beauty contestant.
She was in Grade Six at the time.
She being a ‘tomboy’ of sort was surprised by this development. She never knew how to doll up or dress lady,
so this request horrified her. Adding to
her woes, her mother said yes to her principal and off she went to her first pageant,
which she won. This was in 1999 and life
treated her differently since then.
She
since then went annually to beauty pageants and have always won. She came to accept the fact that winning is
good as the monetary winnings was helping the family sustain the large
household. Beauty pageants and modeling
was fine until she decided to join a Binibining Pilipinas Pageant Screening in
2014.
Prior
to joining, she purposely cut her hair short as she wanted to easily manage
it. It was shoulder length when she
auditioned for the Binibining Pilipinas.
All other candidates had long hair, as this was some sort of a norm in
beauty pageants. So she became an
instant hit among writers and bloggers alike.
As heaven would have it, she was not included in the final list of
candidates for Binibining Pilipinas, God had other plans for her.
She
went on to work for a year as Flight Steward for Saudia, then proceeded to be a
writer for a Philippine Senator. Two
years after that Binibining Pilipinas Screening, she joined Miss Global and
another chapter of her life came into being.
Having
won Miss Global Philippines 2016 and the First runner up to the reigning Miss
Global 2016, she now has the voice to speak up and instill inspiration to the
upcoming beauty queens and to the public as well. She’s more aware now that her voice was
powerful and having this power comes with responsibility. It’s not easy anymore to post anything in
Facebook as people take her words seriously more now than before.
Since
winning both titles, she’s now busy with Miss Global activities and with
modeling and hosting events. She plans
on getting bigger hosting gigs and be on TV as a broadcaster. With her talent and passion, we know we will
see her delivering the news one day.
Right
now she also mentors aspiring beauty queens with their speaking skills, which
is vital in the question and answer portion of any pageants. She believes that having the ability to
answer must be accompanied with the skill of delivering your answer to the
world. She breaks down the technical
side of public speaking so as to impart the same to her aspirants. The way of delivery must exude confidence and
this is vital in winning competitions.
She
also reminds them that there is more to beauty pageants and it should not end
there. She holds emphasis that one has
to have her story to tell before joining a beauty contest. Making your journey to the beauty pageants
with meaning, instilling inspiration to others, making others act on something
that you really believe in. That is the
power of one’s story.
And
now, this has been Camille’s story all along, and she told it beautifully on
stage, and she won.