Miss Universe Sheynnis Palacios had the kind of emotional homecoming she wished she’d had in her home country of Nicaragua this past weekend, tears included. That welcome, however, came in the Philippines.
The Nicaraguan beauty queen, who has been unable to return to her home country amid tensions between Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and the Miss Nicaragua organizers, was received in the Philipines by a great number of fans outside the Mall of Asia complex in Pasay City. Palacios, who greeted fans atop a convertible decorated with flowers in the pattern on the Philippines flag, was in Manila for what the Miss Universe Philippines Organization called a “homecoming.”
The idea was to give Palacios the experience she couldn’t get in Nicaragua, since she and her team have not been allowed back. At one point, a fan approached the Miss Universe winner with a Nicaragua flag, which is when Palacios visibly got emotional, hugging the flag to her chest.
The moment was caught from multiple angles.
Palacios held onto the flag for the entirety of the motorcade.
And she seemed very proud and happy during the entirety of the celebration, the “homecoming” she didn’t get after becoming the first winner of Miss Universe from Nicaragua.
Palacios’s win was followed by a turbulent time in the Miss Nicaragua organization, as Karen Celebertti, the director of the Miss Nicaragua beauty pageant, was banned, alongside Sheynnis Palacios, from entering the country. Celebertti later resigned. Ortega’s government didn’t accuse anyone in particular but Rosario Murillo the Vice-President and wife of Ortega, who has been in power since 2007, suggested the issues were due to the attempts to “turn a beautiful and well-deserved moment of pride and celebration into a destructive coup.”
