As many rumours have been surfacing around the Miss Grand Philippines title franchise, the Miss Grand International organization has recently announced that the Miss Grand Philippines 2022 pageant will be organized under the leadership of Stella Marquez Araneta, who is the current director for Miss International franchises in the Philippines, under the Binibining Pilipinas organization. She also has served as chairman of the Binibining Pilipinas Charities Incorporated for fifty years.
Binibining Pilipinas is a national beauty pageant in the Philippines that selects Filipina representatives to compete in one of the Big Four international beauty pageants, Miss International and selects three other titleholders to participate in minor international pageants such as Miss Grand International, Miss Intercontinental and Miss Globe. For the recently held, Miss Grand International 2021 pageant, Samantha Panlilio ended her campaign for the crown after she failed to make the pageant’s top 20 at the coronation night.
María Stella Márquez-Aranetais a Colombian-Filipino pageant director and beauty queen. She grew up in New York City then later migrated to Colombia, where she became a pageant titleholder. As Miss Colombia, she was crowned the first Miss International in 1960. She later obtained her Filipino citizenship via naturalization in 1970.
Currently, Binibining Pilipinas owns the franchise of Miss International, Miss Intercontinental, Miss Grand International, and Miss Globe. In addition, Araneta is the Chargé d'affaires of the Consulate of Colombia to the Philippines in Manila. To date, Araneta has produced four Miss Universe titleholders, six Miss International winners and numerous semi-finalists placements.
The first Miss International crown for the Philippines, won by Gemma Cruz in 1964, is a product of the Miss Philippines pageant, the predecessor of the Binibining Pilipinas pageant. Cruz helped BPCI in crowning her successor, Isabel Barnett Santos, to represent the country in the 1965 editional of the pageant. Although BPCI had acquired the local franchise of the Miss World pageant in 1992, the first crown was won by Megan Young in 2013, which is a product of its successor, Miss World Philippines. The organization and the country is yet to pioneer its win at the Miss Grand International pageant.