What does it take to be a queen?
 By Emmanuelle

 

Gemma Araneta Cruz, Gloria Diaz, Melanie Marquez, Aurora Pijuan, Margie Moran, and Precious Lara Quigaman – these Filipina ladies brought home the crown, either as Miss International or as Miss Universe, the two most prestigious beauty contests in the world. But before they qualified to represent the country, they triumphed first over other just as beautiful Filipinas in the Binibining Pilipinas, Miss Philippines or Mutya ng Pilipinas pageants. One does not have to be a beauty connoisseur to point out the exquisiteness which made these ladies stand out among others – they not only have beauty; they came equipped, thanks again to Dad’s and Mom’s genes, with above-average intelligence. Never mind Ms Marquez famous ungrammatical quips; the brainy ones sometimes find it more convenient to appear seemingly brainless. These ladies also possessed talents extraordinary, Michelangelo’s Madonna’s smiley poise and confidence, and the gift of gab – the ability to counter the interviewers’ baited questions with quick, witty repartee. And, of course, they had the magic X-factor, their fairy godmother’s wand to sway the judges to smile in their favor.

Also take note, these ladies did not start out their lives with open palms begging in the streets, or with bare feet running from the friendliest or the angriest of bullets, or with milk-starved lips waiting for inay’s breasts to come home wrinkled from a day’s labor in the farm or the market. The clear skin, the perfectly-molded bodies, the sharp mind, the honed talent, the accented or accentless speech – these did not come free as the air we breathe (the only free nature’s gift nowadays, and it comes naturally polluted). These cost money, oodles and oodles of it, spaced but regular through the years – from infancy to that screech of victory on stage.

 The beauty queen is crowned. Tearfully, but with Madonna’s smile still pasted on her face, she thanks everybody for her hair, her make-up, her swimsuit, her gowns; she thanks the judges, the sponsors, the pageant, the beauty spotter, etc. But, all bless her, and I salute her, when she mentions first, and above all others, God then her parents. She wouldn’t be crowned and sceptered if it were not for the grace and the blessings of God, the love and the care and the sacrifice of The Entities who brought her into this world. 

The humility to distance one’s self from the adoration and to redirect the applause to the source of it all – this is what it takes to be a queen.

In fact, the beauty queen is a princess. For she would not be up there at all reaping the accolade, if it were not for The Entities who made possible her Being there. The King and the Queen is beyond the glare of the spotlights. They were, and are, the forever there.

In the same manner, we salute a prince, the “man of the moment”, the boxing champion Manny Pacquiao. He bowed aside for his mother, and allowed her and her estranged husband to steal – for TV primetime! – Manny’s moment. As he allowed another queen, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, to steal the scene (LIVE!) in sweaty bloody after-bout with her cellular phone-call “Hello, Garci!” (ay, mali!), “Hello, Manny!”. Typically GMA. 

Then, we round up the topic of what it takes to be a queen with a trip back to the past, to a brief glimpse of a great queen, and one of the most fascinating women who ever lived in absolute possession of tremendous power û Queen Elizabeth 1 of England, whose forty-five years of reign (1533-1603) was one of the greatest periods in that nation’s history. When she was three years old, her mother Anne Boleyn (Henry VIII’s second wife) was beheaded, so Elizabeth grew up knowing little love or tenderness. From the time she was small, she learned how to be a diplomat – including the art of remaining aloof from the intrigues of those who would flatter or use her. She chose her advisers wisely, and she listened to advice even though she did not always follow it. She never married; she never meant to share her power with a king, or even a consort. She became known as the Virgin Queen, although movies made of her life raised the impossibility of this possibility.

  

What is the point here? Well, the last years of Elizabeth’s reign were a time of peace and prosperity; there were more wealthy men in England than ever before. The bright wave of the Renaissance was in full flood – in art literature and science. But before this time of peace and prosperity, during the first years of her reign, when she must be unbelievably cruel to survive her reign during a cruel age, Elizabeth made Parliament pass a law, against her advisers’ most vehement objections, to relieve the condition of the poorer people in England. This was the Poor   Relief Act of 1601 requiring the prosperous people in each community to contribute to a fund to care for the paupers – the wretched beggars and the tramps – to dissuade them from turning into outlaws. 

And that, dear readers, was what it really took to be a queen, a king. Or a president.

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