Beyond the Crown: Communication, Culture, and Identity in Philippine Pageantry from Colonial Times to Global Recognition

This paper examines the evolution of Philippine beauty pageantry as a site of cultural production, identity construction, and communicative practice from the Spanish colonial period to contemporary global recognition. Employing historical discourse analysis, this study traces how pageant discourse has transformed across four distinct historical periods: Spanish colonization (1565-1898), American colonialism (1898-1946), post-independence nation-building (1946-1986), and the contemporary era of global pageant dominance (1986-present). Drawing on archival materials, media coverage, pageant documentation, and visual analysis, the research reveals how pageantry has served as a contested space where colonial subjugation, nationalist aspirations, gender ideologies, and globalized Filipino identity converge. Findings demonstrate that Philippine pageant discourse evolved from colonial exhibitions of ‘civilized natives’ to powerful platforms for asserting national pride and cultural soft power on the global stage. The study contributes to postcolonial communication scholarship by illustrating how a seemingly superficial cultural practice embodies deep-seated negotiations of power, identity, and cultural representation in a postcolonial context.