about the miss universe thing
Someone was talking about how many times PR has won the Miss Universe contest compared to the DR and I think it's only fair to mention that this is not a fair representation of how beautiful the women are.
For many years the DR has not even participated in the Miss Universe contest, since the fees to enter are tremendous and I guess no big fat Dominican businessmen were getting enough "incentives" to put up the cash.
Most beauty titles handed out in this country are bought and paid for with cash from the girls "sponsor" to the judges, and the girls turn around and pay the sponsor for the privilege of being a beauty queen, we all know what kind of payments those are.
I'm not saying this is the case with Miss Gums, she seems pretty well connected anyhow, but I have it from reliable sources that previous Dominican beauty queens have had to give it up for their titles as a matter of course. One personal friend of mine was about to be crowned Miss Dominican Republic when she wrecked her car and her "sponsor" opted to buy her a new one instead of the crown, so it went to someone else.
This kind of bulshit and corruption that is so typical here is IMHO the reason that the DR has done so poorly in beauty contests in the past, and not for any lack of beautiful women.