Dalia Varde hopes public will see her real self as Bb. Pilipinas 2025 1st runner-up
Bb. Pilipinas 2025 first runner-up Dalia Varde Khattab. Image: RAYMOND SALDAÑA COURTESY OF BB. PILIPINAS
Actress and now Binibining Pilipinas 2025 first runner-up Dalia Varde Khattab hopes her new role as a pageant girl will show the people her true self, totally different from the “mean girl” persona that she has been portraying on TV.
The lass from Las Piñas said she feels grateful to land her placement, being a pageant newbie in a field of 36 aspirants who competed at the 61st Bb. Pilipinas Grand Coronation Night at the Smart Araneta Coliseum at the Araneta City in Quezon City on June 15.
“There is still so much for me to prove. I really mean that. I don’t want people to think of me as this person trying to look a certain way all the time. It’s not that,” Khattab told INQUIRER.net during the winners’ official photoshoot at the Araneta City on June 17.
“I’m so grateful, really. I’m so lucky to be in a position where I am right now. Imagine, this being my first pageant. It’s mind-blowing to me. Sometimes I’m hard on myself. But I do want to give myself a pat on the back now, because it is my first pageant,” she added.
Khattab, who goes by “Dalia Varde” in the entertainment industry, laments her typecasting as a mean girl in the projects that she has been getting, more notable of which is her role as Kimeniah in the Donny Pangilinan-Belle Mariano starrer “He’s into Her.”
“I want people to connect with me. I want to connect with everyone and show them that you can grow. And it’s okay to make decisions that don’t relate to the same character that I’m playing, because I keep playing the same mean girl roles,” she shared.
The 21-year-old part-Egyptian Khattab said her pageant journey has been transformative. “I was more scared then. I’m still scared now. But I’m more disciplined, I’ve matured a lot faster. The experience has taught me so much. Because there were times I was exhausted, really, and I thought I couldn’t do it anymore,” she said.
Khattab said she looks up to 2015 Miss Universe Pia Wurtzbach who, like her, was already an actress before joining the Bb. Pilipinas pageant, and three times at that.
“I heard she felt the same, she felt this sort of feeling one time. I heard that ‘artista’ wasn’t working for her at some point. And that she really wanted a challenge. She knew in her heart that Miss Universe was for her. And that was the story that I was told,” Khattab said.
“Who knows, baka [perhaps] there are still more chances of me joining in the future and getting more chances to prove myself. So, I’m more excited for that and I’m really grateful for your support,” she added.
Second runner-up Kathleen Espenido, a former housemate on the “Pinoy Big Brother” reality show, also expressed her admiration for Wurtzbach. “I really think that she put the standard up there. And Pia and Catriona Gray [2018 Miss Universe], like, I also want to be someone like them as well,” she said.
Khattab shared her excitement that she gets to spend her year with Espenido, Bb. Pilipinas International Katrina Anne Johnson, and Bb. Pillipinas Globe Annabelle McDonnell.
“We already have a solid friendship. And they’re also all Bisaya, the three of them. And I remember that in the beginning of my journey I would hear some Bisaya. I wanna be Bisaya. They have so much personality. And I would literally say, ‘teach me Bisaya.’ And now I have that chance, they always speak Bisaya, seriously. So I’m gonna learn just from hearing it,” she said.
