Miss Philippines contestant gets awkward (+video)

Joanlia Lising is heading to YouTube infamy after getting awkward during a question and answer session at a beauty pageant.

The Miss Philippines USA 2013 Beauty Pageant contestant became a viral video hit after being asked the question, "Among the five senses, what do you prefer to have if you can only have one, and why?"

She replied: "Thank you for that wonderful question. If I have to pick out of the five senses, I would pick seeing, because seeing is the best sense that we can ever see, because seeing is believing, and believing into what you see is perfect ... and .... um ... out of all those senses ... seeing ... would really be wonderful ... thank you ... that will be it."

Her answer was greeted by nervous laughter from the crowd.

It calls to mind other infamous beauty pageant gaffes, like Miss Utah Marissa Powell's rambling answer to a judge's question about pay parity between men and women that included awkward pauses, incoherent statements - and eye rolls.

"I think we can relate this back to education, and how we are continuing to try to strive to (pause) figure out how to create jobs right now. That is the biggest problem.

"I think, especially the men are ... erm ... seen as the leaders of this, and so we need to try to figure out how to create education better so that we can solve this problem. Thank you."

Her reply conjured up images of Miss South Carolina Lauren Caitlin Upton, who delivered a stumbling rant during a 2007 Miss Teen USA beauty pageant after being asked why some US children couldn't locate the USA on a world map.

The 18-year-old gave a rambling, incoherent answer, referring to South Africa and Iraq, and later told the Today show she was not expecting the question and had gone into shock.

- nzherald.co.nz