The first one to give honour to the country in this pageant was the 18-year-old Gloria Diaz, a business student at St. Scholastica College who was simply scouted to join Binibining Pilipinas a month earlier. Clearly, she had no rigorous training but her raw morena beauty, charming long eyelashes, and most of all, her quick and witty answers and counter-questions to the host, Bob Barker (very much known in the Philippines for hosting the famous TV game show The Price is Right) made her a crowd favourite. Besides the title of Miss Universe, Diaz was also in the Top 10 Best in Swimsuit awardees.
The pageant was held in Miami Beach, Florida on July 19, 1969 -- three days after Apollo 11 was launched, also in Florida, on its way to the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. And so for her final question, she was asked "In the next day or so, a man will land on the moon. If a man from the moon landed in your hometown, what would you do to entertain him?" Diaz answered, “Oh, just the same things I do. I think if he has been on the moon for so long, I think when he comes over he wants to change, I guess.”
As Miss Universe, she spent the whole year travelling to different countries to attend state events and private gatherings with heads of states, promote the advocacies supported by the Miss Universe Organisation, and appear in television programs.