Katrina Ann Johnson fulfills late mom’s wish of winning Bb. Pilipinas 2023

In her outfit for the recent Binibining Pilipinas 2023 contest, Katrina Anne Johnson wore a small butterfly.

The reason for this is that before her mother passed away, she promised her only daughter she would be at any other pageant she entered! She kept her mother’s word in some way or another!

A Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis took her mother’s life at the age of 20. Due to the loss of her mom, she almost couldn’t handle the lockdowns that followed. Travel restrictions prevented her from traveling to the United States with her dad.

In 2015, Katrina began competing in pageants as a freshman pharmacy student at Immaculate Conception University. In order to represent her department, her teachers prodded her to join the school pageant.

As a result, she was crowned school beauty queen. She was unaware that in order to earn the said crown, she had to represent her school in a Davao-wide inter-school pageant. She won again by pure luck.

The nationalization of the company

Her handler-turned-makeup artist encouraged her to join a pageant that was not confined to the scholastic system, as she wanted to participate in a national pageant like the Binibini. As a result, she won Miss Silka 2016 once again! She is the only winner from Mindanao so far from that search.

As a beauty titlist pursuing a science-related course, she got involved with the Maharlika Charity Foundation through school pageants.

Indigents in Mindanao were reached by the said organization. Katrina saw how pageantry could touch people’s lives through her many medical missions.

She told her mom about her national debut after she relinquished the Silka crown. As Katrina had to care for her mom until her death, she had to postpone her plans to join the pageant.

Three years passed before she was certain after her mom left. Only after Jessa Juelar prodded her, did Binibining Pilipinas Supranational 2018 Jessa Juelar make her decide to pursue her Binibini dream.

She earned a master’s degree in Clinical Pharmacy prior to joining Binibini. A doctorate degree would take her only one year to earn if she pursued this line of study. United States citizens are recognized for the degree.

It has been 25 years since Katrina was born. I’m pretty sure her mom’s presence will still be with her in some shape or form if she decides to join another national pageant after finishing her contract with Binibining Pilipinas Charities Inc.