Firstly, I don't think the judges had a look at the video. Remember, the video became hot after the article was published in Newpaper. More than a month after she won.
It is not really a surprise that she won because she had already won a couple of subsidiary award prior to the final itself. None of these award required her to speak other than just a short introduction of herself.
She was lucky in that in the final question and answer segment (in the finals itself), she was asked a question in which she answered it well. She didn't have to make a lengthy answer and fumble like what some contestants did.
Just for the record.
She is not rich. She stays in HDB. She comes from a predominantly mandarin-speaking family. She goes to neighbourhood school. So what do you expect? She is a product of our education system. Don't blame her. Blame our education system. By the way, she got A1 for her "O" level English.
She is definitely not stupid but she just cannot articulate as well as she is not exposed to such interviews and such.
She would be better off speaking singlish like what she is doing everyday instead of trying to "sound" different. And yes, her diction is poor and pronunciation atrocious. But is beauty contest only about the ability to speak and string a couple of sentences together. She fails miserably in this aspect but it is not fatal, is it?
She has a heart of gold. Very kind-hearted girl. She has no airs about her and she is friendly and polite to everyone - including taxi uncles or the cleaning-aunties. I believe she would be a great ambassador for charity work.
She has a beauty of a heart which unfortunately, most of us cannot see.
And if you must assign blame. Blame the judges. They chose her.
