Divers find Ms Thailand’s heirloom ring .

ALAMINOS CITY, Pangasinan, Philippines—For about an hour on Friday, five divers combed the waters off Clave Island in the Hundred Islands National Park to find a diamond ring owned by Miss Earth candidate Piyaporn Deejing of Thailand.
On Thursday, Deejing’s ring, a family heirloom, was dropped by a staffer of the beauty pageant while the candidates were visiting the Hundred Islands as part of the pageant’s activities to promote environmental concerns.
The search bore fruit as the ring was found and returned to Deejing on Friday night while she and the other contestants were in Capas, Tarlac.
Tearful contestant
The staff of the beauty pageant and personnel of the city government searched for the ring the moment it was reported missing but high tide prevented them from doing a thorough search.
Deejing turned gloomy and sat down crying, but she soon joined the other contestants in the activities.
She said the ring was important to the family, noting that she represents the third generation to wear it.
“My grandmother gave it to my aunt who then gave it to me,” she said. “It is not the price but the sentimental value of the ring that matters.”
Rey Livara, a staff member of the Alaminos City government, said Deejing hardly touched her breakfast the following day when the group had to leave for Tarlac, their next stop.
Talking to sand
“She really looked sad. We told her not to worry because we would do everything we could to find it,” Livara said.
Mayor Hernani Braganza promised Deejing that they would find the ring and return it to her.
On Friday, when the tide had receded, divers Leonil Mabanta, Leonardo Mapanaw, Romeo Donato, Paul Viray and Jun Eliseff returned to Clave Island to search for the ring.
The spot where the ring was dropped was marked with a rock. Around it, the divers sifted the sand using their hands and empty shells. “We were like crazy as we even talked to the sand, telling it to return the ring,” Viray said.
Reputation at stake
He said they wanted to find the ring “kasi nakakahiya kung hindi maibalik. Nakataya din pangalan ng Alaminos (because it was embarrassing if we failed to return it. Alaminos’ reputation was also at stake here.”
About 45 minutes later, Donato found the ring buried more than a foot deep, about half a meter where it was supposedly dropped.
On Friday night, the divers and Alaminos personnel traveled to Capas to hand over the ring to an ecstatic Deejing, who hugged the diver who found her ring.
The other candidates cheered as the divers gave her the ring at the lobby of the hotel where the candidates were staying.
Deejing said she thought she would never see the ring again.
“I called up my mother to tell her I lost the ring and she was screaming over the phone. I called her again [to tell her] that it had been found and she was so happy,” she said.