At 32, Kristzan Delos Santos had already decided that pageantry was behind him. It had given him what it was going to give him: two international runner-up finishes, one in 2022, one in 2023, both close enough to sting and neither one his.

Then he went back to work. His life moved on. The pageants, he assumed, were someone else’s story now.

Then, in 2025, he happened to watch a male national pageant. That same day — not a week later, not after he’d slept on it — a screening poster for Misters of Filipinas, the annual national competition that sends Filipino male titleholders to a slate of international pageants, showed up on his feed.

“Something about the timing felt like a sign,” Kristzan tells ELYSPLANET. “It sparked something in me again and made me think, ‘Maybe I’m not done yet.'”

Apparently, he wasn’t.

On Sept. 13, Kristzan flies to Istanbul, Türkiye, carrying the Philippine sash into the Top Model of Universe finals. He’ll also be carrying a considerable amount of luggage — the unavoidable tax of an international competition that demands formalwear, national costume, and everything else that falls under the increasingly mysterious category of “pageant essentials.”

He’ll be doing it alone.

There’s something unusually self-contained about that. Kristzan isn’t returning because he needs pageantry to build a career, or to prove he belongs on an international stage — he’s already done that math twice. He has a full-time job in sales and marketing at VMP Regenerative Clinic, in the regenerative medicine industry, where he already deals daily with high-profile clients who have nothing to do with sashes or scoring paddles.

Pageantry, at this point, is something he has chosen to return to. And this time, he knows exactly what he’s getting into.

The runner-up problem

Kristzan’s international pageant career opened in November 2022, when he represented the Philippines at Mister Grand International — a global men’s pageant franchise, one of several competing to be the “Miss Universe” of the male pageant world — in Trinidad and Tobago, and finished first runner-up.

A year later, he was back on an international stage, this time at Man Hot Star International 2023, a newer Bangkok-based franchise, representing the United States. He finished first runner-up again, while RJ De Vera, representing the Philippines, took the crown.

Two international competitions. Two second-place finishes.

Kristzan has a name for it.

“I even jokingly dubbed myself ‘Best in First Runner-Up’ because, somehow, that has become my thing internationally!”

The joke is doing real work. The alternative is to treat back-to-back near-misses as a curse, and there are people in his life who have told him exactly that — that he has nothing left to prove and should stop competing. Kristzan hears the argument. He just doesn’t buy it.

“As long as I am still qualified and passionate about it, why not give it one last shot?”

“One last shot” comes with a footnote, though. He wants to win — obviously — but he doesn’t file another runner-up finish under personal catastrophe.

“Being a runner-up twice internationally is already something I’m proud of, but I don’t want to let that become the pattern that defines me,” he says. “I see it as a level I’ve already proven I can reach, and now I want to see if I can go beyond it.”

There’s a difference between wanting a crown and needing one. Kristzan, increasingly, sounds like a man in the first category.

The other sash

His 2023 run came with a wrinkle that makes the return to the Philippine sash land harder: at Man Hot Star International, Kristzan wasn’t wearing it. He was representing the United States.

He’s a dual citizen who’d spent a substantial stretch of time living stateside, so the switch wasn’t personally complicated. It was mostly strategic. Jovy Bequillo — a fellow Misters of Filipinas alum who’d won the inaugural Man Hot Star International in 2022 as the Philippines’ own delegate — was already the reigning face of that franchise, and the organization’s read was that a back-to-back Philippine win would be a hard sell to international judges. So Kristzan took another country’s flag instead.

It didn’t play out as planned. RJ De Vera won it for the Philippines anyway, and Kristzan says now, without visible bitterness, that De Vera deserved it. But the experience recalibrated something in him about what representing his own country actually means.

“Representing the U.S. was meaningful, but wearing ‘Philippines’ just hits differently,” he says.

That’s why the 2022 Mister Grand International result — the one where he wore his own flag — carries more emotional weight than the numerically identical finish a year later.

“Representing the Philippines will always hold a very special place in my heart.”

The distinction is small on paper and enormous in practice. For Kristzan, the sash was never just a competition assignment. The country printed across it changes what the whole exercise means.

Then he stopped

After Man Hot Star International in November 2023, Kristzan went back to his day job. He wasn’t plotting a comeback or waiting for the right title to materialize.

“I thought that chapter of my life had already come to an end,” he says.

His followers apparently disagreed, and kept nudging him toward another pageant — but it took that same accidental collision of timing and algorithm to actually move him.

Maybe he wasn’t done after all.

He joined Misters of Filipinas in 2025 aiming for its biggest prize, the Man of the World title — one of the major international male pageant franchises. That title went to Oliver Kretz.

Kristzan doesn’t sound interested in rewriting that outcome.

“Looking at Oliver now, I can honestly say that the title was meant for him, and I’m genuinely happy to see where his journey has taken him.”

Instead, he was entrusted with a different international assignment: Top Model of Universe Philippines. It turned out to be a better fit for the version of himself who’d come back.

Why Istanbul

Kristzan’s road to Istanbul wasn’t the one he’d pictured when he signed up for Misters of Filipinas. But Top Model of Universe caught his attention on its own terms.

He researched the franchise and found it was only entering its fifth year — young enough, by pageant-industry standards, that its trajectory was still an open question. What he saw in past editions convinced him it had room to grow.

His read is straightforward: he doesn’t see Top Model of Universe as a lesser pageant waiting for permission to matter. He sees a young organization with the raw ingredients to become a much bigger international name.

“Who knows?” he says. “Maybe as the Philippines’ representative, I can also help Top Model of Universe become an even bigger name in the international pageant community.”

There’s a symmetry there worth sitting with. Kristzan is returning to an industry that’s changed since he first walked into it, by way of a competition that’s still figuring out what it wants to be. Neither one of them is finished.

Learning from the other side

In 2025, Kristzan also did something he hadn’t done before: he judged. He sat on the panel for the Ginoo category at Binibining Bulacan, then again, most recently, as a judge for Miss Pearl of the Orient 2026 — one of several pageants he’s been involved with in some capacity since entering the industry in 2022.

Watching contestants sweat under the exact pressure he once did gave him a different read on what actually makes a winner.

“I’ve learned that a pageant winner should be a total package,” he says. That package, in his telling, goes past a face, a physique, or the ability to nail an interview question on cue. “Beyond those qualities, your attitude, character, confidence, and authenticity matter just as much.”

It’s a lesson that’s visibly reshaped his own prep. In 2022 and 2023, Kristzan says, he tried to do everything at once. This time he’s more surgical about it — his physical preparation is more deliberate, built on what he’s since learned about training and nutrition, with an eye on sustainability rather than a crash-course sprint.

The difference isn’t that he suddenly found discipline. He already had that. The difference is he now knows where to point it.

“I’m not trying to reinvent myself,” he says. “I’m building on everything I’ve learned and bringing a more mature version of myself to the competition.”

That maturity matters more in Istanbul than it would have in 2022, precisely because this time no one is coming with him.

“This opportunity is about more than just pageant skills,” he says. “It requires maturity, independence, and responsibility because I will be traveling alone and representing the Philippines on an international stage.”

The organization handed him that responsibility. He plans to earn it.

The veteran label

There’s another title trailing Kristzan this year, unofficial but sticking: pageant veteran.

He doesn’t flinch from it.

“It’s an honor to be considered a pageant veteran, especially knowing how much I’ve experienced in this industry since 2022,” he says.

But he’s also careful not to let the label calcify into an excuse to coast. Every competition, he says, still teaches him something. Experience isn’t supposed to breed complacency — if anything, a return trip should come loaded with more, not less.

“You can’t just return as the same person you were before,” he says. “You should return with more experience, more maturity, and something new to offer.”

He’s also noticed he’s not the only familiar face drifting back into the circuit — a few former batchmates have made their own way back into pageantry this year too. He laughs about it. At least he’s got company.

One more time

There’s a practical quality to Kristzan’s comeback that separates it from the usual pageant-return arc. He already has a life that exists entirely outside the stage. His work in sales and marketing at VMP Regenerative Clinic continues uninterrupted, and the digital marketing, social content, and brand-promotion skills he’s built along the way are valuable well beyond any pageant runway.

That may be exactly why he sounds less interested in proving he belongs than in finding out what else he’s got left.

He’s already reached the international podium twice. Now he wants to beat his own record.

Winning is still the goal — Kristzan doesn’t pretend otherwise. But he’s clear that it isn’t the only thing he’s planning to bring home from Istanbul.

“I’ve already gained so much from my pageant journey — the experiences, the people I’ve met, the places I’ve traveled to, and the person I’ve become along the way,” he says.

Then comes the line that sounds less like a comeback and more like a closing argument.

“Hopefully, in this last try, I can showcase the best version of who I am and give this journey everything I have.”

The crown is still out there. So is the man who’s already learned how to live without it.