Noider Almanza Barraza, the Colombian who burned the effigies of Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach and Steve Harvey on New Year's day, issued an apology via his Facebook account. The man apologized on Jan. 3 and said that he is also saddened by the reaction to what he did as he welcomed 2016.

Barraza earned the ire of many people after he posted a video of burning the effigy of Wurtzbach, Philstar reported. The video quickly became viral and was viewed by numerous Filipinos. Seeing the clip, some commented that the act was so distasteful if it was meant to mock the winning of Miss Philippines in the previous Miss Universe pageant.

Furthermore, some Filipinos also used social media to say that Colombians are bitter and told them to move on already. The comments stemmed from the fact that the Miss Universe host Steve Harvey announced the wrong winner of the pageant and momentarily put the crown on Miss Colombia's head. The host admitted his mistake and announced that the real winner was Miss Philippines, forcing Ariadna Gutierrez to hand over her crown and give it to Wurtzbach.

The situation, although not Miss Philippines' fault at all, upset many Latinos and they started to bash Pia. Even the other Latin contestants from the pageant were caught on camera displaying their disapproval of turning over the Miss Universe title from Miss Colombia to Miss Philippines.

The controversy during the pageant was the main reason Filipinos were reacting negatively to the burning of Pia's effigy. Besides, for the locals, burning any image of someone means hate.

Then again, it was learned that for most Latin countries, setting effigies of controversial people on fire is a New Year tradition. They said that it is to push away the bad things that happened in the previous year. The tradition which is called "año viejo" is supposed to ward off bad luck for the new year.

At any rate, according to Inquirer.net, after learning he offended the Filipinos, Barraza posted a message to apologize. In Spanish he wrote on Facebook: "I posted a video on my social media which shows some dolls on New Year's Eve. In my country, it is a tradition to burn dolls of people who caused controversies in the year 2015. It is to leave behind what happened in 2015."

He further said, "The burning of dolls is how we begin the new year and it was not meant to hurt or offend the people of Philippines. This is why I feel very sad that this video caused a controversy. But I wasn't the only one to burn this kind of dolls. I am sorry."

Meanhwhile, Barraza's controversial video and photos are no longer available since he already deleted them. On his other social media accounts, all of them have been set to private as well.