Philippines will be represented in the Oscars by two movies

Two Filipino films are Oscar-bound

Business World
September 15, 2026 

IF THINGS go right, the Philippines will be represented in the Oscars by two movies, one as the country’s official entry to the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards, the other as Australia’s official entry. Philippine market insights

The Film Academy of the Philippines (FAP) has announced that Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana has been selected as the Philippines’ official entry.

According to an FAP statement, “In selecting Filipiñana, the Committee considered the integrity of the film, the producers’ commitment and capacity to fulfill the requirements of the Oscars campaign, and the film’s ability to embody the pride of Philippine cinema. The Committee also recognized the film’s strong visual style but more importantly its incisive examination of class, power, labor, and social realities, as well as its growing international profile.”

The committee, composed of Filipino film industry experts approved by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and convened by the Film Academy of the Philippines, considered eight films and evaluated them based on artistic merit, cultural relevance, and international campaign potential, choosing Filipiñana to go to the Oscars.

“The film offers a visually distinct and controversial portrait of the Filipino experience: through the eyes of a young Filipina at an elite country club, the film exposes the structural violence, class disparity, and post-colonial inequities that persist even now beneath a meticulously manicured surface of privilege. Its growing international critical recognition affirms both its artistic merit and its capacity to carry a Filipino story rooted in universal questions of power, identity, and survival to a global audience. The Film Academy will work closely with the Filipiñana team throughout the Oscars campaign, providing the support they need and make the most of this opportunity for Philippine cinema,” FAP Director-General Paolo Villaluna was quoted as saying.

Filipiñana follows a 17-year-old girl from rural Ilocos who works as a “tee girl,” lining up golf balls for the club’s wealthy members. Then she discovers that her seemingly innocent fascination with the club’s president is connected to a darker shared history.

The film stars Jorrybell Agoto, Carmen Castellanos, Teroy Guzman, Carlitos Siguion-Reyna, Isabel Sicat, and Nour Houshmand.

Filipiñana made its world premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision. It was also shown at the Berlin International Film Festival, the San Francisco International Film Festival, at the Independent Film Festival of Boston, and at the Cinema Jove International Film Festival.

AUSTRALIA’S BET

Meanwhile, Australia selected First Light, the feature debut of Filipino-Australian filmmaker James J. Robinson.

First Light has a predominantly Filipino cast and uses mostly Tagalog to tell its story. It stars Ruby Ruiz, Maricel Soriano, Rez Cortez, and National Artist for Film Kidlat Tahimik.

The film revolves around Sister Yolanda, an aging nun whose faith is challenged following an incident at a remote convent in the Philippines. Philippinemarket insights

First Light has made the rounds of international festivals including the Melbourne International Film Festival, the Marrakech International Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Shanghai International Film Festival, the Glasgow Film Festival, and the New Zealand International Film Festival.

The film received funding from Screen Australia in association with the Melbourne International Film Festival Premiere Fund, and the FDCP and VicScreen. It is produced by Majella Productions and Clou Media Productions.

The 99th Academy Awards will be held on March 14, 2027, in Los Angeles. — AAH

Baguio City wins WHO Healthy Cities Recognition Awards

Baguio wins 2026 WHO award for use of data in health initiatives

GMA News
13 September 2026

Baguio City was recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) for its initiative in using data in providing targeted health and social access to residents.

"The City of Pines" received the “Data for Equity: Informing Action, Improving Health” award at the 2026 WHO Healthy Cities Recognition Awards during the 11th Global Conference of the Alliance for Healthy Cities in Sydney, Australia on September 1.

The Baguio local government unit said the city was recognized for “its contribution to the health and well-being of its citizens and to the advancement of Healthy Cities goals in the Western Pacific.”

Under Baguio’s City Planning, Development and Sustainability Office, the barangay-level Livability Index maps disparities in health, social conditions, and access to basic services across the city’s barangays.

The Index shows the residents’ experience in their communities, generating data that can help city officials identify areas facing greater challenges and determine where interventions and investments are most urgently needed.

By identifying differences in living conditions across communities, LGUs can plan targeted responses and allocate resources to those most in need.

The findings in the index are also integrated into city planning, budgeting, and investment decisions, strengthening the role of evidence in determining development priorities.

Baguio received the same award in 2021 for its Smoke-Free Baguio campaign.

— Mariel Celine Serquiña/RF, GMA News

PH wins Mister Cosmopolitan 2026; 2nd crown in three years

PH breaks 'Vietnam curse' with Mister Cosmopolitan 2026 win

Armin P. Adina 
Inquirer.net
13 September 2026

A Filipino contender has finally won a pageant title on Vietnamese soil when John Eriq Bonifacio topped the 2026 Mister Cosmopolitan competition held in Nha Trang on Sept. 12.

The Kapampangan hunk bested 19 other aspirants at the fourth edition of the annual male search to inherit the title from Taiwanese titleholder Shawn Lin, who won at last year’s competition held in Thailand.

Pageant fans, particularly Filipinos, have coined the phrase “Vietnam curse” because delegates from the Philippines had previously never won in international competitions hosted in “the Land of the Ascending Dragon” despite sending formidable competitors.

The most recent “victim” of this curse was Asia Rose Simpson, who finished in the Top 12 of the 2026 Miss World pageant held on Sept. 5 despite topping the “Head-to-Head” Challenge and making the shortlist of several other fast-track competitions. Vietnamese delegate Le Nguyen Bao Ngoc claimed the Top 6 slot for Asia and Oceania.

Also fueling speculations of such a curse were 2023 Miss Earth Air Yllana Marie Aduana, 2024 Miss Cosmo Top 10 semifinalist Ahtisa Manalo, and 2024 Mister World Top 20 semifinalist Kirk Bondad.

Manalo would later compete at the 2025 Miss Universe pageant in Thailand, finishing third runner-up, while Bondad got redemption in the same country by winning the Mister International title last year.

During the question round at Mister Cosmopolitan, Bonifacio was asked,  “As a gentleman, what does having a noble heart mean to you, and how do you believe a man can demonstrate it through his action toward others?”

He responded: “For me, [a] gentleman with a noble heart is not defined by how he [dresses] or looks, but rather how he [treats] people with respect. This is something that I learned from my father who just passed away. It taught me that regardless of who they are, rich, poor, or what gender they choose, respect must always come first.”

For this year’s competition, the Mister Cosmopolitan pageant has adopted the tagline “Gentlemen with Noble Heart.”

Bonifacio added that many in today’s generation had already forgotten how to treat each other with respect. “But I am here right now standing in front of you, be a reminder to each [and] everyone, especially the youth, that to teach everyone with respect and kindness. Because I believe that the things you do in life reflects in return,” he said.

Aside from winning the top prize at the finale show, he also received the Best Physique and Best Catwalk awards at the preliminary competition.

In an interview after he posted his victory, Bonifacio expressed his gratitude to the Filipino people. “Maraming, maraming salamat sa Filipino fans na sumusuporta sa akin. We did it, guys. Mabuhay ang Philippines. Para sa inyo ito. Mahal ko kayong lahat,” he said.

(Thank you very much to the Filipino fans who are supporting me. We did it, guys. Long live the Philipines. This is for you. I love you all.)

Bonifacio’s victory marks the third straight year that a Mister Pilipinas Worldwide titleholder had topped an international competition. In 2024, Daumier Corilla became the first-ever Filipino delegate to be proclaimed Mister Global. And last year, Bondad scored the country’s second Mister International victory. /edv

The Philippines has posted its highest PISA scores since joining the test in 2018

PISA 2025: Philippines breaks out of bottom 10, sees best lift in reading

Story by Cristina Chi
Philstar Global
08 September 2026

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has posted its highest PISA scores since joining the test in 2018 and improved faster in reading than any other country with comparable data, according to the results released Tuesday, September 8.

However, nearly two in three Filipino students still fall short of having the minimum proficiency in science, mathematics and reading, according to the 2025 PISA results. 

Filipino students improved by an average of 16 to 20 points across all three subjects of science, reading and mathematics, enough to lift the country off the bottom rungs it has occupied since 2018. 

The Philippines notched a mean score of 373 in science (up 17 points from 2022), 371 in mathematics (up 16 points), and 367 in reading (up 20 points).

The gains in reading alone are worth roughly a year of schooling by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) own rule of thumb, which treats 20 points as one year's worth of learning. 

PISA is historically administered every three years and selects test-takers through random sampling. The test targets fifteen-year-olds as this is the age that marks the end of compulsory schooling in several territories.  

Some 8,000 students from at least 208 schools in the Philippines, 140 of which are public schools, participated in the 2025 PISA. 

Escaping stagnation 

The Philippines' showing in the 2025 PISA has allowed it to buck its own flatline trend since its last two participations in the global assessment.  

In 2018, the Philippines ranked last of 79 education systems in reading and second-lowest in mathematics and science. In 2022, it placed sixth-lowest in mathematics and reading and third-lowest in science among 81 countries.

For this year, the Philippines ranks 77th out of 91 systems in science, 

74th in mathematics,

and 72nd in reading,

based on a Department of Education (DepEd) presentation of the results the same day.

The number of participating countries and territories has also climbed, from 79 in 2018 to 91 in 2025, which widened the pool of countries a nation can outrank.

Well below the OECD average

The Philippines’ relative leap in its scores comes against a backdrop of a global slump, as the OECD average has dropped by 15 points in reading, nine in math, and three in science. 

The OECD average is the mean score across the organization's 38 member countries, most of them high-income economies including the United States, Japan, South Korea and much of Europe. The OECD designed and runs PISA.

ECD member nations stood at 482 in science, 463 in mathematics, and 461 in reading, leaving Filipino students trailing by 92 to 109 points.

This is a gap equivalent to four to five years of formal schooling, by OECD standards.

Nearly two in three lack basic proficiency

PISA measures students' performance through six proficiency levels. The OECD treats Level 2 as the baseline, or the point at which a student can "participate meaningfully in society."

For instance, in science, this means students who score at or above Level 2 can "use science as a tool for reasoning: explaining, interpreting, evaluating and making decisions in familiar real-world situations," the OECD wrote in the PISA 2025 report.

"The baseline is therefore meaningful because it represents a threshold of functional science literacy," it added.

A student at Level 2 in reading can identify the main idea in a text of moderate length. In mathematics, they can recognize how a simple situation can be represented mathematically.

Only about 36% of Filipino students reached Level 2 — the minimum proficiency PISA measures — in science, mathematics and reading in 2025, according to the results. That leaves nearly two in three below the baseline level in all three subjects.

This is already an improvement from the 2022 results, when only 16% to 24% reached minimum proficiency in the three subjects.

Meanwhile, highly proficient learners remain a tiny minority in the Philippines, based on the 2025 results, where only 0.3% of test-takers reached Levels 5 or 6 in any subject, the assessment’s highest performance bands.

Biggest leap in reading

The Philippines recorded the steepest ten-year improvement trend in reading of any education system with comparable data, according to the PISA 2025 report. 

The OECD measures long-term progress as an average change per decade. They do this, as explained in the report, by calculating the linear regression across all the cycles a country has taken.

In reading comprehension, the Philippines gained 38 points, ahead of Cambodia at 36 and Türkiye at 34. Qatar recorded 18 points and Taiwan (referred to as "Chinese Taipei" in the report) recorded 14.

When the Philippines first joined the PISA cycle in 2018, it ranked at the very bottom of all 79 participating countries at the time with an average reading score of 340. 

The Philippines has taken the test three times over seven years, improving 27 points in reading between 2018 and 2025. That works out to about 3.9 points a year, which the OECD scales to roughly 38 points over a decade.

The data shows the Philippines is also bucking an overall global decline in reading skills. According to the OECD, of 74 education systems with comparable data, three-quarters recorded significant declines. Only five, including the Philippines, showed improvements.

Two poor showings led to 'galvanized' effort in PISA 2025

Much of the 2018 and 2022 PISA results had checked out with the government's own data at the time showing low student proficiency and a learning crisis across core areas.

DepEd itself under then-Secretary Sara Duterte conceded, based on the 2022 PISA results, that the average 15-year-old Filipino student is academically five to six years behind their peers in OECD countries. 

The department had vowed to ramp up its preparations for the next PISA and had even formed a "PISA 2025 Task Force," among others.

Education Secretary Sonny Angara credited a mix of curriculum changes, remediation programs and even the provision of computers to students when he presented the results Tuesday.

The department was "galvanized to really do everything possible to help our students" and turn its attention to reading, writing and arithmetic, Angara said.

Angara said DepEd had studied the 2018 and 2022 PISA reports for practical fixes. One finding was that some students had never used a computer before the exam itself, which is computer-based.

The department surveyed schools to check that each had at least one computer, Angara said.

"We were surprised because we thought private schools already had computers," Angara said. "Even some private schools didn't have computers either." 

Jollibee Group named Global Growth Champion at the Globie Awards

Jollibee Group named global growth champion

Philstar Global
01 September 2026

MANILA, Philippines — Jollibee Group has been named Global Growth Champion at the inaugural Globie Awards, the awards program of the Global Restaurant Leadership Conference, which brings together senior executives in the global restaurant and food service industry.

The award recognizes companies that have demonstrated strong international expansion and impact in the global restaurant sector. Jollibee Group was selected from 12 brand nominees and received more than 74 percent of votes from the award’s advisory panel.

The Globie Awards recognize companies and leaders demonstrating excellence in global restaurant leadership, growth, innovation and operational impact. The award will be formally presented during the Global Restaurant Leadership Conference in November.

Jollibee Group has grown from a Philippine-founded business into a global restaurant group operating more than 10,700 stores and cafés across 33 countries, supported by 20 brands across owned, franchised and invested businesses. The recognition reflects the company’s global growth trajectory, operational agility, and strategic portfolio diversification as it continues to expand across key international markets.

Fil-Aussie to represent Australia at the Miss International 2026

MUPH alumna to represent Australia at Miss International 2026

Armin P. Adina
Inquirer.net
31 August 2026

Another Miss Universe Philippines alumna, Karenza De Leon, is set to represent Australia at the Miss International pageant.

De Leon was crowned Miss International Australia at the national search held at Revesby Workers’ Club in New South Wales on Aug. 30. De Leon will take over from Bella Dela Cruz, her Miss International Australia predecessor, was in the same Miss Universe Philippines batch. She was fielded by the Filipino society in Sydney and represented Lucena City.

De Leon previously competed at the 2025 Miss Universe Philippines pageant where she was fielded by the Filipino society in Australia. She represented Camarines Norte in the competition.

She will fly to Japan for the 64th Miss International pageant that will culminate in Tokyo on Nov. 25. She will try to score Australia’s fourth win in the global tilt.

The Australian national pageant was mounted by Stargazer International Group of Filipino-Australian Julieta De Leon. The competition also crowned other titleholders.

Succeeding Filipino-Australian Alexa Roder as Miss Earth Australia was Helena Ristevski, a Sydney-based model with European ancestry.

Kajol Arishma Chand inherited the Miss Eco International Australia crown from Adriana Gravador, another Filipino-Australian beaity queen who was second runner-up at the 2026 Miss Eco International pageant held in Egypt.

Ristevski will try to post Australia’s second Miss Earth victory at the 26th edition of the international pageant later this year. Jessica Lane became the first Australian titleholder when she won at the contest held in Manila in 2024.

Chand will represent Australia at the 2027 Miss Eco International pageant and try to post the country’s first-ever victory at the global competition. /edv

Philippines scores back-to-back international pageant wins

Philippines scores back-to-back international pageant wins

Margarette Briton is Miss Interglobal 2026; Jamie Casiño is Miss Equality World.

Jojo Gabinete
Philippine Entertainment Portal
31 August 2026

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines once again proved its supremacy in the field of beauty pageants when two Philippine representatives won consecutive international beauty titles on Sunday, August 30, 2026.

Margarette Briton, 26, won the inaugural edition of Miss International 2026 held in Bali, Indonesia.

Jamie Casiño, 28, was crowned Miss Equality World 2026 at the coronation ceremony held at MGI Hall in Bangkok, Thailand.

MISS INTERGLOBAL 2026

Nabila Fenelia of Indonesia was the first runner-up in Miss International 2026.

Second runner-up is Nicole Missios of Australia.

Dariya Toleukhan of Kazakhstan was the winner of the Mrs. Interglobal 2026 category winner.

Margarette was awarded four special awards at Miss International 2026: Star Connect Award, Social Impact Award, Dinner Dress Award, and National Costume Excellence Award.

MISS EQUALITY WORLD 2026

Miss Equality is an international beauty pageant for transgender women that kicked off in Bali, Indonesia, in 2022

"Gender equality and human rights" are the slogans promoted by Miss Equality World.

Jamie Casiño was the first Filipino to win the aforementioned crown and title.

There are thirteen official candidates for Miss Equality World 2026.

If Jamie hadn't won, Filipinos wouldn't have known that there was such a beauty pageant except for Miss International Queen.

Allana Cordero of Mexico was the first runner-up in Miss Equality World 2026 and Vi Ai Giang of Vietnam was the second runner-up.

In addition to being crowned Miss Equality World 2026, Jamie is the recipient of The Voice of Equality award.

Jamie showed off his intelligence with his winning answer to the question: “If you had to choose between strengthening anti-discrimination laws and investing directly in economic opportunities for transgender communities, which would you prioritize and why?"

She answered: “As a trans advocate, I would prioritize making gender-affirming care accessible to everyone because I do believe that if we give this gender-affirming care for transwomen, then we would be able to save lives, just like how we queens here do advocate for trans people.

“I am more than ready to be the voice of equality, and to work with the Miss Equality World Organization and remind trans people that they are not alone, so come join with me.

"Let’s save lives together for a better tomorrow.”