PH wins Miss Polo Universe inaugural edition

Mutya ng Pilipinas Andrea Endicio crowned Miss Polo Universe 2026 in Dubai

 Armin P. Adina
Inquirer.net
27 September 2026

Another Mutya ng Pilipinas titleholder has won an international crown for the Philippines. Andrea Endicio topped the inaugural Miss Polo Universe pageant held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Sept. 26 (27 in Manila).

The courtside reporter and veteran of national beauty contests bested eight other aspirants, including a candidate representing the Filipino community in the UAE, at the international pageant’s second staging held at Movenpick Grand Al Bustan.

Endicio also bagged the lion’s share of special awards in the evening. She was Best in National Costume, Best in Production Number, Best in Evening Gown, Miss Photogenic, Face of Luxurist, and Brilliant Mind Institute Choice.

With her victory, the Mutya ng Pilipinas pageant now has two international titles and one runner-up finish for this year alone. Before Endicio’s coronation in Dubai, her batchmate in the 2025 national pageant Lyndzy Maranan was crowned Miss Global Universe in Malaysia. Eunice Deza, meanwhile, finished third at the Top Model of the World competition in Egypt.

The three ladies who all copped honors for the Philippines in the international arena were initially not meant to take part in the respective international competitions that they competed in when they earned their Mutya ng Pilipinas titles last year.

Alexandra the Great - How Eala united Filipinos worldwide

 How Alex Eala Became a Symbol of the Philippines

At only twenty-one, the tennis phenom is likely already the best-ever player from Southeast Asia. Now she is seeking her first Grand Slam title at this summer’s U.S. Open.

Albert Samaha
The New Yorker
August 29, 2026

Practice Court No. 3 at the U.S. Open, in Queens, sits at the far end of the grounds, beyond the stadiums. Last Sunday, a week before the start of the main draw, the court was at capacity. Fans packed the bleachers, sweating under the summer sun, or lined up along the concourse, hoping to nab a seat. There were plenty available at adjacent practice courts, where the Grand Slam champions Naomi Osaka and Aryna Sabalenka were warming up. But this crowd had come for Alexandra Eala, a twenty-one-year-old Filipino rising star, who has recently reached a career-high world ranking of eighteen, making her the highest-ranked Southeast Asian player in women’s tennis history. In the stands, I met Ysa Llanos, a twenty-one-year-old Filipino American. “It’s inspiring to see somebody who looks like you, talks like you, be in the kind of places we’ve never been in before,” Llanos told me, explaining that she had travelled from New Jersey with her parents and her thirteen-year-old brother to get a glimpse of Eala.

Everywhere that Eala plays, from Melbourne to Abu Dhabi, legions of fans follow, often waving the Philippine flag and signs in Tagalog (“Laban, Alex!”). Eala mania, people call it. “Many, many Filipinos, they come to watch her win,” Joan Bosch, Eala’s coach, told me recently. “You try to explain to her—there is no pressure.” Yet, in her relatively short career, practically every accomplishment of Eala’s comes with a historic superlative. Eala is the first Filipino to win a junior Grand Slam, beat a Top Ten opponent, win a Grand Slam match, reach Wimbledon’s fourth round, win a Women’s Tennis Association tournament, and attain a Top Twenty ranking. In the Philippines, many time zones away from these major tournaments, fans organize watch parties for matches that often start after midnight. Eala’s popularity has outpaced her on-court success. To meet the surging demand at tournaments, where early-round matches take place concurrently across the grounds, schedulers have scrambled to move Eala to the main courts, which have the most seats and are usually reserved for the highest-ranked players. The chairman of a recent tournament in Washington, D.C., estimated that eighty per cent of ticketing inquiries were for Eala. The Canadian Open’s director credited Eala with unprecedented ticket sales, remarking in a press conference that “a sold-out Wednesday night this early in the tournament is really unheard of.” In a post-match interview during the Dubai Tennis Championships, the American star Coco Gauff thanked Eala “for bringing a new demographic” to tennis. “I’ve played this tournament for many years, and to see the stadium full means a lot,” she said. Venus Williams, who has partnered with Eala in doubles, deemed her a “world star.”

Nowhere is Eala’s fandom more visible than at the U.S. Open. Around fifty thousand people of Filipino descent live in Queens, many of them in Woodside, which boasts New York City’s oldest Jollibee, a mega-popular Filipino fast-food chain. If Wimbledon, with its docile audience dressed in white, embodies a subdued, Old World version of the sport, Flushing Meadows Corona Park has historically flaunted the rambunctious spirit of a new version of tennis. In recent years, the U.S. Open has turned into one of the city’s most glamorous events. Anna Wintour sits beside Lewis Hamilton. Beyoncé and Jay-Z cheer on Serena Williams. Barack and Michelle Obama show up for a first-round Gauff match. Long lines snake toward bars selling the tournament’s specialty cocktail, and a David Chang stall cooks elevated chicken tenders. Last year, a nosebleed seat for Gauff’s fourth-round match, against Osaka, cost around eight hundred dollars. This year, Eala is among the biggest draws. For many of her fans, the practice court offered a chance to see her up close for free. “She makes us so proud,” a teacher who drove in from Jersey City with her family told me. “We want to be a part of it.”

Eala has said that tennis was not “love at first sight” but, instead, a game she embraced gradually. Tennis was her grandfather’s idea. Although Roberto Maniego had no formal training, he read books and magazines about the sport and instilled in his grandchildren the idea that tennis offered a path to a college scholarship. Many public tennis courts in the Philippines have a surface made of crushed shells, rather than the grass, clay, or asphalt topped with acrylic that is standard in top competitions, so Maniego trained her and her older brother, Miko, at Valle Verde, a palm-lined country club that featured the only hard court anywhere near the their home, in Quezon City. The court had also been used for basketball, with the hoops still up behind the baseline.

Tonette Mendoza, a former college player who is now the executive director of the Philippine Tennis Association, first saw a six-or-seven-year-old Eala play at a local tournament. By then, Miko, three years older, had a growing collection of tennis-championship trophies. Eala would often partner with him against boys his age, frequently facing the brunt of the action. “The boys are always attacking her,” Mendoza told me. But rather than drift back to the baseline, Mendoza explained, “she was at the net and clearing, and I said, Oh, my God, this girl is so strong.”

Eala’s training would begin at five in the morning; after school, she did her homework in the car on the way to evening practice. She competed in tournaments around the country, and before long she was travelling the world. As a young child, in a nationally televised news segment, she expressed her dream to win all four Grand Slams. In another TV interview, a few years later, Eala said that she didn’t have much time for “normal children things,” such as “a party with friends or going to the mall. I don’t have the hours. I’m tired then.”

Her school from fourth to seventh grade, Colegio San Agustín Makati, accommodated her tournament schedule. Rowen Ayta, her sixth-grade teacher, told me she had to accept that Eala “would not be attending school every day.” She would often return from competitions to find a stack of waiting assignments, and would have to catch up on weeks of missed lessons within days. Another one of her teachers, Robynne Reyes, told me about a quote Eala picked for her sixth-grade yearbook: “I am motivated by the fear of being average.”

After Eala won a tournament in France at twelve years old, she attended the Rafa Nadal Academy, which offered her and her brother the chance to train and study at the school’s campus in Manacor, Spain. Her coach at the academy, Daniel Gomez, told me that he was immediately struck by the maturity of her game. She anticipated her opponent’s moves and executed with precise timing. Her serve was slow, but she compensated with aggression, fearlessly charging forward, cutting down her rival’s time to react. The coaches helped her hone the fundamentals, adding spin to her serve and power to her forehand, but Gomez also saw Eala developing tools that were harder to teach. She carried herself with a calmness rare in a sport that tends to incite extreme emotions, making calculated decisions on the court and celebrating wins with silent fist pumps. During a tournament in South Africa, when she was fourteen, Eala was a few points away from clinching the match when her opponent began to climb back. Eala paused to huddle with Gomez, but she wasn’t seeking counsel; she just wanted to “create doubt in the opponent’s mind,” he told me, making it seem as if she might change her strategy. Gomez remembers thinking, “My God, this girl is different.”

At age fourteen, Eala won a junior Australian Open doubles title. At fifteen, she reached the junior French Open semifinals; then, at sixteen, she won a junior French Open doubles title. A few months after her seventeenth birthday, in 2022, she raised a junior U.S. Open trophy as the first-ever Filipino winner. A few weeks later, Eala was on the cover of Vogue Philippines.

While her brother earned a tennis scholarship to Penn State, Eala dove straight into the professional circuit, competing in every event she could find. Even before she climbed the rankings, when she was playing in matches that typically feature empty stadiums, her fan base followed. “Filipinos would come to support me,” she said, on “The Player’s Box” podcast. At the 2025 Miami Open, she upset three Top Thirty players, before narrowly falling to Jessica Pegula, an American, who later marvelled at how many Eala fans were in the stands at a U.S. tournament. “Why is nobody cheering for me?” she joked.

Then, at the 2025 U.S. Open, with a rowdy crowd behind her, Eala won her first Grand Slam match, breaking into the Top Fifty in the global rankings soon after. At the 2026 Australian Open, so many people showed up to watch her practice that she had trouble getting through the crowd. All of a sudden, she was famous enough to need a security escort. She beat Top Ten players in Dubai and Berlin, and then, at Wimbledon this summer, defeated the then reigning champion, Iga Świątek, to reach the fourth round. In Washington, D.C., in August, she defeated three Top Fifteen players en route to the tournament title. After a match, an on-court interviewer asked, “What is it like to be this popular everywhere around the world?” Eala replied, “I think the question should be rephrased. It’s ‘What is it like to be Filipino?’ ”

Eala has embraced the role of ambassador. In online videos, she lists puto bumbong as one of her favorite Filipino foods, argues that the resort island Boracay isn’t overrated, shares that she named one of her (pig) slippers Chicharrón, and proclaims her love for karaoke. She walked the red carpet of an awards gala in a Filipiniana gown designed by her uncle. Nike released a commemorative shirt bearing the Philippine national flower, the sampaguita, over a grass court, and supplied her with a visor stitched with a Tagalog phrase that means “once it grows, it cannot be stopped.” Clips of her cursing in Tagalog reliably go viral. In Queens, I spoke to one Eala fan who mentioned kapwa, the Filipino virtue of honoring a shared identity, and another who brought up bayanihan, a Filipino concept of cooperation rooted in the traditional practice of a community carrying a neighbor’s house to another location.

History has left Filipinos hungry for solidarity. Across the archipelago’s more than seven thousand islands, countless sovereign communities once bloomed with distinct languages and traditions, until Spain claimed them all under a single name. The writer José Rizal described Filipinos, in the nineteenth century, as a fragmented people unified by a “common misfortune.” After the Philippines attained independence, in 1946, with the country’s economy constricted from more than three centuries of colonization, a diaspora spread around the world. Immigrants raised children in the U.S. or Australia, and overseas foreign workers sought jobs as housekeepers around the Persian Gulf or as deckhands on cruise ships. Even today, remittances account for roughly ten per cent of the Philippine economy.

When Eala was growing up, Manny Pacquiao united Filipinos anytime he stepped into the boxing ring. In the Philippines, “it was like a holiday,” Eala said on Andy Roddick’s podcast, “Served.” “Crime rates would go down, everyone would gather.” If, as Jimmy Connors has said, tennis is boxing at ninety feet—a lonely battle of wills that punishes the slightest lapse in concentration—Eala’s southpaw forehand drives resemble Pacquiao’s blazing left hooks. In a post-match interview at Wimbledon, Eala tearfully explained that a third-round win “may seem small” for some players, “but for someone who grew up in the Philippines,” training “every day after school with my ruffled socks and my light-up shoes and chubby cheeks, so—to her, this is everything.”

Mendoza, of the Philippine Tennis Association, told me that new public courts are being built around the country, and the government is constructing a new national tennis center. Eala’s grade-school tennis coach, Polly Hipolito, said that in the past year the number of students who’ve signed up for tennis at the school has doubled, explaining that several recent players told him, “I want to be like Alex.” Some kids call her Ate Alex, Tagalog for “older sister.” “People tell me I’m a role model for people back home,” Eala said on “Served.” “I’m the only Filipina that people really see in high-level tennis . . . so I really do my best to be on my best behavior and represent the best of the Philippines.”

With her new stature, some in the Philippines have sought to project Eala onto their political agendas. Pacquiao, after all, eventually became a senator and an ally of the disgraced former President Rodrigo Duterte. After partisans on social media argued that Eala wore a green outfit to a match to express support for Duterte’s embattled daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte, who is facing an impeachment trial, others responded by circulating a fake quote claiming that Eala opposed her. And, during the trial, legislators on both sides gave speeches celebrating Eala. But, for now, Eala remains a unifying figure and seems focused on becoming more than just the best tennis player from the Philippines, a title she has already earned. “Every error I hit on the court keeps me grounded,” she said in a Tennis Channel interview. “When I wake up in the morning, I have bad hair—keeps me grounded.”

Eala’s first competition at this year’s U.S. Open was an early morning mixed-doubles match on Tuesday. Filipinos filled the stadium’s lower bowl. Some told me that they’d woken at five to make the commute from other boroughs, New Jersey, or upstate. “Only for Alex,” Gilda Wong Penaco, a seventy-one-year-old from Yonkers, who came with a group of fellow retired nurses, told me.

Tagalog chatter filled the air. People ran into folks they knew. “It’s like we’re in the Philippines,” Christian Battung, a thirty-two-year-old from New Jersey attending the match with several family members, told me. After watching Eala on TV last year, Battung bought a pair of racquets and started playing the game with his three-year-old son.

Among the young fans in the crowd was a six-year-old girl. Her parents, Monique and Anthony David, had driven an hour and a half to get to Flushing Meadows. Anthony told me that they had watched so many of Eala’s matches that their daughter had become enamored. Their daughter knows Eala is Filipino, “but I don’t think she really understands what it means,” Monique said. “She just sees her as a tennis player.” ♦

Why Philippines’ property market is a gem hidden to most investors

Why Philippines’ property market is a gem hidden to most investors

The View by Nicholas Spiro
South China Morning Post
17 June 2024

Investors overlook the Philippines, but Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing economy is attractive, affordable and has more potential to unlock

A cursory glance at Asian commercial real estate transaction volumes shows which countries dominate the investment landscape. In the past decade, Japan, China, Australia and South Korea have accounted for the lion’s share of direct investment. Within Southeast Asia, Singapore is the sole heavyweight, making up at least 80 per cent of investment activity.

It is therefore not surprising that the Philippines gets little attention. Lacking the economic heft of Indonesia, the manufacturing prowess of Vietnam and the tourist appeal of Thailand, the Philippines often takes a back seat to its regional peers. However, it is at the forefront of important trends in the real estate industry, some of which are underappreciated and overlooked.

At a time when global house prices are rebounding, the luxury market in Manila is going gangbusters. According to a Knight Frank index of prime residential prices in 100 cities across the world, the Philippine capital recorded the fastest growth last year. Prices grew a staggering 26.3 per cent, even outpacing Dubai. Manila also held the top spot in the first quarter of this year.

The combination of strong demand stemming from the sharp rise in the number of high-net-worth individuals and tight supply has driven up prices. The Philippines was Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing economy last year and has enjoyed annual growth rates in the past decade that have been almost on a par with India’s.

However, capital values are much lower than in the leading cities in Asia. According to Knight Frank, US$1 million bought 158 square metres (1,700 square feet) of prime residential property in Manila in 2022, compared with just 34 sq m in Singapore, 60 in Tokyo and 113 in Mumbai. The Philippine capital’s luxury market is booming but remains relatively affordable.

In the retail industry, bricks-and-mortar shopping is thriving. At a time when physical retail faces acute challenges mainly because of the disruption caused by the rise in online purchases, the Philippines is a shopping centre landlord’s paradise. With private consumption accounting for more than 75 per cent of economic output and the online share of retail spending standing at just 2 per cent in 2022, Manila’s shopping centres are in an enviable position.

It might come as a surprise that Manila is home to two of the world’s largest shopping centres. In a country with heavy rain and high temperatures and humidity, big shopping centres are as much a refuge as they are an entertainment destination. “Malling is a way of life here, providing shelter from the rain and heat,” said Joe Curran, chief executive at KMC Savills in Manila.

Yet it is the expansion of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry that is the big story in Philippine commercial real estate. Not only is the sector the country’s largest employer, it is a key driver of growth and the main source of leasing demand in the office sector. Revenues have been increasing at an annual rate of 9 per cent since 2019 and are expected to reach a hefty US$38 billion this year.

The Philippines supplanted India as the world’s call centre hub more than a decade ago. A former US colony with a large population of young people, many of whom speak English, the Philippines is fertile ground for multinational firms seeking to streamline their operations and optimise their back-office functions. A popular way to do this is to take advantage of lower labour costs and deep talent pools in emerging markets.

Filipino agents attend to foreign clients at an Advance Contact Solutions call centre facility in Quezon City, in suburban Manila. Photo: AFP

According to data from Knight Frank, offshoring-related wage costs in the Philippines are still significantly lower than in India while prime office rents in Manila are almost 50 per cent lower than in Bengaluru, Mumbai and New Delhi.

This provides an incentive for multinational companies to place more call centres in the Philippines. “For every 100 jobs they outsource to India, they add 10 to 20 in the Philippines,” said Anshul Jain, head of Asian tenant representation and managing director for India and Southeast Asia at Cushman & Wakefield.

In the first quarter of this year, outsourcing and offshoring accounted for 53 per cent of leasing activity in metropolitan Manila’s office market. In Cebu, the share was as high as 80 per cent, according to JLL.

Not surprisingly, there are concerns the Philippines is more vulnerable to the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) than others. A large share of BPO jobs in the country are low-skilled ones, yet AI could serve as a catalyst for upskilling and higher-value services. “The industry saw this coming and knows it has to move up the value chain,” said Morgan McGilvray, senior director, occupier strategy and solutions, at Knight Frank in Manila.

An aerial view of the Ortigas business district in Pasig City, Philippines, in June 2022. Long commutes from suburban areas to central Manila, exacerbated by decades of underinvestment in infrastructure, have increased the appeal of hybrid work and spurred the decentralization of the office market. Photo: Reuters

The bigger threat to the office market is remote working, which has become more prevalent since the Covid-19 pandemic. Long commutes from suburban areas to central Manila, exacerbated by decades of underinvestment in infrastructure, have increased the appeal of hybrid work and spurred the decentralization of the office market.

Poor infrastructure has also stymied the development of the Philippine tourism industry. In 2019, Thailand welcomed nearly 40 million international tourists, nearly five times as many as the Philippines. For a country with stunningly beautiful beaches and coral reefs, this is lamentable.

The good news is the government is investing in infrastructure. Airports are being built and modernised, which could help unlock the country’s tourism potential. The Philippines is rarely on investors’ radar, but there is more to its property market than meets the eye.

Nicholas Spiro is a partner at Lauressa Advisory

Manila Is the World's Top Luxury Real Estate Market

Manila Is the World's Top Luxury Real Estate Market, Says Report

Story by Currie Cator 
Esquire Philippines
10 June 2024

Isn't it ironic that the Philippines is becoming more appreciative of luxury properties when many Filipinos still do not have their own homes? However, as this report from global property consultant Knight Frank reveals, Manila has become the fastest-growing high-end real estate market in the world, unseating Dubai. 

Makati City daytime

Makati City nighttime

Manila recorded 26.3 percent of annual price gains in luxury residential properties last year, the highest of all 100 markets analyzed in the report. Dubai, previously the frontrunner, slipped to second place, with a price growth of 15.9 percent. The Bahamas followed with 15 percent; while the Algarve in Portugal and Cape Town in South Africa saw prices jumping by 12.3 percent, rounding up the top five.

Overall, luxury residential markets still came out a bit stronger than expected, even while facing significant headwinds like the nonstop interest rate hikes and the rising living costs globally. Across the 100 markets tracked by Knight Frank, 80 recorded flat or positive annual growth in 2023, with luxury prices going up by 3.1 percent on average. This was regarded as "a solid gain."

"Stock markets were heading for more pain; inflation was veering out of control; and the pandemic-fueled property boom was set to end in tears, as borrowing costs hit 15-year highs in some markets," Kate Everett-Allen, head of international residential and country research at Knight Frank, said in the report. "However, that never happened. We’ve seen a much softer landing in terms of price performance around the world."

The Asia-Pacific region emerged as the strongest-performing region across the globe, with annual luxury prices increasing by 3.8 percent. Joining Manila in the top five markets with rapidly growing price gains are Mumbai, Shanghai, Seoul, and Auckland. According to the report, the Asia-Pacific may be seeing more wealth than any other region in the years leading to 2028, with Chinese investors and the Japanese real estate at the forefront.

Knight Frank, headquartered in London, prides itself as one of the world's leading independent real estate consultancies. Through its yearly wealth report, it provides insights on prime property markets, global wealth distribution, threats and opportunities for wealth, commercial property investments, and luxury spending trends.

Jessica Soho honored at Global Filipino Icon Awards

Jessica Soho honored at Global Filipino Icon Awards

Manila Bulletin
May 26, 2024

Jessica Soho – widely regarded as the Philippines' most awarded broadcast journalist – adds another feather in her cap after being honored with the Icon of Media Excellence Award at the Global Filipino Icon Awards held on May 17 at Dusit Thani Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Now on its fourth year, the Global Filipino Icon Awards recognizes individuals and organizations that have excelled in their respective fields, raising the Philippine flag on the global stage. The event is organized by "The Global Filipino Magazine," a prominent publication based in Dubai and is known as the fastest growing Filipino magazine in the Middle East.

In her acceptance speech, the "Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho" host lauded all the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who have been sacrificing so much to provide for their families in the Philippines.

"Global Filipino Icon Awards 2024, thank you very, very much! This award humbles me to my very core. Sa akin po kasing palagay, ang dapat hinihirang na icons, heroes, excellent at outstanding — kayo po iyun, mga OFW, Global Filipinos, Global Pinoys. Kulang ang salitang bayani para sa inyong kadakilaan, para sa lahat ng inyong tinitiis at isina-sakripisyo...lalo na po ang mga nanay at tatay na malayo sa inyong mga anak. You truly represent the best among us — kayo po ang pinakamahusay na ehemplo kung ano ang ibig sabihin ng pagiging Pilipino," she said.

Soho also shared how much she would want to tell the story of the OFWs to the rest of the world, "Gustung-gusto ko pong ikuwento ang inyong mga kuwento! At marami-rami na rin po kaming mga bansang narating. Kaya nga po laging 'lumilipad ang aming team' DIUMANO! Wala nga yatang sulok ngayon sa buong daigdig na walang Pilipino. Kung saan naroon ang trabaho at oportunidad, may Pilipino. At kapag may kabayan, may kuwentong masarap pakinggan dahil kuwento iyon ng pagmamahal para sa pamilya at para sa bayan."

She also took the chance to show her appreciation and gratitude to all Global Pinoys who have been helping other Filipinos in as much as they can.

"Special shoutout po sa mga OFW o Global Filipinos o Global Pinoys na tumutulong sa mga nangangailangan, na madalas naming naitatampok sa KMJS. Nakakatuwa na marami sa donations o tulong na nakukuha nila, galing po sa inyo, mga OFW! Kayo na pinaghihirapan ang bawat dolyar, euro o dirham, siya pang madaling hingan ng tulong! Maraming, maraming salamat po sa inyo. Ang Diyos na po ang bahalang sumukli sa kabutihan po ng inyong loob!" Soho shared.

With a crowd of 250 attendees from the Filipino community across the UAE, the Global Filipino Icon Awards was also attended by Dubai-based fashion icon Michael Cinco who was given the Lifetime Achievement Award in Fashion Excellence. Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach and Cory Quirino were also given the Icon of Elegance and Purpose Award and Excellence in Media and Pageantry, respectively.

In addition to accepting the award, Soho filmed a Dubai episode for KMJS which will air this June. The multi-awarded public affairs program is also celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

Through KMJS, Soho continues to tell stories that inspire and leave lasting impacts on viewers worldwide. The program's meaningful contributions to society, much like its host, are consistently recognized by various award-giving organizations.

Just this month, KMJS was named as the "Most Development-Oriented Public Service Program" at the 18th Gandingan Awards by the UP Community Broadcasters' Society. The multi-awarded public affairs program was also named as "Most Popular TV Program for News and Public Affairs" at the Box Office Entertainment Awards.

Manila tops Global Index in Residential Price

Manila Tops Global Index in Prime Residential Price Increase

Story by the SPOT.ph team
21 April 2024

Manila has topped a global listing again. But whether or not it should be cause for jubilation depends on who's looking. 

The capital has emerged at the top of the Knight Frank Prime Global Cities Index on prime residential prices, reflecting strong growth of the real property market driven by strong demand. 

The listing, which covers 45 real property markets from around the world, showed that Manila logged a growth rate of 26.3 percent year-on-year by the end of 2023. This price growth rate eclipsed other powerhouse cities such as Dubai, a far second at 15.1%, and Mumbai, which recorded a 10% increase. 

Manila’s prime residential price growth is an improvement from its performance in the third quarter of 2023, where it logged a 21.2% increase. This development had also landed Manila at the top spot of the global index in the same quarter. 

Of the 45 global markets covered, Manila was the one that recorded a growth rate above 20%. Other cities in the top 10 are Shanghai, with a growth of 8.6%, Los Angeles at 8.2%, Vancouver at 7.2 percent, Christchurch at 6.8%, Miami at 6.6%, Madrid at 6.4% and Seoul at 6.2 percent.

The average annual price increase was at 3.7% across the 45 markets on the list, the "strongest growth recorded since Q3 2022," the report said. 

"The biggest impact of the rate tightening cycle in the past 12-months has been on sales volumes, which have fallen in most markets by around 10% to 20%. While prices did initially fall as rates rose in 2022, as supply has been squeezed prices have ticked up. Rate cuts in the second half of 2024 will add further impetus to the market," said Liam Bailey, Knight Frank’s global head of research. 

What does it all mean? 

Manila’s standing is a reflection of the country’s strong economic performance, which has spurred housing demand in the capital. The report said the growth of residential prices in Manila was on the back of "rising housing demand, with agents reporting a surge in requirements from expatriates returning to manage local businesses."

This means overseas Filipino workers were funnelling money they had earned overseas to buy property back home as they begin new businesses locally.

But for locals in the market for a new home, this would mean higher prices of houses and condominium units. If you're on the lookout for new digs, you have to make sure you have enough saved up. 

The Prime Global Cities Index (PGCI) is a "valuation-based index" which looks at movements in prime residential prices across 45 cities using research data.