Disney hasn’t sent a Theatrical production to Manila in 10 years. Frozen breaks that streak in April 2027 — and it’s the third major Broadway import the city has landed in a year.
Alex Eala finally faced a real opponent in Cincinnati — and took a set off a two-time Grand Slam finalist before falling in three. Next stop: the US Open.
An all-Filipino cast is about to headline Broadway’s Notebook musical — and Manila gets it before anywhere else outside North America.
EJ Obiena just cleared his best height since the Paris Olympics. A month out from the Asian Games, that’s the story — not the medal count.
On September 19, in Đà Lạt, Vietnam, Mister Fitness Supermodel World crowns a winner — an annual international men’s pageant now in its fourth year. Three times, a Filipino has walked away with the second-best finish possible. Michael Angelo Toledo took third runner-up in 2023. Godfrey Nikolai Murillo was first runner-up in 2024. Denver Argana finished second runner-up last year. No Filipino has ever won it. Jacob Kier Gomez, a 20-year-old Nursing student from Tarlac, is the Philippines’ fourth attempt — and he’s no stranger to falling just short before breaking through. “I don’t look at it as pressure, but for me, it’s a privilege,” he tells ELYSPLANET. “I know that the Philippines is still searching for its first win in this franchise, and my focus is only on preparing as hard as I can and performing my best.” That comfort with almost is not new. Gomez lost his first pageant before he ever won one. What he’s carrying to Vietnam isn’t just a national drought — it’s a personal track record of turning near-misses …
The Big Four, plus two — and possibly more. There are a lot of beauty pageants out there, and while we try to cover them all as they happen, this post zooms in on the Filipinas crowned domestically to carry the Philippine sash into this year’s major international pageants. We start with the four that make up our Big Four: Miss Universe, Miss International, Miss World, and Miss Earth. Then we add two more — the fast-rising Miss Grand International (via the new Reina Filipinas pipeline) and the recently concluded Miss Supranational — to make it a list of six. One title is already decided; five are still to be settled between now and November, and two of the host organizations haven’t locked their exact dates yet. Here’s where each stands, in the order their competitions fall on the calendar. We’ll update this post as we spotlight more Filipina queens in the months ahead. Help us decide who deserves the spotlight next — comment below with which pageant queens you want us to cover. Maria …
Marck Marasigan had six days. That’s how much notice the Batangueño model and pageant titleholder got when the Philippines’ slot at Mister Celebrity International 2025 — an annual pageant for public figures and content creators held under the broader Mister and Miss Celebrity International banner — opened up. The original designate, Alei Del Rosario, who won the crown at Misters of Filipinas 2024, had to withdraw after an unexpected injury; the slot was then offered to Juan Carlos “Jaycee” Lopez, who turned it down as not yet ready. Six days to sort a wardrobe, book a photoshoot, and mentally reset for an international stage he hadn’t planned on standing on that year. “I only had six days to prepare for the competition, including the photoshoot, preparing my wardrobe, and taking care of all the other things I needed to do,” Marasigan told ELYSPLANET. “I’m just so happy that everything went according to plan within those six days, and that there were a lot of people who were willing to help and support me.” On December …
Alex Eala became the name the Philippines learned to watch. Her older brother Miko knows what it took to get there because he was there first. There is a particular kind of intimacy that comes from losing to the same person over and over again — and for Alex Eala, that person was her older brother. Before the packed arenas, the national flags, the 4 a.m. wake-ups and the increasingly routine business of beating players whose names once belonged to the television, there was Miko on the other side of the net. Older, better, already further along in the sport. Alex has said she used to practice constantly with him, and even after he had stopped playing for months, she still couldn’t beat him. It’s a funny detail in the origin story of one of the Philippines’ biggest sporting figures, and a more revealing one than the usual family-tree version of the Eala story: Miko didn’t merely grow up alongside Alex’s tennis career. He was part of the environment that made it possible. The siblings …
Parqal in Aseana City was built as a five-star green mall meant to make people linger — but Building 5 houses a visa center, and not everyone there wants to stay.
Metro Manila has spent most of August under Habagat — the southwest monsoon that floods the city’s streets on a schedule closer to weekly than seasonal — and people have still been crossing town for Cinemalaya. The past week’s heavy weather hasn’t stopped Filipinos from flocking to malls and theaters for this year’s lineup, ticket-runs and all. That’s not a small detail for a festival built on films most of its audience had never heard of a month ago. Cinemalaya — the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ independent film festival, now in its 22nd year — is having its longest run ever this August: 13 days, August 6 to 18, up from its usual Friday-to-Sunday weekend format, screening nine full-length films and 10 shorts across Shangri-La Plaza, Ayala Malls, and Gateway Cineplex. The Balanghai Trophy — the festival’s award, named for the balangay, the plank-built outrigger boat early Filipino seafarers used to move between islands — goes out August 17. Results aren’t in yet as of this writing. [Update: See the results below]. That timing …
