Alex Eala Wins Her First Title — After Three Rain Delays and a 6-0 Bagel
Three rain delays, one blown Miami rematch avenged, and a 6-0 third set — Alex Eala finally has her first WTA Tour title.
All posts tagged: Philippines
The Philippines
Mister World Philippines 2026: Aaron Beau Davis Crowned as a Rainy Newport Night Turns Messy
Aaron Beau Davis won Mister World Philippines 2026 in a half-empty Newport theater, on a night that also snubbed a fan favorite and briefly swapped two sashes live on air.
Eala Just Solved Osaka Too, Now On To Her First WTA 500 Final vs Pegula
Naomi Osaka was the “uncharted territory” in Alex Eala’s DC Open run. Eala mapped it in two sets — and now faces Jessica Pegula for the title.
Who Gets to Be Filipino Enough?
A Threads fight over whether Leylah Fernandez “counts” as Filipino reveals a pattern bigger than tennis — who gets rewarded, and who gets dragged, for how they handle a Filipino last name.
SB19 Proves the Tourism Ambassador Bet Paid Off with Lollapalooza Debut
Four days. That’s how long it took SB19 to go from pop group to instrument of Philippine tourism policy. On July 26, the Department of Tourism named the five-member act as the country’s newest tourism ambassadors. Four days later, on July 30, they walked onto the Allianz Stage at Lollapalooza in Chicago and became the first homegrown Filipino act to ever play the festival. Two headlines, four days apart, and they’re not really two stories. They’re the same story, told first by the government and then by a hundred thousand people at Grant Park. The Set That Made It Real Whatever the DOT announcement meant on paper, Lollapalooza is the part that had to be earned in front of a crowd that had no obligation to care. SB19 — Pablo, Josh, Stell, Ken, and Justin — opened their hour-long set with “DAM,” moving straight into “GENTO,” the song that’s done more than any other to put P-pop on non-Filipino radars. They dropped a new single, “LAWLESS,” the same day, released as a standalone track rather …
Baguio’s Quiet Isn’t Free Anymore
Baguio’s water and traffic strain is real — and the city’s answer to it, from Camp John Hay to a new eco-park in Itogon, comes with a price tag.
Why Infanta Is Worth Skipping Batangas For
There’s a version of this coastline that already exists two hours south, in Batangas: the same gray-black volcanic sand, the same Sierra Madre light, but franchised — corporate resort chains, synchronized staff, a cover charge to sit near the water. Infanta hasn’t gotten there yet, and the reason isn’t policy or preservation. It’s friction. Specifically, it’s a road that’s genuinely difficult to navigate. That’s the real subject of this trip, more than any single beach or waterfall on it. Northern Quezon is shielded from the rest of Metro Manila’s long-weekend traffic by miles of unglamorous, winding mountain highway — the kind of road that filters out anyone unwilling to earn the destination. While the crowds split between the packed resorts of Batangas and the increasingly expensive surf camps further north, this stretch of coast stays quiet almost by accident. Or not by accident, exactly — by arbitrage. This was our first time in Infanta. The quiet anchor of the REINA cluster Infanta sits at the center of what locals call the REINA cluster — the …
Two Pageants Are Crowning New Kings on the Same Night
Editor’s Note (August 2, 2026): Since publication, Mr. Philippines 2026’s organization terminated its partnership agreement with the team behind the coronation as originally planned, effective July 31 — a split that surfaced publicly just hours before tonight’s scheduled event. Per the organization’s official statement, Mr. Philippines will now push through on a later date, at a larger venue; contestants still in the running are being featured one-by-one on the pageant’s official Instagram in the meantime. Mister World Philippines is unaffected and proceeds tonight, August 2, as scheduled at the Newport Performing Arts Theater — meaning the “same night” collision described below no longer applies. The rest of this piece is preserved as originally written and published July 28. Quick test: name the current Mr. Philippines. Trick question. On August 2, two entirely separate organizations will each crown a national men’s titleholder — one handing out three crowns, the other eight — in two different venues, on the exact same night. Neither one is the other’s undercard. Both are billing themselves as the main event. Somewhere …
These Binibining Pilipinas 2026 Queens Already Lost Once — On Purpose, Sort Of
Here’s a version of the pageant story you don’t hear as often: two women compete for the same crown, don’t get it, and instead of disappearing from the circuit, go on to win something arguably harder to get. That’s exactly what happened to Gwendoline Meliz Soriano and Sasha-Juli Belle Lacuna. Both represented their provinces at Miss Universe Philippines 2025. Neither one walked away with the crown. Both came back this July and won Binibining Pilipinas instead — the pageant that predates Miss Universe Philippines by over half a century, and the one a lot of pageant purists still consider the real prize. The Long Way Around Soriano’s road here started with a withdrawal, not a win. She was set to represent Pangasinan at Binibining Pilipinas back in 2022 and pulled out for personal reasons before ever reaching the stage. She spent the years after building an actual career instead — professional runway modeling, a stint on Kwentong Jollibee that pulled in over 10 million views, work with established Filipino designers — before trying again through …
The island that said no to billionaires | Jomalig, Quezon
At seven in the morning, the port of Real, Quezon is organized chaos. Sacks of rice, hardware supplies, and passengers get packed shoulder to shoulder onto the wooden bones of a cargo boat. There’s no fast track across this stretch of the Pacific. As the engine churns and the mainland shrinks into a hazy line, the ocean stops being a scenic route and becomes something closer to a filter. Six hours of open water separating the speed of the capital from the edge of the country. We tend to treat long journeys as problems to be solved — a faster ferry, a paved highway, a direct flight. But for the island ahead, the punishing distance is the point. It’s what keeps the casual weekenders away, and it means anyone who steps onto the opposite shore has earned it. You don’t arrive here. You survive the crossing first. Salibungot Beach The silence on Salibungot Beach is heavy. No lounge chairs, no commercial umbrellas, none of the manicured look of a resort coastline. The sand is a …