Why hasn’t the Philippines (yet) created its own CLOY?

This week last year I landed in the Philippines for a month’s visit. A year later I’m still here, due to the vagaries of lockdowns, surges and travel. My enforced stay here has led to an unexpected exposure to various aspects of the Philippines, including its cultural production.

The week I landed Netflix had just introduced its first local Top 10 most-watched list. For that week, and for many weeks following, the number one show was the 16-part K-Drama Crash Landing on You (CLOY). The number two title was the locally-made romcom Jowable (“Dateable”). The remainder of the list included two more K-Dramas, two locally-made movies (a thriller and a romcom), three American-made films/series and one Japanime series.

CLOY ended up being hugely popular globally and I was reminded of a book called The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation is Conquering the World through Pop Culture by a whipsmart journalist named Euny Hong that I’d published at Picador a few years ago. In her book, Hong looks at “hallyu” (the Korean cultural wave) that has been breaking now for almost two decades across the world. Hong investigates the governmental ministries and export-led strategies that the country has put in place over the last few decades to create, train, perfect, produce, market and export all things cultural, everything from K-Pop to K-Dramas, to K-Leading Men.

Japan excels at exporting anime and some arthouse films. China pours money into Hollywood-effects level movies that have yet to find a global audience. Thailand is now globally exporting its regionally successful BL (Boys’ Love) dramas. But only South Korea is consistently producing culture across platforms that has global appeal. In the Asian race to create global culture, Korea seems leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else. But the question that intrigued me more is why the Philippines has not (yet) consistently created globally-appealing pop culture in this era of global streaming.

Unable to explore my environs, let alone the country during the early lockdowns, I decided to see what I could discover about the Philippines by the pop culture it creates, a good portion of which was available on Netflix.

I soon felt I was living in the movies; I watched Jowable, Kita Kita, That Thing Called Tadhana and way too many other local romcoms. (I had never seen so much crying, broad comedic acting or crazy plot twists.) I watched portions of the oeuvres of Bea Alonzo, Angel Locsin, Anne Curtis, John Lloyd and Vice Ganda and ended with the reigning box office queen Kat Bernardo and her OFW blockbusters: Barcelona and Hello, Love, Goodbye. Viva Films and Star Cinema were becoming my go-to local entertainment brands.

After many months immersed in Philippine cultural products, I wanted to understand why the Philippines hasn’t yet produced global cultural hits, like some of its neighbors. The country has a rich hundred-year-long film tradition. Its first locally-made film screened in 1919 – Dalagang Bukid (Country Maiden) directed by the “Father of Philippine Cinema” Jose Nepomuceno. The mid-century studio system had led from Vilma Santos’ child star days at Sampaguita Pictures to the pito-pito films of the 70s, 80s and even the 90s, to Jaclyn Jose being the first Asian actress to win a Palme D’Or for Ma’ Rosa.

The beauty and glamor of many of the country’s stars are world class. And many of those stars – and many of the country’s lesser known performers – are multi-hyphenates, talented dancers and singers, while also often multilingual. It seems like a deep bench of talent. Looking for a positive in the country’s complicated colonial history – its oft-quoted “300 years in the convent, 50 years in Hollywood” – I wondered if this history might have provided a reverse skill: insight into the tastes of the Latin and American cultures with which the Philippines has had such long, involved contact. You might also add the Philippines’ complex interactions with Korean, Japanese and Chinese cultures, both historically and currently. Perhaps the Philippines is particularly well placed to understand global tastes?

Granted, I’m only a spottily self-educated consumer of Filipino pop culture, but I began to ask Filipinos working in the culture industry the admittedly simplistic question: why has the country not (yet) produced its CLOY?

I often got a laugh but also a range of answers: the lack of generous budgets, time constraints, the fate of ABS-CBN, the culture of bahala na, the uneven production values in its films. Maybe there is a little truth in each of these, but all of it seems like it could be balanced out by the talent of the people working in the industry, more strategic investment in content creation and the recent arrival of less expensive technologies which have made some recent local productions like Hello, Love, Goodbye look world class.

By the tail end of the first lockdowns, I noticed that Netflix had expanded its local acquisitions, licensing a slew of local indies, some from august arthouse directors and some from enfant terribles. I gobbled up Lola Igna and Pamilya Ordinaryo. I wondered whether a viewer in Tokyo who loved Babette’s Feast or Like Water for Chocolate might now discover Lola Igna or someone in Nairobi who loved City of God might now stumble across Pamilya Ordinaryo. Who knows, but I hope so.

The Philippines’ cultural producers hadn’t gone silent in the pandemic. It was heartening to see the creativity that has driven new creations. One example is the explosion of locally-grown BL series, inspired by Thai and Japanese formats; Gameboys and Gaya Sa Pelikula were both picked up for global distribution by Netflix. This seemed like exciting progress – though I can barely guess at how those series will be welcomed in the US, or Nairobi for that matter.

So, a year after arriving, I looked at this week’s local Netflix Top 10 and the geographic balance remains roughly the same as this time last year: three locally made romcoms, one locally made thriller, three American shows/movies, two K-Dramas and one Japanime. CLOY had finally disappeared but the newly-released, locally-made The House Arrest of Us starring KathNeil hovers at number 3. Whether House Arrest of Us will appeal to global audiences remains to be seen; the stars’ charisma is totally winning, though some of the broad comedic hijinks might be a little local in their references. But it’s a strong entrant and I hope there will be more to come.

With the delay over movie theater re-openings, perhaps this continued at-home limbo will encourage Netflix – and other global content companies – to continue to license rights to local cultural productions, so that more will be made, they’ll get ever better and more viewers across the world might discover them.

With continued focus, iteration and investment, I’m sure a Philippine global hit exists in the near future. I’m rooting for it.

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Stephen Morrison worked in publishing for many years, as editor in chief of Penguin Books and later as publisher of Picador. He’s a writer, sometime ghostwriter and also develops projects for television and film.