Philippines' Carmelle Wins First Eurovision Song Contest Asia in Bangkok

Carmelle Collado, a 19-year-old singer from the Philippines, won the first Eurovision Song Contest Asia in Bangkok on Saturday night with the song Sobra-Sobra, finishing on 211 points. Her margin of 41 points over hosts Thailand, with Vietnam third, made the Philippines champion of the first Eurovision staged outside Europe.

Eleven countries competed at the One Bangkok Forum in central Bangkok, in a show that ran two and a half hours including advertising. Carmelle, who performs under one name, topped both the national juries and the public vote. She grew up beside railway tracks in the Bicol region of south-eastern Luzon and has competed in televised talent contests since she was 12. Sobra-Sobra mixes pop and rap with the traditional kubing and kulintang and is sung in Tagalog and English. She called it “a tribute to all Filipino women” and told the Associated Press, “I made history, since this was the first time.”

Left-leaning outlets approach the event from two angles. The Guardian leads with the result: the scores, the voting breakdown, Carmelle's upbringing and her comments on female empowerment. The New York Times opens instead with the fans who flew to Bangkok, including Simon Robinson, 63, of Melbourne, who first watched as a child in Yorkshire, and Lee Hudson, a television executive in Kuala Lumpur, who said “Eurovision Asia makes sense because the musical cultures are distinct.” Its opening gives no result or scores. Right-leaning outlets had not reported this story at the time of writing, while left-leaning and independent outlets had. The sides do not contradict each other on any fact; BBC News, in the alternative group, matches the Guardian, calling Carmelle a front-runner with a women's empowerment anthem.