Philippines' Carmelle Wins First Eurovision Song Contest Asia in Bangkok With 211 Points

Carmelle Collado, a 19-year-old singer from the Philippines, won the first Eurovision Song Contest Asia in Bangkok on Saturday night with the pop-and-rap song Sobra-Sobra, finishing on 211 points. She ended 41 points ahead of hosts Thailand, with Vietnam third, in the first regional edition of the contest staged outside Europe.

Eleven countries competed at the One Bangkok Forum in central Bangkok, and the show ran two and a half hours including advertising. Carmelle, who performs under a single name, won both the national jury vote and the public ballot. She grew up beside railway tracks in the Bicol region of south-eastern Luzon and has been in televised talent contests since she was 12. Her song is sung in Tagalog and English and uses the traditional kubing and kulintang instruments. She called it “a tribute to all Filipino women”. Fans also made the trip, including Europeans living in Asia and Americans attending their first Eurovision.

Left-leaning outlets approached the night from two angles. The Guardian led with the result: the scoreboard, the voting breakdown, Carmelle's background and her explanation of the song as female empowerment, quoting her on Filipinas being “unapologetic, independent and strong”. The New York Times skipped the contest outcome in its opening and profiled fans who traveled to Bangkok, among them Simon Robinson, 63, of Melbourne, who watched as a child in Yorkshire, and Lee Hudson, a Kuala Lumpur television executive who said Eurovision Asia makes sense because musical cultures are distinct. Neither disputes the other; they differ in focus on performers versus audience. BBC News, in a brief excerpt, matches the Guardian's account of a front-runner's empowerment anthem. Right-leaning outlets had not reported this story at the time of writing, while the left-leaning and independent outlets had.