Ricci Rivero, Amber Heard, Johnny Depp top online searches in 2022
MANILA, Philippines — Breakups, dating and viral encounters piqued the interest of many online users this year, with Hollywood actors and exes Johnny Depp and Amber Heard and sports personalities, Ricci Rivero and Deanna Wong, being included in the list of top searches on Google Philippines for 2022.
The popular search engine released its latest Year in Search campaign that revealed the search habits of online users, marking what information individuals in the Philippines search for the most on the world's biggest search engine.
Across trillions of searches, the most-entered term on Google in the Philippines was "Halalan 2022," indicating a hugely significant interest in the 2022 national elections held last May and the build-up leading to it.
Sandwiched between "Halalan 2022" and related third-placed term "precinct finder" was "VaxCertPH" in its second consecutive appearance on the list.
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Making up half of the Top 10 were entertainment-related terms "Wordle," "All of Us Are Dead," "Encanto," "Axie Infinity" and "Jeffrey Dahmer" (the latter due to the Netflix show "Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story").
Relationships and viral encounters
Filipinos' love for sports, particularly basketball, could be evidently seen in the four different entries that "Warriors" appeared on the top Sports searches while five others were basketball-related.
In fact, the only non-basketball term that made it to the Sports list was volleyball player Deanna Wong, indicating that the sport has immense popularity in the Philippines as well.
Wong also figured in the top Female Personalities searches at the No. 3 spot, just behind Kris Aquino and top spot Amber Heard. The volleyball player and her team had earlier figured in an alleged snubbing incident in Boracay. Her volleyball team management released a statement regarding the allegation.
Heard landed the top spot, largely in part due to the much-discussed and highly publicized defamation trial involving her and ex-husband Depp. While she was the most-searched female personality, Depp was only the second most searched male personality.
Former Taiwan basketbell league import and University of the Philippines (UP) basketball player Ricci Rivero topped the list for most searched male personality. Rivero's viral proposal to actress Andrea Brillantes and UP's send-off championship win at the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) last May made many people curious about the cager.
Also included in the most searched list are Tyler Poarch, who was recently revealed as the husband of online sensation, Filipino-American Bella Poarch, and content creator Bella Racelis, who was romantically linked to actor Joshua Garcia.
Other personalities in the most searched list include Park Solomon, Anna Delvey, Xyriel Manabat, Ahn Hyo-seop, Jordan Clarkson, Andrew Garfield and Adam Levine.
And finally, here are the personalities you looked up the most. ???? pic.twitter.com/nkORnbABpd
— Google Philippines (@GooglePH) December 9, 2022
K-drama domination
In the News category, the topmost term that was not in the overall searches was "monkeypox," while "Ukraine" had made it to No. 7 in the overall list.
Because of the popularity of Korean dramas, Google Philippines opted to give it its own dedicated category, which was expectedly topped by "All of Us Are Dead" followed by "Extraodinary Attorney Woo," "Business Proposal" and "Alchemy of Souls."
The same four series were the top TV Shows/Series searches, the highest non-Korean show being "Euphoria" at No. 5 only to be succeeded by other K-dramas, namely, "Twenty-Five Twenty-One," "Big Mouth" and "Our Beloved Summer." English-language series "Manifest" and "The Summer I Turned Pretty" rounded up the Top 10.
The Movies searches, meanwhile, was dominated by Disney with six entries including top spot "Encanto" and Marvel films "Eternals" (No. 3), "Thor: Love and Thunder" (No. 5), "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" (No. 6) and "Spider-Man: No Way Home" (No. 10).
According to Google, 37% of paying users in the Philippines play online games at least once a week — the highest in Southeast Asia — so it's no suprise that terms like "Tower of Fantasy" and "Flyff Universe" joined "Wordle" and "Axie Infinity" in the top Games searches.
Related: Wordle's board game version coming out this 2022
Google also noted that Filipinos' top searches for Song Lyrics were a result of short-form content consumed online, thus, the popularity of the songs "Sun & Moon," "Easy on Me" and "Angel Baby" — but none came close to the viral, catchy sensation that was "We Don't Talk About Bruno."
Finally, Google created a whole new Losses category to document the searches about persons that passed away, and among the individuals that appeared on the list were Queen Elizabeth II, Cherie Gil, Susan Roces and Aaron Carter.
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