From Bieber to Duterte

Arts & Leisure

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Posted on December 20, 2016

JUSTIN BIEBER may have placed second on Spotify's global top artist list but his song, "Love Yourself," released in 2015, was the Philippines' most searched item on the annual Google Philippines' 2016 Year in Search list.

What was a promotional single which turned third single off of the Canadian singer's fourth album, Purpose, was also named by Billboard as the top performing single for 2016 on its Year-End Hot 100 chart. "Love Yourself" was followed by another Bieber song, "Sorry" from the same album.

Following "Love Yourself" on the Google Philippines' list are two mobile games: slither.io and Pokémon GO. While many people would expect the global phenomenon from Nintendo to -- at least -- become the most "trending" search item for games as it clocked more than 500 million downloads this year, sparking a renewed interest in the 20-year-old franchise, Filipinos found themselves more intrigued with the massively multiplayer game based on the classic arcade game, Snake, as slither.io took the second spot among the most searched, with Pokémon GO following suit.

Released on March 2016, slither.io follows the same mechanics as the 1998 variant pre-loaded on Nokia mobile phones: a snake-like avatar consumes pellets to grow longer and the objective is to get the longest snake possible without hitting walls, only this time, the game is massively multiplayer and the pellets eaten come from either players or naturally spawn on the map and the goal is to grow the largest snake on the server.

A cursory inspection on the Google Play Store shows slither.io having been downloaded more than 100 million times.

On the global list, Google found Pokémon GO on the top spot while slither.io came ninth.

Settling in for fourth place is the 2016 South Korean film, Train to Busan, directed by Sang-ho Yeon. The zombie apocalypse film which, as its name suggests, centers on a train carrying survivors -- and zombies -- going to the South Korean port city of Busan (which survivors of the apocalypse view as the last safe haven in the country) set the record as the first South Korean film to attract over 10 million theatergoers.

"Yeon's film borrows heavily from World War Z in its depiction of the fast-moving undead masses while also boasting an emotional core the Brad Pitt-starring extravaganza often lacked... [T]he result is first-class throughout," Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly said of the film in a review.

Fifth in the most searched list is "Closer," a song by the American DJ duo, The Chainsmokers. The song, which topped several categories on the Spotify Philippines' list, is the duo's biggest hit to date and features vocals by American singer Halsey.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Rodrigo R. Duterte occupied the sixth and seventh spots, respectively.

Election 2016 was the most searched News term in the Google Philippines' list. Mr. Duterte also topped the most searched male personalities category, followed by South Korean actor Song Joong Ki, who played captain Yoo Si Jin from the successful drama Descendants of the Sun (which topped the most searched TV shows on the same list), while Miss Universe 2016 Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach topped the most searched female personalities.

The former Davao City mayor won the country's presidential elections with 16 million votes and has since become one of the country's most recognizable figures. Forbes Magazine recently ranked the President 70^th on its annual "Most Powerful People List," a list topped by Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

A song by British girl group, Little Mix, follows the Philippine President on the Google Philippines' list at number eight. "Secret Love Song" was the third single from the group's third album, Get Weird. The song was met with mixed reviews, with many reviewers criticizing the vocals of American R&B singer Jason Derulo. The song topped the Philippine charts in June, according to musicweekly.asia.

At ninth place is the Olympic Games Rio 2016. The global sports competition saw 13 athletes from the country compete and ended with a historic silver-medal win from world-ranked weightlifter, Hidilyn Diaz, the country's first Olympic medal in 20 years.

Finally, at tenth place is the 2016 American action film Suicide Squad. The much-hyped film from the DC Comics universe featured the eponymous anti-hero team and was directed by David Ayer. The film featured an ensemble cast including Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie and Cara Delevigne, among others.

While the movie generated mostly negative reviews with Rolling Stone's Peter Travers commenting, "DC Comics tries something different with Suicide Squad, an all-star collection of crime fighting villains -- and the result is anything but super," Suicide Squad still raked in $745.6 million in the box office. -- Zsarlene B. Chua

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