Manila is the most loving city in 2023

Balloon vendors clad in red walk along Sobriedad Street in Manila City (Photo by Joey Razon/PNA).

It seems the social media capital of the world is also the best at expressing love, according to a website dedicated to helping crossword aficionados.

According to the website Crossword-Solver.io, for every 100,000 tweets made from Manila, 1,246 of them had endearing terms such as "love you," "love u," and other ways of a combo of a sort of heart emoji followed by "u" or "you," which meant that the capital came out on top of other capitals around the world when it comes to tweets expressing love.

The Philippine capital surpassed the city of love–Paris, France–which did not make Crossword Solver's top 20 list.

On the list of most loving capital cities, Manila was followed by Guatemala City at 1,224 love tweets per 100,000, Luanda in Angola at 1,180, Jakarta at 974, and Mexico City at 948.

“Love is at the core of most families, and immediate and extended family are considered very important in Filipino culture,” study researchers noted.

They added: “Younger generations are also known to wear their heart on their sleeve online: the concept of hugot is spread among friends, family, and romantic partners through poignant quotes, music, and videos."

On Twitter, some young-adult Manila residents are very open in expressing their affection for others. In a tweet, National University junior Anna Carlos said hearing her father say that he loves her makes her heart “full.”

In separate tweets, San Beda University sophomore Lianne Mabini said that she is into expressing love to her K-pop group BTS, while Far Eastern University senior Zion Herrera said that he really loves supporting his NBA team Oklahoma City Thunder on its games.

In a social media post last week, Manila Mayor Honey Lacuna stated that the statistics demonstrated that city residents, particularly the youth, are "highly vocal" about their feelings.

“It is not surprising that Manila is named as the “most loving” capital city in the world. Mapagmahal ang mga Manilenyo at gusto naming iparamdam ito sa anumang paraan, sa salita man o sa gawa,” Lacuna said. “Ang pamahalaang-lungsod ng Maynila ay patuloy ding ipararamdam ang pagmamahal sa mga Manilenyo sa pamamagitan ng serbisyong tapat at mapagkalinga."

To arrive at the figures, Crossword Solver evaluated geotagged tweets from around the world that contained versions of the phrase "I love you" and the heart emoji on its website.

The group then estimated the percentage of "love" tweets per 100,000 to identify which place was more loving than others.

The said research includes only large capital cities with more than 10,000 tweets and a population of at least 1.5 million. Arien Cherise Malonzo