LUIS FONSI’s hit “Despacito” — arguably one of the biggest hits of the year — not only managed to dominate the airwaves but also the searches of Filipinos as its lyrics landed the top spot in the 2017 Google Year in Search’s Overall Top Trending Searches.

The annual list from the tech giant compiles and highlights the top trending searches in the Philippines.

“This year’s list shows how much Filipinos stay tuned on hit songs, international events, and television shows,” said a company press release.

The Reggaeton-pop song from the Puerto Rican singer featuring fellow Puerto Rican rapper Daddy Yankee, was also the first song to ever hit four billion views on Youtube.

Aside from searching for the lyrics of “Despacito” Filipinos also searched for the lyrics of Bruno Mars’s “Versace on the Floor,” the third single off of the American singer-songwriter’s third studio album, 24K Magic.

“Versace on the Floor” lyrics occupied the second spot on this year’s Overall Top Trending Searches for 2017

Moving on from song lyrics, the overall list also showed how much love the country has for beauty pageants as Miss Universe 2017 is at third place while 65th Miss Universe bet Maxine Medina is at the top spot of the Trending Searches-Female Personalities list this year.

Miss Universe was also the Top Trending Event of 2017 followed by the FIBA Asia Cup.

Several other beauty queens also landed in the Female Personalities list including Mariel de Leon (who represented the Philippines in this year’s Miss International Pageant), Dayanara Torres (who won the Miss Universe pageant in 1993), and Rachel Peters (who represented the Philippines in this year’s Miss Universe pageant) occupied the eighth to tenth spots respectively.

And in stark contrast to the glitz and glamor of beauty pageants, Filipinos also searched for “Lucia Joaquin,” an Internet ghost story that became popular earlier this year about a ghostly stalker. It sits on the fourth spot of the overall list.

Meanwhile, the hallyu wave is still going strong in the country as evidenced by the presence of several Korean stars and shows on several list: Love in the Moonlight’s Park Bo Gum, Children of Empire boy group member Park Hyung Sik, and Train to Busan and Goblin’s Gong Yoo occupied the second to the fourth spots at the Top Trending Searches-Male Personalities.

Of the female Korean stars, Kim Tae Hee is at the fourth spot of the Female Personalities list followed by Weightlifting Fairy’s Lee Sung Kyung at sixth and K-pop group BLACKPINK at seventh.

Other Korean stars making the list are Weightlifting Fairy’s Nam Joo Hyuk and God of War’s Kim Joo Hyuk at ninth and tenth place, respectively.

But the top spot on the said list went to Xander Ford — formerly known as Marlou Arizala — who was first known as a Hasht5 member. He dominated the searches after revealing his new face after receiving a series of cosmetic procedures and treatments.

Korean shows similarly landed several spots in the country’s top TV show searches: Goblin is third, Legend of the Blue Sea is fourth, Love in the Moonlight is fifth, Weightlifting Fairy is seventh, While You Were Sleeping is eighth, and Scarlet Heart is tenth.

Despite Filipinos’ seeming obsession with pop culture and entertainment, Google Philippines pointed out that they “also stayed vigilant on national issues,” as President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s State of the Nation Address was the top Trending News of the year, followed by Marawi City, relating to the military operations against the Maute-ISIS group, and the martial law declared in the island of Mindanao.

Martial law in Mindanao is at tenth place on the Trending News list.

Hurricane Irma, the strongest hurricane observed in the Atlantic since 2005, was at the third spot of the News list. In comparison, the hurricane which devastated Florida and Puerto Rico, among others, was the global Top Trending Search for the year.

“In a way, the Year in Search offers us a glimpse of what we liked as a people, what issues affected us, what sparked our interest, and everything in between that appealed to our emotions the past year,” said Google Philippines head of communications and public affairs Gail Tan, said in the release. — ZBC

OVERALL TOP TRENDING SEARCHES FOR 2017
IN THE PHILIPPINES
1. “Despacito” lyrics
2. “Versace on the Floor” lyrics
3. Miss Universe 2017
4. Lucia Joaquin
5. Xander Ford
6. The Voice Teens
7. 13 Reasons Why
8. “Baby Shark”
9. “Perfect” lyrics
10. FIBA Asia Cup

TOP NEWS SEARCHES FOR 2017 IN THE PHILIPPINES
1. SONA
2, Marawi City
3. Hurricane Irma
4. Bird flu
5. Kian delos Santos
6. Covfefe
7. Maute Group
8. Las Vegas Shooting
9. Manchester
10. Martial law in Mindanao

TOP SEARCHES FOR MALE PERSONALITIES
1. Xander Ford
2. Park Bo Gum
3. Park Hyung Sik
4. Gong Yoo
5. Linkin Park
6. Rowan Atkinson
7. Gilas Pilipinas
8. Jake Zyrus
9. Nam Joo Hyuk
10. Kim Joo Hyuk

TOP SEARCHES FOR FEMALE PERSONALITIES
1. Maxine Medina
2. Gal Gadot
3, Kylie Padilla
4. Kim Tae Hee
5. Maureen Wroblewitz
6. Lee Sung Kyung
7. BLACKPINK
8. Mariel de Leon
9. Dayanara Torres
10. Rachel Peters

TOP SEARCHES FOR EVENTS
1. Miss Universe 2017
2. FIBA Asia Cup
3. Pacquiao vs. Horn Fight
4. NBA Playoffs
5. Mother’s Day
6. Mayweather vs. McGregor Fight
7. ASEAN Summit
8. Chinese New Year
9. Miss Universe 2016
10. Wimbledon

TOP SEARCHES FOR MOVIES
1. Beauty and the Beast
2. Wonder Woman
3. Justice League
4. Fast and Furious 8
5. Fifty Shades Darker
6. Logan
7. It
8. Moana
9. 100 Tula Para Kay Stella
10. Kita Kita

TOP SEARCHES FOR TV SHOWS
1. The Voice Teens
2. 13 Reasons Why
3. Goblin
4. The Legend of the Blue Sea
5. Love in the Moonlight
6. Encantadia
7. Weightlifting Fairy
8. While You Were Sleeping
9. Game of Thrones
10. Scarlet Heart

TOP SEARCHES FOR SONGS AND LYRICS
1. “Despacito”
2. “Versace on the Floor”
3. “Baby Shark”
4. “Perfect”
5. “Shape of You”
6. “Titibo-tibo”
7. “Say You Won’t Let Go”
8. “Too Good at Goodbyes”
9. “Beauty and the Beast”
10. “How Far I’ll Go”

TOP SEARCHES FOR APPS
1. Slitherio
2. Messenger
3. Sarahah

(For other Year in Searches, visit http://google.com.ph/2017.)

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