Picture this: a busy pool deck on a Saturday evening. There’s loud music, free-flowing drinks, and almost everyone in the water is a bear–big, soft-bellied, and some bearded men, men who have spent most of their lives feeling that their bodies were too much or not enough. Here, nobody is too much or not enough. They’re all exactly right, just the way they are.
This kind of scene has become increasingly common in Manila over the past several years, and they point to a movement that is better than just a party. They point to a community that has steadily found its footing.
What is the bear community?
For the uninitiated, the bear community is a subculture within the LGBTQIA+ community. It emerged in the US in the ‘80s as a space for gay and bisexual men who felt invisible in the bigger gay community. These were larger, hairier, and older men who didn’t fit what was deemed attractive by the mainstream gay culture during that time. They were othered—disregarded, ignored, and discarded by the very communities that were supposed to welcome them. The word “bear” became a label of reclamation, and a way of saying that bodies like theirs deserve more than acceptance, and to be celebrated.
Since then, the bear culture has grown into a global phenomenon, with bear events, organizations, and apparel brands popping up in every corner of the world. The community has its own flag, events calendar, and even own social rituals.
In the Philippines, the local bear community has grown to welcome not just those who identify as bears, but also those who do not feel at home in other queer spaces, as well as the family and friends who support them. The door is wide open.
The Philippine bear community
The Philippine Bear Community or PBC is a collective of volunteers who have a shared passion for the community who give their time, effort, and creativity entirely out of love. Today, PBC promotes the three values of inclusivity, body respect, and living a full life, in the most literal and figurative sense of the phrase.
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Powered entirely by the passion of its own members, the Philippine Bear Community promotes bear-centric events that now happen almost every month, from mega-parties to board game weekends, and fundraising initiatives. Alongside the events are bear-centric brands and bear-owned businesses.
One of the major events is Mr. Bear Philippines, a pageant that promotes body positivity within and outside the community. The pageant has crowned seven titleholders since 2019, most of which went on to represent the country in Mr. Bear International. In 2024, Donald Lapez from the Philippines became the first-ever Mr. Bear International.
“Bears in the Wild”
One of PBC’s most popular initiatives is “Bears in the Wild,” a content series hosted by Pedro Puzon that does exactly what the title says: going out to interview bears on the streets.
Puzon approaches bears in public spaces, asks them getting-to-know questions, plays fun games with them, but what it produces is something more layered. On the surface, the series celebrates the diversity that exists within the bear community such as different backgrounds, different body types, different SOGIE. Beneath all of that, viewers get to feel represented in social media, as the series has gained wide traction online.
“I just point a camera at people and ask them questions,” Puzon reflects, “Sometimes silly, sometimes surprisingly real. For bears watching, it’s seeing their own community reflected back at them. For everyone else, it’s a window into people they might never have met… The goal is the same: show up, be seen.”
“My Kind of Bear”
For Pride month this year, PBC unveiled its 2026 campaign, “My Kind of Bear.” Launched in late May, the campaign invited bears from the Philippines to submit a photo and a personal statement about what being a bear means to them.
The response was far more than anticipated. Since launching, it received submissions from across the Philippines and from all over the world, including Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Ireland, France, South Africa, Australia, Colombia, Brazil, and the United States. Submissions are still open here.
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The bear community contingent at Pride March
The bear community also showed up in the most public way possible at Pride. The Love Laban Pride PH Festival, one of the country’s largest and most visible Pride celebrations, has become a place for bears from across the Philippines to gather and march together, stepping into a public space and proclaiming, we are here, we are part of this, and we are proud.
“This community gave a lot of us a sense of belonging we didn’t find anywhere else. We related to each other’s stories, struggles, and wins, and from this, we were able to build and advance a community that acknowledges the common experience that bonds us,” shares co-founder Mike Bellamor and Joe Batenga-Santillan. “PBC’s job now is to make sure the world sees what we actually are: a community built on real people and real connections, not bodies and physique.”
“We were able to build and advance a community that acknowledges the common experience that bonds us”
To cap off the Pride Month activities, PBC will mobilize bears on June 27 to join the Love Laban Pride PH Festival at UP Diliman, Quezon City for its third year in a row. Bear-owned businesses, bear-friendly brands, and individuals are all invited to join the event.
The bear community in the Philippines has spent years building its own events, businesses, and initiatives. On June 27, they will take all of that into the streets, loudly, and with a great deal of joy. Because that is what it looks like when a community finds its stride.
Text courtesy of the Philippine Bear Community