Sleepy Philippine Towns Wake Up to Answer World’s Phones: Cities

Jennifer Ann Palmares-Fong has come home. Fifteen years after leaving Iloilo in the Philippines for the bright lights of Manila, she and her friends have been lured back as her once-quiet hometown is transformed.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I expect there would be these developments mushrooming all over,” Palmares-Fong, 32, said as she prepared to take clients to view a site for new $57,000 condominiums. “It used to be a sleepy place, now at night it’s all lights.”