Is Manila safe for Black travelers?
Manila scores 4.4/10 on overall safety. V-Dem rates Philippines 48/100 on how equally social groups are treated in law, but institutional equality and street-level experience can differ. Here's what the data and real reviews say.
Is Manila safe for Black travelers? (2026)
How safe is Manila overall?
Manila scores 4.4/10, in the moderate range. Signals are mixed: choosing your neighborhood and timing carefully makes a real difference.
How are social groups treated in Philippines?
V-Dem rates Philippines at 48/100 on how equally social and ethnic groups are treated in civil liberties, in the mid range. It reflects laws and institutions, not street-level experiences, which can differ by neighborhood. The reviews below add the ground-level view.
What this page does and doesn't tell you
There is no global index of how safe a city is specifically for Black travelers, and we won't invent one. This page combines the city's overall safety score, a structural equality indicator from V-Dem, and, where Black travelers have reviewed Manila, their own words. Together they give a fuller, honest picture than any single number.
Real reviews, not guesswork
Every score on this page comes from official indicators and the safety model, not from AI-generated text. Where travelers who share your profile have reviewed Manila, you'll find their words below. Last reviewed 2026.
Sources: Georgetown WPS Index, Equaldex, UNESCO, World Bank, OpenStreetMap (ODbL), Wikidata (CC0) and MapSur community reviews. How we score
Social-group equality data: Social group equality in civil liberties (v2clsocgrp), v16, V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy), University of Gothenburg, via Our World in Data. Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; values normalized by MapSur. Source.
Traveler reviews of Manila
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Frequently asked questions
Is Manila safe for Black travelers?
Manila scores 4.4/10 on general safety (crime, all visitors). That number doesn't capture racism specifically, so for Black travelers it's a starting point, not the answer. The structural equality indicator and the reviews from Black travelers on this page fill that gap.
What does the equality score for Manila mean?
It's V-Dem's measure of how equally social and ethnic groups are treated in civil liberties in Philippines (48/100). It reflects laws and institutions, not day-to-day street experiences, which is why the reviews from Black travelers on this page matter alongside it.