Krystl Fabella and Marizza Delgado | Photo Yaman NYC
NEW YORK — In a culture obsessed with numbers, followers, and virality, two Filipina powerhouses are shifting the definition of success. Krystl Fabella and Marizza Delgado aren’t chasing algorithms; they’re rewriting what it means to shine. For them, yaman, the Tagalog word for treasure, isn’t about money. It’s about identity, community, and the stubborn joy of being seen.
Fabella is the force behind Filipina on the Rise, the podcast-turned-movement that has grown into the largest online community of Filipina changemakers. Born between worlds, she spent years learning how belonging can fall apart and be rebuilt. When she realized how invisible Filipinas were in leadership spaces, she built her own table, digital first, global next.
Her feed isn’t about filters or flexes. It’s a hub for stories that hit home: founders, artists, and dreamers who lead with compassion and creativity. She’s spoken at the Philippine Consulate in New York, been featured on NBC News and Yahoo, and earned a nod from NYC Journal as one of its “Top 30 Women to Watch.”
The Community Engineer
Fabella calls herself a community engineer. She builds systems of connection, tech tools that fight isolation, events that turn screens into sisterhood. What drives her is the Filipino idea of kapwa, shared humanity. She believes that’s the real yaman: the ability to create, to care, and to connect.
She’s met hundreds of Filipinas through her podcast, executives, artists, and founders, and she’s convinced our collective optimism is the ultimate success strategy. Each story sparks another. A listener starts a business. A guest gets a mentorship call. A woman finally sees herself reflected. Fabella’s convinced that being between cultures is no weakness, it’s diplomacy in disguise. “We’ve always lived with multi-identities,” she says. “That’s our bridge to the world.”
She’s done waiting for validation from elsewhere. Her dream is collaboration at scale, Filipinas building together, not apart. It’s her version of activism: consistency, care, and community as currency.
First Filipina to Win Miss New York
Across the continent, Marizza Delgado carries that same energy, just in heels and data charts. Born in San Jose to parents from Cavite and Pampanga, she codes by day and walks runways by night. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in Information Technology, worked as a data scientist at Etsy and Rent the Runway, and still found time to strut down the New York Fashion Week runways. Her portfolio includes Vogue Philippines, H&M, L’Oréal, American Eagle, and Lululemon.
Then came 2024. Delgado became the first Filipina to win Miss New York USA, landed in the Top 20 at Miss USA, was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 for Arts and Style, and signed on to mentor with Girls Who Code.
When she hits the stage, she brings the homeland with her, the morena skin, the long dark hair, the quiet confidence of knowing her beauty isn’t borrowed. Her wardrobe choices are deliberate: Filipino-made, culturally rooted, and proudly visible. Every detail says representation.
Brains and Beauty are not Opposite Ends
For Delgado, yaman is the freedom to be all of it at once, the tech mind, the artist, the advocate. She doesn’t buy the idea that brains and beauty exist on opposite ends. Her career proves that they can empower the same woman. Being the first Filipina to wear that New York crown means more than titles. It’s a statement for every girl who has never seen herself on that stage or in that industry.
Now she’s taking the movement global, representing the Filipino Community of New York at Miss World Philippines 2025. To prepare, she’s diving deep, learning indigenous dances, studying Maria Ressa’s writings, and reconnecting with the country her parents left behind. The process, she says, has made her prouder, more rooted, more certain of what her yaman really is.
Yaman endures
She carries that pride into her message for the next generation: don’t let the headlines define your country. Yes, the Philippines faces corruption and calamities, but it’s also a nation rich in warmth, resilience, and grace. No storm or scandal can strip that away. That’s the yaman that endures.
Different paths, same pulse. Fabella builds stories that connect; Delgado walks stages that command. One speaks through a mic; the other through motion. Together, they prove that empowerment multiplies when it’s shared.
Their rise feels bigger than personal success. It’s a reminder that Filipinas have always been the quiet backbone, caregivers, coders, educators, artists, building homes abroad and hope at home. Now they’re done being invisible. Fabella is archiving those stories, Delgado is embodying them, and both are pushing Filipinas from the sidelines to the spotlight.
The future is Not About Fame but Belonging
For a new generation raised online, their version of visibility is grounded, proud, and global. Fabella reminds women they’re never alone. Delgado reminds them they can be everything. The future they’re building isn’t about fame, it’s about belonging.
When they share the stage at YAMAN NYC, the message will be impossible to miss: Filipinas no longer wait for recognition; they create it. Fabella leads with connection. Delgado leads with action. Every story, every step, every post is proof that yaman is alive, resilient, intelligent, in the heartbeat of a global sisterhood.
For Fabella, it’s the living archive she’s building. For Delgado, it’s the path she walks with grace and grit.
This is the yaman the world needs, the kind that turns identity into movement and community into power.
Because the real treasure has always been us.
As part of the evening’s finale, Krystl Fabella and Marizza Delgado will join the closing conversation on Friday, October 31, from 8:15 to 9:00 p.m., bringing their stories of global Filipina empowerment to the heart of Times Square.
