Filipino style

Assessment

Confidence

catalogued listed in a variant catalogue with tile counts and hand sizes, but no rules text verified

Evidence

corroborated two or more independent sources agree on the facts that define this variant

Cross-comparison

What each source was read to say, set side by side. The numbers are the sources above.

• [1] kongs get paid at the instant they are melded
• [2] cited by Sloperama's own catalogue. Confirms both the four plant flowers and the four season tiles, and describes a separate flower wall used for replacements
• [3] states the game uses no jokers, which contradicts Sloperama's note that certain tiles may be designated as jokers under a rule it could not describe
• [4] Read at the source. Uses the local terms máno (dealer), báhay (set), tódas (win), búnot (self-draw), sagása (adding a drawn fourth tile to an open pung), 'secret' (concealed kong). Four rounds
• [5] Read at the source. Describes 'secret' (a concealed kong) and 'sagasa' (a drawn fourth tile added to a pong), both needing a replacement from the bottom of the stack. Also describes a 'Joker game': a tile is drawn at random at the start, and the three others identical to it are wild; 'Joker games are normally quicker than the regular games'
• [6] Read at the source. Calls the Manila version 'a hybrid of the Hong Kong-style mixed with the Taiwanese version', and notes seven pairs (siete pares) and 'chow de ter' among its hands. A memoir, not a rules text
• [11] Read at the source. Penalises taking part in illegal or unauthorised games including 'paik que, high and low, mahjong, domino and other games using plastic tiles and the likes', where wagers of money or value are made; heavier for those who permit gambling in a place with a reputation for it
• [12] Read at the source. Exempts 'domino, bingo, poker when not played with five cards stud, cuajo, pangguingue and mahjong, provided that they are played as parlor games or for home entertainment', not in places habitually used for gambling and with no disguised betting
• [13] Read at the source. Cebu City Ordinance No. 125 (enacted 27 May 1952) required a licence for each mahjong table (60 pesos a year), limited hours to noon to midnight on ordinary days, and exempted private recreational games with no money involved. The column calls the 1979 instruction 'Presidential Decree No. 816'; it is Letter of Instructions 816
• [1] Read again at the source on 2026-10-10. Part II's identification questions separate Filipino from Taiwanese play only by whether winds and dragons are kept in the hand or treated as flowers. The entry's books line still points to a 1998 post on the mahjongarchives Tripod site and to Ging's Brain, and it reports Dragon Chang's statement that a similar style is played in Fuzhou (Fukien). The abbreviated list says Fuzhou treats honours like flowers 'as in Filipino game', and the Bashi-Bashi note calls that casino game based on Japanese modern and Filipino rules
• [2] Read again at the source (posted by 'Theresa A', October 2010). A win is called 'todas' or 'mahjong', the dealer 'mano'. It says a sagasa cannot be made from a discard. Optional variations: goulash (a three-tile pass), a joker turned up by a second throw of the dice, 'pop eye' (all four jokers win) and jai alai (first to five win markers takes an extra payment). It cites family word of mouth, the 1998 Tripod archive post, Wikipedia, prosolar0.tripod.com, Sloperama and mahjongmuseum.com/filirule.htm
• [4] Read again at the source on 2026-10-10, for its payouts and optional rules. Optional rules: a roll of doubles when breaking the wall doubles all payouts; a jai alái pot goes to the first player to five markers (two for a búnot); and jokers, where a suited tile turned up from the flower wall after flowers are replaced stands for any suited tile. Its worked example is a $1.25 hand won on a discard that collects $5.00
• [7] Read at the source. It allows sagasa 'by drawing or claiming' the fourth tile, where Ging's Brain and Mahjong Pros allow it only on a draw. Its paragraphs on doubles, jai alái and jokers follow Mahjong Pros's closely, and its waiting terms (back to back, single, paningit) follow Ging's Brain
• [14] Read at the source (wikitext as stored, 2026-10-10). The regional comparison table gives the Philippine game one feature, the 'window joker' (窗百搭). Besides the turned-up tile, the two tiles next to it in sequence and the tiles of the same number in the other suits become wild. For an honour, five consecutive honours in the winds-and-dragons cycle become wild. It calls this a step beyond the Fujian game's moving joker. Unsourced. The regional list links 菲律賓麻雀, which could not be checked (429)
• [8] Read at the source (wikitext, 2026-10-10). After flowers are replaced, a tile is turned up at the replacement end and becomes the wild 'gold' (金). Its only citation is one book
• [9] Read at the source. A family memoir and a note on Chinese influence in Filipino culture: mahjong at weekend gatherings and at wakes, in the 1982 film Oro, Plata, Mata, and in a 1997 Supreme Court case (Negros Navigation v. Miranda) in which the crew of the M/V Don Juan were playing mahjong before the collision. Nothing on flowers
• [15] Read at the source. A columnist's mother, of Chinese descent, teaches her grandchildren. The family 'played the Chinese version of the game' out of deference to her, and an aunt can tell tiles by touch ('salat')
• [10] Read at the source (version 3.1.1). Says the app is built 'around the authentic rules played in homes across the Philippines'. An earlier description, seen only in search snippets, called the rules 'not yet formally defined' and listed zero flowers (sin flores) and 13 flowers
• [16] Read at the source. The listing names the rules included in the app; the same text is on its Google Play listing

Reading it

Sloperama, Ging's Brain, Mahjong Pros and Filipino Mahjong Online all give 144 tiles, sixteen held and a win on seventeen; the rules texts specify five sets and a pair, or seven pairs and a set, and Gorecho's newspaper column independently gives the set and the five-and-a-pair win. All four count winds and dragons with the plants and seasons as flowers; the rules texts replace them from a separate flower wall. The no-flower bonus (sin flores) is paid at the deal and again at the win; thirteen flowers are paid at once. Payment is a fixed stake plus quarter and half bonuses, the discarder paying double and a self-draw doubled, with kongs and flower bonuses paid as they happen. That contradicts Sloperama's 'count doubles' and answers its '(?)'. Jokers are an optional house rule, a turned-up suited tile; Chinese Wikipedia's 'window joker', which can make honours wild, has no Filipino support. Fuzhou's sixteen-tile game also treats winds and the red dragon as flowers, collects from all three on a discard and turns up a wild tile at the replacement end, as Dragon Chang reported through Sloperama; no source read states descent from Fujian or Taiwan. No source read uses 'pa-ripat'. Still wanted: the 1998 newsgroup post Sloperama cites, the Mahjong Wiki's removed Filipino pages and the Mahjong Museum's rules.

Looked for, not found

• Official rules No governing body for the Filipino game was found in this pass either. Web, press and PAGCOR searches turned up only a retailer's rules (Mahjong Pros, 'Official' in its own word) and app developers' rules (Filipino Mahjong Online, Pinoy Mahjong, Mahjong Tayo), each calling its own rules authentic.
• Tournament rules No tournament of the Filipino game was found. Press and web searches returned social game nights in Manila and in Filipino-American communities, none with published rules.
• Rulebook No printed rulebook of the Filipino game was found. Nicole Wong's Mahjong: House Rules from Across the Asian Diaspora (2025) covers diaspora house rules, but no listing read names a Filipino chapter. Google Books could not be queried (429).
• Historical No period text was found. Cebu City's 1952 ordinance is still known only through a 2014 column (see the earlier wanted entry). The Internet Archive's full-text search for 'filipino mahjong' found only a Wikipedia-derived compilation.
• Scholarship A Crossref search for mahjong and the Philippines (2026-10-10) found nothing on the Philippine game. SAGE's Encyclopedia of Play in Today's Society has a 'Philippines' entry, unread.
• Organisation No Philippine mahjong association, league or club body was found. PAGCOR's site yielded only lists of approved electronic slot games with 'Mahjong' in their titles.
• Collection No museum or library record of a mahjong set made or used in the Philippines was found in the web and Internet Archive searches. Wong's book and the retailers mention inherited sets, but no catalogue record was found.

Known, not yet read

Sources that look worth having but could not be read for this entry. If you can reach one, it can be read and added. Every variant’s list is gathered on Missing sources.

• Forum A rec.games.mahjong post of September 1998 on Filipino rules, archived at mahjongarchives.tripod.com/post/1998/9809-03.htm — The rules source Sloperama's Filipino entry names, and one Ging's Brain cites. It is the earliest rules text cited for the variant.
  Where: http://mahjongarchives.tripod.com/post/1998/9809-03.htm; the Wayback Machine; the Google Groups archive of rec.games.mahjong, September 1998. Tried: 2026-10-10: the host does not resolve from here (a DNS failure on this side). Ten Wayback id_ requests got no reply through the proxy (connection reset), also a failure on this side and not a refusal by the archive.
• Encyclopedia Mahjong Wiki, "Filipino Gameplay" (rules:filipino-gameplay), with its overview and scoring pages — Search results show the wiki once had Filipino pages: chows only from the left, flowers and honours replaced at once, five sets and a pair. The wiki is a reference the chart's tree draws on.
  Where: http://mahjong.wikidot.com/rules:filipino-gameplay; Wayback Machine captures. Tried: 2026-10-10: the live wiki answers with its own 'page does not exist' (404) for rules:filipino-gameplay, rules:filipino-overview and rules:filipino-scoring, so the pages were removed. Wayback CDX and capture requests got connection resets through the proxy (this side).
• Guide Mahjong Museum, "filirule.htm" (Filipino rules), mahjongmuseum.com — Cited by Ging's Brain as a source for its Filipino rules; a second early rules text.
  Where: http://www.mahjongmuseum.com/filirule.htm (dead); Wayback Machine. Tried: 2026-10-10: ten Wayback id_ requests got no reply through the proxy (this side's failure).
• Journalism Inquirer Lifestyle, "From titas to TikTok: How mahjong became a Filipino cool-girl staple" (and "Mahjong is having a moment again. Here's where to play in Manila") — A national daily on how the game is taught and played in Philippine households. Search snippets say the rules are passed down orally and that players know their flowers by heart.
  Where: https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/545575/mahjong-cool-girl-staple/; https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/580157/where-to-play-mahjong-in-manila/. Tried: 2026-10-10: both answered 403 to a plain request. That is the site's refusal.

Where it was searched

Every place the search checklist names for this variant’s languages, and what each gave, including nothing. The last full pass was on 2026-10-10.

Names searched: English Filipino mahjong, Filipino style, Philippine mahjong, Pinoy mahjong, Manila mahjong; Filipino madyong, mahjong, Pinoy mahjong.