Filipinos secure historic win, bag 6 medals at Toyota Asia Pacific Skills Contest

Toyota Motor Philippines Corporation (TMP) brought home a landmark win for the Philippines after its Filipino delegation earned six (6) medals across all categories in the Toyota 2026 Asia Pacific Skills Contest (ASPAC), emerging as one of the competition’s strongest performers among eleven (11) Toyota affiliates across the region.

Held at the Toyota Motor Thailand’s Ban Pho Plant in Chachoengsao Province, this historic achievement marked TMP’s first complete podium sweep in all categories, as well as breakthrough medals in two contest categories, since first joining the annual competition in 2006.

Filipino talent among Asia’s best

The ASPAC is a highly competitive regional skills competition organized by Toyota Motor Asia for Line Team Members and Leaders from Toyota affiliates from Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Pakistan, and India to demonstrate their technical mastery in shopfloor skills anchored on the Toyota Production System.

Christian Cobilla and Wilmer Penalla, who respectively competed in the ‘Painting – Team Leader’ and ‘Logistics – Team Member’ categories, earned silver medals. Noel Elpos, Edwin Bocaya, Loreto Muyna, and Ramel Sarmiento, clinched bronze for their performance in the Logistics, Assembly, Quality Control, and Welding categories. Since 2006, TMP has brought home 14 medals for the Philippines, including its fourth gold last year.

The combined feat of these highly skilled TMP Team Members cements the Philippines not just as the fourth-largest market of global Toyota in Asia, but also as a hub of top-notch manufacturing talent in the region. 

Vehicle for Philippine development

This momentous win extends the celebration of TMP’s recently marked 38th anniversary—a testament to decades of nation-building by nurturing local production capabilities and world-class talent of Filipinos in automotive manufacturing.

Historically, TMP has recorded over 1.2 million units produced locally. This is made possible through the flexibility and precision of its highly skilled Filipino workforce, which can now produce over 60,000 units per year of Completely-Knocked-Down (CKD) models—the Vios, Innova, and Next Generation Tamaraw—at TMP’s Santa Rosa plant.

Following the start of operations of TMP’s in-house vehicle conversion facility, the company gained a new capability of converting the Next Generation Tamaraw into six body configurations. This new investment continues to shape a robust industry where Filipino vehicle designers, engineers, parts suppliers, and body builders can upskill and manufacture vehicles essential to local development such as utility vans, ambulances, and more.