Alfonso becomes first MPPT franchise town in upland Cavite
Alfonso became the first MPPT franchise town in upland Cavite, giving local players a pro path and putting the cool-climate municipality on the league map.
The first MPPT franchise town in upland Cavite now has a face, a name and a place on the sport’s growing map: Mayor Randy Salamat. With Alfonso’s agreement signed on June 17, 2026 at Anzani by Ville Sommet in Barangay Sikat, the first-class municipality moved from being a local supporter of pickleball to an official team holder in the Maharlika Pilipinas Pickleball Tour.
Salamat said Alfonso will field a team in the MPPT, and the claim carries weight because the town is being described as the first and only franchise in upland Cavite. That matters beyond municipal bragging rights. It gives players from Alfonso and nearby towns a defined route into a sanctioned pro setting, while also putting a cooler, mountainous community into a league that is trying to expand pickleball beyond the big-city core.
The signing gathered MPPT chief executive officer Joseph Ramos, legal officer Atty. Glenn Gacal and business development officer Alex Aime, underlining that Alfonso is not just lending its name to a tournament brand. It is entering a structured circuit that is being billed as the Philippines’ first professional pickleball league, with Games and Amusements Board sanctioning, an advertised prize pool of at least P5 million and a five-leg invitational spread across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The tour’s pre-season is set to begin in October 2026.
The format is built for team identity, not lone-star exhibition. Each side will carry three men and three women for men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles, with round-robin play on Saturdays and knockout rounds on Sundays. That structure gives Alfonso a real reason to develop depth through tryouts, rather than simply importing finished players for a one-off run.
For Cavite, the timing is significant. Bacoor already has a franchise, and Alfonso’s arrival turns the province into one of the more organized pockets in Philippine pickleball. Alfonso’s 64.6-square-kilometer footprint, or 4.36 percent of Cavite’s total area, also gives the town a different kind of leverage, one tied to sports tourism and regional identity. A cool-climate municipality that has long leaned on its upland setting now has a sport-specific sell: come for the weather, stay for the matches.
The broader scene is moving just as fast. A June 2 meeting in Makati City brought together GAB chairman Atty. Francisco J. Rivera, MPPT, the Pickleyard Conference League and the Philippine Pickleball Federation to discuss professional standards, a sign that the sport’s top layers are being stitched together rather than built in isolation. The federation’s own figures, 450 clubs and 1,127 courts, show how quickly the base is widening, and its call for elite players for the 2026 Pickleball World Cup in Da Nang from August 30 to September 5 adds another rung for Filipino talent to climb.
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