The PVL isn’t just celebrating its 10th season with a new logo. It’s overhauling how the All-Filipino Conference actually works, splitting the tournament into three separate series—Siklab, Sigla, and Sinag—with the final one crowning what the league is calling a “Philippine Grand Champion.”
Here’s the simplest way to understand this new PVL format: think of Siklab and Sigla as two separate mini-tournaments that each produce their own champion, but also feed points into a running tally. That combined point total then decides where every team stands heading into Sinag, the third and final series, which is where the real prize gets decided.
“For this All-Filipino Conference, we will have three series,” PVL commissioner Sherwin Malonzo explained at the league’s 10th anniversary media launch in Quezon City. “Now, each series will earn points, and those points will be added up, which will be the basis of their rankings for the third series. Each series, we will have a champion until the third one. So it’s all round-robin.”
Siklab: The Opener, With a Catch
Siklab runs first, from October 10 to December 4, and follows a single round-robin format, meaning every team plays every other team once. The top four finishers move on to a semifinals phase, where the top two seeds get a twice-to-beat advantage over the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds. The championship itself is a best-of-three series.
Siklab carries one extra wrinkle that sets it apart from the other two series: every PVL team must give every single player on its declared roster a chance to see action. No one sits the entire series on the bench.
Sigla: Same Structure, Different Rules
Sigla follows immediately after and mirrors Siklab’s format almost exactly—round-robin play, a four-team semifinal phase, a best-of-three final. The one thing that changes is the all-play requirement, which disappears entirely.
“For the second series, it’s the same,” Malonzo said. “But the difference between the first and the second is that the teams are required to play all their players na naka-declare sa scoresheet. Whereas in the second series, it’s all power. It’s up to the coaches kung paano, the usual.”
In other words, once Sigla begins, coaches can go back to playing their strongest lineups without needing to rotate everyone in.
Sinag: Where It All Gets Decided
By the time Sinag begins, every team’s combined points from Siklab and Sigla determine the overall standings. The top two teams in that combined PVL standing earn a direct trip to the best-of-three semifinals. Everyone else has to fight their way in through a stepladder bracket.
That climb starts at the bottom, with seeds No. 7, 8, and 9 playing a single round-robin among themselves. The top two finishers there move on as the new No. 7 and No. 8 seeds, while whichever team finishes third is eliminated outright.
From there, the No. 7 seed faces the No. 6 seed, and the No. 8 seed takes on the No. 5 seed. Winners of those two matchups then face the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds respectively. Whoever survives that round still has one more hurdle before reaching the semifinals — a best-of-three series against the top two overall seeds, who’ve been waiting the entire time with their direct berths already secured.
This new PVL format rewards consistency across two full series before the real stakes kick in, while still leaving a genuine path for a lower seed to fight its way to a Grand Champion crown the hard way.
