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Why does Asian Development Bank have its headquarters in Manila, Philippines rather than other major cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore or Bangkok?
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To answer this question, I will have to take the context of your question out of the equation and brush it to latter part of this response. First and foremost, one has to consider the organization's historical and economic conditions at the time of the development of the ADB, 1966. During that period, the Philippines was leading in all economic indexes and indicators possible. As an example, if you will look at the Philippine's GDP per capita at the that time, the Philippines was ahead of Korea (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=compare+Philippines+per+capita+GDP+to+South+Korea+per+capita+GDP+in+1966), Thailand (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=compare+Philippines+per+capita+GDP+to+Thailand+per+capita+GDP+in+1966), and China (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=compare+Philippines+per+capita+GDP+to+China+per+capita+GDP+in+1966.It) can be assumed that it seemed that Manila would become a bastion of Development on top of ADB's intent. Historically, it was ADB's intent to further develop South East Asian countries as it helps advance Japan's economy and was therefore necessary that the HQ be in a regionally advance economic sector (http://www.jstor.org/pss/2761274). Having said that, it had also seemed that at that time, that the most prosperous democracy that existed in Asia was the Philippines. The rest of it's neighboring countries were either in tourmoil or heading towards communism. In conclusion, at the time of the development of the ADB, chosing Manila as a primary HQ was not an unusual decision but rather a logical one. The Philippines was a stable, sustainable democracy and continues to be democratic until now. Similarly, in chosing a new HQ for businesses one should still follow a logical suit conscidering all internal and external factors of a business before deciding which country to locate in.
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It's all thanks to a campaign led by Cornelio Balmaceda. http://opinion.inquirer.net/27815/adb-headquarters-manila-not-tokyo