@izakmiles Everything has the potential to appreciate. It's about your investment portfolio and your goals with it.
If you want to live near the main business districts to avoid traffic, it will cost you tens of millions of PHP. Unless you're extremely wealthy, that will be a supermajority of your capital (let's say 80-90%) tied up in an illiquid asset.
You may prefer to put that capital in something more liquid that can also appreciate faster (opportunity cost) which will allow you to cover your living expenses while still saving and compounding.
Maybe you're single and travel regularly, you can afford to rent a nice apartment (rental yields in Manila CBD are single digits vs. purchase price for the same apartment) while compounding a large portion of your capital in faster-growing opportunities which can cover your lifestyle.
If you don't want to live near the main business districts, you can pay less for a house and lot but you'll have to commute 2-3 hours unless you're lucky enough to work from home. For some people that makes sense, but not for all.