Gumby, in your sponsorship approval it will say something along the lines of
"accordingly, your application has been transferred to the visa office abroad for further processing". That is how you know it's been transferred. Manila will not send you a notification that they've received the application. The first contact you'll get is if they request documents or update ecas.
Also ecas will not update to 'in process' when Manila gets your application. Usually the app will sit in the office for months before someone picks it up for review. And sometimes, ecas will never get updated, so I wouldn't focus on it too much.