There's a word in Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines, that specifically means to yank or pull out, as in pulling a powerful emotion from deep inside. That word, hugot, expresses a sentiment at the heart of so many OPM love songs. If it makes you swoon, if it makes you want to get up and sing, then it's a ballad for the ages. It's coming from the gut, explains Isidora Miranda, a PhD candidate studying the history of Filipino music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It has that hugot feel. It really evokes some very deep emotion for the listener.
Filipino pop music, otherwise known as Original Pilipino Music or OPM, refers broadly to the pop music that first emerged in the Philippines in the early '70s and has since come to dominate radio airplay and karaoke playlists in the Filipino market and beyond. On Spotify, OPM has reached 10 billion streams, with listeners in the Philippines as well as in the immigrant communities of Singapore, the United States, and Hong Kong.
OPM encompasses many sounds and styles, including the vintage disco of the pioneering VST & Company but also the swooning songs of Sarah Geronimo, the indie pop-rock of IV of Spades (pictured), and the alternative rock of rising stars December Avenue. Most of all, though, OPM is associated with a breezy, sentimental ballad form that inspires everyone to join in. Ballads are big over here because [we] love to sing, says Diego Mapa, a member of the Filipino rock bands Pedicab, Tarsius, and Monsterbot, whom we spoke with in early February. In the Philippines' many karaoke bars, selections may include OPM classics along with torch songs by popular American and British artists. When you're drunk, broke, and heartbroken, I think singing a ballad from Scorpions or Air Supply will always mend your worries, even just for a few minutes.
Even though OPM ballads are often performed with Western instruments, they have roots in Filipino folk traditions, like Kundiman-a style of traditional love songs known for mellow rhythms and dramatic swells-and the time-honored practice of harana, in which young men in rural areas woo their beloveds by serenading them outside their bedroom windows. Our OPM playlist, Tatak Pinoy, includes some of the biggest showstoppers of the moment-including Moira Dela Torre and Jason Marvin's Ikaw At Ako ( You and I in Tagalog), a wonderfully tender ode to togetherness released in time for their marriage in January.
Once a colony of the United States, the Philippines has long been influenced by American and British music. But OPM emerged during a time when Filipinos were making their own pop sound. Patricio Abinales, a professor in Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, says the music first took root around 1972, at the beginning of Ferdinand Marcos' presidency. To shore up and celebrate national identity, the government embarked on an effort to sponsor and promote Filipino music. Artists were encouraged to write songs in Tagalog, and every year they would compete in an annual songwriting competition. The disco bands popular in the '70s were called the Manila Sound, but soon enough the term Original Pilipino Music came to describe this nationwide movement.
One of the early successes was a cover of Barbra Streisand's The Way We Were, by the singer Rico J. Puno. Singing in a mix of English and Tagalog, Puno embraced Streisand's swooning sentimentality but also added his own lines. In the song's dramatic climax, he reminisces about two penniless lovers going on strolls in Manila's historic Luneta Park-tugging right at the heartstrings of fans who had similar experiences. It stuck. It became extremely popular, and that's how Rico Puno came in-the balladeer who could sing original Filipino music, Abinales says.
Marcos fell from power in 1986, but that was just the beginning for OPM. Puno remained a hero of Filipino pop culture until his death in 2018, one of many superstars to appear in songs and on film and TV. Throughout the '90s and '00s, R&B singers and alternative rock bands took the ballad in new directions. On Sugarfree's 2003 anthem Burnout, you can feel that familiar tenderness, melancholy, and dramatic tension, even as the band turns up the volume with their electric guitars and rock drums. After all, the louder the music, the more powerful the singalong and the catharsis of belting out a tune will always be at the heart of OPM.
Fall in love with the latest ballads on our OPM playlists, Tatak Pinoy and OPM Favorites, and find more at our OPM hub.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
There's a word in Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines, that specifically means to yank or pull out, as in pulling a powerful emotion from deep inside. That word, hugot, expresses a sentiment at the heart of so many OPM love songs. If it makes you swoon, if it makes you want to get up and sing, then it's a ballad for the ages. It's coming from the gut, explains Isidora Miranda, a PhD candidate studying the history of Filipino music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It has that hugot feel. It really evokes some very deep emotion for the listener. 
