Strengthening Filipino music and empowering Filipino songwriters to shape pinoy culture through original music

Music Breaking Borders


The PhilPop Foundation

Strengthening Filipino Music

Year 10!

For the past 10 years, PhilPop has worked with industry stalwarts which includes the likes of Ben & Ben, Trina Belamide, Mike Villegas, Jungee Marcelo, Christian Baustista, Karylle, Bayang Barrios, Cooky Chua, Itchyworms, and Thyro & Yumi among others.

PhilPop is a foundation that is focused on promoting and strengthening original Filipino Music. The foundation sees Filipino Music as a cultural treasure and as a reflection of Filipinos’ identity. Its main advocacy is to search for and inspire excellent Filipino musical composers. 


In the past 10 years, it has successfully run the PhilPop Songwriting Festival, the PhilPop Boot Camp Program, and the PhilPop DigiCamp Program, inspiring Filipino songwriters to create and submit original works and to make their dreams of reaching out to Filipinos through their songs a reality.


Himig Handog

What is Himig Handog?

“HIMIG HANDOG” is the biggest multimedia Filipino songwriting competition organized by the ABS-CBN Network and its music subsidiary, ABS-CBN Music.


The competition ran from 2000 to 2003. Since its revival, it is popularly regarded as the “country’s premier songwiriting contest”, with Pinoy songwriters submitting thousands of original compositions and the coutry’s top artists interpreting the songs in a live event.


A Brief History:


2000 – Himig Handog sa Bayaning Pilipino

2001 – JAM: Himig Handog sa Makabagong Kabataan

2002 – Himig Handog Love Songs

2003 – Himig Handog Love Songs 2

In 2013, the competition was revived to Himig Handog Pinoy P-Pop Love Songs: Mga Awit at Kwento ng Pusong Pilipino. The competition is open to all aspiring songwriters who are Filipino or of Filipino descent.


The competition continued on in 2014 with Himig Handog Pinoy Pop Love Songs producing notable hit songs like “Akin Ka Na Lang”, “Halik sa Hangin”, “Simpleg Tulad Mo” and the grand winner “Mahal Ko o Mahal Ako”.


For its seventh and eight year, HIMIG HANDOG highlighted "Pinoy Pop Love Songs" as the theme of the competition (2015 and 2016).

The succeeding competition retained its handle as ”Himig Handog” from 2017 to 2019.


In 2020, despite the pandemic, Himig Handog revamped its handle to Himig 11th edition, representing OPM’s diversity and showcasing the power of music through the words masterfully written by fresh and budding Pinoy songwriters. What started as a competition for composers of pop and love songs has evolved into a competition that celebrates every music genre that touches a wide variety of topics that everyone can relate to.

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