MANILA -- The ongoing 2020 PhilPop songwriting contest is for the first time showcasing the diversity of the competition.

The dialects with their gentle inflections and phrasing from the different regions take center stage. You’ll prominently hear Ilokano, Illongo, Bisaya to go with the usual Tagalog and English. The diversity has given music fans a smorgasbord of ear candy.

However, it isn’t only the dialects that are a refreshing change. It’s also the backgrounds of the songwriters behind the entries that have made the PhilPop finals.

Kulas Basilonia hails from Dasmariñas, Cavite. His day job is working as a karaoke music producer for a Japanese company. Basilonia divides his free time by teaching financial literacy and busking around Makati and Intramuros. “It’s both fun and challenging,” he said of the latter.

Angelic Mateo is a registered nurse in her hometown of Laoag, Ilocos Norte. When she is done and doffs her PPEs, she writes music or sings with her band at bars and cafes.

By day, Puerto Princesa, Palawan native Kenn Germina is a pastry chef in her family-run business. By night, she trades her apron for notes and musical instruments.

Aby Esteban, who counts La Union as her hometown, went to college at Ateneo de Manila University. Pre-pandemic, she worked as a human resources officer for a broadcasting network before deciding to pursue music full time.

She isn’t the only full-time musician. Olongapo City resident Lolito Go is a full-time musician and social media manager.

Their influences are as variegated as well.

Germina cites Yeng Constantino, Kitchie Nadal, Up Dharma Down, and Gloc 9 as her early influences, although she currently follows Moira dela Torre and Billie Eilish.

Basilonia reaches way back to early OPM with Basil Valdez and Rey Valera but also likes Salbakuta, the Sex Bomb Dancers, and Britney Spears.

Mateo grew up in a home where Fran Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Marco Sison were on heavy rotation on her father’s turntable. But she discovered Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach that honed her piano skills. As for singing, she turned to Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, and Charice Pempengco. Nowadays, she is heavily into the music of Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, dodie, Lizzy McAlpine, Billie Eilish, Regina Spektor, and local heroes Ben&Ben, Keiko Necesario, UDD, and Moira dela Torre.

Esteban points to Paramore, Avril Lavigne, My Chemical Romance, Imago, Sponge Cola, and Cueshe as her inspirations, while Go loves the Eraserheads, Gary Granada, Noel Cabangon, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and the Carpenters.

For all their varied tastes and backgrounds, their music is distilled into something uniquely their own.

“I was going for a pop/folk sound with my song, ‘Para Kay Catriona,’” bared Basilonia who wrote it in Tagalog.

“’Paos’ is about feeling tired and yet, being such and helpless doesn’t make us weak,” underscored Mateo. “The song is about the need to rest and breathe. It also serves as a reminder that we must always try to understand what a person is going through because we don’t know what is happening.”

Germina’s entry, “Bitaw” is a soul and hiphop song written in Tagalog. “It’s about the art of letting go, accepting things, and making sacrifices,” she simply explained.

“Balikan” that was written by Go is a post-breakup song. “It hints about rekindled love but it is immediately negated in the succeeding lines of the song,” he laughed. “It is also about the pointlessness of closure that potentially offers more questions than answers.”

Esteban who co-wrote “Agsardeng” with her tag team partner, the Quezon City-based TJ Paeldon, is an Ilokano-Tagalong song that tells about the story of a person stuck in a cycle of domestic abuse. And yet one might not notice the darkness of the song as it is written to an electronic pop melody.

All five songwriters are enthusiastic about the new direction of PhilPop that has showcased regional talent along with their respective dialects.

“Me being Bikolano,” said Basilonia, “sobrang happy ako for Pinoy songwriters whose main speech isn’t Tagalog.”

Esteban concurred: “PhilPop is a well-known entity that would surely be a great stepping stone for most of these young artists to not only showcase their craft but also the culture of their regions. I am actually super excited and feel privileged because it is not every day that I get a chance to know talented Filipino artists from Luzon to Visayas to Mindanao.”