There was a time when songs could bring a nation to its feet.
When Bob Dylan sang, “Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call,” it was not just melody; it was prophecy. The world seemed to hold its breath, as if history itself were tuning its strings. Here at home, we locked arms under the shadow of Martial Law, singing Bayan Ko until our throats burned and our hearts ached with the longing for freedom. Those songs did not merely accompany protest; they were the protest.
Music became our liturgy of resistance. From Dylan’s harmonica to Asin’s guitars and Joey Ayala’s drumbeat of the earth, melody served as the conscience that words alone could not carry. And when freedom finally bloomed at EDSA, we sang again: “’Di na ’ko papayag, mawala pa muli.” It was both a vow and a prayer.
Even the Church joined that long march toward freedom. In the slums of Smokey Mountain, where children rummaged through trash for food, the voices of Himig Heswita sang softly, “Walang sinuman ang nabubuhay para sa sarili lamang.” It became a quiet anthem of community, reminding us that no one is saved alone. The Church, too, with its music, walked kapit-bisig with the nation.
Years later, that generation’s voices grew older, quieter, sometimes comfortable. A few artists who once sang truth to power began to look away from it. Some sought safety in neutrality, while others traded conviction for applause. Yet not all lost their way. Dylan, for one, kept walking his unpredictable road, but his songs never betrayed the moral compass that first guided them. The music itself never changed sides; only some of the musicians did.
The songs they left behind still speak with unbroken clarity. Bayan Ko still aches with love of country. Dylan’s verses still call out hypocrisy. Joey Ayala’s Walang Hanggang Paalam still reminds us that we have only one earth to love and to lose.
That is the enduring mystery of music: it belongs to the truth once it has been sung in truth. The chords remember, even when the hands that strummed them forget.
Yet I have not lost hope. The melody of conscience finds new voices in every generation. Today, young musicians like Ben&Ben sing with the same moral tenderness we once marched to. Their song Leaves carries the ache of healing after a long struggle:
“And leaves will soon grow from the bareness of trees, and all will be all right in time.”
It is not a protest song in the old sense, but it carries the same spirit—faith that endures through the ruins, and grace that insists on blooming.
Even in the bright, disciplined world of BINI, I sense a similar current. When they open Oxygen with “Woke up, thank God, didn’t think I would make it this far,” the line feels larger than pop. It sounds like the collective breath of a people who have survived too much and yet still wake each morning grateful, still fighting, still praying, still hoping for change. Their pink is not escape; it is endurance.
The times may have changed, but the work of the song remains. Where we once faced truncheons and tear gas, the young now face cynicism, fatigue, and misinformation. Their protest is quieter but no less brave—choosing truth in an age that rewards noise, and choosing hope when despair seems the easier anthem.
When I hear them, I realize that music has never left its post. It continues to whisper what politics forgets—that nations are healed not only by policy but by imagination, not only by strength but by grace.
The old protest hymns and the new anthems of tenderness are part of the same long chorus. From “Come senators, congressmen…” to “All will be all right in time,” to “Woke up, thank God…”—each line is a verse in the country’s unfinished song of freedom.
We have lost time, but we must not lose hope. Music still stands guard over the nation’s soul. It remembers what we forget, and teaches us, again and again, to rise singing.