Bayan Ko

The story

"Bayan Ko", usually translated as "My Country", is a Filipino patriotic song in the form of a kundiman. Its words were first written in Spanish, as "Nuestra patria" ("Our Motherland"), for Severino Reyes's zarzuela Walang Sugat ("No Wound"). They are attributed to the revolutionary general José Alejandrino, a propagandista, and were written in light of the Philippine–American War and the American occupation that followed, which the song opposed. Some three decades later the poet José Corazón de Jesús translated them into Tagalog; this 1929 Tagalog version, with music attributed to Constancio de Guzmán, is the one in general use.

The song is often considered the unofficial second national anthem of the Philippines, and groups of overseas Filipinos sometimes sing it after "Lupang Hinirang", the national anthem, or on its own. Because it is so widely known it is sometimes taken for a folk song, and because of what its words say it has been used as a protest song by different political groups at various points in Philippine history.

The song regained wide popularity during the Marcos dictatorship, when protesters sang their own version of it. After President Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law in 1972, the song was deemed seditious and its public performance was banned, with violators facing arrest and detention. In the 1970s activists of the National Democratic movement sang a version with altered words and an added closing verse of liberation. Crowds sang it at the funeral of Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983 and during the People Power Revolution of 1986, when the singer Freddie Aguilar led them; Aguilar's recording became one of its best-known renditions.

Since the 1986 revolution, which overthrew the Marcos government and opened the Fifth Republic, the song has been associated with anti-government protest. In February 1987 a cover by the pop singer JoAnne Lorenzana was broadcast on radio and television for the revolution's first anniversary, as part of a nationalistic campaign by PLDT. In 1984 Lino Brocka's film Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim took its title from the song, but the song itself was censored from the film as a condition of its release in the Philippines.

The song has also marked public mourning. After the death of former President Corazón Aquino on 1 August 2009 it was sung at the EDSA Shrine, by crowds as her remains were taken to Manila Cathedral on 3 August, by Lea Salonga at the Requiem Mass on 5 August, and by mourners at her entombment in Parañaque. The University of the Philippines Madrigal Singers sang it at the inauguration of President Benigno Aquino III and Vice-President Jejomar Binay on 30 June 2010, and mourners sang it again when his ashes were buried at the Manila Memorial Park after his death on 24 June 2021. It was sung in nationwide protests after the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in 2016, and in protests against President Rodrigo Duterte in 2020.

What it says

A love song addressed to the homeland, in the manner of the kundiman. It praises the country's beauty, grieves that it is held in bondage, and ends on the singer's longing to see it wholly free. The mood moves from tenderness to sorrow and hope, which is why protesters could turn it against any government they saw as oppressive.

The words