Freddie Aguilar

When he entered the Metro Manila Popular Music Festival in 1978, Freddie Aguilar was almost completely unknown; within weeks he was possibly the best-known musician in Manila, and consolidated that position to become the best known Filipino musician in the world. The song that took him to such great heights, heard for the first time at the 1978 competition, was "Anak," a folk-rock ballad sung in the local tagalog language. It went on to spawn over 50 covers in over a dozen other languages. He subsequently enjoyed great hits with such singles as "Magdalena" and "Bayan Ko." Prio...