If you’ve always wanted to learn more about OPM, are already a fan, or you’re simply a music lover looking to enrich your playlists, Pinoy Playlist Music Festival (PPMF) 2025 is your three day crash course. Happening from November 28 to 30, 2025 at the BGC Arts Center, the festival shines a light on how Pinoy music keeps evolving while staying rooted in Filipino stories and spirit. Here’s a quick breakdown of what to expect during the three day event.
1. A festival that feels like musical halo-halo
This year’s theme, “Halo-halo, Sapin-sapin, Sabay-sabay,” captures the heart of PPMF 2025. Pinoy music is a mix of many flavors and influences, like halo-halo. It’s layered with colors, stories, and eras, like sapin-sapin. And most of all, it’s enjoyed together, sabay-sabay, whether you’re discovering a new artist or singing along to a familiar hit. The festival celebrates this multilayered identity and shows that OPM can take many forms while still sounding undeniably Filipino.
2. Three days, three stages, all Pinoy
PPMF 2025 brings music to all three stages of the BGC Arts Center: the Globe Auditorium, Zobel de Ayala Recital Hall, and Sun Life Amphitheater. Across these venues, the festival features heartfelt ballads, pop favorites, rock, jazz, and bold new sounds. This year’s lineup includes KIKX and Day One, Somatosonic, The Brat Pack, Gab Cabangon, The Bloomfields, Tres Marias, Trina Belamide, Dingdong Avanzado, Bugoy, and many more. It’s three full days where different genres and generations of Pinoy music all share the same spotlight.
3. Honoring legends through the Ryan Cayabyab Awards
A key highlight of the festival is the recognition of this year’s Ryan Cayabyab Awardees. For 2025, the honors go to Homer Flores, Lorrie Ilustre, and the APO Hiking Society. Each one is recognized for their contributions to composition, arrangement, or performance, reflecting the pillars that National Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab has long championed. Special performances by Zsa Zsa Padilla, Nicole Asencio, The Itchyworms, and other guest artists will pay tribute to the awardees and show how their work still resonates with today’s audiences.
4. Remembering iconic voices with Musik-A-laala
PPMF 2025 also makes space for nostalgia and remembrance through Musik-A-laala, a special segment honoring National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts Nora Aunor and Pilita Corrales. Through carefully curated tribute performances, the festival revisits songs and moments that shaped whole generations of Filipino listeners. It’s a reminder that while new artists and styles keep emerging, the legends who came before continue to guide and inspire.
5. Conversations that go beyond the stage
Beyond the performances, PPMF Conversations opens the floor to relaxed but thoughtful discussions about the role of music in our lives. In “Outliving the Uso,” Zsa Zsa Padilla and National Artist Ryan Cayabyab talk about surviving trends and staying true to your craft. “Music as Medicine” brings together medical students and researchers Justine Regala and Kasandra Tan with science writer Maria Isabel Garcia to explore the healing power of NeuroArts. “Musikastorya: 3 OPM Books in Focus” features books by Krina Cayabyab, Jim Paredes, and Susan Claire Agbayani, putting the spotlight on the written history of OPM and its icons. These sessions invite festivalgoers to see music as heritage, healing, and story all at once.
Curated by Ryan Cayabyab, Moy Ortiz, Noel Ferrer, and Maria Isabel Garcia, Pinoy Playlist Music Festival 2025 is an invitation to listen, learn, and celebrate the many voices that define Filipino music. If you’ve been meaning to get a deeper feel for OPM, or you just want three days surrounded by great music and even better stories, this festival is the place to be.
