SB19’s ‘DUNGKA!’ Is a Joyful Portrait of Filipino Life—And a Sharp Middle Finger To Negativity
In a luminous swirl of street life, protest chants, and sticky-sweet nostalgia, DUNGKA! captures the defiant heartbeat of a nation refusing to stand still
A soundtrack for defiance and joy
It was only fitting that SB19—the luminary architects of P-pop’s current renaissance—graced the cover of our Spring 2025 issue. Even then, they seemed poised on the brink of another breakthrough, and with the release of the DUNGKA! music video, they have, once again, pushed beyond the expected.
DUNGKA! is a six-minute exhale of Filipino life: vivid, messy, and magnetic. The music video stitches together a tapestry of the archipelago’s pulse—street basketball courts alive with sweaty, frenetic games; vendors hawking kwek-kwek and isaw; karaoke sessions conducted in cracked plastic chairs; Zumba in parking lots; children hopping between chalk squares in 10-20; rally banners flapping against concrete and sky. Election campaigns roar in the background, as much a fixture of the landscape as the sunset-lit jeepneys rattling down narrow streets. Every frame hums with the particular, chaotic beauty of ordinary days in the Philippines.
And threaded through it all, like a live wire: SB19, effortless in their command, moving not above the scenes, but through them.
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Staying stubbornly, brilliantly local
Musically, DUNGKA!— produced by Pablo and his brother Josue under their RadKidz moniker—is a rave-fueled masterstroke. Over a pounding beat, Pablo and Josh trade bold rap verses, their delivery swaggering and infectious. Pablo’s wordplay turns the everyday Filipino phrase “doon ka” (“go over there”) into a playful, defiant refrain—a winking incantation to repel bad vibes, dead weight, and unwanted forces.
The effect is both jubilant and cutting. If the song is an invitation to join the revelry, it is also a gatekeeping spell: only those who belong, who understand, may stay.
all clothing tod’s / jewelry bvlgari
Yet beyond its aesthetic bravado and sonic innovation, DUNGKA! is significant because it refuses to dilute itself. It is deeply and stubbornly local, packed with references that demand fluency, but offered generously enough to welcome newcomers. It is a pop star flex, but also an archival act: a documentation of how Filipinos live, love, eat, protest, and endure.
In an era when many artists aspire to cross borders by sanding down their cultural particularities, SB19 does the opposite. They dig deeper. And somehow, in doing so, they make their music—and their movement—feel not just national, but planetary.
After all, specificity is what makes universality possible. In the chaotic beauty of DUNGKA!, SB19 reminds us that the more vividly you show your own world, the more the world will want to see.
Photography Charisma Lico
Creative direction Vince Uy
Fashion Weilun Tok and Rex Atienza
Grooming Mac Igarta
Hair Mark Familara
Production design Justine Arcega-Bumanlag
Art direction Mike Miguel
Project manager Jazmin Orbe
Fashion associate Corven Uy
Styling assistance Team RAINXEM
Special thanks 1Z Entertainment
