TL;DR: The DepEd MATATAG Filipino curriculum guide for Grades 2 to 10 places awiting-bayan in Grade 7, first quarter, as one of three categories of literature from the Panahon ng Katutubo. It names seven types and leaves the list open: dalit, oyayi, kundiman, diona, dung-aw, soliranin, talindaw at iba pa. The guide does not define them, which is why textbook glosses differ. Well-known regional folk songs make good examples, but two of the songs most often submitted as awiting bayan are not folk songs at all: Lupang Hinirang is the national anthem under Republic Act No. 8491, and Sarung Banggi has a documented composer.
If you were sent here by a Filipino 7 activity sheet asking for examples of awiting bayan, the fastest way to get the answer right is to look at what the curriculum itself lists, then pick songs that actually fit. Most of the lists circulating online mix folk songs with composed popular songs and with the national anthem, which is exactly the error the analysis questions are designed to catch.
Where the Term Sits in the Curriculum
The MATATAG Curriculum was issued under DepEd Order No. 010, s. 2024, the Policy Guidelines on the Implementation of the MATATAG Curriculum, covering Kindergarten to Grade 10 and rolled out in phases beginning with Kindergarten and Grades 1, 4 and 7. Our MATATAG curriculum guide covers the rollout side.
Inside the Filipino curriculum guide, awiting bayan appears in one place: Baitang 7, Unang Markahan, under the heading Mga Tula sa Panahon ng Katutubo. The guide lists three parallel categories there:
- Tula at Karunungang bayan — bugtong, tanaga, sawikain, salawikain, kasabihan
- Awiting-bayan — dalit, oyayi, kundiman, diona, dung-aw, soliranin, talindaw at iba pa
- Epikong bayan — Alim, Bantugan, Biag ni Lam-ang, Ibalon, Kudaman, Labaw Donggon at iba pa
Two things follow from that placement. First, awiting bayan is treated as poetry, not as music. It sits in the Filipino learning area under sung verse from the pre-colonial period, and it is examined as a text. Second, it is not the same thing as karunungang bayan. A salawikain is a proverb; an awiting bayan is a song. Students lose marks for swapping them because the curriculum keeps them in separate bullets. Our Filipino curriculum guide explainer walks through how the learning area is organised across grades.
The Seven Types the Guide Names
The curriculum guide gives the seven labels and stops there. It does not define any of them. The definitions your teacher uses come from the textbook, module or learning activity sheet in circulation at your school, which is why two learners in different divisions can come away with slightly different wording for the same term.
With that caveat stated plainly, here is how the seven are ordinarily glossed in Filipino literature teaching:
| Type | Ordinarily glossed as |
|---|---|
| Dalit | A devotional or reverent song, associated with worship and praise |
| Oyayi | A lullaby, sung to put a child to sleep; also called hele |
| Kundiman | A love song, characteristically plaintive |
| Diona | A song for weddings and the rites around them |
| Dung-aw | A lament for the dead, strongly associated with Ilocano practice |
| Soliranin | A rowing song, sung by boatmen |
| Talindaw | A boat song, sung while sailing or rowing |
Soliranin and talindaw are the pair most often confused, because both belong to the water and both keep time with the stroke of an oar. If an activity sheet asks you to distinguish them, say what the textbook in front of you says and cite it, rather than trusting a list found online.
The phrase at iba pa at the end of the curriculum list matters too. It means the seven are illustrative, not exhaustive. A regional song type your teacher introduces is not disqualified simply because it is absent from the guide.
Examples by Language and Region
The songs below are widely used in Philippine classrooms and are ordinarily treated as traditional community material rather than as the work of a named author.
| Song | Language or region ordinarily associated |
|---|---|
| Bahay Kubo | Tagalog |
| Leron Leron Sinta | Tagalog |
| Magtanim ay Di Biro | Tagalog |
| Sitsiritsit | Tagalog |
| Paruparong Bukid | Tagalog |
| Atin Cu Pung Singsing | Kapampangan |
| Pamulinawen | Ilocano |
| Manang Biday | Ilocano |
| Dandansoy | Hiligaynon |
| Ili-Ili Tulog Anay | Hiligaynon |
| Rosas Pandan | Cebuano |
Two habits will improve any answer built on this list. Name the language, not just the island, because Hiligaynon and Cebuano are both spoken in the Visayas and a song belongs to a speech community rather than to a map. And where a type is asked for, match it honestly: Ili-Ili Tulog Anay is sung to a child and reads as an oyayi, while Magtanim ay Di Biro is a work song about planting rice and does not fit any of the seven neatly. Saying so is a better answer than forcing a label.
What Is Not an Awiting Bayan
This is where most submitted lists go wrong.
Lupang Hinirang is the national anthem, not a folk song. Its status is fixed in law by Republic Act No. 8491, the Flag and Heraldic Code of the Philippines, which governs the anthem including how and when it is sung. A statutory national symbol with fixed lyrics and a known composer is the opposite of an anonymous song carried by a community. Our flag ceremony guide covers the rules that attach to it in schools.
Sarung Banggi has a documented composer. It is Bicol's best-known song and it is constantly listed as a folk song, but Potenciano Gregorio of Albay wrote it. Accounts of its history differ on the date, with a longstanding tradition placing it in 1897 and later research by the Bicol historian Merito Espinas placing its completion on 10 May 1910. A song can be deeply traditional in use and still have an author. The safe formulation is that Sarung Banggi is a Bicolano song with a known composer.
The general test is provenance rather than age or popularity. If the song has a named composer and a publication or performance history, it is composed music that became widely loved. If it came down through a community without a single traceable author, it behaves like an awiting bayan. Where you are unsure, say which way the evidence points and why. That reasoning is the competency being assessed.
How You Will Be Asked to Analyse It
The Grade 7 first quarter competencies for Panahon ng Katutubo texts are specific, and they apply to an awiting bayan the same way they apply to a tanaga or an epic. The curriculum guide asks learners to:
- identify the important elements — persona, metre and rhyme, figurative language and style — and the details of subject, content and idea
- explain the implied meanings, symbols, figures of speech and imagery in the text
- relate the key ideas of the poem to their own outlook, morals, character and human experience
- analyse the important events in the text against the context of period, place and author
- analyse the linguistic elements: metre, rhyme, tone and figurative language
- analyse the cultural elements — symbol, language, norms, values and archetype — embedded in the text against the context of its period
That last one is the reason the pre-colonial framing matters. The question is rarely what the song means to you now. It is what the song shows about the community that sang it. A lullaby tells you about child-rearing; a rowing song tells you about work organised around water; a lament tells you about mourning practice.
Two Cautions Before You Copy a List
First, check the date on anything you find. The MATATAG Filipino curriculum guide is dated August 2023 and the implementing order is from 2024. Reviewers written against the older 2013 curriculum organise Grade 7 Filipino differently, and material written for the previous Senior High structure is now doubly out of date after the restructuring under DepEd Order No. 017, s. 2026.
Second, the curriculum guide is a short read. The awiting bayan list occupies a few lines in the Grade 7 section. If a slide deck and this page disagree, the guide wins. Our explainer on what a DepEd Order is covers how to tell which document is doing the operative work when two sources conflict.
Disclaimer: this is an explainer for learners and teachers, not a songbook. SchoolFinderPH does not host lyrics, sheet music, recordings or downloadable song lists, and does not issue curriculum materials. The official curriculum guide is linked below.
Sources
- DepEd — MATATAG Filipino Curriculum Guide, Grades 2 to 10, August 2023 (official PDF; Grade 7 first quarter, Mga Tula sa Panahon ng Katutubo)
- DepEd — DO 010, s. 2024, Policy Guidelines on the Implementation of the MATATAG Curriculum (official issuance page)
- DepEd — Revised K to 10 Curriculum, official page hosting the curriculum guides and budgets of work
- Republic Act No. 8491, the Flag and Heraldic Code of the Philippines, full text
- VERA Files — feature on Potenciano Gregorio, composer of Sarung Banggi
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