History of New Wave in the Philippines

In the early up to mid-1980s, Pinoy Rock became the music of Filipino protesters. Gary Granada and the band Buklod had socially relevant lyrics for their songs. Aguilar's Bayan Ko (My Country) became an anthem during the 1986 EDSA Revolution. A subculture rejected this kind of socially aware lyrics. A Filipino brand of Punk Rock also began to flourish during this period, as led by bands like Betrayed, G.I. & the Idiots, The Jerks, Private Stock, Urban Bandits, WUDS, I.O.V., and The GOONS. Simultaneously, other brands of Pinoy Rock were starting to develop; for instance, Joey Ayala at ang Bagong Lumad (fronted by Joey Ayala) adopted an Ethnic sound, even using indigenous instruments like kubing and kudyapi while Cocojam combined it with Reggae.

the late Teddy Diaz, one of The Dawn's founding members.

The most popular Pinoy Rock band in the Philippines in the '80s was arguably The Dawn, whose early songs were largely influenced by New Wave music, the dominant Alternative music genre in the Philippines during that period. The Dawn came to prominence in 1986, when its independently released single "Enveloped Ideas" became an instant favorite among listeners of DWXB-FM 102.7, a now-defunct FM radio station popular in the mid-'80s that heavily played New Wave music and other similar genres.

Many music journalists and enthusiasts, as well as musicians themselves, attribute the flourishing in the mid-'80s of New Wave- and Punk Rock-influenced bands to DWXB-FM, which began playing independently released singles of unsigned local bands. This helped many of the struggling bands in this era to achieve cult status. These bands included Deans December, Ethnic Faces, Identity Crisis, and Violent Playground, all of which were able to record and release their respective albums in the years that followed.

Other Pinoy Rock groups took their cue from these pioneers and started recording their own songs; and this proved beneficial to the Pinoy Rock scene, which brought back creativity and originality to the awareness of fledgling musicians. Among the lot, The Dawn, The Youth, Afterimage, and Introvoys proved to be the enduring and more successful. Each was able to sustain a relatively long career.

DWXB-FM went off the air on June 9, 1987. The new Cory Aquino-led government began sequestering properties owned by her predecessor Ferdinand Marcos and his cronies, including the home that DWXB-FM beamed from. DWXB-FM was revived as an online radio station on September 10, 2005, by Sutton Records, with the original DJs broadcasting from Manila.

Source: Wikipedia