The 39th Awit Awards handed out its three biggest trophies tonight, and the act with the most nominations in the building didn’t win a single one of them. SB19 led the ceremony — organized annually by the Philippine Association of the Record Industry (PARI) — with 12 nods across grand, performance, and technical categories. By the end of the night at SM Mall of Asia Arena, Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year had all gone somewhere else.
Fitterkarma wins Record of the Year for Pag-Ibig Ay Kanibalismo II.
The Comeback Wins the Marquee
IV of Spades took Album of the Year for Andalucia and Song of the Year for “Aura” — the same single that marked the rock band’s return after nearly five years on hiatus, released as a surprise drop in mid-2025 alongside the comeback of lead vocalist Blaster Salonga. Winning the two biggest creative-output awards in the same year the band came back from a multi-year gap isn’t a small distinction; it’s PARI’s industry peers reading Andalucia less as a solid follow-up and more as a genuine second act.
Producer of the Year went to Brian Lotho, who produced Andalucia alongside the band itself — pairing IV of Spades’ two biggest trophies of the night with a win for the person who helped build the record they’re attached to.
Record of the Year went to a different story entirely: Fitterkarma’s “Pag-Ibig Ay Kanibalismo II,” which had been nominated in that category since the shortlist first came out in August. Between IV of Spades and Fitterkarma, the night’s three biggest prizes split two ways — and SB19, sitting on more nominations than either act, wasn’t one of them.
IV of Spades already had “Aura” on a trophy shelf before tonight — the track won Rock Song of the Year at the Filipino Music Awards, a separate award body from PARI’s Awit Awards, back in October 2025.
Where SB19 Actually Landed
That’s not the same as a shutout. SB19’s “Dungka” won Best Dance/Electronic Recording, Best Pop Recording, and Best Music Video — real wins, just not the ones that lead a headline. The gap between “most nominated” and “won the top three” is the actual story of the night: leading the field by a wide margin going in didn’t translate into the Grand Awards that matter most, and the three genre and technical wins read more like consolation than centerpiece next to what IV of Spades and Fitterkarma walked away with.
SB19’s “Dungka” won Best Dance/Electronic Recording, Best Pop Recording, and Best Music Video.
Dionela’s Quiet Sweep
If there’s a second story hiding under the top-line results, it’s Dionela. “Ikigai,” featuring Loonie, won Best R&B Recording, Best Rap/Hip-Hop Recording, and Best Collaboration — three genre-level wins for a single track, spanning two genre categories that don’t usually overlap on the same nominee list. It’s the kind of night that doesn’t generate an “SB19 vs. IV of Spades” headline but quietly accounts for more trophies than either of the acts actually fighting for the marquee prizes.
Janine Berdin had a strong night of her own, winning both Best Ballad Recording and Best Performance by a Solo Artist for “What If I Miss You for the Rest of My Life” — the same song carrying two different categories, echoing the way “Dungka” and “Ikigai” each did double duty elsewhere on the card. Ben&Ben took Best Performance by a Group for “Saranggola,” one of their two nominations in that specific lane. Project Yazz won both Best Jazz Recording (“Yamot-Ennui”) and Best Traditional Contemporary Folk Recording (“Malalim ang Gabi”), and One Click Straight took Best Alternative Recording for “Telepono.” Lola Amour’s “Love on Loop” won Best World Music Recording, and Typecast took Best Rock/Metal Recording for “Rupture.” On the songwriting side, John Paulo Nase — nominated in both the Songwriter of the Year and Producer of the Year fields heading into tonight — won Songwriter of the Year. nicole took Best New Artist for “Panaginip,” rounding out the three newly created Grand Award categories PARI introduced this year.
Maki, an Album of the Year nominee for Kolorcoaster, performed “Kahel na Langit” during the show — a reminder that the ceremony PARI opened to the public for the first time this year was, first and foremost, still a concert.
What the Night Actually Confirmed
Walking in, this was the first Awit Awards where a regular fan could simply buy a ticket, and the first where independent artists outside PARI’s member labels could enter at all. Neither of those structural changes decided who won. What they did was put more people than ever in the room to watch SB19 lead the nominations and still leave the Grand Awards empty-handed — the kind of result that plays very differently in an arena full of paying fans than it would have in the industry-only ceremonies this show used to be.
Field Notes — Grand Awards & Genre Winners
- Album of the Year: Andalucia — IV of Spades
- Record of the Year: “Pag-Ibig Ay Kanibalismo II” — Fitterkarma
- Song of the Year: “Aura” — IV of Spades
- Best New Artist: nicole, “Panaginip”
- Producer of the Year: Brian Lotho
- Songwriter of the Year: John Paulo Nase
- Best Performance by a Solo Artist / Best Ballad Recording: “What If I Miss You for the Rest of My Life” — Janine Berdin
- Best Performance by a Group: “Saranggola” — Ben&Ben
- Best Pop / Best Dance-Electronic Recording / Best Music Video: “Dungka” — SB19
- Best R&B / Best Rap-Hip-Hop / Best Collaboration: “Ikigai” ft. Loonie — Dionela
- Best Jazz / Best Traditional Contemporary Folk Recording: “Yamot-Ennui” / “Malalim ang Gabi” — Project Yazz
- Best Alternative Recording: “Telepono” — One Click Straight
- Best Rock/Metal Recording: “Rupture” — Typecast
- Best World Music Recording: “Love on Loop” — Lola Amour