My Picks for Eurovision Asia: Korea's Next Wave

Tomorrow is the night for 《Korea's Next Wave》 the National Song Selection event by ENA. This is a major event that gives the Korean people a chance to select the song that best represents Korea in the Grand Finals of the Eurovision Song Contest Asia 2026.

Here are my top picks.

But wait! I am a Filipino-Chinese living in the Philippines, so who cares about my opinion, right? You should because if you know how the Eurovision Asia voting mechanics work, the opinion of the other participating nations really matters. Why? Self-voting is not allowed in the Grand Finals.

As a Filipino who grew up and lives in the Philippines, these are top songs that I love and will vote for during the show. (Non-Korean votes are tallied as "Rest of the World" which makes up 20% of the National Song Selection scoring. 40% comes from Korea, and 40% from the on-site judges.)

The ballads

Filipinos grew up listening and singing love songs, break-up songs, and ballads. You can safely claim that most of P-pop (that is Philippine Popular music) revolves around it. Thus, 《If I Knew Love》 by huiAe and 《Tiny Signal》 by Ji Younghoon, captured my attention. It flows right through a Filipino sentiment, and I would not be surprised if at least two-thirds of Filipino voters will go for these two.

《If I Knew Love》 by huiAe (희애)

Hits right into the Filipino heart.

《Tiny Signal》 by Ji Younghoon (지영훈)

A very K-drama feel that will surely touch Filipinos.

The cultural and R&B

Filipinos are not one-dimensional, we love and listen to a lot of other genres, two such are cultural songs and R&B (Rhythm & Blues). This is why 《EHERADIYA》 by Sojeong Shim and 《Deep Dive》 by Junhee made my picks.

《EHERADIYA》 (《에헤라디야》) by Sojeong Shim (심소정)

While it is culturally Korean, for me it also evoked the imagery of the pre-Colonial culture that we are striving to recover. The vibe of this song gives that feeling that we are back in time. I think this can fit as a theme song for a historical P-drama, or teleserye as it is locally called.

《Deep Dive》 by Junhee (박준희)

Definitely appealing, and it being written in English will attract more fans. The tone and the rhythm give an energetic refreshment to the listener. Did I mention that Filipinos also love to groove and dance?

In closing

These are my choices and this is how I most likely will vote tomorrow night. Are other Filipinos going to vote the same way? I wouldn't be surprised.

Remember, in the Grand Finals of the Eurovision Song Contest Asia 2026, we cannot vote for our own country. In other words, the representative song must appeal to the "foreigners". Like in my choices above, if you want to increase your chances of getting 12 or 10 points from voters from the Philippines, I do believe those four songs have the best chances.

However, it also depends on the on-site judges. Even if a nation ranks 1st in public voting, the song and overall stage performance must also appeal to the judges. If you want to understand more about how the voting works, visit my article, Eurovision Asia Voting Mechanics Explained.

Watch it live

Tomorrow, Friday, September 4, 2026 @583.33 (23:00 KST/UTC+9; 22:00 UTC+8; 21:00 utc+7).

Cover image: 《Korea's Next Wave》, used under the Fair Use doctrine.

〈My Picks for Eurovision Asia: Korea's Next Wave〉 © 2026 Yohan Yukiya Sese Cuneta.
License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC-BY-SA-4.0), except where noted.