In its latest episode, HBO's The Pitt mislabeled the Hiligaynon lullaby 'Ili-Ili Tulog Anay' as Tagalog. Here is the linguistic and cultural data explaining why this error matters for prestige TV.
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CREATIVE ESSAY
More Than a Subtitle: Accuracy is the Minimum Standard for Prestige TV
More Than a Subtitle: Accuracy is the Minimum Standard for Prestige TV
Why I’m Claiming a Song that Never Sang Me to Sleep
Why I’m Claiming a Song that Never Sang Me to Sleep
Written by: Noelle Pico | Published: February 22, 2026
Updated Feb 27, 2026, to include contemporary adaptations and community dialogue.
EDITORIAL NOTE & DISCLAIMER:The reflections, data analyses, and cultural critiques shared are based on personal intersections as a student of World Englishes and a daughter who calls both Manila and Bacolod home.The views expressed here are solely my own. They do not represent, and should not be attributed to, my employer, my clients, or any professional organizations I am affiliated with. My professional life is dedicated to communication and marketing excellence; my personal life is dedicated to the preservation of cultural nuance.
There’s a specific kind of Pinoy Pride that settles for scraps—an almost desperate happiness just to finally, finally be seen. But after hearing and seeing a clip from The Pitt wrongly label a Hiligaynon lullaby as Tagalog in its latest episode, I find myself asking: Why are we, as a diaspora found all over the globe, so content to be small?
Hiligaynon vs. Tagalog: Why Linguistic Roots Matter in 2026
Hiligaynon vs. Tagalog: Why Linguistic Roots Matter in 2026
As the daughter of two proud Ilonggos from Bacolod City, born and raised in Metro Manila, English has always been my first language. But the language that I loved in a way that made me want to get the punto right? That was Ilonggo. Hiligaynon.
This was the language my family spoke at home. This was also the language that was, for years, dismissed as a dialect. So, when I pursued graduate studies in Language and Literature at DLSU in the mid-2000s after finishing my Behavioral Science degree, I was relieved that the World Englishes class I attended taught me to articulate and interrogate how Tagalog and Hiligaynon have different linguistic roots that are as distinct from each other as Spanish and Italian. You wouldn’t subtitle an Italian aria as [Singing in Spanish] just because they both use the word amor. It’s as ridiculous as conflating Asians to a single look, feel, and sound in 2026.
And yet, here we are.
Back in 1986, my dad was a young engineer watching the EDSA Revolution unfold from a television screen in Augusta, Georgia surrounded by Filipino peers and American colleagues.
I only have the stories my family told me, since I was barely a year old at the time, but what stood out in the retellings is the logic of a former pistol marksman sent halfway across the world for work. Dad prayed that the revolution wouldn’t end in bloodshed because someone got twitchy with their trigger finger.
That legacy of distance, sacrifice, and love isn’t just my family’s story—it’s a documented demographic reality across Asia to Europe and the Middle East, all the way across to the American continent.
So when I listened to Isa Briones sing “Ili-Ili Tulog Anay”—a traditional lullaby which is part of rich Visayan oral history—I felt a sense of whiplash when the subtitles attributed the song to the wrong region.
As a professional who works every day devoted to the craft of words because that’s in my job description, the level of carelessness in a subtitle that is present to provide context is insulting.
Ili-Ili tulog anay—Filipino? Yes. Tagalog? No.
Yes, some people will argue that "it's just a lullaby, be grateful", but in an age of globalized television and the persistent threat of digital neocolonialism, our songs and languages aren't historical artifacts. They are living, breathing proof of our survival across borders.
Refusing to be a monolith is necessary to address decades of linguistic flattening, proving that our regional nuances aren't extra—they're the very thing that makes the diaspora's voice resonant and real.
The Data of the Diaspora: Why Regional Identity is a Statistical Reality
The Data of the Diaspora: Why Regional Identity is a Statistical Reality
According to the December 2025 release of the Philippine Statistics Agency data for overseas Filipino workers, 9.5% hail from Western Visayas, ranked 3rd after CALABARZON and Central Luzon; Metro Manila ranks fourth at 8.6%. While critics may argue these numbers still appear representative of Luzon, the reality is that policy is finally catching up to a reality that many multilingual Filipinos wish we’d had before the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 (RA 10533) formally institutionalized the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE). For context, this law took effect when I was already in my sixth year working and wrestling with the night shift in the BPO sector after I graduated college in 2007.
The 1974 Bilingual Education Policy mandated English and Pilipino (Tagalog) as the sole media of instruction, leaving regional languages as an unintended afterthought. It would take forty years for research data to argue that the standardization of the 70s had correlations to dropout rates outside of Metro Manila. RA 10533 was the legal turning point that shifted the burden from children onto educational institutions to adapt to the child’s mother tongue so that the conceptual frameworks of the maths and sciences could be understood and internalized. Education should be about facilitating access, not just memorization.
From RA 10533 to the University of the Philippines: A Standard of Equity
From RA 10533 to the University of the Philippines: A Standard of Equity
Multi-lingual households are more the norm than the exception in the Philippines. English and Tagalog are mandatory because education and doing business have made it a necessity. But news updates like a recent fire in Iloilo City documented on a Facebook livestream? Reportage is done in the regional language so people get what they need to know when they need it at the time they need it.
The University of the Philippines makes it a point to ensure that each region is represented so much that because I was born, raised and educated in Manila, my chances were statistically lower because of the University’s commitment to regional equity. If our national university recognizes that “Filipino” is a composite identity that must honor each region, why can’t a multi-million dollar production do the same?
I am not here to pit the islands against each other in terms of who brings home the most remittances or the most pride. I am here to argue that when the source of our individual songs is mislabeled, we erase the identity of nearly 1 in 10 members of the diaspora. This is what people mean when the shorthand critique of “Imperial Manila” is thrown like a gauntlet. This country makes it nearly impossible to have a calm conversation about the very human desire to be understood.
Any attempt to question the status quo devolves into perceived defensiveness when we should be asking why the status quo continues to treat the reclamation of our specific roots as an act of sentimentality rather than a correction of a historical error.
Language is like a gun. You learn it. You understand the weight and heft of it. You take into account the context of the situation you’re in, so when the stakes are high—in business and in life—you don’t just shoot your mouth off and find yourself needing to apologize after the damage has been done.
ER Realism vs. Cultural Shortcuts: The Erasure of Specific Identity
ER Realism vs. Cultural Shortcuts: The Erasure of Specific Identity
Writer Valerie Chu has said that The Pitt is a show that values character over jargon, and yet, somewhere in the production pipeline of the episode, that character was stripped of its specific identity.
To the world, Filipinos everywhere are reduced to a Tagalog-speaking monolith—a flattened shorthand that erases the very regions providing the backbone of global healthcare, customer service, and technical expertise. If Emmy-winning storytellers who are supposed to be masters of craft are really trying to honor medical personnel as their marketing seems to preach, can they at the very least do their research for the language they decide to use on global streaming to soothe the world?
It’s infuriating to discover after a quick search that even when the actors on set do the labor of bringing authenticity to the table—Isa Briones consulting her father for a Visayan song; Amielynn Abellera consulting the Fil-Am Muslim community for Nurse Perlah—Hollywood still defaults to flattening an entire archipelago to meet an air date.
Vogue and the Manila Bulletin recognize the lullaby as Hiligaynon. Filipinos on social media recognize it. But a nine-figure production that prides itself on “ER realism”? They label it Tagalog, favoring something that comes off lazy but marketable because it’s what—easier? More efficient? Because educating their primary viewers is too hard? Bullshit.
I’m already anticipating the PR spin that might claim a technical error to cover up what honestly reeks of a refusal to see us as real people.
Original video by @jakegatesmusic featuring a performance by Filipino contemporary a cappella group, MVibe, from Quezon Province.
Scholarly arrangements of this lullaby, such as those produced within the Music Production programs of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, emphasize the harmonic complexity and Ilonggo roots of the piece.
Oral traditions are living things. When we hear "Ili-Ili Tulog Anay", we are hearing the evolution of a song that has traveled from Iloilo homes to global stages. To mislabel it is to cut it off from the very history that allowed it to survive and transform.
Related: Listen to ALAMAT's "ILY ILY" on Spotify — a modern interpolation of the Hiligaynon lullaby.
Accuracy as Respect: Why "Ili-Ili Tulog Anay" is a Call to Action
Accuracy as Respect: Why "Ili-Ili Tulog Anay" is a Call to Action
When a living, breathing language is misnamed, the people who speak it daily are erased. It’s no different from the countless stories I’ve heard over the years of friends enduring taunts, or who have had to shield their parents when some ignorant individual heckles: Speak English.
I refuse to be told that I am “just upset” about a string of subtitles. I am appalled that a production house with an episodic budget in millions didn’t bother to have someone QA their subs while they profit from Filipino stories.
Leave the writers or the actors who are just there to do their jobs out of this—I am volleying this critique directly at a streaming giant that prides itself on prestige while operating on cultural shortcuts. Asian culture is not a decoration or set dressing for you to use to make your stories interesting. It is a historical, geographical and verifiable fact that you can afford to research with more diligence.
This isn’t about asking for representation for my country—the Eraserheads proved that we were world class when “Ang Huling El Bimbo” won the goddamned moon man on global television in 1997. This is about accuracy and respect.
If you can afford to get the medicine right, you can damn well afford to get the people right.
References & Citation Footnotes:
[1] Linguistic Attribution: The lullaby performed by Isa Briones in The Pitt (S2E7) is “Ili-Ili Tulog Anay,” a traditional folk song originating from the province of Iloilo. Its primary language is Hiligaynon (the language of the Ilonggo people).
[2] Artist Intent: In a February 2026 interview with Vogue Philippines, actress Isa Briones confirmed she specifically consulted her father, Jon Jon Briones, to include this Visayan lullaby as a tribute to their family’s Ilonggo heritage.
[3] Demographic Data: According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) 2024 Survey on Overseas Filipinos (Released Dec. 16, 2025), Western Visayas (Region VI) is the third-largest source of the global diaspora at 9.5%. Statistically, it outranks the National Capital Region (8.6%) as a source of the workforce depicted in medical dramas like The Pitt.
[4] Production Standards: The Pitt (HBO Max) credits multiple specialized medical consultants (including Dr. Sylvia Owusu-Ansah and Dr. Elizabeth Ferreira) to ensure surgical and clinical accuracy. However, there is no credited Cultural Consultant for the Filipino-centric narrative in Season 2, Episode 7.
[5] Contemporary Adaptation: P-pop group ALAMAT’s 2022 track “ILY ILY” (featuring Lyca Gairanod) provides a modern case study the role of music in oral tradition and diasporic and multiregional pride. The track is built on an interpolation of the original Hiligaynon lullaby, serving as a creative reclamation of the song’s regional roots. Listen on Spotify
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