Two Baguio student-songwriters qualify for Top 8 in BINI’s songwriting competition

Baguio City, Benguet (June 14, 2026) – Alyssa Pacete and Marc Vicente, students from University of the Philippines Baguio qualify for Top 8 in BINIverse and Chorus, a songwriting competition organized by Star Music, and aired by iWant on YouTube where the winning song gets to be recorded and released as BINIs next major single.



From over 300 song entries submitted by songwriters around the world, Alyssa and Marc’s song entry titled Love Potion initially made it to the Top 12. After careful deliberation by the eight BINI members, it was selected to advance to the Top 8. Public online voting is currently ongoing to determine the Top 4 song entries. Everyone may vote up to eight times a day for free at https://biniverseandchorus.joinnow.ph/ until June 18, 11:59 PM.

The idea for Love Potion began when the duo noticed chemical containers near the laboratory classrooms at UP Baguio’s College of Science. After that moment, Marc took his acoustic guitar and went on a songwriting session with Alyssa. The first demo they submitted for Love Potion was recorded in a single take with Marc playing the acoustic guitar and Alyssa singing the vocals.

After the announcement that they had qualified for Top 8, Alyssa and Marc observed that the other entries had fully produced demos while theirs was still acoustic, so they took time to make a fully produced demo. From here, they sought the help of Ernz Arellano to produce the complete demo, and Abigail Pineda to record vocals and harmonies as a session vocalist, both of which are fellow orgmates of Alyssa and Marc from their college music organization Sining, Eksena, at Tinig sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas (SET-UP). They turned the acoustic demo to a fully produced demo within one week.

Alyssa Pacete, Marc Vicente, and Ernz Arellano are also bandmates in the alternative pop and rock band Leona Lane. For them, working on a song for BINI served as a test of their musical versatility because the music they perform together and create is entirely different from BINI’s P-pop genre.

The updated Top 8 demos were made available to the public last June 11 following a live listening party at MOA Sky, Pasay City. Love Potion can be streamed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JctMkSijzp0. BINIverse and Chorus airs every Thursday and Friday on the iWant YouTube channel and is currently on Episode 8.