The "Kundiman" is a lyrical song made popular in the Philippines in the early 19th century. Composed in the Western idiom, the song is characterized by a minor key at the beginning and shifts to a major key in the second half. Its lyrics depict a romantic love, usually portraying the forlorn pleadings of a lover willing to sacrifice everything on behalf of his beloved. In many others, it is a plaintive wail of the rejected lover or the broken-hearted. In others, it is a story of unrequited love.

 Almost all traditional Filipino love songs in this genre are heavy with poetic emotion worthy of a Balagtasan (a poetic joust so named after Francisco Balagtas, the hero of Filipino metrical romances in Spanish Philippines). The rejected lover will pour out his emotions through these songs in an almost masochistic way, for to express suffering is to also experience happiness. One such Kundiman that tells about unrequited love is the Visayan classic, Matud Nila.

In a country that speaks eleven major languages and some eighty-seven dialects, an attempt to translate successfully from the original native language requires not only an operational knowledge of the original language but also a familiarity of, or a complete immersion in, the culture of the people whose language is being translated. A caveat is therefore offered here that in the process of translating, the original flavor of the original work and the sensations they evoke in its original eloquence may be lost.