The Pain

The original title of the song “Sa Sinehan sa Quiapo” (At a Movie Theater in Quiapo) was meant to be “Pekeng Halik” (Fake Kiss).
Because that’s what the story is truly about—a young student who falls for a stranger working inside a dilapidated, shadow-soaked cinema in Quiapo. Their romance begins with a kiss. For the college guy, it was his first—he believed it was real, pure, and life-changing. But the twist of life happens, it took him a decade to understand:
That the kiss he got at that run down theater was never genuine.
It was a fake kiss—and perhaps the cruelest kind.

This song lingers. It haunts. Because love is not all smiles and blushes, sometimes, love can also be painful.
It asks why we judge people so quickly—by what they do, how they look, or who they choose to love.
Sa Sinehan sa Quiapo challenges us to look deeper: Who are we in the stories of strangers we barely know? And why do we hurt them, when we know nothing of the wounds they carry? These old movie houses in Manila still exist. Their walls—cracked, crumbling, and stained—still hold the same hidden grief. Because love is complicated. It is raw. And sometimes… the memories of a single kiss can last a lifetime.

Sa Sinehan sa Quaipo, out now. Listen. Stream and Fall in love @vonderheid Modern Kanta. Global Kilig.