Ottawa’s only Filipino radio show now on 25th year

“Tinig Pinoy” co-host, Regina Sosing, and founder, Dan de Castro at work. CONTRIBUTED

OTTAWA, Ontario — Dan de Castro arrived in 1992 and soon began sharing the sounds of his home country on local radio.

“Most of the time, I was feeling, like, ‘Why am I here?’ And I thought that that feeling, you know, was similar to the feelings of most of the transplanted Filipinos living in Canada,” de Castro recalled on CBC’s In Town and Out.

“Since I was myself was missing the sound of home, maybe this is the same sentiment they have. So, I thought, OK, why don’t I try to bring something to my compatriots.”

De Castro has been host of “Tinig Pinoy” for the past 25 years on Ottawa community radio station CKCU. It is the national capital region’s only Filipino-focused radio show. The show now airs online globally. ‘Tinig Pinoy” airs on CKCU every Tuesday, playing original Filipino music.

In 1992 De Castro convinced CKCU to give him a 15-minute segment in the morning. It featured raffles and other contests and quickly gained a following among Filipinos, including Regina Sosing, his current co-host.

Sosing said she kept calling the program and got involved with it when de Castro asked her to help with the technical side of the show. De Castro lost his voice one day and she suddenly found herself behind the microphone. Both have mentored aspiring broadcasters over the years.

The show has proudly organized relief efforts for natural disasters like 2013’s Typhoon Haiyan, which killed thousands of people in Leyte.

The show has also been online for the past five years, which has made it accessible to huge new audiences worldwide. The hosts say that they sometimes feel they have more listeners outside Canada than in it.