dearmanila: Pinoy Pride: Regine Velasquez

Regine Velasquez is one of the best singers the Philippines has ever produced. She's known as "Asia's Songbird" for her exceptionally wide and powerful vocal range. She has 30 albums under her belt, winning 59 awards locally and internationally.

Regine has also won acting awards from her performances in television and film. Aside from being a singer-actress, she is also a record producer, TV host, and philanthropist. "My family was really poor, so I wanted to help them.. I wanted to send my siblings to school and I was able to. That's my greatest achievement actually," said Regine in an interview on CNN Talk Asia. Her philanthropy involved projects with Duty Free Philippines, Hongkong's AIDS foundation, Singapore's National Kidney Foundation, UNICEF, and many others.

Music Video: Regine Velasquez's "And I Love You So"

Regine claims that she learned singing even before she could read. To train her voice, her father let her sing neck-deep in the ocean - supposedly to strengthen her stomach muscles and increase lung power. Today, she credits her vocal abilities to her dad who remains dearly close to her. Her career started in small singing contests all over the country until she won a recording deal with Octoarts. The rest, as they say is history.

Other interesting facts about Regine Velasquez:

- In 1991, she performed an outstanding performance at the Carnegie Hall, one of the most prestigious venues in the world for classical and popular music. She was the first solo Filipino act there.

- In her career she has joined about 200 competitions and won 60 of them.

- She directed most of her own music videos, concerts and TV shows.

- She does her own makeup.

-After seven years of being together, Regine and Ogie Alcasid (another Filipino singer-songwriter), announced their engagement at a noontime show.