Weng Dela Peña: From Zamboanga Radio to DZBB and the Voice of GMA
The beginnings, family ties, and broadcasting partnerships behind a career in news, public service, and voice-over work.
A listener may recognize Weng Dela Peña’s voice before knowing much about the man behind it. He is a Filipino radio news anchor, commentator, and voice-over artist associated with Super Radyo DZBB. In 2025, his broadcasting career reached another milestone when he became GMA Network’s new official voice-over announcer, succeeding Al Torres.
His route to that role began in Zamboanga City. In a 2020 interview, Dela Peña recalled a financially struggling household without its own television. Radio provided news and conversation, and he admired the deep-voiced announcers and reporters. His mother worked as a domestic worker in Kuwait; his grandmother helped guide him through his youth.
While in his third year of high school, he successfully applied as a disc jockey at a newly established local FM station. The job helped support his studies. GMA’s introduction later identified him as an Ateneo de Zamboanga University alumnus.
By 2007, he was part of Radio Mindanao Network’s Manila station, DZXL 558. A contemporary programming report listed him alongside Melo del Prado on the morning edition of RMN News Nationwide. That places him in national radio news well before his arrival at DZBB, working with a colleague who would remain part of his professional circle.
The DZXL assignment is useful context for anyone encountering him only through GMA. His experience in presenting a national newscast, and his association with del Prado, were already established more than a decade before his Kapuso introduction.
He also served as station manager of 104.7 Brigada News FM before moving on to Radyo Pilipinas.
His Radyo Pilipinas work is documented in the Presidential Communications Office’s interview archive. On December 27, 2017, he interviewed then-presidential spokesperson Harry Roque for Erwin Tulfo Live. The record offers a specific example of his work in government radio: conducting an interview with a senior official for a current-affairs broadcast.
Together, these assignments show a career extending across AM news, an FM news station, and the Philippine Broadcasting Service. Dela Peña arrived at DZBB with experience both in front of the microphone and in station management. GMA’s 2020 announcement described him as having more than two decades in radio and credited him with the 2019 KBP Golden Dove Award for Best Radio Public Service Host.
One of the most revealing accounts of his life comes from his own writing. In November 2013, OpinYon published his essay My Lola Basing, about the Zamboanga siege and its effect on his family. He described reading news of the attack while relatives were trapped in the affected area. The crisis reached him simultaneously as a broadcaster and as a worried family member.
His aunts and uncles were taken hostage while his grandmother, whom he called Lola Basing, was seriously ill in hospital. He recalled speaking to her by telephone and thanking her as the family faced uncertainty on several fronts. She died during that period. His relatives were eventually released, with the publication’s editor noting the later release of those still being held when he finished writing.
The essay gives his biography a personal dimension beyond station transfers. It records the closeness of his extended family and the difficulty of reporting a crisis involving people he loved. His attachment to Zamboanga was present in the news he read and in the calls he made after leaving the microphone.
His DZBB chapter began in late 2019. Looking back during a 2024 appearance on Surprise Guest with Pia Arcangel, he said his first broadcast with Mike Enriquez had been at Christmas. GMA’s account of that conversation identifies 2019 as the year he joined the station.
A more prominent assignment followed in February 2020, when DZBB introduced him as the new host of Dobol B Balitang Balita. Beginning February 10, he handled the weekday 4:30–5:30 a.m. slot. It placed him at the beginning of the station’s morning news service, addressing listeners preparing for the day.
In explaining his approach, he emphasized the story being delivered and the importance of sounding interested and sincere. The emphasis was practical: keeping listeners attentive depended on both worthwhile material and an engaging delivery.
He credited Arnold Clavio with advice on commentary and DZBB’s presentation, and described Melo del Prado as an existing friend who trusted his ability.
Another important partnership developed with Rowena “Weng” Salvacion. According to their 2024 recollection, their tandem began during the pandemic in 2021. Its original name was Dobol U Dobol Team. Mike Enriquez suggested Dobol Weng sa Dobol B, a name built around the nickname the two hosts shared.
That detail captures Enriquez’s place in this part of Dela Peña’s career: he was present at his early DZBB broadcasts and helped shape the identity of the later tandem. For Salvacion and Dela Peña, the renamed program gave their partnership a title listeners could readily associate with both presenters.
Dela Peña’s schedule subsequently extended beyond a single newscast. In the March 2024 podcast interview, he discussed hosting Anong Say Niyo? and the afternoon Dobol Weng sa Dobol B, along with the Sunday program The Secrets of Health. He also explained that time away from live broadcasting could be spent recording voice-overs for DZBB and GMA.
That work involves another use of the microphone. A live news host must respond to developing information and the flow of a conversation; a voice-over artist delivers recorded material whose timing, pronunciation, and tone must fit a production. Dela Peña’s career has come to encompass both kinds of performance.
He also spoke about life at home. In the same interview, he identified himself as a father of three and described his children as a source of joy. It was a brief glimpse of a family life running alongside multiple programs and recording assignments.
In early 2025, that recording work became more widely visible—or, more accurately, audible. Arnold Clavio publicly congratulated him on becoming GMA Network’s new voice-over announcer. Reporting on the transition identified him as the successor to Al Torres, whose voice had been associated with the network for more than three decades. Dela Peña had already been heard in GMA’s 75th-anniversary branding in December 2024.
The appointment extended his reach beyond audiences who deliberately tuned in to a radio program. His voice could now help identify the network itself through its promotional material. It added a new role to his DZBB work, rather than ending his career as a radio presenter.
As of October 2026, he remains active on DZBB. The station’s official October 15 broadcast of Anong Say N’yo? identifies him as its host and invites listeners to share their opinions. For someone discovering him today, the program offers a direct introduction to his continuing work in news and audience discussion.
In his earlier account of the issues closest to him, Dela Peña singled out poverty alleviation and education, connecting those concerns to his family’s struggles.
His story connects a teenage radio job in Zamboanga with a succession of newsrooms, management responsibilities, and a network voice-over role. The familiar voice heard today belongs to someone whose working life has developed around several demands of broadcasting: informing an audience, presenting a story, sustaining a conversation, and giving a station its sound.
