The Philippines’ archipelagic expanse, stretching from the northern tip of Luzon to the southernmost reaches of Mindanao, has cultivated one of the world’s most vibrant and diverse bodies of folk music, shaped by the thousands of distinct communities that call its islands home. Folk music as a category within the Philippines’ cultural landscape is far from a monolith; it draws from Indigenous pre-colonial traditions, the cross-cultural exchanges that shaped centuries of shared life across the archipelago, and the collective experiences of generations of Filipinos who have used song as a way to hold space for their histories, their values, and their connections to the land and waters that sustain them.