The title Tugtog emerges from a context where sonic collage and cross-tradition blending are not novel experiments, but foundational to how communities across the Philippines engage with music as a living, breathing practice that adapts to every new set of materials it encounters. As a work rooted in the Music/Mix genre, this piece exists outside the narrow bounds of any single regional or popular form, leaning into the ethos of uncategorizable sonic weaving to reject rigid labeling in favor of a fluidity that mirrors the archipelago’s own geographic and cultural makeup, a spread of islands that have for centuries fostered dynamic exchanges between disparate sonic traditions, all of which have left their mark on how music is created, shared, and experienced across the country.