When There Is No More Music…or… Dumagat Internal Refugees in The Philippines and The Issues of Cultural Objecthood

In 2002, groups of disparate indigenous peoples from the Southern Tagalog region of thePhilippines sought refuge somewhere in the Cavite province to escape escalating armedconflict in their localities. Among these groups of people were the Dumagat from the RizalProvince. Long absorbed into the national body politic that has resulted to the loss of anindigenous way of life, this particular Dumagat group disappears from the eyes of the culturebrokers as a cultural object. The purpose of this article is twofold. On the one hand, it aimsto interrogate the praxis of ethnomusicology set amidst the backdrop of a culture industryemanating mainly, if not entirely, from the state and its apparatuses. On the other hand, itexplores the avenues by which ethnomusicology might be able to refunction, in realising thesocial realities faced by some of its chosen subjects.