From beats to people power: U-M Wallenberg Fellow amplifies protest music in the Philippines
University of Michigan
How does music strengthen organizing and progressive movements in the Philippines? How does politically driven music shape public awareness of social issues—and how do artists craft and communicate those messages through their lyrics and intent?
Those are some of the questions that University of Michigan student Lukas Nepomuceno, winner of the 2026 Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship, wants to soon answer.
"Music can be quite an abstract theme, but there are also material conditions that shape its production and creation," he said. "Given the country's immense cultural diversity, there are so many voices and so much music that remain unheard in the Philippines. I recognize the technology gap there and want to pay close attention to those material realities. I hope to contribute to a society that truly provides its artists with the resources and support needed to bring that music to life."
Born and raised in San Diego, Nepomuceno is majoring in music and technology. He was always immersed in music, taking classical piano lessons at an early age. In high school, he learned jazz and began composing electronic songs. This motivated his application to U-M's Performing Arts Technology program.
"My journey at U-M has helped me grow so much," Nepomuceno said. "The community I have found here, especially in the Filipino American Student Association, has been one of the most important things to me in the past years, in terms of identity, organizing, education and culture."
Chasing the soundtrack of change
Although Filipino, Nepomuceno said he was not deeply connected to his heritage or to issues in the Philippines. During COVID, he enrolled in an online ethnic studies class. It was his first introduction to a culturally relevant education.
"I began to learn how migrants, including Filipino migrants, have been historically commodified, exploited and controlled under U.S. policy and laws," he said. "I then noticed issues going on there and sought more political education throughout college. I found so much community in organizations full of passionate and curious youth like me.
"I started to understand more deeply the root problems that created the conditions for our families to migrate here and therefore also how much must be fought for to genuinely address them."
Nepomuceno's trip to the Philippines last summer changed how he understands the country's past and present problems. He realized those issues are closely tied to identity struggles experienced by Filipino youth who grew up in the U.S.
"I realized a lot of my personal and professional goals necessitated going back to the Philippines to gain an even deeper understanding of its conditions, its culture and its people," he said.
"This fellowship stood out to me as that opportunity to unite so many different aspects of my life: music, language, community, politics, history and so much more. Especially watching many emerging movements against corruption being led by the youth in the past year. It felt like a genuine way to follow the momentum, to both learn from and contribute to it."
Where songs become strategy
Nepomuceno will graduate from U-M's School of Music, Theatre and Dance this May and will return to the Philippines in August for about a year.
Honoring Wallenberg, a noted U-M alumnus and World War II diplomat who helped save tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, the fellowship provides $25,000 for an independent learning or exploration project anywhere in the world during the year after graduation.
"Under a transnational moment of protests sparked by anti-corruption ideals and youth leadership, I will examine how progressive movements in the Philippines use music to empower communities," Nepomuceno said. "So, I will travel to several regions where modern, cultural and folk styles of the Philippines uniquely blend.
"There, I will strengthen my understanding of art's role in the movement by learning from past and current artists. Working alongside grassroots music-making collectives, I aim to co-build workshops and research that identify and rectify the material limitations to this participation."
Nepomuceno wants to make an album about his journey in the Philippines, sharing the stories of the people and artists he meets along the way.
"These could be from recording sessions covering existing protest songs along with new material from collaboration, as a case study and product of my own research," he said. "The album will be supplemented by clips from interviews and field recordings. Because my focus is on sharing the stories of each artist and collaborator with the broader Filipino diaspora, I will ensure they are properly credited in accordance with each collaborator's wishes."
Scribbles of discontent: Graffiti and banyulatin as works of literature
The law often dismisses graffiti as “destruction,” “anarchy,” or even as mere “dirt.” But new research from the Ateneo de Manila University’s Filipino Department reveals what laws may not: that graffiti can be seen as works of literature emerging from unequal access to space and speech. Indeed, vandalism and bathroom graffiti—banyulatin in Filipino—beg us to ask why someone felt compelled to write them in the first place.
When speech is pushed out of public life, it finds refuge in the margins: spray-paint scrawls sinking into walls and corners, words etched into bathroom stalls. Graffiti settles into spaces where the authority’s gaze is less sharp. Although public spaces are often imagined as open and neutral, in truth, they are sites of contestation: places where power decides whose voices may linger and whose must fade quietly into the cracks.
Faculty researcher Harvey James G. Castillo listens closely to these voices. His work reveals that graffiti and banyulatin are far from mindless acts of vandalism; instead, they are honest attempts to be heard when power silences dissent. These suppressed forms of writing ask us to read beyond policy and see literature as an instrument where repression and expression meet.
Drawing on Filipino literature, Castillo shows how graffiti is shaped by risk anchored in spatial struggle. Anger, humor, political critique, and despair surface in these markings because official forums often cannot accommodate them. Public walls, then, become grounds for voices excluded from dominant narratives of progress and civility.
These spatial politics show how power governs not just what is said, but where it appears. As Castillo posits, some spaces become permissible only when the state controls the message it once condemned, even as other spaces become criminalized. In this front-and-back politics of space, names of the wealthy are displayed in plain view, while informal markings of the marginalized are pushed to the back and hidden parts of infrastructure. Literature often highlights bathrooms as semi-private spaces where authority loosens, and anonymity frees people to speak more openly. Here, banyulatin becomes conversations of collective tensions and anxieties.
Exposing how legal approaches to graffiti fall short, Castillo turns to Philippine literature as a site of liberation. While laws may seek to punish and paint over graffiti, literature restores context—situating these writings within specific historical moments, including dictatorship, class struggle, and social surveillance. In this light, graffiti is not simply an offense, but a kind of testimony. It transforms into voices that persist and echo long after walls have been repainted countless times.
When one reads these walls through the lens of literature, following the stories that fill their cracks and corners, one uncovers narratives of hope, defiance, and a refusal to be erased from the social fabric. In spaces where survival and resistance take root, these writings continue to matter: today, as questions of voice and belonging intensify, graffiti remains a vital intervention in public discourse.
What was once dismissed as noise becomes something to be read, interpreted, and remembered.
Harvey James G. Castillo published “Tinig-Karakter sa mga Pader: Graffiti, Bandalismo, at mga Banyulatin sa Piling Panitikang Filipino” in Humanities Diliman: A Journal on Philippine Humanities in December 2025.
Method of Research
Observational study
Article Title
Tinig-Karakter sa mga Pader: Graffiti, Bandalismo, at mga Banyulatin sa Piling Panitikang Filipino (Character-Voices on Walls: Graffiti, Vandalism, and Latrinalia in Select Philippine Literature)
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