Revisiting the Filipino Values in General: A Move Towards Its Better Understanding

Ruby S. SuazoUniversity of San CarlosCebu City, Philippines

The identity of the Filipino is seen in its values.1 Reflecting on Bago’s stylized

framework for development in the Philippines is very instructive. Integrated development

according to her framework is founded on the cultural values of the nation.2 Based on her

framework, the present situation of the country can be deemed as results of the Filipino’s

cultural values because “they have far greater influence and impact on the way of life of

the people.”3 Her idea corroborates the insight of Ramirez that the values of the people

are reflected on the workings of institutions. This follows from the fact that the workings

of institutions are externalizations of the culture of which the deepest layer are values. 4

So much has been done as to the re-understanding or clarification of the Filipino

values. Right after the EDSA I revolution, Licuanan points out that the government

embarked on a moral recovery program for the reason that “[s]elf-interest and disregard

for the common good rears its ugly head. We are confronted with our lack of discipline

and rigor, our colonial mentality, and our emphasis on porma (form). Despite our great

display of people's power, now we are passive once more, expecting our leaders to take

all responsibility for solving our many problems.”5 The government embarks for this 1 ? Alejandro R. Roces, “A Nation Is Known By Its Values” in Lourdes R. Quisumbing and Felice P. Sta. Maria, Peace and Tolerance: Values Education Through History, pp. 122-124.

2 ? Adelaida L. Bago, Curriculum Development: The Philippine Experience (Manila: De La Salle University Press, Inc., 2001), 9.

3 Ibid., 8.

4 ? Mina M. Ramirez, “Toward a Revolution of Mindsets: A Critique of the Present Socio-Cultural System” in Reflections on Culture, Occasional Monograph 2 (Manila: Asian Social Institute, 1991): 3.

5 ? Patricia Licuanan, “A Moral Recovery Program: Building a People – Building a Nation” in Manuel B. Dy, Jr., ed. Values in Philippine Culture and Education: Philippine Philosophical Studies I (Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press & The Council For Research in Values and Philosophy, 1994)

program because of the following needs: the need for economic recovery, the need to re-

establish democratic institutions, and the need to achieve the goals of peace and genuine

social justice.6

Recently, Pres. Gloria Macapagal - Arroyo formed the Presidential Commission

on Values Formation. The commission is formed because of “the existence of the

Filipino’s strong desire to see the establishment and institutionalization of just and moral

governance and the imperative to have a continuing and intensified drive against graft

and corruption, patronage politics, apathy, passivity, mendicancy, factionalism and lack

of patriotism.”7 This recent development suggests that rethinking of the different values

of the Filipino is not yet a passé. It remains relevant up to the present for the desired

integrated development that should be sustainable, equitable, spiritually uplifting, and

socially integrating has not fully materialized yet.

In line with this, Bago notes that this has remained to be the main thrust of the

values education curriculum which is “a response to a general feeling on the need for

social transformation after the February 1986 People Power Revolution.”8 This thrust is

spelled out even more in the goal of the Values Education Program: “to provide and

promote values education at all three levels of the educational system for the

[article on-line]; available from http://www.crvp.org/book/Series03/III-7/chapter_iv.htm; accessed December 6, 2005.

6 ? Ibid.

7 Gloria Macapagal – Arroyo, Executive Order No. 314: Creating the Presidential Commission on Values Formation (Manila: Malacañang, April 30, 2004); available from http://www.ops.gov.ph/records/eo_no314.htm; accessed November 5, 2006.

8 ? Bago, 132.

development of the human person committed to the building of a just and humane society

and an independent and democratic nation.”9

To understand the Filipino values in general, there are several frameworks to look

upon the different values of the Filipino. To name a few, there is the widely disseminated

The DECS Values Education Framework of Minda C. Sutaria, et al.10, the Filipino Value

System framework of Serafin Talisayon11 and the Philippine-Value System framework of

Tomas Andres. What is noteworthy about Andres’ framework is its being a synthesis of

the studies conducted by Lynch, Bulatao, Gorospe, Hollnsteiner, Landa Jocano, Mercado,

and Quisumbing.12 Quisumbing and Sta. Maria likewise study the Filipino value system

whether it is compatible with the UNESCO project for peace and tolerance.

The framework of Sutaria looks into the human person in relation to its self and

community. As self, the human person is divided into four dimensions: physical,

intellectual, moral, and spiritual. The four dimensions in turn aim to develop respectively

the values of health, truth, love, and spirituality. In community, the human person is seen

socially, economically, and politically. Socially, he is taken in terms of its family and

society. Socially, the person is expected to develop the value of social responsibility.

Economically, he is to develop economic efficiency. Politically, he has to develop the 9 ? Ibid.

10 ? Minda C. Sutaria, Juanita S. Guerrero and Paulina M. Castaño, eds., “The DECS Values Education Framework” in Philippine Education: Visions and Perspectives (Manila: National Book Store, Inc., 1989), 117 as cited in Bago, 133.

11 Serafin D. Talisayon, “Values In Our Quest for Freedom (1896 – 1898) and Their Application for Future Development” in Lourdes R. Quisumbing and Felice P. Sta. Maria, Peace and Tolerance: Values Education Through History (Manila: UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines, 1996), 105 & 119. This is a result of Talisayon’s compilation and review of almost a hundred academic, journalist and opinion articles about Filipino values, orientations or attitudes, and idiosyncrasies. He was able to discern commonalities and consensus among various authors, and reduce them into a set of identifiable value clusters with some internal consistency or coherence.

12 ? Tomas D. Andres, Understanding Filipino Values: A Management Approach, 27.

values of nationalism and global solidarity. The values developed are expected to

improve the human dignity of the human person.

Talisayon, on his part, intimates that the core or central clusters of the Filipino

value system revolve around seven values: (1) family/kinship orientation; (2)

makatao/kapwa tao (personalism); (3) “loob complex” (religious/psychic orientation); (4)

social acceptance; (5) pakikiramdam; (6) pakikisama (group centeredness); and (7)

economic security. 13

Lastly, the framework of Andres analyzes the Philippine value system into three

aspects: first, in terms of its aims, goals, and aspirations; second, in terms of belief,

convictions and attitudes; lastly, in terms of principles and norms. He deduces that the

aims, goals and aspirations of the Filipino are social acceptance, economic security and

social mobility. In terms of belief, convictions and attitudes, the Filipino has a

personalistic and a supernaturalistic world-view. He is non-scientific and non-relational.

In terms of his perception of reality, he is non-dualistic, harmonizing, interpersonal,

concrete, poetic, artistic, and intuitive. On matters of principles and norms, structurally,

he is segmented. There is too much affinity to the family and kin. Age-grading is over-

emphasized. People are divided according to social class, power, region, language, and

even religion. Operationally, emphasis on equivalence, solidarity, reciprocity,

compassion, and non-interference is overdone.

Ultimately, Quisumbing and Sta. Maria, on their part, study intensively the values

of the Filipino and come up with this position:

education for peace, human rights, and democracy, for international understanding and tolerance is essentially a matter of changing values,

13 ? Talisayon, 105.

attitudes, and behavior. Hence the need and importance of values education for our citizenry, especially the youth – at home, in the school, and in the total learning environment of the society – should be our absolute priority if we want our children to live and develop in a genuine of peace and tolerance where people learn to live together in harmony, and where citizens of a nation and of the global community can work together in solidarity and in peace.14

Licuanan affirms the position of Quisumbing and Sta. Maria as she sees a need to pay

attention to the dream of peace because “we face the twenty-first century and the new

millennium with raised hopes of economic development for our country and a better life

for our people.”15 In fact, she adds, “we need to foster a culture of peace, peace that

upholds … economic and social justice, human rights and fundamental freedoms, and

sustainable development.16

In connection with this, the UNESCO has identified tolerance as a tool for

peacekeeping.17 The following are the synonyms of tolerance in Filipino: pagpaparaya,

pagpapahintulot, pagpapaubaya, pagpapaumanhin, pagpayag, pagtanggap.18 Noticeably,

these expressions can be deduced as extensions if not manifestations of one of the

Filipino’s dearest values: SIR (smooth interpersonal relationships) which is closely

related to what Andres says as the aims, goals, and aspirations of every Filipino.

Harmonious social relations are values that are very important to the Filipinos.19 Thus

14 ? Ibid., xi.

15 ? Patricia B. Licuanan, “Preface” in Lourdes R. Quisumbing and Felice P. Sta. Maria, Peace and Tolerance: Values Education Through History, vii.

16 ? Ibid.

17 ? Sta. Maria, “Filipino Attitudes Towards Tolerance” in Lourdes R. Quisumbing and Felice P. Sta. Maria, Peace and Tolerance: Values Education Through History, 3.

18 ? Ibid. This list of synonyms is provided by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) as assisted by the Commission for the Filipino Language.

19 ? Ibid., 10.

Mercado says that inasmuch as interpersonalism requires much diplomacy, frankness is

not a cultural value for them20 because, Andres explains, the Filipino wants to avoid

outside signs of conflict.21

Nevertheless, critics see the aforementioned values of the Filipinos as anti-

development. Jocano explains,

Many critics… see Filipino traditional values as something we should not have valued in the first place…. They say that these values have “damaged” our culture, brought about “the ills in our society,” given rise to our “undesirable traits,” brought about “weaknesses in our character” as a people, and have caused the “moral breakdown” of our institutions.

Some critics, particularly the foreigners, even see our conformity to traditional norms as “passivity, subservience, and lack of initiative.” The high premium we place on reciprocal obligations is described by them as “scheming,” our concern for consensus as “lack of leadership,” our silence borne out of deference or sensitivity to feelings of others as “concealed dishonesty,” our firmness and discipline as “authoritarianism,” our kinship loyalties as “nepotism,” our gift-giving, as “bribery” and our utang na loob (debt of gratitude) as “cumbersome system of patronage and major source of corruption.22

Andres shares the same sentiment as the most observers and critics alike who believe that

the values of the Filipinos are anti-development but he believes that this attitude is due to

the emphasis of the negative features of the Filipino values. Soler, as cited by Andres,

says that “the principal cause of the present economic conditions may be attributed to the

negativism in the Filipino national personality. This negativism in turn creates a crisis of

national identity and a crisis of national self-confidence.”23

20 ? Ibid. Cf. Leonardo Mercado, Elements of Filipino Philosophy (Tacloban City: Divine Word University Publications, 1967), 98.

21 ? Andres, Understanding Filipino Values: A Management Approach, 17.

22 ? Jocano, Filipino Value System: A Cultural Definition, 2.

23 ? Andres, Positive Filipino Values (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1999), 7. Cf. Ricardo S. Soler, “A Crisis of National Self-Confidence” in Industrial Philippines (January 1972), 16.

Nevertheless, is there really something wrong with the Filipino values? No, there

is nothing wrong with the Filipino values! “They have to be challenged.”24 It is just a

matter of looking at them in the right perspective. The appropriate application of the said

values to the Filipino’s desired goal will make them good, desirable and positive.

Ramirez charges that “at present, our social institutions are not responding to

people’s life-needs”25 because the people do not fully understand the dynamism of their

value system. Seemingly, the present value system fails them. This observation,

however, has long been answered by Jocano when he told the many critics that they are

wrong. He says that their judgments are not correct and that they have to be challenged

since their judgments of the Filipino values are based upon the values of the colonizers

who earlier wrote about them. There is nothing wrong with the Filipino values, they are

just different. 26 Thus, he emphasizes the “need to free our minds from the biases of the

old colonial value-models and to build new ones that reflect the best in us. We need to

shift our value paradigms – to recast our mindsets and to redefine our perspectives from

one which sees our traditional values as source of social ills to another which sees them

as sources of inner strength and moral will to survive and excel.”27 Nevertheless, there is

still a pervading confusion that arises among the Filipino people on how to perceive those

values due to the present value system of the Filipinos.

The Philippine Cultural Systems

24 ? Jocano, Filipino Value System: A Cultural Definition, 4.

25 ? Ramirez, “Toward a Revolution of Mindsets: A Critique of the Present Socio-Cultural System” in Reflections on Culture, 5.

26 ? Jocano, Filipino Value System: A Cultural Definition, 4.

27 ? Ibid., 5.

Ramirez observes that the problem that besieged the Philippines today is cultural

by nature. Primarily, by culture she means “the totality of a people’s enduring shared

patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting in response to their life-needs, as made visible

through symbols…. Culture is all pervasive in life. It is imbibed especially through our

primary groups – family, peer, neighborhood and work group. It is projected in

secondary institutions, with the folkways and languages serving as its main vehicles. In

the deepest layer of our culture are our operating values.”28 Accordingly, there are two

cultural systems that operate in the country today that the Filipinos cannot do away with

for they are part of its socio-cultural heritage. They are the popular (traditional) and the

dominant (modern) cultural systems. The former originates in the indigenous roots of the

Filipinos and is relegated to the collective unconscious and lives in their minds and

hearts. The latter, on the other hand, has been imposed by the colonial powers and is

explicitly advocated by the modernizing elites of the Philippine society.29

Correspondingly, they also have different sets of operating values.

The traditional value system has pananalig sa diyos, buhay, pakikipagkapwa tao,

hinga, loob, and ginhawa as operating values. On the other hand, the western-imbibed or

modern value-system has Christianity, formal education, free enterprise, and democracy

as the operating values. Nevertheless, although they are different from the standpoint of

the perceiver, they have the same goal or intention, that is, the promotion of life. Thus,

for Ramirez, inasmuch as the two cultural systems that operate in the country today

cannot be done away with for they are part of its socio-cultural heritage, elements of both

28 ? Ramirez, “The Dominant and Popular Cultural Systems in the Philippines” in Reflections on Culture, 14.

29 ? Ibid., 4, 15.

value systems operate in every dimension of the Filipino life. Thus, she proposes that “to

have access to life, Filipinos know when to use one or the other value system.”30 This is

due to the observation that although Filipinos are strongly affected by modernism; many

of them remained traditional because “his loob (inner self) is still governed by the values

he possesses from his traditional orientations that determine his thoughts, emotions, and

behaviors.”31 Thus, the failure to realize the dynamics of the dual value system leads to

stagnation for its dynamism confused them.

Jocano has the same observation with Ramirez when he compares the conflicting

foreign-derived and traditional values that simultaneously affect Filipino behavior. The

exogenous model has characteristics of being legal, formal, and rigid (through channels)

as best exemplified in the bureaucracy in the Philippines inherited from western culture. 32

On the other hand, the indigenous model which guides the Filipino subconscious

behavior has characteristics of being customary, non-formal, flexible, non-

confrontational, consensus.33 For that reason, Sta. Maria says, “the two incongruous

systems make simultaneous demands on Filipinos, often forcing the loob into conflict

situations which satisfy neither value system fully, and jeopardize the local sense of

30 ? Ibid., 22.

31 Jason V. Hallig, Communicating Holiness to the Filipinos: Challenges and Needs – The Path to a Filipino Theology of Holiness, n. 3; [article on-line]; available from http://media.premierstudios.com/nazarene/docs/didache_2_1_Hallig.pdf ; accessed November 5, 2006. Cf. F. Landa Jocano, “Issues and Challenges in Filipino Value Formation,” in Filipino Value System, vol. 1 (Quezon City, Philippines: Punlad Research House, 1992), 1-22.

32 Ibid.

33 ? Sta. Maria, 13.

upright conduct.”34 This is still due to the failure of the people to realize the dynamism of

both models.

Historical Development of the Dual Value System

To understand the dynamism of the Filipino value system is to go back to its

historical beginning. Knowing its history makes understanding its vulnerabilities and

constraints instructing. The diachronic and synchronic parameters of Philippine history,

as viewed by Prospero Covar, explain the issue. Diachronically, Philippine history is

divided into three periods, namely: (1) Formative period (0.5 M to 1565; (2) Period of

struggle and national consolidation (1565 – 1898); and (3) Period of cultural solidarity

(1898 -1998 and beyond). Synchronically, the evolution of Philippine society and

culture is viewed using these parameters: (1) allocation of goods and services; (2)

allocation of power and authority; and (3) ideological enculturation.35

The concern, however, on the understanding of the dynamism of dual value

system focuses on the third parameter: the ideological enculturation. According to Covar,

“Ideologically, the Formative Period was concerned with the ginhawa (inner comfort) of

the tao and the well-being of the sakop (ward). The period of Struggle and national

Consolidation was to ‘civilize’ some ‘natives’ as Spanish mesticillos and little brown

Americans who eventually became the illustrados. The promise of working for the

national interest and general welfare has been the political discourse since the time of the

Propaganda Movement and the first Philippine Republic.”36

34 ? Ibid., 14.

35 ? Prospero R. Covar, “Unburdening Philippine Society of Colonialism” in Lourdes R. Quisumbing and Felice P. Sta. Maria, Peace and Tolerance: Values Education Through History, 169 – 170.

36 ? Ibid., 171.

Entering the 21st century, “social scientists and communicators,” Covar explains,

“usually ask, ‘What happened to the society and culture during the Formative Period?

Were they wiped out during the Period of Struggle and National Consolidation? Is there

anything left in the indigenous culture and society which we could rally around the

Period of Cultural Solidarity?’”37 Then he adds, “Our answers to these questions shall

help guide us in our quest for values beyond 1998.”38

The answer of Ramirez to the questions is affirmative. Indeed, there are still

things left in the indigenous culture and society that pervade in the Period of cultural

solidarity. The traces of the Formative period pervades in what Ramirez calls as the

suppressed culture that operates vis-à-vis the dominant culture imposed by the colonizers.

It might be thought of that the operating values during the Formative period are

insignificant for they are now relegated to the collective unconscious of the people.

However, Ramirez elucidates that they are not insignificant for they “become[s] the soil

in which any external item from other cultures may be grafted to assume its own unique

growth and evolution. This hidden dimension”, she explains further, “is sometimes more

powerful than the external elements of a culture [for it] lives in the minds and hearts of

people.”39

37 ? Ibid., 174. Jocano shares the same perspective with Covar and Ramirez as to the Filipino’s retaining his old values. Jocano reveals that in the midst of the rapidly changing environment, “the old rural patterns are retrieved and used to handle the pressure of adaptation to the changing environment. This keeps the traditional institutions, values, and sentiments alive. Thus, if one removes the outer trappings of modernity… one discovers that underneath the veneer, the Filipinos are still traditional in their institutional values and community outlook, even if they are in grey flannel suits.” Jocano, Filipino Social Organization: Traditional Kinship and Family Organization (Manila: Punlad Research House,1998), 3.

38 ? Ibid.

39 ? Ramirez, “Toward a Revolution of Mindsets: A Critique of the Present Socio-Cultural System” in Reflections on Culture, 4.

During the Period of Struggle and National Consolidation, the operating values of

the people during the Formative Period are forcefully put on the back burner for the

reason that

colonizers imposed religious, social and political systems on the Filipinos. For the Spaniards, colonization was part of their desire to ‘Christianize’ us; for the Americans, it was their plan to establish a politico-economic foothold in Asia, disguised as ‘benevolent assimilation.’ Punitive measures accompanied these impositions. Filipinos who refused to accept the new systems were punished as heretics and insurrectos…. They likewise introduced their values as standards for what is desirable, good, true, and beautiful in society. On the other hand, native customary ways were set aside as “primitive.” Conventional practices were labeled as “barbaric.” Indigenous values were described as “backward” and “corrupt.” Native character was seen as “uncouth” and local beliefs were called “superstitions.” Thus viewed, local knowledge, beliefs, and practices became undesirable. They were said to be “barriers to modernization.” Therefore they had to be changed.40

Meaning, with the use of the whip, the people are forced to adopt the value system of the

colonizers without positively understanding the impact of the modern practices to

modernization. They adopt the practices of the colonizers out of fear. They are not

completely assimilated and grafted to the indigenous practices of the people unlike that of

the Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Arab.

In the words of Alfred McCoy, citing O.D. Corpuz, he clarifies that although

Spain and the United States try to forge a strong bureaucratic apparatus based upon their

own laws and social practice, they can not induce compliance through shared myth or

other forms of social sanction because the modern Philippine state does not evolve

organically from the Filipino society. Henceforth, they derive their authority from the

implied coercion of colonial rule.41 Consequently, Filipinos become very religious and

40 ? Jocano, Filipino Value System: A Cultural Definition, 3 – 4.41 ? Alfred McCoy, “‘An Anarchy of Families’: The Historiography of State and Family in the Philippines” in An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines, edited by Alfred W. McCoy (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994), 11. Cf. O.D. Corpuz, Bureaucracy in the Philippines (Manila: Institute of Public Administration, University of the Philippines, 1957), 128 – 213.

devout Christians but sharing of material goods to others, most especially to the needy,

are quite difficult for them. Also, with free enterprise, people earn more money but it is

not necessarily equated with hard work. People realize that if one is clever enough, one

could get money through gambling, scheming (like in graft and corruption) or by some

illegal way.42

When the conventional practices were labeled as “barbaric,” indigenous values

are described as “backward” and “corrupt,” native character is seen as “uncouth” and

local beliefs are called “superstitions,” the people are able to develop the idea that the

indigenous models are inferior compared to the exogenous models brought about by the

colonizers.43 As mentioned above, the simultaneous demands of the two incongruous

systems on Filipinos create conflict situations which satisfy neither value system fully.

Thus, in the supposed Period of cultural solidarity, there is really no solidarity that

happens for the reason that the operating values in the formative period – the concern for

the ginhawa of the sakop – and that of the period of struggle and national consolidation

are continually in conflict in the supposed period of cultural solidarity.

42 ? Ramirez, “Toward a Revolution of Mindsets: A Critique of the Present Socio-Cultural System”, 5 and “The Dominant and Popular Cultural Systems in the Philippines”, 19 in Reflections on Culture. 43 ? Jocano, Filipino Value System: A Cultural Definition, 4. See also Ramirez, “The Dominant and Popular Cultural Systems in the Philippines” in Reflections on Culture, 23 – 24.