The ‘Sikolohiyang Pilipino’: Kahulugan, Halaga, Layunin, at Kasaysayan

Ang Sikolohiyang Pilipino (The Filipino Psychology)

SIKOLOHIYANG PILIPINO (also called ‘Filipino Psychology’ or ‘Indigenous Filipino Psychology’) is a psychology of, about, and for Philippine peoples. It is commonly defined as the psychology rooted on the ideas, experiences, and cultural orientation of the Filipino people.

Traditionally, it is regulated by the ‘Pambansang Samahan sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino,’ (registered with the Philippine government under the corporate name ‘National Association for Sikolohiyang Pilipino, Inc.’), which was founded in 1975 by Virgilio Enriquez, regarded by many as the ‘Father of Filipino Psychology.’

Although Filipino psychology is typically thought of as a branch of Asian psychology, some claim that its some features also qualify it to be under the realms of Western psychology. Nonetheless, the view of Philippine Psychology is principally postcolonial and is regarded as a kind of liberation psychology.

Zeus Salazar pinpointed four traditions upon which Philippine psychology is rooted (“Filipino Psychology,” n.d.):

Academic Scientific Psychology (‘Akademiko-siyentipikal na Sikolohiya’): Western Tradition: This tradition follows the psychological of Wilhelm Wundt in 1876. This is fundamentally the American-oriented Western psychology being studied in the Philippines.
Academic Philosophic Psychology (‘Akademiko-pilosopiya na Sikolohiya’): Western Tradition: This tradition was started by priest-professors at the University of Santo Tomas, themselves having philosophical trainings. This tradition is chiefly focused on what is called ‘Rational psychology.’
Ethnic Psychology (‘Taal na Sikolohiya): This is the tradition on which Philippine psychology is mainly based. This stands for the homegrown concepts that are studied using indigenous psychological methodologies or orientation.
Psycho-medical Religious Psychology (‘Sikolohiyang Siko-medikal): This tradition fuses native healing techniques and explicates it in an indigenous religious context. Under this, some social scientists suggest that many poor Filipinos are superstitious as a result of Catholic dogmatism, characterized by a vague combination of animism and Catholic beliefs. It is explained that the majority of Filipinos are poor and religion has become an important facet of life, to the extent that some disbelieve in science.

The following further define some of the distinctions of the Sikolohiyang Pilipino:

“As kapwa psychology, it (Sikolohiyang Pilipino) is an orientation—an enduring worldview that links to the cultural heritage of indigenous Filipino people and their IKSP (Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices). As liberation psychology it is an academic discipline— representative for a new awareness of Asian psychology.

“As a movement, Sikolohiyang Filipino maintains institutes of Filipino language, history, art, religion, as well as field stations and outreach programs in many parts of the country and at campuses around the world. The academic discipline Sikolohiyang Filipino is a break-through for world psychology.

“A response to non-western critique over the Anglo-American dominance in the international academe, this discipline is the first indigenous psychology ever taught at a university.

“As social science program, it offers theories, concepts, field methods, culture appropriate research paradigms and a literature on indigenous Filipino topics in psychology. Most of these texts are available in the vernacular, but even in German and English.” (“Indigenous Filipino Values,” n.d.).

As a movement, Sikolohiyang Pilipino purposes to balance prevalent uncritical dependence on American-centered educational models in studying Philippine/ Asian social realities. Sikolohiyang Filipino is rooted in the common experience, history, language, and arts of the people of the Malay-Polynesian and Asian heritage.

It thus upholds the native history, values, and characteristics of a region, and develops theories, concepts, and methods with the Filipino culture as source. Then, the developing culture-fair models are tried, tested, and compared with standard methods and theories in psychology. As new aspects are realized, they are adjusted or refined.

Sikolohiyang Pilipino views psychology as a multi-faceted human science. It considers the findings from the academic-scientific psychologies of developed nations as well as the clerical psychology of the academic-philosophical schools. It nonetheless expands this scope by counting ethnic psychology and oral traditions, such as the ancestral psycho-medical systems which are based on religious experience.

Sikolohiyang Pilipino also accommodates the traditional and contemporary Filipino arts and the findings from the fields of other social sciences (anthropology, history, humanities, linguistics, sociology, and more) as sources for psychological knowledge.

Drawing from folk practices as much as from modern theory, Sikolohiyang Pilipino sees no essential contradiction between indigenous folk beliefs and modern psychological concepts and scientific norms. As such, it includes in its study the IKSP of healing from the ‘babaylan’ and ‘arbolaryos’ (native shamans and healers), as well as the religio-political approaches of Filipino mystics and folk heroes, and other ancestral ways of knowing.

Furthermore, it implies a call for social action that social scientists and students are encouraged to go to the rural communities to learn from the folks and in turn serve them with the attained knowledge.

Moreover, Sikolohiyang Pilipino aims to shape psychology not only as a science but also as an art. “It declares both the scientific and humanistic approaches as valid. It aims to establish a truly universal psychology in the service of all mankind, but with special emphasis on the Filipino people, with all the material and spiritual aspects” (“Indigenous Filipino Values,” n.d.).

Evaluating Person’s Personality Using the Core Values of Sikolohiyang Pilipino

There are at least three (3) main core values under Sikolohiyang Pilipino: the

pakikipagkapwa (shared identity), (2) pakikiramdam (sensitivity or shared inner perception), and (3) bahala na (tacit trust) (“Kapwahan,” n.d.). Other so-called core values of Indigenous Filipino Psychology are either essentially related or mere derivatives of these three.

In the context of evaluating a person’s personality using these core values, a Filipino is said to possess a ‘pleasant’ personality, that is, living up to Filipino values and culture, if he or she acts in accordance with and from the motive of these core values.

One’s personality therefore can be described as either adhering or deviating from these core values as interpreted by Sikolohiyang Pilipino.

Pakikipagkapwa (Shared Identity). Sikolohiyang Pilipino is also known as ‘Kapwa Psychology’ precisely because of its emphasis on the concept ‘kapwa.’ The core of Filipino personhood is ‘kapwa’ or ‘shared self.’ Under the ‘kapwa’ concept, the ‘I’ is extended to include the other. “It bridges the deepest individual recesses of a person with anyone outside him or herself, even total strangers …’People are just people in spite of their age, clothes, diplomas, color or affiliations’” (“Kapwahan,” n.d.).

The late Virgilio Enriquez explained ‘kapwa’ as the “unity of the one-of-us- and-the-other” and upheld that it entailed moral and normative elements that mandated people to treat one another as fellow human being, and therefore as equal, a perspective certainly inconsistent with exploitative or abusive human interactions.

For him, Western influences threated this Filipino core value. He wrote: “…once AKO starts thinking of himself as separate from KAPWA, the Filipino ‘self’ gets to be individuated as in the Western sense and, in effect, denies the status of KAPWA to the other.” (Enriquez, as quoted in “Kapwahan,” n.d.).

Pakiramdam (Sensitivity or Shared Inner Perception). ‘Pakiramdam’ is usually depicted a vital ‘shared inner perception’ that is essentially connected with and compliments the ‘shared identity’ of ‘kapwa.’ It is said to be an emotional a priori that characterizes the Filipino personhood.

Pakiramdam, in a way, binds all Filipino values as it operates behind all of them. This driving emotional force triggers the spontaneous voluntary actions that come with the sharing of the self (‘pakikipagkapwa’). It is the profound deep inner feeling that fuels all pertinent deeds. Because of ‘kapwa,’ this ‘pakiramdam’ is a participatory process in which emotions are experienced mutually.

Enriquez named this shared perception as “heightened awareness and sensitivity” of Filipinos while his student Rita Mataragnon described it as “emotional a-priori” of Filipino people. She noted that these emphatic ‘feeling for another’ and skill in ‘sizing up each other’ involved in ‘pakiramdam’ “were active emotional processes that involved great attention to subtle cues. Filipinos are good in sensing cues (‘magaling makiramdam’), she upheld (“Kapwahan,” n.d.).

On the other hand, social science professor Jensen Mañebog depicts ‘pakiramdam’ as seemingly instinctive, intuitive, and inherent faculty in the mind and emotion of basically all people, but practically more pronounced among Filipinos due to their culture and social beliefs.

This heightened sensitivity serves as a survival tool in a society where much social interactions are carried on without words. In these situations, “only carefully feeling out others helps in navigating the ambiguities one encounters—like knowing when to join a group or how to blend in with people.

Pakiramdam provides the tacit leads how to act appropriately in such situations and may well be regarded as the cognitive style of Filipinos—a unique social skill that is intrinsic to the Filipinos personhood” (“Kapwahan,” n.d.).

In assessing a person’s personality, a Filipino is seen as having a ‘good’ personality if he or she heeds to this silent but deep call of ‘pakiramdam’ such as participating in non-mandatory communal endeavors as ‘pakikipagkapwa.’ One’s personality may be regarded as unpleasant if he or she always shuns the plea of this ‘pakiramdam.’

Bahala Na (Tacit Trust). The manner we Filipinos use the expression “Bahala Na” have long been misunderstood by outsiders as they view it as merely exhibiting the fatalism of easy-going people. “But Bahala has sacred undertones. Its ancient Filipino inscription divides the term into “ba’’ for woman and “la” for man. “Ha” means breath or wind—in a larger sense, spirit or God. Bahala then is the word that pre-Christian Filipinos used for the deity” (“Kapwahan,” n.d.). Its another origin is “Bathala Na,” “Bathala” being the indigenous Tagalog term for a deity. ‘Bahala Na!,’ therefore, implies Filipino courage in the face of various odds and possible failure, as the one saying the expression is willing to take the risk, believing that ‘Bathala’ shall back him or her up.

Sikolohiyang Filipino rescued “Bahala Na!” from its fatalistic reputation into a value:

“Devil may care!” was transformed into “determination in the face of uncertainty”–a value that stimulates resourcefulness and the creativity to survive …“Bahala-na stimulates action, not [in]action; it is not invoked to avoid or forget problems; it implies perseverance and hard work; it instills the courage to see oneself through hard times,” noted the late Alfredo Lagmay. “It drives a person on even beyond his/her own frailties and limitations, to find a creative way out.” (“Kapwahan,” n.d.)

Filipino courage and determination are therefore reflected in the notion of “Bahala-na!” Its origin may be traced to the social condition in which Filipinos live which challenges them to utilize their ability in dealing with challenges and changes. “Bahala-na!” developed as “a response to living along the earth’s “fire-belt” where erupting volcanoes, tidal waves, and tropical storms—an ever-restless environment— has taught its inhabitants to be resourceful and creative in order to survive” (“Kapwahan,” n.d.).

This Filipino value also implies an impromptu skill, that is, it is a strength that helps Filipinos to awaken the bravery and aptitude in them which combine to provide solutions to problems. (Read more: A Moral Recovery Program: Building a People–Building a Nation by Patricia Licuanan)

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Check out: Jose Rizal’s Collaborations with Other Heroes by Jensen DG. Mañebog

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Evaluating Person’s Personality Using the Core Values of Sikolohiyang Pilipino

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