Defining the filipino through the arts: From

specialistic innocence to Participatory

consciousness
Cultural Identity as the basis of social participation for
development

• Sine qua non for being active in the world.

• Fundamental source of social empowerment

In order to involve people as active participants,

development must be consistent with their fundamental
socio-cultural traits, world view, and values, and cultural
principles. Only then can enthusiasm and creative potential
of the people be mobilized (South Commission 1990)
The Genesis of Subservience

To successfully impose an alien culture on a

people is to reduce them into a passive, docile
mass subservient to the power wielders of the alien
culture.
 • Vision in life
They lose:
• Originality They become:
• Native intelligence • Disunited
• Skills • Self – serving
• Treasures troves of • Indulgent
knowledge • Short- sighted
• Accumulated wisdom
• Creativity
• Collective will
Serving Another Country’s Need Through Education

“It looks like the Philippines is

spending its money for the
training of manpower for the
more affluent countries… This,
then, is the essence of our
colonial education-the training of
one’s country to become another
country’s assets” (Hornedo 1997)
Alienation from the Community

Our educational system is

highly Westernized, it follows
that as one ascend the
academic ladder, the more
Westernized and alienated
from his cultural roots the
Filipino becomes.
Alienation from Our Sources of Cultural Energy: Thinking in Borrowed
Forms and the Economics of Dependency

Our educational system

remains colonial rather than
culturally appropriate, causing a
great loss of cultural energy.
Our colonial experience seems
to have conditioned us to seek
rather than create work
opportunities, to adapt rather than
to innovate and to conform rather
than to lead
The Dona Victorina Syndrome

• Low self esteem bordering on

self-contempt
• Doubt in the Filipino capacity
for achievement
• Perverse delight among Filipinos
to constantly belittle themselves
• Serious lack of respect or
contempt for each other
Alienation from the Indigenous: Denigrating the
Local

Thus, in Philippine society until now, we put at the

top of the social ladder those who are most
westernized and at the bottom those who are the least.
Manileno at the top, followed by the provincial city
dweller, then the poblaciones or town – dweller, next
comes the taga-baryo or taga-bukid and lastly comes
the taga-bundok.
Alienation from the Land

The consequence of glorifying an

alien lifestyle is to make us dream that
are irrelevant to our real needs and
existing social and material conditions.
The average age of a Filipino farmer
is 57. With ageing farmers and
uninterested youth, how will the future
of our agricultural sector look like?
Alienation from Being Filipino

The loss of the Filipino sense

of dignity and self-worth began
with the advent of Spanish rule.
But the alienation of the Filipino
from his roots was most
systematically carried out during
the American period through
public education.
Alienation from Sustainable Living

American thoughts,
values and practices were
introduced as models for the
desirable, the modern, and
civilized. In contrast, the
pleasantness of traditional
Philippine life was made to
appear as a liability.
The Curse of Smallness

• Filipinos have a curious habit of thinking

that anything good and beautiful must be
foreign, to the extent that our genuine
achievement as a people are overlooked and
belittled as copies, imitations, or derivations
from foreign ideas.
Celebration of Defeat

Another Social quirk of

the Filipinos is their
tendency, according to
anthropologist Dr. F.
Landa Jocano, to
neurotically wallow in
their defeats.
Some Recommendations for Developing a Filipino and Humanistic
Perspective

• Heighten social consciousness and sense of responsibility to the

nation

• Promote people participation, local genius and cultural diversity

• The arts cannot be isolated from other social and cultural

phenomena, and are the most lucid mirrors of social
consciousness
Epilogue: Becoming Filipino through the Arts

The arts can provide us the most vivid images of

social relations and cultural values. Contemplating the
arts is like reflecting on the psychic template of an artist
or a cultural community.
An interesting manifestation of this is way the arts
somehow reveal the core values of cultural communities
like the Ilocano and the Visayan.
The Communal Character of Philippine Traditional
Cultures as Reflected in the Arts Attributes of
Integral art

The traditional arts most sensitively reflect this

communal orientation. Being the most lucid and
expressive symbols of a culture’s values, the arts are the
most powerful instruments of inquiry into the essential
character of a culture. It is undeniable that the following
basic concepts and attributes of art and the conditions of
artistic creation, expression, and experience could only
have arisen in communal or integral Filipino cultural
settings:
1. Integration of the arts with other values and
functions
• The arts are not valued for their own sakes.

2. Unity of the Arts

• No one sensory mode and aesthetic intelligence is to be cultivated at the
expense of the others.

3. Art is integrated with everyday life and not regarded

as a separate activity.
• It is not for the specialist alone but for everyone

4. Equality of opportunity for participation in the artistic and

creative process
• There are relatively no superstars, for the source of power is not the
individual, who is only a channel of divine inspiration or creativity
5. Flexibility of material, technical, and formal requirements
• No rigid or fixed standards dictate the choice materials,
techniques, and forms for artistic creation and expression.

6. Use of available resources for artistic creation

• Art is not synonymous with big production costs because what
matters is artistic excellence or the creative idea as well as
making art part of everyday life.
7. Emphasis on the creative process rather than the finished
product.
• This valuing of process rather than product nurtures creative
health and can inhibit mere idolizing of masterpieces and
obsession with permanence
8. Simultaneity of conception and realization
• Affirmation of the creative imagination through the tradition of
instant mirroring or biofeedback.
The decline of integral art in urban settings
Promoting the Local but Thinking National or Global: Human Communities,
not the State, are the Ultimate Actors in the Development Process
All Cultures Have Potential Importance in
Human Life