Understanding Filipino Psychology: a Thought Paper

Understanding Filipino
A Thought Paper

What is Filipino Psychology? According to Enriquez, Filipino Psychology is anchored on Filipino thought and experience as understood from a Filipino perspective. As I understood through our readings, Filipino Psychology for me is the behavior, thoughts, experiences and nature of the Filipino people from their own perspective. I have discovered that methods in defining and measuring Filipino psychology have been derived from Western methods and others maybe because of our shared history with the different cultures that have been brought to us during our country’s colonization. Thus, we do not have our very own distinct culture, different from others.

Culture. For me, it refers to the practices and traditions that have been handed down from generation to generation. Cultural values that are very Filipino in nature such as “ Bahala Na ”, “ Utang na Loob ”, “ Hiya ”, “ Palusot “ and “ Pakikipagkapwa ” are very known to all of us and might be even practiced by some of us. The concept of “ Bahala Na ” or the attitude of resigning and withdrawing from an engagement or crisis or a shirking from a personal responsibility, and “ Palusot ” or making excuses and loopholes from doing a certain responsibility assigned and designated for you are some of the examples of the negative cultural values of the Filipinos. However, the concept of “Utang Na Loob ” may be either positive or negative.

Since we all know that culture is dynamic and it changes from time to time, we are now in the age of global technology where typewriters were overshadowed by computers and laptops, where snail mail evolved to electronic mails and cellular phones are very much in demand and is now considered a NEED. Filipino culture is no exception. Filipino culture have indeed have changed through time. The Philippines is now the text capital of the world because we are the country that sends the most number of text messages per day. Gadgets have been considered a necessity and not anymore a luxury that only the well-off could buy. Even those who barely manage to eat three meals a day have mp3 players and i-pods and cellular phones with cameras.

The Philippines have not changed. Our country is still located in Asia. Our country still has 7,107 islands, 3 main islands Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. But, the Filipinos have indeed changed. Our culture and traditions are slowly being forgotten by us. Globalization and technology advancements have started to cloud our minds into preserving our traditions, “ ang sariling atin ” as we say it.