The Filipino Character: Strengths and Weaknesses

In 1998 Senator Leticia Shahani submitted to the Senate this art titled "A Moral
Recovery Program: Building a People, Building a Nation". This report cites the strengths
and weaknesses of the Filipino character. The strengths of the Filipino character are: 1)
pakikipagkapwa-tao, 2) Family orientation, 3) joy and humor, 4) flexibility, adaptability
and creativity, 5) hard work and industry. 61 faith and religiosity and 7) ability to survive.

The Filipino character also has weaknesses: 1) extreme family centeredness, 2)

extreme personalism, 3) lack of discipline, 4) passivity and lack of initiative, 5) colonial
mentality, 6) kanya-kanya syndrome, talangka mentality, 7) lack of self-analysis and
self-reflection, and 8) emphasis on porma rather than substance.

There is so much good in the Filipino but so much needs to be changed, too.
Many of our strengths as a people are also sources of our weaknesses. Shahani's report
( 1988) explains that family orientation becomes in-group orientation that prevents us
from reaching out beyond the family to the larger community and the nation. In our
personalism, we are warm and caring but this leads us to lack of objectivity. We are
concerned with people we know but unfair to people we don't know. In our flexibility, we
compromise precision and discipline. We are a joyful people with a sense of humor but
we can't take things with humor all the time for serious problems need serious analysis.
Our faith in God is our source of strength but this makes us dependent on forces outside
us, do nothing that makes us submissive to God's will. We are good at pakikipagkapwa-
tao and so we can easily empathize but we can at the same time be envious of others. We
can be hardworking and yet can be lazy and passive in the workplace.

Value Education in Schools

Senator Shahani's Report was given in 1988. But its findings as reported may still
be true today. The Department of Education has as its vision to help develop... "Filipinos
who passionately love their country and whose values and competencies enable them to
realize their full potential and contribute meaningfully to building the nation." It has as its
core values - maka-Diyos, maka- tao, makakalikasan and makabansa. This can be an
uphill battle for Philippine schools to realize these considering the: 1) extreme family
centeredness, 2) extreme personalism, 3) lack of discipline, 4) passivity and lack of
initiative, 5) colonial mentality, 6) kanya-kanya syndrome, talangka , and 8) emphasis in
Senator Shahani's Reflection and values education in the curriculum. In Report, Values
Education nou12 Curriculum, was into education curriculum under program of Dr.
Lourdes Quisumbing, talangka mentality, 7) lack of self-analysis and selfand 8) emphasis
on porma rather than substance.

So that it will not be "more form than substance" as described to Shahani's

Report, Philippine schools have to intensifation in the curriculum. In fact, in response to
this Values Education now Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao in K to 12curriculum, was
introduced as a separate subject in the basic on curriculum under the Values Education
Framework on of Dr. Lourdes Quisumbing, then Department of Education. Culture, and
Sports Secretary in 1988-1990. The Values Dramework was conceptualized in 1987. In
2002, the Basic Education Curriculum (Grade 1-6, and First-Fourth Year High School)
integrated values in the major learnin areas or subiects. inning with the K to 12
Curriculum in 2013, Values Education was renamed Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao (ESP)
for Grades 1-10. In the Senior High Curriculum (Grades 11-12), there is no course with
the title, Values Education or Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao but more courses such as
Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person and Personal Development, are in
essence, Values Education subjects themselves.