APPENDIX A

*Adapted from Filipino Philosophy: A Western Tradition in an Eastern Setting by

Rolando M. Gripaldo, Ph. D.
Introduction
In the traditional approach, our first philosophers were Enlightenment thinkers in that they
were influenced by the European Enlightenment. The Enlightenment movement of the
18th century in Central Europe traveled to Spain in the first half of the 19th century and
reached the Philippines in the second half of that century. Jose Rizal, who bought all the
works of Voltaire, was an Enlightenment thinker. He subscribed to the ideas of the
Enlightenment: the dominance of reason with its capacity to emancipate mankind from its
woes; the primacy of education as a tool for enlightenment; the inevitability of progress
brought about by science and technology; the deistic belief that God created the universe
with the laws of nature and left it perfectly working by itself, never to interfere with it again;
the confidence that man can solve all his problems because these are humanly, not
divinely, created; and the like. Emilio Jacinto was influenced by the Enlightenment idea
of intellectual liberty as primary in a situation where volitional liberty is suppressed and
debased while Andres Bonifacio, by the Enlightenment idea of the social contract and
developed his own version. He converted the blood compact into a kinship contract
between the Spaniards and the native Filipinos. He advocated the view that a revolution
is justified when there is a breach of contract.
Second, it is a fact that we have Filipino philosophers. However, there are only a few of
them. Right now, many Filipinos are just teachers of philosophy or scholars of philosophy.
They have not yet graduated to become a genuine philosopher. They master a
philosopher—say, Immanuel Kant, St. Thomas Aquinas, Friedrich Nietzsche, or Plato—
or they specialize in a branch of philosophy—say, ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of
religion, or metaphysics. They try to learn a little of the other branches of philosophy in
order to be able to relate those ideas with the ideas in their respective specializations. In
other cases, they simply do not read some schools or traditions of philosophy, which they
consider either as not genuine philosophy or are so technical for their understanding to
fathom as in the philosophy of mathematics. But hardly if ever do they reflect or
philosophize on their own. To master a philosopher’s philosophy or to master a field of
specialization within a discipline is good, but we need to grow either outside or within that
philosopher or that specialization. One ought not to be a Kantian forever, if by Kantian we
mean we simply mouth Kant’s ideas in our lectures and writings, that is to say, we do not
innovate. We simply imitate Kant—we mimic his ideas and even probably also his
mannerisms. We can quote or paraphrase from his three Critiques cover to cover, know
the ins and outs of his life, and so on. We become an intellectual through him. Many of
us are like this Kantian. We become Nietzschean or Heideggerian or Rortyan through
and through. We forget about our own independence of mind. We forget that we can
innovate or tread a new path. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1841) teaches that one should be
an independent intellectual because to imitate is suicide. If all one’s life is just to become
a Kantian, or to mimic Kant, then in effect he or she is an intellectual suicide. Bertrand
Russell and G. E. Moore were young Hegelians (White 1955, 13, 17) but eventually they
rejected Hegel and formulated their own individual philosophies. Plotinus studied Plato
but he did not end up just becoming a Platonist; he made a novel approach to Plato and
become a neo-Platonist. It is said that Plato’s immediate successor in the Academy was
a Platonist11 but, unlike Aristotle, he was easily forgotten or taken for granted in history.
In contemporary times, we can cite Alfred North Whitehead, who became a neo-
Heraclitean by affirming the reality of the Heraclitean flux while employing the results of
modern physics, and Claro R. Ceniza, who became a neo Parmenidean when he tried to
reconcile the views of Parmenides on the One and Heraclitus on the Many
Pythagoras—and many of the ancient Greeks—restudied the question that Thales earlier
raised—”What is the universe made of?” or “What is the ultimate reality?”—and
independently offered a solution. In short, we have at least three ways to become a
genuine philosopher: (1) we can innovate (from Kantian to neo-Kantian), (2) we can reject
an old philosophical thought and create a new path to philosophizing, and (3) we can
review old philosophical questions and offer a new insight or philosophical reflection.
CONTENTS OF FILIPINO PHILOSOPHY
What does it mean to relate philosophy to the Philippine setting? What does the theme—
“Doing Philosophy in the Philippine Context”— signify?
There is no denying that the Filipino has a cultural setting, and philosophy (TA) in this
regard can contextually arise from culture. There is a symbiotic relationship between
culture and philosophy. Culture influences philosophy as philosophy transforms culture.
Perhaps, we can say the same with science and culture and speak about the scientific
culture. In the Philippines, we lagged behind many countries, particularly South Korea
which was behind us in the 1960s, in developing a vibrant scientific and philosophical
culture. We establish the Philosophical Association of the Philippines in 1973, far way
ahead of South Korea, but South Korea has overtaken us by becoming a member of the
International Federation of Philosophical Societies and held the 22nd World Congress of
Philosophy in Seoul in August 2008. Where did the Filipinos fail?
Generally, the Filipinos are a happy people. This is said to be an admirable trait, but it
can also be deleterious to the idea of progress or improvement. In a manner of speaking,
“Mababaw ang kaligayahan ng pinoy” (“Filipino happiness is shallow”). He is generally
easily contented to be able to eat three times a day because in the world there are many
people who can hardly eat, or had eaten only once or twice a day.
The drive for excellence and professional growth is generally lacking among many Filipino
professionals and academics. Once they become permanent and have sufficient financial
security of employment, they tend to become lax and content with their situation. For
many of them, the drive for excellence tapers and their careers plateau. Many of those
with Master’s degrees seem not to have the zest anymore of finishing their Ph.D.s. They
attend to many activities other than excellence in their respective professional careers. In
philosophy, one can either be an excellent scholar or an excellent philosopher. Although
one can be both, it is best not to stop at just being a scholar, but to become a philosopher
himself or herself.
If we go beyond being simply a scholar and aspire to become a philosopher worthy to be
acknowledged as such in the world, then we need to recognize that we are first and
foremost a Filipino whose nationality is defined in the Philippine Constitution and who has
lived in a native cultural setting for a long time. A philosophy is defined by the nationality
of the philosopher regardless of the subject matter wherein he or she does his or her
philosophizing. The important thing in philosophizing is not simply tangential philosophical
reflections but substantial philosophical innovativeness that could have ramifications in
the philosophical world.
Western Philosophical Orientation of Filipino Philosophy
We need also to recognize that any cultural setting is rooted in history. Culture over time
is history. If we look back in our history, it is not difficult to see the beginnings of our
philosophical development as a part of our cultural heritage. Its ferment occurred during
the Propaganda Movement of the later part of the 19th century. This was the period of
Filipino awakening, philosophically speaking. And that Movement was heavily influenced
by the 18th-century European Enlightenment. So necessarily, our philosophical
beginnings and our developmental trajectory are influenced by a Western orientation. If
we examine what is going on in philosophy in the Philippines today, it is basically Western
in outlook with some occasional pockets of what is known as the Oriental outlook. Most,
if not all, of the traditional and contemporary issues in Western philosophy are the issues
and contents of Filipino philosophical writings. However, most of these writings are not
innovative but basically expository with some reflections in them. What we need are
philosophical innovations that are distinctively the product of profound philosophical
minds, something that will separate one’s thoughts from the thoughts of others before him
or her. And I think this is one of the great challenges of a would-be Filipino philosopher.
Philosophical Extractions from Filipino Culture
A cultural rethinking of Filipino philosophy is important, but it should be a philosophical
reflection of our existing culture as a whole or of our individual cultural traits. Except
probably one or two traits, many Filipino cultural traits are ambivalent: they can be used
for good or for bad. At least two initial works on this trend of analysis can be mentioned.
One was edited by Manuel Dy (1994) and the other edited by me (2005). Both were
published in America by the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. What is
objectionable is when a philosophy researcher simply studies Filipino works in literature,
songs, and the like, and then extract philosophical ideas or themes therein, and then
declare that that is “Filipino philosophy.” Although this activity of philosophical extraction
from culture is in itself significant, it is essentially a social scientific activity, as done by
anthropologists, sociologists, social psychologists, and the like. William Graham Sumner,
an American sociologist, does this activity in his Folkways (1906, 1960). Filipino writers
like Leonardo Mercado (1974, 1994), Florentino Timbreza (1982), Virgilio Enriquez
(1988), and F. Landa Jocano (1997), among others, do this in their works.12 What is
objectionable is the argument to the effect, “This is the way things are. This is the way
Filipinos do behave. Therefore, this is the way Filipinos ought to behave, culturally
speaking.” Sumner (1906; 1960, 45, 49) rejects philosophy in that it is counterfactual as
if we philosophers cannot make innovations of the existing culture. Ethics, for example,
is the study of what ought to be. Philosophers propose it as an alternative to the what is,
that is, to the existing morality (the existing mores). Philosophers believe it is a better
alternative. Headhunters should cut heads during the hunting season. This is the mores.
Philosophers say it is bad and ought to be abandoned.14 Pakikisama, for example, is
good in some situations, but it is bad in other situations when one is forced to go with the
group’s unpleasant objectives at the expense of some noble objectives. And we have a
number of cases where pakikisama is used for bad purposes and should be abandoned
in those cases. This is the type of philosophical analysis that is philosophically productive,
not the type of Sumnerian descriptive analysis that is, of course, scientifically productive.
But we need to graduate from this kind of piecemeal analysis. It is important to have a
holistic philosophy of culture similar to the one done by Jean Ladriere (1994), a French
philosopher, and Richard Taylor (2000), a Canadian philosopher. Ladriere discusses the
symbiotic relationship between culture and philosophy while Taylor holds that culture is
the ground of human existence.
Filipino Philosophy and the World
We have to situate Filipino philosophy in world history. Outside the Philippines, we are
known as a “nation of nannies”15 or a nation of “hewers of wood [and] drawers of water.”
Partly because these are the highly visible commodities we find in Western Asia (Middle
East), Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. Our domestic helpers, caregivers, entertainers,
drivers, and labor workers are usually featured in world news. Partly because very little is
known about our sailors, engineers, nurses, doctors, teachers, computer scientists, and
the like. There are 4.5 million Filipinos in the United States alone (“Overseas Filipinos”)
and, according to a CNN report, the second richest ethnic group in America, after the
Indians, are the Filipinos.17 When it comes to Filipino philosophy scholars and
philosophers making a dint in world philosophy circles, it is virtually zero. Every now and
then this Filipino minority group read papers in world philosophy conferences. But many
of their counterparts in Asia, like the South Koreans, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the
Indians were there in droves reading different papers. Filipino scholars and philosophers
are talented. We can face the philosophy world with confidence and with a high standard
of scholarship or philosophizing. We need world exposure, and we need to help each
other fulfill this exposure. Instead of competing among ourselves locally and trying to
outsmart each other, or trying to brag which department of philosophy or which
philosophical association is the best, and in the process pull each other down, we need
to cooperate and pull each other up. Filipinos are worthy of world respect and that we
have world class philosophy scholars and philosophers is in our hands.
 APPENDIX B
*Adapted from Filipino Philosophy: A Western Tradition in an Eastern Setting by
Rolando M. Gripaldo, Ph. D.

Introduction

Filipino historical experience gives birth to Filipino philosophy. Colonially governed by

Spain for over three centuries, by the United States for half a century, and by Japan for
about half a decade, the Filipinos towards the last decade of the nineteenth century began
to absorb the Enlightenment ideas that came from Europe. These ideas helped trigger
the 1896 Philippine Revolution against Spain.
The opening of the Suez Canal reduced travel from Europe to the Philippines from about
six months to only a little over one month, or to be exact, to only thirty-three days. Spanish
Enlightenment moved slowly in Spain, but in the first half of the nineteenth century,
Krausism spread. Krause was a minor Kantian who wanted Spain to be progressive. In
the second half of the nineteenth century, a number of Filipinos went to Spain to study.
One of them, Jose Rizal, had a political agenda to unite the Filipino expatriates in Spain
and seek reforms for the native country. While studying medicine in Madrid, Rizal read a
lot and was familiar with the ideas of Voltaire and other Enlightenment thinkers.
Meanwhile, the Filipino intellectuals who remained in the Philippines read about the
Philippine situation particularly through the works of Rizal— his two novels—Noli me
tangere and El filibusterismo—that depicted the sad state of the Philippines, his political
essays, and his annotations of Antonio Morga’s history of the Philippines. They also read
about the Spanish Revolution; the French Revolution and its ideals of liberty, equality,
and fraternity; and the lives of the American presidents, among others.
The seventeenth century is traditionally described as the Age of Reason, the nineteenth
century as the Age of Ideology while the eighteenth century as the Age of Enlightenment.
The Age of Enlightenment (Berlin 1956) included such thinkers as John Locke, Voltaire,
George Berkeley, David Hume, Thomas Reid, Condillac, La Mettrie, Johann Hamann,
and Georg Lichtenberg. The Age of Enlightenment stresses the dominance of reason;
contractual agreements; inevitability of progress; deistic, humanistic, or mechanistic
religious persuasions; reliance on human effort to solve human problems; human rights;
education as an instrument to progress; and the like. It was also the period of scientific
pursuits and progress (the age of Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton), and the period of
economic theorizing (the age of Adam Smith, the Physiocrats, and Malthus).
The early Filipino thinkers—the reformists (like Jose Rizal) and the revolutionists (like
Bonifacio and Jacinto)—were Enlightenment thinkers.
Jose Rizal: Reformist
The alternative to a failed struggle for reforms in Spain, according to Rizal, is to work on
the consciousness of the people in the native land itself.
He wrote Marcelo H. del Pilar, the editor of the Filipino mouthpiece in Spain, La
solidaridad, that he knew now the solution to the ills of the country: it is through
intelligence, through reason, that the Filipino people should work with. Their
consciousness should be freed from fanaticism, docility, inferiority, and hopelessness.
Since nothing can be gained from formal education, which the Spanish friars controlled,
Rizal thought that an informal organization, La Liga Filipina, should do the job of
enlightening the minds of the people. Its goals were to unite the entire archipelago,
develop agriculture and commerce, mutual protection in times of danger and need,
defense against violence and injustice, and development of genuine education.
Rizal believed in the human capability to solve human problems. Human potentialities can
be realized to the full except that in certain instances, there are hindrances. The greatest
hindrance in the Philippine situation was Spanish colonization. It is important to work
within such a colonial situation in what is now known in contemporary political thought as
the development of a civil society. A civil society (McLean 2001) lies between the family
and the state, and it attempts to fulfill needs of a community with or without the help of the
state through solidarity (unity in purpose) and subsidiarity (cooperation to accomplish
basic community goals). Religiously, Rizal believed in agnostic deism (see Gripaldo
2009a,33-56), the view that God created the universe with its laws, never to interfere with
it again. We know God, according to Rizal, both through nature (the hard deism of
Voltaire) and our conscience (the soft deism of Rousseau), but we do not know exactly
what his attributes are. Human problems are irrational human creations and can be solved
though rational solutions. If reason commits mistakes, only reason can correct them.
A revolution to succeed must have military leaders, sufficient funding, sufficient arms and
ammunition, sufficient numbers, and a proper political orientation. Otherwise, it will only
be a massacre and innocent lives, women, and children will perish in the struggle. Rizal
prefers first the people’s experience in human basic freedoms or in basic democratic
rights before the grant of independence. A nation can be independent without being free
or free without being independent. He once said: “What is the use of independence if the
slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?” He was well aware of some independent
states of Latin America, which remained despotic despite having gained independence
from their colonizers through bloody means.
Falsely accused of fomenting the 1896 Philippine Revolution, Rizal was eventually
executed in Bagumbayan in December 1896. While in prison in Fort Santiago, he learned
about the successes of the revolution in nearby Cavite province. In a desperate situation
where the revolution he originally spurned was succeeding in certain parts of the nation,
Rizal could only hope for its success, and in his last poem, Mi ultimo adios, he appeared
to support it: “I see tints in the sky begin to show / And at last announce the day” and
“Pray too [Fatherland] that you may see your own redemption.”
ANDRES BONIFACIO: Revolutionist

Bonifacio is the founder of the revolutionary society, Katipunan. When Spanish authorities
discovered it, it ably recruited some 30,000 members in a period of approximately six
months. Three days after the founding of La Liga Filipina, Rizal was banished to Dapitan
in Mindanao, the southern part of the Philippines. Bonifacio, a member of the Liga, thought
that was the end of the line and founded the Katipunan.
Bonifacio’s philosophy of revolution was published in the revolutionary newspaper,
Kalayaan (literally, “Freedom”). Agoncillo (1956,12) attributed the phenomenal increase
of Katipunan membership to the dissemination of the revolutionary ideas in Kalayaan as
the “power of the written word.”
Making use of the Enlightenment idea of a contract, Bonifacio (1963) transformed the
blood compact between the Spanish explorer, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, and Sikatuna,
the chieftain of the island of Bohol, in central Philippines, as a kinship contract. The blood
compact, Sanduguan, consisted in mixing in a vessel drops of blood taken from the wrists
of at least two individuals and drank by both of them. It signifies the union of the two as
blood brothers. It means a contractual agreement of helping each other in their needs and
development.
While the social contract to set up a government by the people is based on societal needs
to provide them security in their lives and properties, the blood contract refers to kinship
ties and is more basic than the societal contract. A betrayal of the blood contract has
depth in significance in that it is a betrayal of a brother against another brother.
A revolution or war is justified, according to Bonifacio, when there is a breach of contract.
The natives of the Philippine archipelago were economically prosperous, free, and happy
prior to Spanish colonization. It was—in a relative sense—a paradise. While the natives
did their part of the contract—by building Spanish ships, manning them, fighting their
wars, and constructing their forts and churches—the Spaniards failed miserably on their
part of the contract. They transformed the natives into docile religious fanatics and
debased them—without human and political rights. They exploited the natives through
forced labor and through buying native products at low government prices. They paraded
their riches while the natives wallowed in abject poverty. Only few natives benefited from
the colonizers’ greed. For Bonifacio, such a breach of contract required a violent
upheaval. A revolution was justified to restore the lost paradise.
Emilio Jacinto: Revolutionist

Jacinto (Gripaldo 2002) capitalized on the Enlightenment idea of a free reign of reason,
of the freedom to think and do (i.e., intellectual liberty) rather than the freedom to will and
do (l.e., volitional liberty). He apparently believed that the issue on which comes first, the
freedom to think and do or the freedom to will and do, is highly situational. In a colonial
situation where both will and thinking are suppressed, where intellectual fanaticism is the
rule, where one’s will is conditioned to submit to tyranny, it is intellectual liberty that
becomes primary. The freedom to think and do is a rebellion against a tyrannized will. In
such a debased situation, there is no will to think freely, there is only a leap to exercise
the freedom to think (intellectual freedom). One should be able to think through his
situation clearly before he can will anything significant at all.
Prior to Spanish colonization, the natives were autonomous agents and in democratic
barangays or communities, they exercised this freedom to think. They also had the
freedom of expression to a certain degree. All these were gone when the Spaniards ruled
over the natives. Jacinto was committed to the ideals of the French Revolution: liberty,
equality, and fraternity. In his philosophy of revolution, which was published in Kalayaan,
Jacinto (1897) had Liberty telling the Filipino youth who consulted her that the medical
cure of the ills of his brethren is to embrace her again with a price, a bloody revolution.
They must get rid of Slavery (Spanish colonization) who came to them with the mask of
friendship, prosperity, civilization, and the like. They embraced Slavery and forgot all
about her, Liberty.
 APPENDIX C
*Adapted from Filipino Philosophy: A Western Tradition in an Eastern Setting by
Rolando M. Gripaldo, Ph. D.

Introduction

The explosion and sinking of the American warship, Maine, in a harbor of another Spanish
colony, Cuba, provided the reason for the United States to intervene in the revolutionary
situation of the Philippines. What began as an American friendly intervention in the
Philippine revolution against Spain turned into the suspicion by Filipino leaders that
America, under the Republicans, had no intention of leaving the country. A
misunderstanding of a military command to halt by an American sentry led to the shooting
of three Filipino revolutionists, and the incident became the American excuse for waging
a war against the Filipinos. As expected in this Philippine-American War, after leaving
behind several thousand American soldiers and Filipinos dead or wounded, the Filipino
military eventually succumbed to American superior military might.
Manuel Luis Quezon: Political Philosopher

Quezon fought against the Americans in the Philippine-American War. But the surrender
of Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo to the Americans signified, for Quezon, the end
of the military struggle for independence. The fight for freedom, Quezon believed, should
now shift through peaceful means in the U.S. Congress. By defeating the Federalista
Party whose platform was to make the Philippines a state of the United States, the
Nacionalista Party whose platform was “immediate, complete, and absolute
independence,” sent Quezon to the U.S. Congress to fight for independence. The United
States, in the Cooper Law of 1902, allowed two Filipino resident commissioners to
represent Philippine interests in the U.S. Congress. They could discuss and debate on
Philippine issues in the Lower House and they could influence the Upper House (the U.S.
Senate), although they could not vote.
Quezon’s political philosophy consists of two strands: political pragmatism and political
preparation for an eventual Philippine independence. Political pragmatism is the principle,
which says that one must fight for a goal, but if obstacles towards that goal are difficult to
surmount, then one must fall back to an alternative that is better than nothing provided it
is in the right direction. Quezon realized it was difficult to obtain from Congress an
immediate and complete independence because Democratic President Woodrow Wilson,
whom Quezon thought would be different from
Republican presidents, would not allow it. So he persuaded Congressman William Jones
to author a bill, which would promise Philippine independence as soon as a stable
government in the Philippines could be obtained. Erving Winslow, the secretary of the
American Anti-Imperialist League, persuaded Senator James Clarke to author an
amendment in the Jones bill that would make the Philippines independent in four years.
Quezon supported and fought for its passage, but the Clarke amendment was defeated
in the Senate by one vote. The Jones Bill of 1916 eventually became a law.
Unfortunately, the president of the Nacionalista Party, Sergio Osmeña, mishandled his
influence in running the government (which Democratic Governor General Francis B.
Harrison rapidly Filipinized) by political patronage and corruption. By the end of President
Wilson’s second term, the Philippine government was in near-bankruptcy and the stable
government was nowhere in sight. The Republican administration that succeeded
President Wilson nixed the independence issue. This incident led to the split between
Osmeña and Quezon whom the latter won. As head now of the Party and the Philippine
Congress, Quezon began the second strand of his political philosophy: the preparation
for an eventual Philippine independence.
A new round of peaceful struggle for independence in the U.S. Congress led to the
passage of the Hare-Hawes Cutting Act creating the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935
and making the Philippines independent in 1945, but the Philippine Congress rejected it.
Quezon wanted the military provision therein that leaves to the U.S. President the
decision to retain or not the U.S. military bases and installations in the Philippines revised.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt later acceded and this led to the passage of the
TydingsMcDuffie Act. The Philippines would decide after independence whether to retain
or not the American bases in the country.
Elected as the Commonwealth president in 1935, Quezon now buttressed his political
ideas with some educational and social thought. He believed in Social Darwinism—that
governments are products of political struggles for survival. He viewed political parties as
necessary only when they have competing platforms of government because the
partisanship is clear-cut. But he opposed political parties whose programs of government
are not different from the party in power but whose existence is premised simply in
criticizing the government in order to grab power. If political parties have no distinctive
political programs, then a partyless democracy may be necessary.
He supported the American democratization of education for all social classes by
constructing more classrooms and hiring more teachers, and by guaranteeing free public
education from the elementary to high school. He believed in the development of a
national language that would be spoken by all. He also believed that the aims of education
must be good citizenship and preparation for livelihood; that the foremost duty of the
citizen in times of peace is to pay his taxes and in times of war, to fight for the survival of
the nation. He envisioned a government with distributive justice, which means that the
bourgeois desire for wealth must be tempered by the social amelioration of the working
class through government intervention in terms of legal measures and economic
regulations whenever necessary. He honestly sought a code of ethics to strengthen the
character not only of citizens but also of government employees.
He believed in justice for all, a social justice that would allow the working class to receive
decent compensation to enjoy culture and leisure. His social justice program included
higher wages, credit facilities that would allow the Filipinos the opportunity to earn a
decent livelihood, and the protection of the rights of women and the poor, among others.
He believed that inequity of the distribution of wealth among nations should be corrected
so that every nation was permitted to have equal access to essential raw materials, which
certain countries had monopolized, and world trade— controlled by few nations—would
be allowed to take its natural course.
Knowing that such a new world economic order was not yet forthcoming, he advised the
youth to prepare for national defense.
A national defense for the Philippines during the Commonwealth Period would assume a
defensive nature under the umbrella of the military might of the United States, which would
assume the offensive stature. Quezon thought that a country would invade another
country only for economic gain so he envisioned to train some twelve divisions of soldiers,
which would make it so costly for an invader to undertake in terms of human and material
resources. At the time, Quezon developed a defensive air force and also a skeletal
defensive navy. He believed that even after independence in 1946 the defensive nature
of the Philippine military must be maintained and strengthened. A military treaty with the
United States could be obtained to guarantee the external security of the country.
Jose P. Laurel: Political Philosopher

Individuals, according to Laurel, cannot forever remain in solitude. No man can be an

island unto himself. What throws individuals into a social cohesion is this psychological
“fear of solitude.” Although a person is gregarious and cannot live without others, he or
she realizes it is not likewise easy to live with each other. They have personal differences
(in terms of temperaments, ideas, and ideals) and social idiosyncrasies. There is this
constant personal attraction and a tolerant social repulsion, a love-hate relationship. I love
my neighbor but I also hate my neighbor.
What goes among individuals goes likewise among nations. Japan wanted isolationism,
but military and economic survival required that it should circulate itself among other
nations. Its massive industrialization necessitated a constant supply of raw materials and
greater trade within a larger area. A Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (Gordon
2000) was needed. To ensure such a success, a costly military adventurism far exceeded
the expectations of the British, French, and American colonial masters of Asia, and even
the gain-loss equation of Quezon. It may be costly to invade the Philippines, but the
economic gain far outweighs the cost in terms of the long-term East Asia Co-Prosperity
scheme. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the die was cast.
Quezon decided that Laurel should stay in the Philippines to help Jorge Vargas, the mayor
of Manila, welcome the Japanese, who entered the
Philippines through Northern Luzon in Aparri and Vigan, and Southern Luzon in Legaspi,
by making Manila an open city. Quezon himself would head the Commonwealth-
government-in-exile in the United States. Laurel as a lawyer earlier helped Japanese
businessmen open up agricultural lands in Mindanao. He also received an honorary
doctorate degree from the University of Tokyo.
These Japanese connections enabled the Japanese to gain confidence in Laurel who
later became the President of the Japanese-sponsored Philippine Republic. After the war,
Laurel while in Sugamo prison in Japan wrote his memoirs and some of his moral and
political ideas.
Laurel believed that the love-hate relationship necessitates some rules of ethical behavior
for individuals in the form of laws, customs, and traditions, and for nations, in the form of
treaties and executive agreements. The law differentiates between what is legally good
or evil and between what is legally just or unjust. The people’s support of their government
would ideally entail their protection from injustice. Abolish laws and everything would fall
into confusion.
The law is the boundary between the government prerogative and the people’s liberty. If
the government prerogative prevails over the people’s liberty, then tyranny reigns while if
the people’s liberty prevails over the government prerogative, then anarchy emerges. The
required balance between liberty and authority should be achieved through the education
and discipline of the citizenry, including those who are running the government.
Democracy means the representative type of republicanism where the people are
considered sovereign. The people do not directly govern but delegate their power through
their representatives. The state exists for the individual and the functions of government
are to provide the people with livelihood and health, social justice, free education up to a
certain level, and economic opportunity.
Human rights cannot be guaranteed unless the citizens first do their obligations towards
the state by honestly paying their taxes, obeying the laws and regulations, sincerely
performing the duties of professionals and public servants, and not tolerating the
infringement of laws by others. Laurel believed that good governance is founded on
righteousness and foreign relations must be based on full reciprocal rights and privileges
between and among nations.
Laurel’s main function as president of the Japanese-sponsored republic was to cushion
the impact of hunger and Japanese atrocities on the Filipino people. He provided rolling
kitchens to feed the people, and surreptitiously supported the guerilla struggles against
the Japanese forces. When the Japanese Imperial Army told him to conscript Filipinos to
fight the war against the Americans, Laurel politely refused. Agoncillo (1965, 378) cites
an elderly man who said that Laurel did his job well as president of the republic. Not
everyone should be in the mountains to fight as a guerilla. Someone should stay in
government to minimize the hardships experienced by the people during the war.
 APPENDIX D
References:
1. Filipino Philosophy: A Western Tradition in an Eastern Setting by Rolando M.
Gripaldo, Ph. D. (2014)
2. http://nhcp.gov.ph/filipino-first-claro-m-recto-champion-of-filipino-nationalism/
https://josemariasison.org/jose-maria-sison-filipino-patriot-and-revolutionary/
Introduction
A number of Filipino thinkers after independence in 1946 believed that the Philippines
had remained a colony—a neocolony—of the United States. We have Claro M. Recto,
Jose Ma. Sison, Lorenzo Tañada, and Renato Constantino, among others. They called
for an independent economic and foreign policy.
Claro M. Recto: Filipino Nationalist

“So long as our economic policies remain dependent primarily on foreign “aid” and
investments, and our policy-makers remain habitual yes-men of foreign advisors, this
“aid,” investment and advice, will be directed toward the retention of the economic
status quo.”

– Claro M. Recto (1890-1960)

This message was delivered by Recto on the eve of the election of 1957 when he ran
as the presidential candidate of the Lapiang Makabansa (Nationalist-Citizens Party).

His writings and speeches spoke of Recto as a nationalist thinker and leader. This
very speech inflicted so much anger among the Americans and his fellow Filipinos to
whom he coined the term “yes-men” for allowing foreign interference in our political and
economic affairs. Recto simply aimed for the Filipinos and their leaders to make sure that
Philippines’ national interests were not sacrificed and give way to the American dream of
how the world should be run. The Americans, consequently, accused him of being anti-
Americans and worst, an atheist.

Claro M. Recto was born in Tiaong, Quezon province on February 8, 1890 to Don
Claro Recto, Sr. of Rosario, Batangas and Doña Micaela Mayo of Lipa. In 1905, he went
to Manila to study at the Ateneo de Manila University where he obtained the most
outstanding scholastic grades. He graduated in 1909 with a Bachelor of Arts, maxima
cum laude.

In 1913, he graduated law from the University of Santo Tomas and took the bar
examinations the same year. He obtained his Masters of Laws also in UST. He entered
the government service in 1913, when he was appointed secretary to Vincente Ilustre of
the Philippine Commission. He ran as representative of the third district of Batangas
under the party Democrata. He became minority floor leader and was reelected in 1922
and 1925.

Recto was selected president to draft the Philippine Constitution and personally
presented the Commonwealth Constitution to President Roosevelt for his approval and
signature. He also served the country as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (1935-
1936). In 1941 he ran for the Senate and garnered the highest number of votes among
the 24 elected senators. He was appointed Commissioner of Education, Health and
Public Welfare (1942-43) and later, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (1943-44) in the
Laurel War Cabinet. He was charged with treason for collaboration with the Japanese.
He pleaded not guilty and proved that he had connections with the underground
movement. In the course of the preparation of his defense, he published two books, Three
Years of Enemy Occupation and The Law of Belligerent Occupation. Claro M. Recto did
not take advantage of the amnesty issued by Pres. Manuel Roxas to collaborators and
instead worked for and got an acquittal from the People’ Court. He was elected senator
and in 1955, ran as Liberal Party “guest candidate” for senator and won the sixth slot. He
bid for presidency in 1957 but lost to Ramon Magsaysay.

On August 24, 1960, he was appointed Cultural Envoy with the rank of an
Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary on a cultural mission to Europe
and Latin America. But while on this mission he suffered a fatal heart attack in Rome,
Italy on October 2, 1960. He died at San Camillo de Lellis Hospital, his wife by his side to
whom he uttered his last words: “It is terrible to die in a foreign country”. Paradoxically,
Recto died in a foreign land and he’s great love for his motherland remained in his heart
up to his last breath.

The Philippines will never have a man as noble as Claro M. Recto again who has
dignity and sensitivity for his fellowmen. His legacy and contributions to the country will
remain to date as long as the country suffers the stiff of imperialism and our government
being run by dishonest officials who perpetuate the deprivation of public services from the
Filipino people.

As Renato Constantino puts it “ Recto’s relevance to the present lies not so much
in the continuing validity of his nationalist premises as in his contribution to the forward
march of history..his courageous attempt to break away from the colonial condition was
itself a great single effort which contributed to today’s relative enlightenment”.

Jose Ma. Sison

He is a Filipino writer and activist who founded the Communist Party of the Philippines
and added elements of Maoism to its philosophy.
Since August 2002, he has been classified as a "person supporting terrorism" by the
United States. The European Union's second highest court ruled to delist him as a "person
supporting terrorism" and reversed a decision by member governments to freeze assets.
Sison was born on 8 February 1939 in the town of Cabugao, Ilocos Sur in the Philippines,
to a prominent landowning family with ancestry from Fujian and with connections to other
prominent clans such as the Crisologos, the Sollers, the Serranos, and the Singsons. His
uncle was Teófilo Sison, a prominent politician who was convicted in 1946 of having
collaborated with the Japanese occupation forces. During his childhood in Ilocos, he
talked to his barber about the Hukbalahap activity, and unlike his relatives, attended a
public school before entering Ateneo de Manila University and later studying at Colegio
de San Juan de Letran.
Sison graduated from the University of the Philippines in 1959 and then studied in
Indonesia before returning to the Philippines and becoming a university professor of
literature. He joined the Lavaite Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas and was one of the
founding members of both the Socialist Party and Movement for the Advancement of
Nationalism. In 1964, he co-founded the Kabataang Makabayan, or Patriotic Youth, with
Nilo S. Tayag. This organization organized youth against the Vietnam War, Ferdinand
Marcos, Imperialism, Bureaucrat Capitalism and Feudalism. The organization also
spearheaded the studying of Maoism as part of 'the struggle'.
On 26 December 1968, he formed and led the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of the Philippines (CPP), an organization founded on Marxism–Leninism-Mao Zedong
Thought, stemming from his experience as a youth leader and labor and land reform
activist. This is known as the First Great Rectification movement where Sison and other
radical youth criticized the existing Party leadership, that was run under the Moscow
leaning Lava and its failure. The reestablished CPP set its general political line as two-
stage revolution comprising national-democratic as the first stage then proceeding to the
socialist revolution. During this period, Sison went by the nom de guerre of Amado
Guerrero, meaning "beloved warrior", under which he published the manifesto Philippine
Society and Revolution.
After this, the old Communist Party sought to eliminate and marginalize Sison. However,
the reorganized CPP had a larger base and renewed political line that attracted thousands
to join its ranks. On March 29, 1969, the CPP, along with an HMB (Huk) faction led by
Bernabe Buscayno, organized the New People's Army (NPA), the guerrilla-military wing
of the Party, whose insurgencies around the Philippines, particularly in the northern part
of the country, persist to this day. The NPA seeks to wage a peasant-worker revolutionary
war in the countryside against landlords and foreign companies by hiding in mountains
as strategy for protection.
Sison was arrested during the Marcos presidency and was imprisoned for almost 9 years.
His experience was described in Prison & Beyond, a book of poetry released in 1986,
which won the Southeast Asia WRITE award for the Philippines.
The CPP has stated for 20 years that Sison is no longer involved in operational decisions
and serves from Europe in an advisory role. In 1986, after he was freed from prison, Sison
embarked on a world tour. In October he accepted the Southeast Asia WRITE award for
a book of his poems from the Crown Prince of Thailand in Bangkok. While visiting the
Netherlands three months later, he was informed that his passport had been revoked and
that charges had been filed against him under the Anti-Subversion Law of the Philippines.
Those charges were later dropped, as have subsequent charges filed by authorities in
the Philippines.
Sison met his wife, Julie de Lima, when both studied at UP Diliman. Attending the same
study groups, they grew closer and married in 1960. The couple had four children. Their
youngest daughter was born in 1981 in prison.
Through his wife Julie de Lima, Sison is the uncle of Leila de Lima, now a Senator, and
the former secretary of Philippine Department of Justice under the Administration of
President Benigno S. Aquino III.
Sison went into exile in the Netherlands after the Marcos regime ended. He had already
been released from prison by the government of Corazón Aquino for the sake of "national
reconciliation" and for his role in opposing Marcos. The release of Sison was vehemently
protested by the military. It is reported that upon his release, Sison and his followers
actively sought to discredit the Aquino government in the European media by speaking
out on Aquino's human rights violations including the Mendiola Massacre, in which
members of the military were accused of firing on unarmed peasants in Manila, killing 17
people.
He is the chairperson of the International League of Peoples' Struggle, and the current
Chief Political Consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Since 1987,
Sison has resided in the Netherlands where he is seeking asylum as a political refugee.
A 2004 court ruling by the European Union endangers the residency status of Sison in
Europe and he is expected to be expelled. He has been charged with orchestrating the
2001 murder of Congressman Rodolfo Aguinaldo in the Philippines. There has even been
speculation the revocation of the death penalty in that country was in part to convince the
Netherlands he could safely be deported, as he would have been facing the death penalty
if convicted.
The International Crime Investigation Team of the Dutch National Criminal Investigation
Department arrested Jose Maria Sison in Utrecht on August 28, 2007. Sison was arrested
for his alleged involvement from the Netherlands in three assassinations that took place
in the Philippines: the murder of Romulo Kintanar in 2003, and the murders of Arturo
Tabara and Stephen Ong in 2006. On the day of his arrest, Sison's apartment and eight
apartments of his co-workers were searched by the Dutch National Criminal Investigation
Department.
Some 100 left-wing activists held a demonstration for the release of Sison, marching
towards the Dutch embassy in Manila on August 30, 2007. The demonstration was ended
by the police.
There were no plans to hold the trial in the Philippines since there was no extradition
request and the crimes Jose Maria Sison is accused of were committed in the
Netherlands. Dutch lawyer, Victor Koppe said that Sison would enter a plea of not guilty
during his indictment. He could have faced the maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
On September 1, 2007, National Democratic Front peace panel chair Luis Jalandoni
confirmed that the Dutch government was "maltreating" Sison because the Court
detained him in solitary confinement for several weeks without access to media,
newspapers, television, radio or visitors; it also denied him the right to bring prescription
medicines to his cell. The place where Sison was held was the same one used by the late
former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic who was held for war crimes and
corruption. Meanwhile, protests were held in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Australia, the United
States and Canada. The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) feared Sison may be
"extra-judicially" transferred to the United States. CPP spokesman Gregorio Rosal said
that the U.S. may detain and subject Sison to extraordinary rendition in Guantanamo Bay
or some secret facility. U.S. ambassador Kristie Ann Kenney formally announced that the
U.S. will extend support to the Dutch government to prosecute Sison.
In New York City, former United States Attorney General and left-wing human rights
lawyer Ramsey Clark called for Sison's release and pledged assistance by joining the
latter's legal defense team headed by Jan Fermon. Clark doubted Dutch
authorities' validity and competency, since the murder charges originated in the
Philippines and had already been dismissed by the country's Supreme Court.
Committee DEFEND, an International group stated that the Dutch government tortured
Sison at the National Penitentiary in Scheveningen (used by the Nazis in World War II to
torture Dutch resistance fighters). His wife, Julie De Lima failed to see him to give
medicines and warm clothes on August 30, 2007. Meanwhile, counsel of Sison Romeo
Capulong will question the Dutch government's jurisdiction over the issue and person
alleging that the Supreme Court of the Philippines already dismissed the subject cases
on July 2.
On September 7, 2007, the Dutch court heard defense arguments for Sison, and stated
that it would issue the resolution next week on whether to extend the detention.
Supporters outside the Hague District Court chanted slogans while the wife, Julie De Lima
stated that they complained to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Luis
Jalandoni, chairman of the National Democratic Front accused the government of Prime
Minister Jan Peter Balkenende of being "a workhorse" for Philippines President Gloria
Macapagal Arroyo and for the U.S. government.
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG), a progressive bar association in New York headed by
Marjorie Cohnhas, denounced the arrest Sison: "it exposes the hand of the Arroyo
administration in yet another assault on the rights of the people to dissent and organize."
Sison will remain in jail until Thursday, but was provided TV, radio and medication.
On September 12, 2007, lawyers Edre Olalia and Rachel Pastores stated that Sison's
lawyers will appeal the Dutch court's newly promulgated ruling extending Sison's
detention for 90 days.
Dutch public prosecutor's office's Wim de Bruin stated that Sison was released from jail
at 10:45 a.m. on September 13, 2007. The court ruled that there was insufficient evidence
to detain him on murder charges, specifically, if Sison "had a conscious and close
cooperation with those in the Philippines who carried out the deed."
On September 27, 2007, Sison appeared before the Hague Court of Appeal panel of 3
judges on the public prosecutor's appeal against the district court's September 13
judgment of release.
On September 28, 2007, the Dutch Ambassador to the Philippines, Robert Brinks,
announced that 3 Dutch judicial officials and Dutch prosecution lawyer Wim De Bruin will
visit the Philippines "later this year" to review the evidence against Jose Maria Sison. The
next day Leung Kwok Hung, a Hong Kong politician and member of the April Fifth Action
vowed to support Sison. Leung was in Europe at the Inter-Parliamentary Union assembly
in Geneva, Switzerland. He sits in the Hong Kong legislature as a member of the Finance
and House Committees, and of the Legislative Panels on Constitutional Affairs, Housing,
Manpower, Transport, and on Welfare Services.
On October 3, 2007, the Dutch court dismissed the prosecution's appeal against the
release Sison, confirming his freedom while the Dutch police continue to investigate: "the
prosecution file lacks enough concrete clues that Sison can be directly linked to the
assassinations which is needed to prosecute him as a perpetrator". However, the decision
does not bar prosecution for murder. But the Dutch Public Prosecutor's Office (per
spokesman Wim de Bruin) stated that it did not drop the charges against Sison yet, who
remains a suspect. De Bruin said: "No, you have to separate the criminal investigation by
the police from the investigation by the examining judge in The Hague. So the judge
decided to finish the investigation but the police investigation will be continued and that
means that Mr. Sison is still a suspect".
The Dutch court on May 20, 2008, heard Sison's appeal against the Dutch Public
Prosecutors Office's request to extend its investigation until December, since the
investigators arrived in the Philippines in February and interviewed witnesses. At the trial,
however, the new evidence showed that there were indeed attempts to kill him, in 1999
and 2000, while Kintanar's wife, Joy, directly accused Edwin Garcia in the murder of her
husband. The Dutch court scheduled the promulgation on the verdict on June 10, 2008.
The Dutch District Court of The Hague on June 5, 2008 decided in camera "that the Public
Prosecution Service may continue the prosecution of Jose Maria Sison for involvement
in, among other matters, a number of murders committed in the Philippines in 2003 and
2004; that while the prosecution's case file still held insufficient evidence, the investigation
was ongoing and should be given time to unfold."
Lorenzo Tañada

Hailed as one of the greatest nationalists the country has .produced, Lorenzo Martinez
Tanada was one of the few fearless Filipinos who sought the economic amelioration and
self-reliance of the Philippines against foreign interference and domination. Joining the
ranks of Claro Mayo Recto and Jose Wright Diokno, Tañada’s contribution took the form
of parliamentary struggle in the Nationalist Citizens Party and other campaigns to
advance the "Filipino First" Policy:I Having served 24 'uninterrupted years spanning four
successive terms from 1947 to 1971, Tañada mounted a relentless campaign against
graft and corruption and for the protection of civil and human rights. Moreover he pursued
a firm and strong opposition against the violation of Philippine sovereignty and
discriminatory treatment of Filipino employees by foreign-owned companies. Through all
these, Tañada proved to be a staunch nationalist as he consistently defended the national
interest over and above, and even against personal, selfish interest.
Soon after receiving his diploma from the UP College of Law, Tañada was hired as an
assistant attorney of the then leading law firm of Camus and Delgado which later became
Abad Santos, Camus, Delgado, and Recto. This gave him the opportunity to meet with
great minds like the late Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos and his long-time mentor and
friend, the late Senator Claro Mayo Recto. Tañada left the firm when he was sent as a
government pensionado to - the United States. Upon his return to Manila in 1929, he was
taken in as the assistant fiscal of Manila. His youth and inexperience were no drawback
to his fledgling career. In a case involving the prosecution of powerful political moguls
caught in a monte raid in the Carombola Club, Tañada came up against two of the ablest
criminal lawyers of the country. He refused to be discouraged by the pressure mounted
against him and fearlessly prosecuted the parties involved.

During the Second World War, Tañada joined the Civil Liberties Union . This organization
undertook anti-Japanese propaganda activities. The Araneta Law Office in the Insular
Life Building on Plaza Moraga served as the meeting ground. In contact with the Anderson
guerrilla group in Luzon and the Peralta group in the Visayas, the CLU helped publish the
Free Philippines during the war. The anti-Japanese propaganda activities of the group
bolstered the people's morale but exacted five lives. Among the victims were Liling
Roces, Amando "Good Morning Judge" Dayrit, Antonio Bautista, Dr. Ramon de Santos
and Jose Apacible. Others were imprisoned and tortured. Soon after the war, Tañada
was appointed by President Sergio Osmeña as Judge of the Court of the First Instance
of Manila. After three months in office, he was reappointed by the President as Solicitor-
General and Chief of the Office of the Special Prosecutors.

His first major task was to prosecute collaborators, many of whom represented the cream
of Filipino national leaders of the time. The prosecution of Teofilo Sison" was his first job.
In 1947 President Manuel Roxas drafted Tañada to run as senator under the Liberal
Party ticket. To the surprise of everyone, Tañada, a complete newcomer to the political
scene, topped the senatorial elections." After this election, Tañada and Recto found
themselves together again and both leaders made nationalism the anchor of their careers.
It was during this time that Tañada carved a name for himself as a graft-buster. He
campaigned vigorously for good and honest government. In 1949 he hit the headlines for
his expose of then Senate President Jose Avelino's involvement in surplus beer
transactions. This expose led to the 'ouster of Avelino from the presidency of the Senate
and his subsequent suspension from office." In 1956, Recto asked Tañada to be his
running mate in the 1957 Presidential elections. Both leaders combined their forces in the
Nationalist Citizens Party. Although they lost the election, they made much headway for
the cause of nationalism and economic independence." One leading journalist once
asserted that few men in the country could match Tañada's record of public service.
Tañada's political career was marked by his relentless crusade for reforms, and although
his was a solitary voice in the wilderness, it inspired many to take up the cause of
nationalism. In:several instances, he was called the Don Quixote of Philippine politics.
Like Quixote, he fought the windmills and did not care whether it was a friend or foe who
got hurt in his quest for what was right.He was a person who did not hesitate to sacrifice
friendship for principles and good government. Tañada was especially vigilant during the
Marcos years. He blamed Marcos' martial law regime for the de-Filipinization of the
Philippine economy.

Former ChiefJustice Claudio Teehankee described him as the "Grand Old Man of the
Opposition for he always stood for the rule of law, truth and justice, and civil liberties and
human rights."

After the Aquino assassination on August 23, 1983, he led the Justice for Aquino, Justice
for All (IAJA) movement." His credentials as a nationalist are without doubt one of the
finest, spanning not only the period after martial law was imposed but the years before it.
An outstanding member of the Old Senate, he authored and passed progressive laws
such as the Picketing Law, later known as the "Tañada Law" and much later rendered
useless with the passage of various anti-labor legislation.

Renato Constantino: Nationalist

Constantino argued that Filipino colonial experience has developed a captive

consciousness in that it was shaped and tailored to the needs of the colonizers. It is a
colonial consciousness—a consciousness of inferiority or an indiscriminating attitude to
favor foreign products in all sorts of things (foreign academic degrees, imported consumer
products, foreign designs, etc.) against local ones. An effect of this type of consciousness
is crab mentality or the tendency—as crabs do in a basket—for those on top of the
hierarchy to push those down below while those below to pull down those up above, and
the net effect of this tendency is that there is a very slow progress to go up for all of them.
What is needed is a counter consciousness in terms of nationalism.
Nationalism is defined as an expression of reality that “we have a country of our own,
which must be kept our own.” Its economic expression is industrialization with the desire
to consciously “control the management of [its own] resources.” Aid and cooperation of
its technologically more advanced sister-nations may be accepted, but it must insist on
“full control of its economic destiny.” Its political expression is independence or the
“freedom to plan and work out Filipino national goals without outside interference with the
national interest in mind. And its cultural expression is the development of a culture rooted
in Filipino heritage and, though admitting of foreign influences, “retains its distinct and
separate identity.”
The neocolonial status is one where foreign corporations control the national economy
while the government implements mendicant policies based on mistaken priorities that
benefit not the majority of the people whose economic status of poverty remain untouched
but the transnationals and the Filipino middle and upper classes. Instead of pursuing a
well-planned industrialization [or super industrialization] strategy, government priorities
relied heavily on (i) export-oriented industries that primarily import their raw materials, (ii)
export-oriented agricultural crops that eat up fifty-five percent of arable lands, (iii) the
tourism industry which develops resorts and hotels that are mostly affordable only to
foreign tourists and a few Filipinos, and (iv) the export of manpower.
Constantino’s economic nationalist alternative is an ideology of economic liberation which
is (a) mass-oriented and (b) anti-imperialist. He suggested a “bottom-up” economic
approach (rather than a “trickle-down” approach), which will organically connect the
people’s productivity and freedom from economic deprivation by investment in industrial
growth to serve the growing needs of the population. This means the setting up of people’s
cooperatives. The goal is a social and just distribution of the national product, and exports
should play a subordinate role to the production for local basic needs. Income from
exports must be devoted to capital buildup. This economic alternative, for Constantino,
must be buttressed with a nationalist education (consisting, among others, of advocating
an internationalism based on a firm nationalism for the people to know what to culturally
assimilate beneficially) and a nationalist ethics that includes a modified Sartrean
injunction that when one makes a nationalist choice, he or she chooses not for himself or
herself alone but for the entire nation as well.