ELEMENTS OF FILIPINO PHILOSOPHY

BY LEONARDO MERCADO SVD

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 6 – PHILOSOPHY OF TIME

1. By now you have an idea as to how a philosophy, like Filipino philosophy, is extracted from a given
culture and society by way of metalinguistic analysis and the understanding of human behavior. So
today let us study the concept or philosophy of time for the Filipinos. Again we see this from
language analysis and behavior analysis.

2. Metalinguistic analysis. Most of the Filipino dialects since they are linguistic relatives display similar
structure. Although they clearly distinguish the past, present and future, they are more concerned
with modality or aspect rather than the tenses in verbs. They are not so time-oriented as English
verbs. It seems that there are only two aspects in regards to time: UNFINISHED ASPECT (future) and
the FINISHED ASPECT (past). Most of the dialects reveal these two aspects in the affixes they use.

3. The prevalence of mode over tense which numbers only two – the finished and unfinished – is
closely tied to the Filipino’s orientation with nature which is cyclic (paulit-ulit).

4. FILIPINO BEHAVIOR. The Filipino wants to be in harmony with nature through equilibrium-
maintenance. If this balance is upset, the Filipino expects suffering and other forms of misfortune.
For the Filipino, health is perceived as a good relationship between man and the surrounding world
– in other words, between himself, the people around him, and the natural and supernatural
environment. We can see how different the Westerners see nature as something to be exploited for
their benefit. It is a mastery-over-nature orientation to the extent that they want nature to serve
them, rather than the other way around. This also goes with mastering time.

5. Let us then go to the Filipino philosophy of time. There are two kinds of time in philosophy: COSMIC
and HUMAN.

6. As regards COSMIC TIME, it is different with Filipinos. While Westerners see time as something that
is linear as seen in their language (its preoccupation with the tenses: past, present and future).
There is only one direction, that is, moving forward or backward. But for Filipinos time is something
that is spiral; it’s cyclic. There is progress though in spiral motion for the new cycle is not the old
cycle. But the past is not gone forever, it goes back, but in a more improved version. It is seen in
the Filipino phrase “Paglipas ng dilim may araw pang darating.”

7. Another way to view time is by way of HUMAN TIME. While cosmic time can be mathematically
calculated by the earth’s movements around the sun, human time is not subjected to mathematical
calculations. Filipino time is very similar to how the Jewish people look at time. The Filipino looks at
the past in terms of consciousness. This Hebrew concept of time is seen as a maturation or
evolutionary. Time is compared to the ripening of a fruit in the expressions, “in the fullness of
time”, “the time is ripe” and so on. There is a common point of reference. As in the Hebrew time it
is the coming of the Messiah, Filipino time has common reference points that are important to
them, WWII for example, peace time, Spanish time etc… Time is measured in terms of meaningful
events in a Filipino’s life.
8. In this connection the sakop belongs to the concept of time. Sakop is the communitarian nature of
the Filipino as belonging to a group. A Filipino experiences time in relationship with the sakop. Time
is measured not so much in terms of chronology but by existence.

9. Part of the study of philosophy of time is philosophy of history. The implication for having a
philosophy of time that is non-linear is also to have a philosophy of history that is non-linear. This is
the reason why unlike the Westerners, Filipinos are not much enamored with the past or historically
conscious.

10. Since Filipino philosophy follows the lines of Oriental thought, the Filipino philosophy of history
would also be that of the Indians and the Chinese, that is, history in recurrent cosmic cycles. The
Filipino’s striving for harmony with his fellowmen and nature concurs with this explanation of
history.