Overview of Filipino Psychology

Definition of Filipino Psychology

 Sikolohiyang Pilipino
 Indigenous Psychology

Filipino psychology is the scientific study of the ethnicity, society and culture of a people and the
application to psychological practice of the indigenous knowledge rooted in the people’s ethnic
heritage and consciousness. It is derived from the experience, ideas, and cultural orientation of
the Filipinos.
Virgilio G. Enriquez (1994). Pagbabangong-Dangal: Indigenous Psychology & Cultural Empowerment.
Akademya ng Kultura at Sikolohiyang Pilipino: Lungsod ng Quezon.

Four Filiations of Filipino Psychology according to Zeus Salazar (1985)

 The academic-scientific psychology

 The academic-philosophical psychology

 Ethnic psychology
o The integration of academic-scientific and academic-philosophical psychology to
indigenous Filipino psychology

 Psycho-medical
o System with medical religion as cohesive element and explanation

Brief historical background of Filipino Psychology

From the beginning of the periods when the Philippines was colonized by Spain, and then the
USA, academic psychology, or the psychology taught in schools, was predominantly Western in
theory and in methodology. Many Filipino intellectuals, notably the two Philippine heroes Jose
Rizal and Apolinario Mabini, expressed dissatisfaction at the pejorative interpretations of Filipino
behavior by Western observers. This disenchantment continued as Filipinos struggled to assert
their national and cultural identity.

In the 1960s, many Filipino intellectuals and scholars were already sensitive both to the
inadequacy as well as the unfairness of the Western-oriented approaches to psychology. For
instance, in the area of personality, the Western approach in research of not being enmeshed
and bound by the culture being studied has resulted in a characterization of the Filipino from the
‘‘judgmental and impressionistic point of view of the colonizers’’ (Enriquez, 1992, p. 57). For
example, the predisposition to indirectness of Filipino communication was regarded as being
dishonest and socially ingratiating and reflecting a deceptive verbal description of reality
(Lawless, 1969, cited in Enriquez, 1992) rather than a concern for the feelings of others.
However, there was no concerted effort in the 1960s to reject and correct the traditional way of
teaching and studying psychology. It was in the early 1970s that this was initiated when Virgilio
Gaspar Enriquez returned to the Philippines from Northwestern University, USA with a Ph.D. in
Social Psychology and lost no time in introducing the concept of Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino
Psychology). Together with then-chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of
the Philippines (U.P.), Dr. Alfredo V. Lagmay, Enriquez embarked on a research into the
historical and cultural roots of Philippine Psychology. Subsequently, the research included
identifying indigenous concepts and approaches in Philippine psychology and developing
creativity and inventiveness among Filipinos. From these researches, a two-volume bibliography
on Filipino psychology and a locally developed personality test, Panukat ng Ugali at Pagkatao
(Measure of Character and Personality), were produced. In 1975, Enriquez chaired the Unang
Pambansang Kumperensya sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino (First National Conference on Filipino
Psychology) which was held at the Abelardo Auditorium at U.P. In this conference, the ideas,
concepts, and formulations of Sikolohiyang Pilipino were formally articulated.

Timeline

1926 - The Department of Psychology and School of Education was established at the
University of the Philippines Manila -The head of the Department of Psychology and School
of Education was Agustin Alonzo
1930 - The Department of Psychology was established at University of Sto. Tomas
1932 - Sinforoso Padilla started the Psychological Clinic at University of the Philippines
1933 - Jesus Perpinan started the Far Eastern University Psychological Clinic
1938 - Angel de Blas, promoted the Experimental Psychology Laboratory at the University of
Sto. Tomas
1948 - Estefania Aldaba-Lim established the Institute of Human Relations at the Philippine
Women’s University
1954 - Joseph Goertz established the Department of Psychology at the University of San Carlos
1960 - Fr. Jaime Bulatao established the Department of Psychology and the Central Guidance
Bureau at the Ateneo de Manila University
1962 -The Philippine Psychological Corporation was established which gave psychological
services and stood as the primary retailer for psychological measurements
1971 - Virgilio Enriquez questioned the current measures of psychology in the Philippines
arguing that western psychology cannot be used as a measure for Filipinos as it does not
consider the Philippine culture and experiences of the Filipinos
1975 - Virgilio Enriquez started creating “Panukat ng Ugali at Pagkatao” (PUP) that was known
to be a measure that is sensitive to the Philippine culture from process to acquiring tests
-Virgilio Enriquez established the “Sikolohiyang Pilipino” (Philippine Psychology) and
became known as the Father of Filipino Psychology
1976 -Virgilio Enriquez and Carmen Santiago proposed the Model of the New-Filipino Research
to guide the practice of native research. -Enriquez and Santiago introduced two scales
that was derived from the experiences of research in the nation: Scale of the Researcher
and Scale of the researcher and the Participant.

Proponents of Filipino Psychology

There were three major indigenization movements that fermented in the main campus of the
University of the Philippines (U.P., the state university), in Diliman, Quezon City (Bautista, 1999;
Mendoza, 2006/2002; Miralao, 1999). Writing in 1995, Prospero Covar recalled that first it was
Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino Psychology) that manifested its beginnings when in the 1960s the
UP Community Development Research Council challenged the applicability of Western
concepts, theories and research tools, and subsequently embarked upon researches on Filipino
concepts and indigenous cultural forms. In the early years of martial rule under President
Ferdinand Marcos (which lasted from 1971 to 1986), the prohibition of graduate studies abroad
led UP to offer the Ph.D. in Philippine Studies, and the curriculum, consisting of Philippine
culture, arts and society, was formulated by social scientists who founded the second
indigenization movement, Pilipinolohiya (Filipinology). Finally, in the mid 1970’s Filipino
historiography was launched with Pantayong Pananaw (which in Filipino literally means, “point-
of-view from us and for us, Filipinos” – a perspective that distinguished kami (Filipino term for
exclusive “us”, and thus, history by and for foreigners) from tayo (Filipino term which means
inclusive “us”, and thus, history written by and for Filipinos) (Covar, 1995, pp. ix-x). These three
projects held in common the two-pronged objective of decolonization indigenization, and they
cross-fertilized each other.

The founders of the three indigenization movements, Virgilio Enriquez (Sikolohiyang Pilipino),
Prospero Covar (Pilipinolohiya), and Zeus Salazar (Pantayong Pananaw), were all present in
the launching of the first conference of the Pambansang Samahan sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino
(PSSP, or National Association of Filipino Psychology), on November 6-11, 1975. In this first
official step to Sikolohiyang Pilipino’s institutionalization, where the premises, concepts,
perspectives and directions of Sikolohiyang Pilipino were charted, two other intellectuals from
the University of the Philippines, Alfredo Lagmay and Armando F. Bonifacio, were present (see
Dr. Virgilio Enriquez: Ama ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino [Father of Filipino Psychology], PSSP On-
line). Dr. Lagmay was Department head of Psychology from 1955 to 1976. As a Ph.D. student in
Harvard, he trained under B.F. Skinner (Enriquez, 2008/1993). Dr. Bonifacio, who obtained his
Doctorate in Philosophy at the University of California (Berkeley), was Department Chair of
philosophy before he became Vice President for Academic Affairs of the UP system. In fact, all
three founding fathers of indigenization had their post-graduate training abroad: Enriquez
obtained his PhD in Social Psychology at the Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois;
Salazar his Doctorate in Ethnology at the Sorbonne University, Paris; and Covar, his Doctorate
in Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. However, upon their return from
schooling abroad, they, unlike the pensionados sent for scholarship abroad before them, saw
the incongruity of teaching, advocacy, and practice of psychology in the Philippine context
guided by Western concepts and theories drawn from experiences and histories of people from
elsewhere

Who is Virgilio Enriquez?

Virgilio Gaspar Enriquez who was considered as the Father of Filipino Psychology was born
from the province of Bulacan. He was trained by his father to speak using their native tongue
even since he was a child. Even with his PhD dissertation his father asked him to explain it in
Filipino even though it was written in English.

He initiated the movement toward the development of Filipino Psychology by the year 1963
when he started to teach at the University of the Philippines. He then left for the United States to
pursue his Master’s degree and PhD at the Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois. He
returns to the Philippines by the year 1971 and established the Philippine Psychology Research
House which later became the Philippine Psychology Research and Training House, considered
as the home of Sikolohiyang Pilipino.
He authored several publications which include indigenous psychology. Filipino Personality,
psychology of language and politics, philosophy of values, cross-cultural psychology and
Pilipinohiya. He also obtained numerous awards both local and international. Virgilio G.
Enriquez, considered the father of Sikolohiyang Pilipino, identified the following as the subject
matter of this formal indigenous psychology (Enriquez, 1974): kamalayan or consciousness,
which includes both emotive and cognitive experience; ulirat or awareness of one’s immediate
surroundings; isip, which refers to knowledge and understanding; diwa, which includes habits
and behavior; kalooban or emotions or feelings; and kaluluwa or psyche, which translates to
soul of a people.