Rowanlopezrebustillo-Sambayanihan-Dissertation 2018 PDF

2018
2018
2018
Sambayanihan
Sambayanihan
SSSAA
AMMBB
M BAYA
AYANNI IHHAANN
AYA
FROMECONOMIC
FROM
FROM ECONOMIC
ECONOMIC MIGRATION
MIGRATION
MIGRATIONTOTO
TO
SOFT-POWER
SOFT-POWER
SOFT-POWER EVANGELIZATION
EVANGELIZATION
EVANGELIZATION
TOWARDS
TOWARDS
TOWARDS
AAA TRANS-DISCIPLINARY
TRANS-DISCIPLINARY
TRANS-DISCIPLINARY ANDAND
AND TRANS-COLONIAL
TRANS-COLONIAL
TRANS-COLONIAL
INQUIRY
INQUIRY
INQUIRY INTO
INTO
INTO THE
THE
THE IMPACT
IMPACT
IMPACT OF OF
OF FILIPINO
FILIPINO
FILIPINO CATHOLIC
CATHOLIC
CATHOLIC
COMMUNITIES
COMMUNITIES
COMMUNITIES IN
ININ DIASPORA
DIASPORA
DIASPORA
Rowan
RowanLopez
LopezRebustillo
A dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements
AA dissertation for the
dissertationpresented
presentedininDoctor’s
partial degreeofof(PhD)
partialfulfillment
fulfillment the in Theology
therequirements
requirements forthe
for (STD)
the Doctor’sdegree
Doctor’s degreein
inTheology
Theology
Rebustillo
B ByB yy
R RRo oowwwa ana nn L LoL opo pep zee zzR ERR BEE UBB SUUTSS ITTLIILLLOLL OO
S SSu uup pep ere rvr viv sii oss roo rr

2018
2018
2018 PPPr rrooof ff. .. D DDr r.r .. J JaJ aca cqc quq ueu ese ss H HAH EAA REE SRR ,SS ,,S .SSJ ... JJ ..
AApicture
pictureofofthe
A picture
Taken
the
of the procession
procession
during procession
the inininPadova
Padova (Italy)
(Italy)inin
Padova(Italy)
Filipino-led procession in in observance Floresde
deMayo
Mayo
Taken
observanceTaken
observance
observance during
ofofthe during
ofthe
the thethe
Flores
Flores Filipino-led
de
Flores
de Filipino-led
de Mayo
MayoMayoand
and procession
and procession
Santacruzan
Santacruzan
Santacruzan ininobservance
observanceofofthe
the Flores
Flores de Mayo
and
andandSantacruzan
Santacruzan
Santacruzan inininPadova,
Padova,
Padova,ItalyItaly on
Italyon May27,
onMay 2018
27,2018
2018
“Come
“Come
“Come andsee”
and and
see” see”(Jn.
(Jn. (Jn.1:39)
1:39)1:39)
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
FACULTY OF THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES
SAMBAYANIHAN
FROM ECONOMIC MIGRATION TO SOFT-POWER EVANGELIZATION
TOWARDS A TRANS-DISCIPLINARY AND TRANS-COLONIAL INQUIRY INTO
THE IMPACT OF FILIPINO CATHOLIC COMMUNITIES IN DIASPORA
A dissertation presented in
partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the
Doctor’s Degree (PhD) in Theology (STD)
Supervisor By
Prof. Dr. Jacques HAERS, SJ Rowan Lopez REBUSTILLO
2018
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................... i
TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................... iii
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................ xi
ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................................lxxi
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
SOWING A FILIPINO SEED ON THE CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPE OF WESTERN
EUROPEAN SOCIETY
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY EXPLORATION ON A POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTION OF FILIPINO
DIASPORA IN THE AREAS OF HISTORY, THEOLOGY, LITURGY AND ECCLESIOLOGY
Status Quaestionis ...................................................................................................................................................... 1

Thesis Statement ........................................................................................................................................................ 1
Statement of Problem................................................................................................................................................ 1
Purpose of the Study ................................................................................................................................................. 2
Methodology ............................................................................................................................................................... 2
Scope and Limitations .............................................................................................................................................13
Overview of the Dissertation .................................................................................................................................14
PART I
PAGBUBUNGKAL
A CARTOGRAPHY OF SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS UNDERLYING FILIPINO
DIASPORA AND THE COMPLEXITIES OF TRANSCOLONIALISM, HISTORIOGRAPHY,
GLOBALIZATION AND MIGRATION
Introduction ..............................................................................................................................................................21
I.1. Unpacking Transcolonialism: A Walk through Different Approaches in Addressing and
Transcending Colonialism..................................................................................................................................23
I.2. Re/Membering History: An Attempt to Re-Right our Constructions of History .............................37
I.2.1. The Invention of History: History in Proper Perspective ....................... 39
I.2.2. Hegemony and History: Whose Side of the Story are We Hearing? ....... 43
I.3. The Challenge of Contemporary Globalization: Pervasiveness and Vagueness ................................48
I.3.1. Globalization: As Slippery as it Gets .................................................... 49
I.3.2. The Paradox of Borders: Are You In or Out? ........................................ 51
I.3.3. The Enigma of Multiculturalism: A Pervading Quandary ..................... 54
I.3.4. Can We Overcome the Pitfalls of Multiculturalism: A Nagging Question
in Globalization? .......................................................................................... 55
I.4. Tourists vs. Migrants: Where do They Stand? .........................................................................................58
I.4.1. From Marginal to the Liminal: An Option for Resistance and Liberation
.................................................................................................................... 61
I.5. Setting the Record Straight: Can We Provincialize Europe? .................................................................64
I.6. The Role of Intercultural Philosophy or “Polylogue” in Overcoming Eurocetrism.........................69
I.7. The “Death or Eclipsed of God” Exposed: A Discussion on the Various Manifestations of
Secularization .......................................................................................................................................................75
PART II
PAGLILINANG
AN EXPLORATION ON FILIPINO HISTORY, THEOLOGY, LITURGY AND ECCLESIOLOGY
Paunang-hasik: Some Preliminary Remarks ...........................................................................................................83
CHAPTER 1 A
LUKSONG-TINIK
A STORY OF COLONIZATION AND MIGRATION STRAIGHT FROM THE CARABAO’S
MOUTH
Introduction ..............................................................................................................................................................87
II.1.A.1. Re/membering Philippine History: An Attempt to Re-Right the “Forgotten” Past................96
II.1.A.1.1. An Attempt to Re-member Philippine Pre-Hispanic History ........ 101
II.1.A.1.2. Of Gods and Goddesses; A Story of Philippine Traditional Religiosity
................................................................................................................... 105
II.1.A.1.2.1. Nature: A World Inhabited by Spirits ....................................... 107
II.1.A.1.2.2. Protocols in the Pre-Hispanic Spiritual World ........................... 108
II.1.A.2. From Terra Incognita To Terra Colonizada: The Coming of Spanish Colonization; Captured
from the Critical Filipino Lens ....................................................................................................................... 109
II.1A.2.1. Identity Crisis: Hispanic or Not? .................................................. 120
II.1.A.2.2. When the Mother of Jesus Becomes the Mother of the Filipinos . 125
II.1.A.2.3. The Beauty of Spanish Legacy: Beyond Church and Politics ....... 127
II.1.A.2.4. A Glimpse of What Transpired in the Bicol Region During Spanish
Colonial Regime: A Different Path? ............................................................. 127
II.1.A.3. American Imperialism: Seen from the Eyes of the Filipino ...................................................... 129
II.1.A.3.1. In the Name of the Bible and Democracy: The Coming of
Protestantism ............................................................................................. 134
II.1.A.3.2. Filipino-American Relations during the Japanese Occupation .... 136
II.1.A.4. A. Islamic Filipinos: A Case in Point............................................................................................. 139
CHAPTER 1. B
LUKSONG-TINIK: NAGIVATING THE LIMINAL PLACE
TOWARDS A TRANSCOLONIAL READING OF FILIPINO DIASPORA
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 143

II.1.B.1. When the Filipinos have Gone Global: An Anthology of Migration and Marginalization .. 144
II.1.B.2. In Pursuit of the American Dream: The Nightmare in Disguise .............................................. 145
II.1.B.3. A Profile of Filipino Migrants in Other Parts of the Globe: A Growing Number, A Growing
Concern .............................................................................................................................................................. 147
II.1.B.4. A Schizophrenic Response to the American Dream .................................................................. 149
II.1.B.5. The Predicaments of Filipino-American Hybridity: A Narrative of Oppression and
Marginalization.................................................................................................................................................. 150
iv
II.1.B.6. Invisibility: The Unfortunate Consequence of Being a Model Minority ................................. 151
II.1.B.7. The Saga of the ‘Bagong Bayani’: A Story of Heroism and Slavery? ........................................... 153
II.1.B.8. Mass Production of Bagong Bayani: The Brokering Business of the Philippine Government 154
II.1.B.9. Feminization of Filipino Migration ................................................................................................ 156
II.1.B.10. Filipino Diaspora: Beyond Economic Migration – A Case of Soft Power Influence, A
Viable Form of Foreign Diplomacy .............................................................................................................. 158
Towards a Trans-colonial Reading of Filipino History and Globality: A Partial Conclusion .................. 161
CHAPTER 2
FROM BAHALA NA TO BAYANIHAN
TOWARDS A TRANS-COLONIAL ORDINARY THEOLOGY FOR FILIPINOS IN DIASPORA;
AN ELOQUENT EXPRESSION OF LOOB AND KAPWA RELATIONSHIP
Introduction: Pakikiramdam and Pakikipagkapwa-Tao: A Story of Loob-Kapwa in the Context of Filipino

Diaspora: Bahala Na .............................................................................................................................................. 169
II.2.1. A Note of Ordinary Theology ............................................................................................................ 175
II.2.1.1. A Look into the Filipino Soul: Grasping the Inseparability of Religion
and Culture ................................................................................................ 175
II.2.1.2. Unpacking ‘Ordinary Theology’: A Road, Less Travelled? ............... 177
II.2.1.3. Criticisms on Ordinary Theology and Astley’s Corresponding Reply
.................................................................................................................. 182
II.2.1.4. Contextuality, Reflexivity and Ordinary Theology .......................... 186
II.2.1.5. Ordinary Theology and Vernacular Hermeneutics ......................... 189
II.2.2. Locating the Filipino Notion of Bahala Na within the Ambit of Ordinary Theology Grounded
in the Intersubjective Relationship of Loob-Kapwa ...................................................................................... 191
II.2.2.1. Intersubjectivity as Expressed by Gabriel Marcel and Ludwig
Binswanger ................................................................................................ 191
II.2.2.1.2. Binswanger and Intersubjectivity: Retrieving the Centrality of Love
in Authentic Human Existence .....................................................................192
II.2.2.1.1. Marcel and Intersubjectivity: A Homo Viator’s Journey of Love and
Hope ............................................................................................................195
II.2.2.1.3. Marcel and Binswanger in Dialogue on Intersubjectivity: The Loving
‘We’ as an Irreducible Fact of Human Existence ..........................................198
II.2.2.2. A Retrieval of the Pre-Modern LOOB and KAPWA........................... 202
II.2.2.2.1. Identifying the LOOB: A Challenging Journey .............................202
a. What is ‘Inside’? Loob as Potentia........................................... 207
II.2.2.2.2. Kapwa’s Role in the Web of Relationality: The Other Side of the
Relational Coin? ..........................................................................................209
II.2.2.2.3. Marcel and Binswanger Finding a “Homeland” in the Filipino Loob?
....................................................................................................................213
II.2.2.3. Bahala Na: An Ordinary Theology Constituted Within the Realm of
Filipino Loob-Kapwa Inter-subjectivity ........................................................ 217
II.2.2.3.1. The Enigma that is Bahala Na: Exploring the Bi-Polarity of a
Cultural Trait ...............................................................................................218
v
a. The Janus Face of the Bahala Na ........................................... 219
b. Bahala Na as Indolence? ........................................................ 220
c. Bahala na as Manifestation of Resilience ............................... 223
II.2.2.3.2. What About Faith? Bahala Na! ................................................... 224
II.2.2.4. Is this the Way to Go? Bahala Na!: Filipino Migrant Theology as an
Expression of Ordinary Theology ................................................................ 225
II.2.2.5. Limitations of the Parallelism Between Bahala Na Theology and
Ordinary Theology ...................................................................................... 228
II.2.3. Finding the Place of Ordinary Bahala Na Theology in the Ambit of Contemporary Theological
Discourse ........................................................................................................................................................... 229
II.2.3.1. Is Pope Francis an “Ordinary Theologian”? An Exploration on the
Similarities and Differences between the Latin American Understanding of
“Theology of the People” and Bahala Na Ordinary Theology ........................ 230
II.2.3.2. Bahala Na Theology and the Intersection between Resistance,
Happiness and Remembrance .................................................................... 241
II.2.3.3. Bahala Na from the Liminal Place: Sang Hyun Lee Informing Filipino
Migrant Theology ........................................................................................ 243
II.2.3.4. Bahala Na Vis-à-vis Mestisaje Theology in the Border of Death and
the Valley of Life ......................................................................................... 248
II.2.3.5. Bahala Na and Miroslav Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace ................. 251
II.2.4. Bahala Na and Bayanihan: An Exploration on How the Filipino Spirituality of Bayanihan
Complements Bahala na Theology ................................................................................................................. 256
II.2.4.1. Bahala Na and Bayanihan: The Challenge of the Stranger............. 259
II.2.4.2. The Quest of Bahala Na and Bayanihan: Taking a Cue from Exodus
Narrative (not from but) towards Egypt: Finding a Way towards Liberation
within Migration ......................................................................................... 260
Bayanihan: A Most Eloquent Expression of Bahala Na as Pananampalataya ‘En-Via’ Constituted by Loob-
Kapwa: A Partial Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 268
CHAPTER 3
FROM MISA NG BAYAN TO LITURHIYANG SAMBAYANIHAN
EXPLORING A TRANSCULTURAL LITURGICAL CELEBRATION IN THE CONTEXT OF
FILIPINO DIASPORA
Introduction: A Preliminary Attempt to Explore the Notion of Trans-coloniality in the Context of

Transculturally Inculturated Liturgies: Filipino Migrant Catholic Communities – A Case in Point ....... 271
II.3.1. A Glimpse of the Evolution of People’s Understanding of Culture and Inculturation ............ 275
II.3.1.1. A Note on Culture and Cultural Formation: A Saga of Evolution .... 276
II.3.1.1.1. Utilitarianism .............................................................................. 277
II.3.1.1.2. Culturalism ................................................................................. 279
II.3.1.1.3. Marxism ...................................................................................... 281
II.3.1.2. Inculturation as Understood by Crollius, Luzbetak and Shreiter ... 283
II.3.1.2.1. Crollius on Inculturation .............................................................. 283
II.3.1.2.2. Luzbetak on Inculturation ........................................................... 284
vi
II.3.1.2.3. Schreiter on Inculturation ............................................................284
II.3.1.3. Williams’s Culture as Ordinary ...................................................... 285
II.3.1.3.1. Williams’s Common Culture vis-à-vis Poupard’s Notion of Culture
....................................................................................................................287
II.3.1.3.2. Williams’s Common Culture vis-à-vis Grasmsci’s Notion of
Hegemony ...................................................................................................289
II.3.1.3.3. Arbuckle on Culture .....................................................................292
II.3.2. Transculturality: A New Way of Looking at Inculturation in the Context of Migration .......... 299
II.3.2.1. Exploring the Notion of Inculturation: A Journey towards a Complex
Reality ........................................................................................................ 300
II.3.2.2. Models of Inculturation: Faith in Many Forms and Faces .............. 301
II.3.2.3. Criticisms and Defense on the Use of the Term ‘Inculturation’ ...... 305
II.3.2.4. Inculturation from the Lips of other Theologians ........................... 309
II.3.2.5. Inculturation in the Context of Migration: Is it Multiculturality,
Interculturality or Transculturality? ........................................................... 313
II.3.3. Towards an Inculturated Liturgy for Filipinos in Diaspora ........................................................... 320
II.3.3.1. Ratzinger on Liturgical Development: The Question of Maintaining
Essential Unity ........................................................................................... 328
II.3.3.2. Alexander Schmemann’s Liturgical Renewal: Retrieving the Essential
Unity of Theology and Liturgy ..................................................................... 329
II.3.3.3. A Cartographic Sketch of the Evolution of the Roman Rite: A Perfect
Case of Liturgical Inculturation .................................................................. 330
II.3.3.4. Examining the Vatican II Document that Gave Rise to the Issue of
Liturgical Inculturation: The Quest for a Meaningful Balance ..................... 334
II.3.3.5. The Role of the Laity in Inculturation of Liturgy: The Question of
Dialogue and Participation ......................................................................... 338
II.3.3.6. The Impetus Behind the Misa ng Bayang Filipino: Liturgia Semper
Reformanda ................................................................................................ 340
II.3.3.6.1. A Further Exploration on Misa ng Bayang Filipino as an
Inculturated Liturgy .....................................................................................344
II.3.3.7. Misa ng Bayan, More Than Four Decades After: Is It Still Viable? .. 350
II.3.3.8. Adaptation of the Misa ng Bayan in the West: The Question of
Feasibility ................................................................................................... 352
II.3.3.9. Catechism for Filipino Catholic (Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the
Philippines) on Inculturation: Towards a Theology Centered on the Family,
Meal, Kundiman, Bayani, and the Spirit. .................................................... 353
II.3.3.10. Mary and Filipino Inculturated Faith: The Closer We Get to Mary,
The Closer We Get to Our True Identity ...................................................... 356
II.3.3.11. How Inculturation is Done in the Context of Filipino Diaspora: An
Observation ................................................................................................ 359
II.3.3.12. Towards A Liturhiyang Sambayanihan: An Attempt at Liturgical
Inculturation in the Transcultural Context of Filipino Migration ................. 360
vii
II.3.3.12.1. “Sambayanihan as Salu-Salo”: An Expression of Filipino Unity
and Hospitality; The Hospitality of the Immigrant....................................... 361
II.3.3.12.2. “Sambayanihan as Sanduguan”: Filipino Gesture of Agreement
and Commitment ........................................................................................ 363
II.3.3.12.3. “Sambayanihan as Tagay”: Sharing the Same Cup of Martyrdom;
A Gesture Of Heroism and Holiness; A Profound Sign of Trust and Unity ... 364
II.3.3.12.4. What can Filipinos Learn from their Contexts in Western Europe
................................................................................................................... 364
Conclusion: Inculturation in a Transcultural Milieu: A Migrant Filipino Liturgy in Western Europe.... 366
CHAPTER 4
SAMBAYANIHANG FILIPINO
GATHERING AND SENDING FROM THE MARGINS; FROM ECONOMIC MIGRATION TO
GLOBAL MISSION VIA ECCLESIOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES IN UNION
Introduction: Sambayanihan: A Compelling Missiological Force in Small Ecclesiological Packages: A Viable

Catch-Basin for Historical, Theological, and Liturgical Streams ................................................................... 373
II.4.1. The Emergence of the Basic Ecclesial Communities: The Fruits of Second Vatican Council 378
II.4.1.1. BECs in Official Church Documents: Towards a Concrete Manifestion
of Ecclesia Semper Reformanda................................................................... 378
II.4.1.1.1. BEC and Vatican II: The Microcosm of the People of God ............ 379
II.4.1.1.2. BEC and Post-Vatican II Papal Documents: A New Way of Being
Church ........................................................................................................ 379
II.4.1.1.3. BEC and FABC: Model of Ecclesiology for Asia ........................... 382
II.4.1.1.4. BEC and Code of Canon Law: Communion of Communities ....... 383
II.4.1.2. BEC and Pope Francis: Towards a New Way of Evangelization and
Dialogue ..................................................................................................... 385
II.4.2. Basic Ecclesial Communities around the World: Similarity and Difference: A Multi-faceted
Ecclesiological Reality ...................................................................................................................................... 385
II.4.2.1. CEBs/BECs/SCCs in Latin America: Rising from the Grassroots: The
Voice of Liberation ...................................................................................... 386
II.4.2.1.1. BEC In Brazil: A Unique Manifestation of BEC ............................ 386
II.4.2.2. BEC/ SCC In Africa: Towards a Concept of the Church as Family . 390
II.4.2.2.1. Africa and the Lumko Institute.................................................... 390
II.4.2.3. BECs/SCCs in Europe: Small Communities within the milieu of
Ecumenism and Globalization .................................................................... 394
II.4.2.3.1. BEC in France: Living Together Meaningfully Within and Without
................................................................................................................... 396
II.4.2.3.2. BEC in Great Britain: Towards a Reinvention of the Church ....... 398
II.4.2.3.3. BEC in Germany: A Legacy of Bible-Centered Small Christian
Communities ............................................................................................... 401
II.4.2.4. BEC in North America/U.S.A.: A Post-Vatican Experience of
Togetherness and Belongingness ................................................................ 408
II.4.2.5. BECs/SCCs in Asia, Oceania and Pacific: Microcosm of the Church 412
viii
II.4.2.5.1. BEC/SMALL Christian Communities in India: Towards an
Evangelized and Evangelizing Communities of Faith ...................................413
II.4.2.5.2. BEC in South Korea: Communities Arising from and Sustained by
the Grassroots .............................................................................................415
II.4.2.5.3. BEC in Australia: A Story of Pastoral Restructuring ....................420
II.4.3. The Emergence and Sustainability of BEC in the Philippines: Communion of Communities 422
II.4.3.1 BEC and Plenary Council of the Philippines II: A Pastoral Priority .. 425
II.4.3.2. BEC and Catechism for Filipino Catholics: Centers of and for
Christian Formation and Contemporary Mission ........................................ 430
II.4.3.3 The Image of the BECs in the Philippines at Present: Towards a
Dialogical, Participative and Co-responsible Church................................... 432
II.4.4. Application: Tapping into the Well-Spring of Filipino Trans-colonial and Transcultural Migrant
Ecclesial Communities: Sambayanihan ............................................................................................................ 440
II.4.4.1. Sambayanihan as One – Unity in Diversity .................................... 449
II.4.4.1.1. “Sam” as Inspired by Trinitarian Love .........................................450
II.4.4.1.2. “Sam” as Ecclesial Communion ...................................................451
II.4.4.1.3. Sam as Openness and Non-Exclusivity .......................................452
II.4.4.2. Sambayanihan as an Occasion of Samba: A Venue and an Event of
Inculturated Worship ................................................................................. 453
II.4.4.3. Sambayanihan as an Expression of Bayan: A Community of Faith; a
Contemporary Manifestation of the “People of God” .................................... 456
II.4.4.4. Sambayanihan as Breeding Ground for Bayani Spirituality: a
Testimony of Martyrdom or Christian Heroism ........................................... 463
II.4.4.5. Sambayanihan as a Powerful Expression of Bayanihan: a Pilgrimage
of Faith and Solidarity Towards the Eschaton ............................................ 468
II.4.5. Trust and Decentralization: Towards a Genuine Recognition of the Role of Basic Ecclesial
Community in the Universal Church ............................................................................................................ 472
A Partial Conclusion: Sambayanihan Communities: A Trans-colonial and Transcultural Journey of Filipino
Migrant BECs vis-à-vis Globalism, Individualism and Secularism ............................................................... 474
A GENERAL CONCLUSION
PAGPAPAYABONG
TOWARDS A DIALOGIC, PARTICIPATIVE, CO-RESPONSIBLE CHURCH IN WESTERN

EUROPE INITIALLY SPROUTING FROM THE FILIPINO CATHOLIC MIGRANT
COMMUNITIES ...................................................................................................................................................... 481
APPENDIX 1: RESULTS OF SURVEY ........................................................................................... 493

APPENDIX 2:INFORMED CONSENT.......................................................................................... 496
APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE ................................................................................................. 497
ix
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Written Sources and Works

1.1. ECCLESIASTICAL DOCUMENTS
Boff, Leonardo. “Notification on the book ‘Church: Charism and Power’.” Congregation
on the Doctrine of the Faith,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfa
ith_doc_19850311_notif-boff_en.html [accessed December 27, 2016].
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). Creating a Culture of
Sustainability for BEC. Manila: CBCP BEC Desk, 2008.
________. Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II).
Manila: CBCP, 1992.
________. Catechism for Filipino Catholics (CFC). Manila: ECCCE/Word and Life, 1997.
________. Creating a Culture of Sustainability for BEC. Manila: CBCP BEC Desk, 2008.
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines- Basic Ecclesial Community (CBCP-
BEC). “2017: Year pf the Parish as Communion Communities.” National Gathering
of Diocesan BEC Directors and Coordinators, Tagbilaran City, 30 November 2015,
http://cbcpbec.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/YPCC-Poster-complete-
Version5.jpg [accessed 5 December 2017].
Catholic Church. Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). Vatican City: Libreria Editrice
Vaticana., 1994.
Conférence Épiscopale du Zaϊre. Rite zaϊrois de la celebration eucharistique. Kinshasa,
August 1985.
Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM). “Pastoral de Conjunto.” Document on
Joint Pastoral Planning, Medellin Conference. Medellin, Colombia, September 6,
1968.
Congregation for Bishops. “Directory for the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops.” Apostolorum
Successors,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cbishops/documents/rc_con_
cbishops_doc_20040222_apostolorum-successores_en.html [accessed May 18,
2016].
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic
Church on Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion.” Origins 22,
no. 7 (1992): 108-12.
Congregation of Divine Worship. “The Decree, Zairensium Dioecesium.” Notitiae
264(1988).
Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC). Asian Integration Pastoral Approach
(AsIPA), Working Group on Spirituality and Community Building. Minutes of the
Meeting, 14 September 2000, Aachen 2000.
________. “Gospel-based Communities Becoming Agents for Change.” Seventh Plenary
Assembly; Workshop Discussion Guide, January 2000, Hong Kong,
http://www.fabc.org/fabc%20papers/fabc_paper_92i.pdf [accessed on June 8,
2016].
________. “Message of the Fourth Bishops’ Institute for the Lay Apostolate, 1988.” For
All the Peoples of Asia: Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences Documents from
1997-2001, vol. 3, ed. Franz-Josef Eliers. Manila, Philippine: Claretian, 2002.
SAMBAYANIHAN
________. “Statement of the First Bishops’ Institute for the Lay Apostolate, 1984.” In For
All the Peoples of Asia: FABC Documents from 1970-1991, vol. 1, eds. Gaudencio
Rosales and Carles G. Arevalo. Manila: Claretian, 1997.
________. “Statement of the Fifth Plenary Assembly of the FABC in 1990.” In For All the
Peoples of Asia: FABC Documents from 1970-1991, vol. 1, eds. Gaudencio Rosales
and Carles. G. Arevalo, 287-89. Manila: Claretian, 1997.
________. Seventh Plenary Assembly; Workshop Discussion Guide, “Gospel-based
Communities Becoming Agents for Change” January 2000, Hong Kong,
http://www.fabc.org/fabc%20papers/fabc_paper_92i.pdf [accessed on June 8,
2016].
________. “The Basic Ecclesial Community in an Islamic Country.” FABC Paper
26(1981):1-52, http://www.fabc.org/fabc papers/fabc_paper_26.pdf [accessed
March 12, 2016].
Flannery, Austin, ed. Vatican Council II (Vat. II), new rev. ed. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical
Press, 1992.
________. Vatican Council II, vol. 1: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, new rev.
ed. New York: Costello Ireland: Dominican, 1975.
________. “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Vatican II,
Gaudium et Spes (GS), 7 Decemmber 1965,” In Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and
Post-conciliar Documents, no. 64. Northport, N.Y.: Costello, 1999.
Hirmer, Oswald. “Alternative Ways of Being Church in the Asia of the 1990s,” FABC
Paper. Taiwan, 1999.
Holy See. Code of Canon Law, 1983.
Internal Congress on Mission. “Basic Christian Communities and Local Ministries.” For
All the Peoples of Asia (1979): 150-51.
International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. (ICEL). Documents on the Liturgy.
Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1982.
International Theological Commission (ICT). “Faith and Inculturation,” 1988,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_
1988_fede-inculturazione_en.html [accessed: January 23, 2015].
________. Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church, 2014: (no.3),
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_
20140610_sensus-fidei_en.html [accessed February 17, 2016].
Mexican Bishops. Pastoral Message. “The Base Ecclesial Communities, Church in
Movement.” Guadalajara, Jalisco, April 7, 1989.
Pontifical Council for Culture. “Towards a Pastoral Approach to Culture.” Vatican, May
23, 1999.
Pope Benedict XVI. “Address to Kerala Latin Bishops and Bishops of Andhra Pradesh.”
May 30, 2011.
________. Address to the Members of the Assembly of Organizations for Aid to the
Eastern Churches (ROACO), 23 June 2005.
________. Motu Proprio, Omnium In Mentem, 2009.
xii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pope Francis. “Address of his Holiness Pope Francis to the Members of the International
Theological Commission,” December 5, 2014,
https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/december/documen
ts/papa-francesco_20141205_commissione-teologica-internazionale.html
[accessed February 17, 2016].
________. “Address of the Holy Father: Meeting with Clergy, Religious and Seminarians,”
July 8, 2015, Quito, Ecuador.
https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/july/documents/pa
pa-francesco_20150708_ecuador-religiosi.html [accessed February 17, 2016].
________. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, no. 29,
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa
-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html [accessed June 13,
2016].
________. Apostolic Letter in the form of Motu Proprio “Magnum Principium” Quibus
nonnulla, in can. 838 Codicis Iuris Canonici immutantur, 09.09.2017. Holy See
Press Office,
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2017/09/0
9/170909a.html [accessed 15 September 2017].
________. “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home.” Encyclical, Vatican website
(2015), 17,
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-
francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html [accessed February, 16, 2016].
________. “Meeting with Clergy, Religious and Seminarians,” July 9, 2015, Santa Cruz,
Bolivia,
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/07/09/pope_francis_discourse_to_clergy_
and_religious_of_bolivia/1157289 [accessed February 17, 2016].
________. Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the Celebration of the XLIX World
Day of Peace. “Overcome Indifference and Win Peace,” Vatican, December 8, 2015,
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/peace/documents/papa-
francesco_20151208_messaggio-xlix-giornata-mondiale-pace-2016.html [accessed
May 13, 2016].
________. Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the World Day of Migrants and
Refugees. “Child Migrants, the Vulnerable and the Voiceless,” Vatican, September
8, 2016,
https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/migration/documents/pa
pa-francesco_20160908_world-migrants-day-2017.html [accessed October 24,
2016].
________. Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the World Day of Migrants and
Refugees. “Migrants and Refugees Challenge Us. The Response of the Gospel of
Mercy,” Vatican, September 12, 2015,
2016].
________. Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the 101st World Day of Migrants and
Refugees. “Church Without Frontiers, Mother to All,” Vatican, September 3, 2014,
2016].
xiii
SAMBAYANIHAN
_________. “Message to the Participants in the 13th Meeting of Basic Ecclesial

Communities in Brazil”, 7-11 January 2014, Juazeiro do Norte, Diocese of Crato,
https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2013/documents/papa-
francesco_20131217_comunita-ecclesiali-base.html [accessed June 13, 2016].
________. “Miserecordia et Misera.” An Apostolic Letter of Pope Francis on Mercy and
Peace,
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/papa-
francesco-lettera-ap_20161120_misericordia-et-misera.html [accessed November
23, 2016].
________. “Pope Francis Gives Local Bishops more Responsibility for Mass Translations,”
Association of Catholic Priests, 09 September 2017,
https://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2017/09/pope-francis-gives-local-
bishops-more-responsibility-for-mass-translations/ [accessed 15 September 2017].
________. “Pope Francis in Paraguay: Address to Civil Society. Salt and Light Media, July
11, 2015, http://saltandlighttv.org/blogfeed/getpost.php?id=64590&language=en
________. “Pope to CELAM: The Church Cannot be Led by Clerical State.” Rome Reports,
http://www.romereports.com/en/2017/09/08/pope-to-celam-the-church-cannot-
be-led-by-a-clerical-caste/ [accessed 9 September 2017].
Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi Tradendae. Ottawa: Canadian
Conference of the Catholic Bishops, 1979.
________. Address to the Congregation of Divine Worship and Discipline of the
Sacrament; Promulgation of “Directory on Popular Religion and the Liturgy,”
December 2001.
_________. Address to the Filipino Immigrants from all over Europe, May 22, 1993, St.
Peter’s Basilica, Rome.
________. “Apostolic Exhortation. Acta Apostolicae Sedis.”Ecclesia in Asia 92 (2000): 449-
528, no. 25.
________. Apostolic Exhortation. “Ecclesia in America.” Origins 28/33, no. 20(1999):
565-592.
________. Dominicae Cenae. Apostolic Exhortation, 24 February 1980.
________. Ecclesia in America: Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation. Vatican: January 22,
1999.
________. Ecclesia in Asia, November 6, 1999, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-
ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_06111999_ecclesia-in-asia.html
[accessed June 8, 2016].
________. Redemptoris Missio, December 7, 1990, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-
paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_07121990_redemptoris-
missio.html [accessed June 8, 2016].
Pope John XIII. Address on the Opening of the Second Vatican Council, 11 October
1962. The Holy See, https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-
xxiii/it/speeches/1962/documents/hf_j-xxiii_spe_19621011_opening-
council.html [accessed 1 October 2017].
xiv
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pope Paul VI. Evangelii Nuntiandi, December 8, 1975,

http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-
vi_exh_19751208_evangelii-nuntiandi.html [accessed June 8, 2016].
________. Lumen Gentium (LG), November 21, 1964,
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-
ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html [accessed June 8, 2016].
________. Sacerdotalis Caelibatus. Encyclical, 1967.
Pope Pius XII. Mediator Dei, 20 November 1947.
Ratzinger; Josef. “Note on the Minister of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.”
(11 February 2005),
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfa
ith_doc_20050211_unzione-infermi_en.html. [accessed June 5, 2015].
Synod of Bishops. The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the
Church: Lineamenta. XI Ordinary General Assembly XI Ordinary General Assembly,
Vatican City: Synod of Bishops., 2004,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20040528
_lineamenta-xi-assembly_en.html [accessed February 13, 2015].
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea. 교세 통계표 [A Statistical Survey Report of the
Korean Catholic Church]. Seoul: The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea, 2004.
The Liturgical Commission of the French Episcopate. “Memorandum,” 7 February 1964.
Theological Advisory Commission of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences
(TAC/FABC). Theses on the Local Church: A Theological Reflection in the Asian
Context. Hong Kong: FABC Secretary General’s, 1991.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Called and Gifted for the Third
Millennium: Reflections of the U.S. Bishops on the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Decree
on the Apostolate of the Laity and the Fifteenth Anniversary of Called and Gifted.
Washington, DC: USCCB, 1995.
Vatican II Council. Consitutio pastoralis: De Ecclesia un mundo huius temporis. De quo
agetur in sessione public. Rome: Vatican II, 1965.
_________. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: Gaudium et spes
(GS). Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1985.
________. Schema Constitutio pastoralis: De Ecclesia in mundo huius temporis. Rome:
Vatican
1.2. BOOKS
Abbott, Walter and Geoffrey Chapman, eds. The Vatican Archives and The Documents of
the Vatican II, trans. Geoffrey Chapman. London: The America, 1966.
Abinales, Patricio N. and Donna J. Amoroso. State and Society in the Philippines. Oxford:
Rowman & Littefield, 2005.
Adam, Adolf. The Liturgical Year: Its History and Its Meaning after the Reform of Liturgy,
trans. J. O’Connell. New York: Pueblo, 1981.
Adam, Ian and Hellen Tiffin, eds. Past the Last Lost: Theorizing Post-colonialism and Post-
modernism. New York: Harvester Wheatleaf, 1991.
xv
SAMBAYANIHAN
Administrative Office for Evangelization. 사목을 위한 성서의 사용 [Use of the Bible for
Ministry]. Seoul: Seoul Archdiocese, 1993.
Agcaoili, Aurelio Solver. Kontemporaneo a Diksionario nga Ilokano-Ingles. Limitado nga
Edision/Contemporary English-Ilokano Dictionary, Limited Edition. Hawaii:
Undertow Books, 2012; The Philippines: CAS, 2013.
Agoncillo, Teodoro A. History and Culture, Language and Literature: Selected Essays of
Teodoro A. Agoncillo, ed. Bernardita Reyes Churchill. Manila: University of Santo
Tomas, 2003.
________. History of the Filipino People, 8th ed. Quezon City: GAROTECH, 1990.
________. The Burden of Proof: The Vargas-Laurel Collaboration Case. Quezon City:
University of the. Philippines, 1984.
Ahern, Geoffrey. The Triune God in Hackney and Enfield: 30 Trinitarian Christians and
Secularisation. London: Center for Ecumenical Studies, 1984.
Albright, Madeliene. The Might and the Almighty. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
Alejo, Albert E. Tao po! Tuloy!: Isang Landas ng Pag-unawa sa Loob ng Tao. Manila:
Ateneo de Manila University Office of Research and Publications, 1990.
Altarejos, Marina Obal. Filipino Basic Ecclesial Community” Between Limitation and Self-
Transcendence. Quezon City: Obraku Imprenta, 2007.
Amaladoss, Michael. Beyond Inculturation: Can the Many Be One?. Delhi: Indian Society
for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1998.
Amin, Samir. Delinking Towards a Polycentric World, trans. Michael Wolfers. London:
Zed Books, 1985.
________. Eurocentrism, trans., Russel Moore. New York: Zed, 1989.
Anzaldúa, Gloria and Ana Louise Keating, eds. This Bridge We Call Home. New York:
Routledge, 2002.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands /La Frontera, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books,
1999.
Apilado, Mariano. Revolutionary Spirituality: A Study of the Protestant Role in the
American Colonial Rule of the Philippines, 1898-1928. Quezon City, Philippines: New
Day, 1999.
Arbuckle, Gerald. A Preferential Option for the Poor. Canberra: Catholic Health Australia,
2008.
________. Culture, Inculturation and Theologians: A Postmodern Critique. Minnesota:
Liturgical, 1996.
________. Earthing the Gospel: An Inculturation Handbook for Pastoral Workers.
Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1988.
Arcilla, Jose S. An Introduction to Philippine History, 4th ed. Quezon City: Ateneo de
Manila University, 1998.
Arendt, Hannah. Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. New
York: Viking, 1968.
Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy. London: John Murray, 1932.
xvi
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arrupe, Pedro, S.J. “Letter to the Whole Society on Inculturation.” Studies in the
International Apostolate of Jesuits. Washington: Jesuit Missions, 1978.
________. Écrits pour évangéliser. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1985.
Astley, Jeff and Leslie Francis, eds. Exploring Ordinary Theology: Everyday Christian
Believing and the Church. England: Ashgate, 2013.
Astley, Jeff. Ordinary Theology: Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology. Surrey,
England: Ashgate, 2002.
Ataviado, Elias. The Philippine Revolution in the Bicol Region, trans. Juan Ataviado.
Vasra, Quezon City: New Day, 1953, 1999.
Ateek, Naim S. Justice and Only Justice: Towards a Palestinian Theology of Liberation.
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989.
Atkinson, William. A History of Spain and Portugal. Middlesex: Penguin, 1960
Azevedo, Marcello. Basic Ecclesial Communities in Brazil: The Challenge of a New Way
of Being Church. Trans. John Drury. Washington: Georgetown University, 1987.
Barbour, Ian G. Myths, Models, and Paradigms: A Comparative Study in Science and
Religion. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
Baranowski, Arthur. Creating Small Faith Communities: A Plan for Restructuring the
Parish and Renewing Catholic Life, rev. ed. Ohio: St. Anthony Messenger, 1993.
Barrett, Cyril. Wittgenstein on Ethics and Religious Belief. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.
Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics, vol. I/1, trans. G. W. Bromiley. Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1975.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge, 1992.
________. Postmodernity and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Polity, 1997.
________. Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts. Cambridge: Polity, 2004.
Baumgart, Winfried. Imperialism: The Idea and Reality of British and French Colonial
Expansion, 1880-1914, rev, ed., trans., Winfried Baumgart with Ben V. Mast.
Oxford: Oxford University, 1982.
Becher, Bernd, Hilla Becher and Thuerry de Duve. Grundformen, vol. 40 of Schirmer’s
visuelle Bibliothek. n.p.: Schirmer/Mosel, 1993.
Benedict, Ruth. Patterns of Culture. Boston, New York, Houghton: Mifflin, 1934.
Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. New York: Schocken, 1969.
________. Reflections. New York: Harcourt, 1978.
Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. London,
Macmillan, 1823.
________. The Rational of Reward. London: John and H. L. Hunt, 1825.
Bergson, Henri. The Two Sources of Morality and Religion. London, Macmillan, 1935.
Berger, Peter; Grace Davie and Effie Fokas; Religious America, Secular Europe? A Theme
and Variation. England/USA: Ashgate, 2008.
Berkhof, Hendrikus. Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of Faith, trans. Sierd
Woustra. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1986.
xvii
SAMBAYANIHAN
Bernal, Martin. The Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, vol. 1.
London: Vintage, 1991.
Betsayda, Mary Grace T “Bahala Na Ang Dios” (“Leave it to God”): The Church’s Role in
the Socialization of Filipinos in the Greater Toronto Area. Saarbrücken, Deutschland:
VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft, 2010.
Bevans, Stephen An Introduction Theology in Global Perspective. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis,
2009.
________. Models of Contextual Theology, rev. and expanded version. Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis, 1992, 2008.
________. Models of Contextual Theology: Faith and Cultures Series. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis,
2002.
Binswanger, Ludwig. Being-in-the-World: Selected Papers of Ludwig Binswanger, trans.
Jacob Needleman. New York: Basic Books, 1963.
________. Grundformen und Erkenntnis menschlichen Daseins. Heidelberg: Roland
Asanger, 2004.
Bloch, Marc. French Rural History. Berkeley: University of California, 1970.
Boff, Clodovis and Leonardo Boff. Introducing Liberation Theology, trans. Paul Burns.
Maryknoll: Orbis, 1986, 1987.
Boff, Leonardo. Church: Charism and Power; Liberation Theology and the Institutional
Church, trans. John W. Diercksmeler. Eugen, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1985/2011.
________. Ecclesiogenesis: The Base Communities Reinvent the Church, trans. Robert
Barr. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1986.
________. Trinity and Society, trans. Paul Burns. Oregon: Wipf & Stock,1988.
Boorstin, Daniel. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. New York: Vintage,
1961.
Borella, Pietro. Il rito Ambrosiano. Brescia: Morcelliana, 1964.
Boswell, Christina and Andrew Geddes. Migration and Mobility in the European Union.
Great Britain: Palgrave Mcmillan, 2011.
Boszormenyi-Nagy, Ivan and Barbara Krasner, eds. Between Give and Take: A Clinical
Guide to Contextual Therapy. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1986.
Boszormenyi-Nagy, Ivan. and Geraldine Spark. Invisible Loyalties: Reciprocity in
Intergenerational Family Therapy. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
Boszormenyi-Nagy, Ivan. Foundations of Contextual Therapy. New York: Brunner/Mazel,
1987.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA.:
Harvard University, 1984.
________. Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA.:
Cambridge University, 1977; reprint ed. 1998.
________. The Logic of Practice. Stanford: Stanford University, 1990.
Brock, Rita Nakashima. Journeys of the Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power. New York:
Crossroad, 1988.
xviii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bruce, Steve. Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory. Oxford: Oxford

University, 2011, 2013.
Buber, Martin. Das Dialogische Prinzip. Gerlingen: Verlag Lambert Schneider GmbH,
1994.
________. Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy.
Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University, 1952/2016.
________. I and Thou. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1971.
Bugnini, Annibale. “Altiora Principia,” La riforma liturgica. Rome: CLV-Edizione
Liturgiche, 1983.
________. The Reform of the Liturgy [1948-1975]. Michigan: Liturgical, 1990.
Bulatao, Jaime S.J. Split-level Christianity. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University,
1966.
Bullivant, Stephen. Europe’s Young Adults and Religion: Findings from the European
Social Survey to Inform the 2018 Synod of Bishops. N.p.: Benedict XVI Centre
Religion and Society, 2018.
Burdelot, Yves. “Devenir Humain.” La Proposition Chrétienne Aujourd'Hui. Np.: Le Cerf,
2002.
Burger, Julian. The Gaia Atlas of First Peoples. London: Gaia, 1990.
Burma, John. Spanish-Speaking Groups in the United States. Durham, NC: Duke
University, 1954.
Butler, Tim and Paul Watt. Understanding Social Inequality. London: Sage, 2007.
Camus, Albert. Lyrical and Critical Essays. New York: Vintage, 1970.
________. The Plague. New York: Knopf, 1968.
Carr, Anne. Transforming Grace. Christian Tradition and Women’s Experience. San
Francisco: Harper, 1990.
Carr, Edward Hallett. What is History? New York: Vintage Books, 1961.
Casals, Gabriel; Regalado Trota Jose, Jr.; Eric S. Casino, George R. Ellis and Wilhelm
G. Solheim II. The People and Art of the Philippines. UCLA: Museum of Cultural
History, 1981.
Cavanaugh, William T. Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of
the Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011.
Ceniza, Claro R. Filipino Cultural Traits: Claro R. Ceniza Lectures, ed. Rolando M.
Gripaldo. Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy,
2005.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical
Difference. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University, 2000.
________. Rethinking Working-Class History: Bengal 1890 to 1940. Princeton: Princeton
University, 2000.
Chambers, Ephraim, ed. Cyclopædia, or An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences,
1st ed. Np.: Ephraim Chambers, 1728.
xix
SAMBAYANIHAN
Chauvet, Louis Marie. Symbol and Sacrament: Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian

Existence, trans. Madeleine Beaumont and Patrick Madigan. Collegeville, MN.: The
Liturgical Press, 1994.
Cherry, Stephen. Faith, Family, and Filipino American Community Life. New Brunswick:
Rutgers University, 2014.
Chigere, Nkem Hyginus M.V. Foreign Missionary Background and Indigenous
Evangelization in Igboland. Münster: LIT, 2001.
Chirino, Pedro. Relacion de las Islas Filipinas. Rome, 1604, 2nd ed., Manila: Imp. De
Esteban Balbas, 1890.
Choy, Catherine Ceniza. Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American
History. Durham and London: Duke University, 2006.
Chupungco, Anscar. Cultural Adaptation of the Liturgy. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1982.
________. Handbook for Liturgical Studies I: Introduction to the Liturgy. Minnesota: The
________. Handbook for Liturgical Studies II: Fundamental Liturgy. Colleville, MN: The
________. Handbook for Liturgical Studies III: The Eucharist. Quezon City, Philippines:
Claretian, 2004/ The Liturgical Press, 1999.
________. Liturgical Inculturation: Sacramentals, Religiosity and Catechesis. Collegeville,
MN: The Liturgical Press, 1995.
________. Liturgical Renewal in the Philippines. Quezon City: Maryhill, 1980.
________. Liturgies of the Future. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stocks, 2006 /Paulist, 1982.
________. Towards a Filipino Liturgy. Manila: Benedictine Abbey, 1976.
Clarke, W. Norris. Explorations in Metaphysics: Being – God – Person. Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame, 1994.
________. Person and Being. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University, 1993.
Claus, Peter and John Marriot. History: An Introduction to Theory, Method, and Practice.
UK: Pearson, 2012.
Claver, Francisco, S.J. The Making of a Local Church. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2008.
Clymer, Kenton. Protestant Missionaries in the Philippines, 1898-1916: An Inquiry into
the American Colonial Mentality. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois, 1986.
Colin, Francisco, ed. Labor envangélica, Pablo Pastells,3 vols. Barcelona: Henrich, 1900-
1902.
Cone, James H. God of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury, 1975.
Congar, Yves. Lay People in the Church, trans. D. Attwater. London: Bloomsbury,
1957/1959.
________. True and False Reform in the Church, trans., Paul Philibert. Collegeville, MN:
The Liturgical Press, 2011.
Conole, Gráinne. Designing for Learning in an Open World. New York, Heidelberg,
Dordrecht and London: Springer, 2013.
xx
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Constantino, Renato and Letizia Constantino. The Philippines: The Continuing Past.
Quezon City: The Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1978.
Constantino, Renato. A History of the Philippines: From the Spanish Colonization to the
Second World War. New York and London: Monthly Review, 2008.
________. Neocolonial Identity and Counter Consciousness: Essays on Cultural
Decolonization, ed. István Mészáros. London: Merlin, 1978.
________. The Filipinos in the Philippines and Other Essays. Philippines: Malaya Books,
1966.
________. The Making of A Filipino: A Story of Philippine Colonial Politics. Quezon City:
Malaya Books, 1985.
________. The Nationalist Alternative. Quezon City: Foundation for Nationalist Studies,
1979; 1980.
________. The Philippines: A Past Revisited, vol. 1., in collaboration with Letizia R.
Constantino. Quezon City, Philippines: Renato Constantino, 1975.
Covar, Prospero. Larangan: Seminal Essays on Philippine Culture. Manila: Sampaguita,
1998.
Crocitti, John J. and Monique M. Vallance, eds. Brazil Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in
the Republic, vol. 1. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2012.
Croft, Steven. Transforming Communities: Re-imagining the Church for the 21st Century.
Great Britain: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2002.
Crollius, Arij Roest S.J. “Inculturation and the Meaning of Culture.” Gregorianum 61
(1980): 253–273.
Cruz, Gemma Tulud. Toward a Theology of Migration: Social Justice and Religious
Experience. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Cullinane, Michael. Arenas of Conspiracy and Rebellion in the Late Nineteenth-Century
Philippines: The Case of April 1898 Uprising in Cebu. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila
University, 2014.
Davie, Grace. Religion in Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
De Castro, Modesto. Pag Susulatan nang Dalauang Binibini na si Urbana at ni Feliza na
Nagtuturo ng̃ Mabuting Kaugalian. Manila: J. Martinez, 1920.
de Certeau, Michel. The Mystic Fable. The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, trans.
Michael B. Smith, vol. 1, Religion and Postmodern Series. Chicago & London:
University of Chicago, 199
_________. La Fable Mystique. XVIe –XVIIe Siecle. N.p.: Gallimard, 1982.
De Guia, Katrin. Kapwa: The Self in the Other, Worldviews and Lifestyle of Filipino
Culture-Bearers. Pasig City: Anvil, 2005.
de la Costa, Horacio Readings in Philippine History. Manila: Bookmark, 1965, 1992
de los Reyes, Isabelo. La Religion Antigua de los Filipinos. Manila: Imprenta de El
Renacimiento, 1909.
de Lubac, Henri. The Splendor of the Church. London: Sheed & Ward, 1956.
De Mesa, Jose M. And God Said “Bahala Na!” The Theme of Providence in the Lowland
Filipino Context. Quezon City: Maryhill School of Theology, 1979.
xxi
SAMBAYANIHAN
________. In Solidarity with the Culture: Studies in Theological Re-rooting. Quezon City:
Maryhill School of Theology, 1987.
________. Why is Theology Never Far From Home. Manila, Philippines: De La Salle
University, 2003. 118.
de Noceda, Juan José and Pedro de Sanlucar. Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala. Manila:
Ramirez Y Giraudier, 1860.
de San Antonio, Juan Francisco, OFM. Chrόnicas de la apostolica provincial de S.
Gregorio de religiosos descalzos de n.sp. San Francisco in las Islas Philipinas, China,
Japόn etc. Sampaloc: Franciscans Provincia de San Gregorio, 1738-1744.
de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Garden City: Doubleday, 1969.
Deane, Phyllis. The First Industrial Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1979.
Demko, George and William Wood, eds., Reordering the World: Geopolitical Perspectives
on the Twenty-first Century, 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998.
Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy with Selections from the Objections and
Replies, Latin-English version, ed. and trans. John Cottingham. United Kingdom:
Cambridge University, 2013.
Douglas, Mary. Cultural Bias. London: Royal Anthropological Institute of UK and
Ireland, 1978.
________. Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1975.
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico.
Norman: University of Oklahoma, 2007.
Durand, Emmanuel. La périchorèse des personnes divines: immanence mutuelle –
réciprocité et communio. Paris: Cerf, 2005.
Durkheim, Emile. The Division of Labor in the Society. trans. W. D. Halls. New York: The
Free Press, 1997.
Dussel, Enrique. Philosophy of Liberation, trans. Aquilina Martinez and Christine
Morkovsky. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1985.
Edwards, Jonathan. The Miscellanies a-500: The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 13,
ed. Thomas A. Schafer. New Haven: Yale University, 1994.
Elestrio, Fernando. Essays on Philippine Religious Culture. Manila: De La Salle
University, 1989.
Eliade, Mercia, ed. “Henotheism.” Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: MacMillan, 1987.
Elizondo, Virgilio. Galilean Journey: The Mexican American Promise, 6th edition. New
York: Orbis, 2006.
Elliot, John H. Imperial Spain: 1469-1716. New York: Mentor, 1966.
Ellis, Marc H. Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987.
Elton, Geoffrey. The Practice of History. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1967.
Engels, Friedrich. Marx and Engels: Selected Correspondence. New York: International,
1935.
xxii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Engelsma, David J. Trinity and Covenant. N.p.: Reformed Free Publishing Association,
2006.
Enriquez, Virgilio. From Colonial to Liberation Psychology: The Philippine Experience.
Quezon City: The University of the Philippines, 1992.
Espin, Orlando. The Faith of the People: Theological Reflections on Popular Catholicism.
New York: Orbis, 1997.
Espiritu, Yen Le. Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities.
Philadelphia: Temple University, 1992.
________. Filipino American Lives (Philadelphia: Temple University, 1995.
Evans, Donald. The Logic of Self-Involvement: A Theological Study of Everyday Language
with Special Reference to the Christian Use of Language about God as Creator.
London: SCM, 1963.
Fabella, Virginia; Peter Lee and David Suh, eds. Asian Christian Spirituality. Reclaiming
Traditions. New York: Orbis, 1992.
Fanon, Frantz. A Dying Colonialism. New York: Grove, 1965.
Fernandez, Eleazar. Burning Center, Porous Borders. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011.
________. Toward Theology of Struggle. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1994.
Ferriols, Roque S.J. Pambungad sa Metapisika. Quezon City: Office Research and
Publication, Ateneo de Manila University, 1991.
Ferrone, Rita. Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium. New York: Paulist, 2007.
Fisch, Thomas, ed. Liturgy and Tradition: Theological Reflections of Alexander
Schmemann. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 1990.
________. Primary Readings on the Eucharist. Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2004.
Fritz, Simon et al. The Language of Family Therapy: A Systemic Vocabulary and Source
Book. New York: Family Process, 1985.
Foley, Edward. From Age to Age: How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist.
Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2008.
Forsyth, Peter Taylor. Lectures on the Church and Sacraments. Longmans, Green, 1917.
Foucault, Michel and Ludwig Binswanger. Dream and Existence, ed. Hoeller, Keith.
Seattle: Repp, 1986.
________. The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage,
1973.
Fowkes, Ben, trans. “Preface to the First Edition.” In Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of
Political Economy, vol. 1. London: Harmonds, 1990.
Francis, Mark R. Liturgy in a Culturally Diverse Community: A Guide Toward
Understanding. Washington, D.C: Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions,
2012.
________. Local Worship, Global Church: Popular Religion and the Liturgy. Collegeville,
MN: Liturgical Press, 2014), 6.
________. Shape A Circle Ever Wider: Inculturating the Liturgy in the United States.
Chicago, Il: Liturgy Training Publications, 2000.
xxiii
SAMBAYANIHAN
Fraser, Ian M. Reinventing Theology as the People’s Work, 4th ed. Glasgow: Wild Goose,
2005.
________. Reinventing Church: Insights from Small Christian Communities and Reflections
on a Journey Among Them; A Compendium. Np: privately printed, 2001.
Frie, Roger. Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Modern Philosophy and Psychoanalysis:
A Study of Sartre, Binswanger, Lacan, and Habermas. Maryland: Rowman &
Littlefield, 1997.
Fritz, Simon et al. The Language of Family Therapy: A Systemic Vocabulary and Source
Book. New York: Family Process, 1985.
Fuellenbach, John. Church: Community for the Kingdom. New York: Orbis, 2002.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. London and New York: Continuum, 1975,
1989, 1997, 2004, 2006.
Gaillardetz, Richard R. Ecclesiology for a Global Church: A People Called and Sent.
Gallagher, Kenneth. The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel. New York: Fordham University,
1975.
Gaspar, Karl, C.Ss.R. Popular Religiosity in the Philippines. A Historical-Anthropological.
Baclaran, Philippines: Our Mother of Perpetual Help Shrine, 1998.
Gebara, Ivone and Maria Clara Bingemer. Mary Mother of God, Mother of the Poor
(Theology and Liberation), trans., Phillip Berryman. New York: Orbis, 2004.
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. London: Fontana, 1973.
Gibbons, John and William J. Mater Et Magistra: Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope
John XXIII, Christianity and Social Progress. New York, N.Y.: Paulist, 1962.
Gibbons, Michael et al. The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and
Research in Contemporary Societies. London: Sage, 1994.
Giddens, Anthony. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity, 1990.
Gonzales, Joaquin Jay, III. Diaspora Diplomacy: Philippine Migration and its Soft Power
Influence. Minneapolis: Mill City, 2012.
________. Filipino American Faith in Action: Immigration, Religion and Civic Engagement.
New York and London: New York University, 2009.
Gorospe, Vitaliano S.J. Christian Renewal of Filipino Values. Manila: Ateneo de Manila
University, 1966.
Gramsci, Antonio. Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. Eds., Bill Ashcroft, Gareth
Griffiths and Hellen Tiffin, 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2007.
________. Selections from Political Writings 1921-26, ed. and trans. Q. Hoare. London:
Lawrence and Wishasr, 1978.
________. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, ed. and trans., Q.
Hoare and G. Nowell Smith. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971.
________. The Modern Prince. New York: International, 1971.
Greinacher, Norbert and Norbert Mett. Popular Religion, eds. Norbert Greinacher and
Norbert Mette. London: T&T Clark, 1986.
xxiv
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gresh, Ted. Basic Christian Communities in the Philippines. Quezon City: Cardinal Bea
Institute, 1977.
Grieder, William. One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism. New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.
Groody, Dan. Border of Death, Valley of Life: An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit.
Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
Groome, Thomas. Catechesis for Liturgy: A Program for Parish Involvement. Washington
DC: Pastoral, 1986.
Gruber, Judith and Sigrid Rettenbacher, eds. Migration as Sign of the Times: Towards a
Theology of Migration. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill/Rodopi, 2015.
Guerero, Milagros Camayon, ed. Luzon at War: Contradictions in Philippine Societies;
1898-1902, intro. Vicente Rafael. Metro Manila: Anvil, 2015.
Guevara, Anna Romina. Marketing Dreams Manufacturing Heroes: The Transnational
Labor Brokering of Filipinos. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers University,
2010.
Haers, Jacques, SJ. Postcolonial Europe In the Crucible of Cultures: Reckoning with God
in the World of Conflicts. Netherlands: Rodopi, 2007.
Halecki, Oscar. The Limits and Divisions of European History. Notre Dame, IN: University
of Notre Dame, 1962.
Hardon, Gertrude Hirsch et al., eds. Handbook of Transdisciplinary Research. The
Netherlands: Springer, 2008.
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri, Empire. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard
University, 2000.
Harris, Marvin. The Rise of Anthropological Theory. New York: Crowell, 1968.
Harvey, David. Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. UK: Blackwell, 1996.
Healey, Joseph and Jeanne Hinton, eds. Small Christian Communities Today: Capturing
the Moment. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005.
Hebblethwaite, Margaret. Base Communities: An Introduction. England: Geoffrey
Chapman, 1993.
________. Basic is Beautiful: Basic Ecclesial Communities from Third World to First World.
Great Britian: Fount Paperbacks, 1993.
_________. John XIII: Pope of the Century, revised ed. Great Britain: Biddles, Guildford &
King’s Lynn, 2000.
Hebblethwaite, Peter. Giovanni XIII: Papa del Concilio, trans. Marco Roncalli. Roma:
Castelvecchi, 2013.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, ed. Georg Lasson, vol.1.
Leipzig,1944.
________. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte., eds. Gerd Irrlitz and
Karin Gurst, vol. 1. Berlin, 1984.
________. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte. Hamburg, 1955.
Heidegger, Martin. Was ist das – die Philosophie? (1955). Pfullingen, 1972.
xxv
SAMBAYANIHAN
Helvetius, Claude. De l’homm, de ses facultés intellectual, et de son education. London:

Las Société Typographique, 1774/1771.
Hermans, Theo, Louis Vos and Lode Wils, eds. The Flemish Movement: A Documentary
History 1780-1990. London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney: Bloomsbury, 1992,
2015.
Hoegsholm, Filomenita Mongaya, ed. In de Olde World: Views of Filipino Migrants in
Europe. Quezon City: Philippine Social Science Council, 2007.
Holmer, Paul. The Grammar of Faith. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978.
Hornedo, Florentino. The Favor of Gods. Essays in Filipino Religious Thought and
Behavior. Manila: UST, 2001.
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the
Experimental Method of Reason into Moral Subjects, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd ed.,
with variant readings by P.H. Niddith. Oxford: Claredon, 1978.
Husserl, Edmund. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Philosophy,
trans. David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University, 1970.
Igloria, Luisa., ed. NOT Home BUT Here: Writings from the Filipino Diaspora. Manila:
Anvil, 2003.
Ignacio, Abe et al. The Forbidden Book: The Philippine-American War in Political Cartoons.
San Francisco, CA: T'Boli, 2004.
Ignacio, Emily Noelle. Building Diaspora: Filipino Community Formation on the Internet.
New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University, 2005.
Jocano, F. Landa. Filipino Prehistory: Rediscovering Precolonial Heritage. Metro Manila:
PUNLAD, 2001.
________. Filipino Value System: A Cultural Definition. Quezon City: Punlad Research
House, 1997.
________. Questions and Challenges in Philippine Prehistory. Quezon City: University of
the Philippines, 1975.
Jantsch, Erich. Technological Planning and Social Futures. London: Cassell/Associated
Bussiness Programmes, 1972.
Jaspers, Karl. Philosophische Autobiographie (1953), new expanded ed., trans. Hamid
Reza Yousefi. Munich, 1977.
________. Rechenschaft und Ausblick. Reden und Aufsätze (1951). Munich, 1958.
________. Weltgeschichte der Philosophie, ed. H. Saner. Munich, 1982.
Jeanrond, Werner. A Theology of Love. Great Britain: CPI Antony Rowe, 2010.
Jungmann, Josef S.J. The Early Theology: To the Time of Gregory the Great, trans.
Francis Brunner. Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 1959.
Kanyoro, Musimbi. Introducing Feminist Cultural Hermeneutics: An African Perspective
(Introductions in Feminist Theology. Sheffeild: Sheffeild Academic, 2002.
Karliner, Joshua. The Corporate Planet: Ecology and Politics in Age of Globalization. San
Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1997.
xxvi
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kempf, Wilhelm. Für euch und für alle, Brief des Bischofs von Limburg zur Fastenzeit
1981 an die Gemeinden des Bistums, besonders an die Fernstehenden. Limburg,
1981.
Kimmerle, Heinz. Die Dimension des Interkulturellen. Amsterdam: Rodopi,1994.
________. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel interkulturell gelesen. Nordhausen, 2005.
Kingston, Maxine Hong. Chinamen. New York: Vintage, 1989.
Kleissler, Thomas A.; Margo A. LeBert and Mary C. McGuinness. Small Christin
Communities: A Vision for Hope for the 21st Century. New York/Mahwah, N.J.:
Paulist, 2003.
Koyama, Kosume. Water Buffalo Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1974.
Krämer, Klaus and Klaus Vellguth, eds. Kleine Christliche: Gemeinschaften: Impulse für
eine zukunftsfähige Kirche.” ThEM2, Theologie der Einen Welt. Freiburg: Herder,
2012.
________. Small Christian Communities/Basic Ecclesial Communities,” vol.2. Theology of
One World series of Mission Aachern. Quezon City: Claretian, 2013.
Kroeger, James H, ed. Telling God’s Story. National Mission Congress 2000 Resources
and Documents, Quezon City, Philippines: Claretian, 2001.
________. Remembering our Bishop, Joseph W. Regan, M.M. Quezon City: Claretian, 1998.
Labayen, Julio X. To Be the Church of the Poor, ed. Denis Murphy. Manila:
Communication Foundation for Asia, 1986.
Lach, Donald F. and Edwin J. Van Kley. Asia in the Making of Europe: A Century
Advanced, vol. 3. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1993.
Lafaye, Jacques. Quetzalcóalt y Guadalupe: La formación de la conciencia nacional de
Mẻxico. Madrid: Fondo de la Cultura Economica, 1977.
Lamb, Sharon. The Trouble with Blame: Victims, Perpetrators and Responsibility.
Cambridge: Harvard University, 1996.
Law, Eric. The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb: A Spirituality of Leadership in a
Multicultural Community. St. Louis: Chalice,1993.
Leavis, Raymond Frank and Denys Thompson. Culture and Environment: The Training
of Critical Awareness. London: Chatto and Windus, 1948.
________. Mass and Minority Culture. Cambridge: Minority, 1930.
________. Nor Shall My Sword. London: Chatto and Windus, 1972.
Lee, Bernard. The Catholic Experience of Small Christian Communities. New
York/Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 2000.
Lee, Sang Hyun. A Liminal Place: An Asian American Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress,
2010.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Novissima Sinica: Das Neuste von China (1967), .ed; and trans.
H.G. Nesselrath & H. Reinbothe. Cologne: German China-Society, 1979.
Levinas, Emmanuel. Outside the Subject. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 1993.
________. Totalité et Infini. La Haye: M. Nijhoff, 1961.
xxvii
SAMBAYANIHAN
Lim, Eng-Beng. Brown Boys and Rice Queens: Spellbinding Performance in the Asias.
New York/London: New York University, 2014.
Limoges, Camille. L’université à la croisée des chemins: une mission à affirmer, une
gestion à réformer. Quebec: Actes du colloque ACFAS.CSE.CST, Gouvernement du
Québec Ministère de l'Éducation, 1996.
Livermore, Harold. A History of Spain. New York: Minerva, 1968.
Lobinger, Fritz. Building Small Christian Communities: Training for Community
Ministries. Delmenville, South Africa: Lumko Missiological Institute, 1981.
Lonergan, Bernard. Method in Theology. London: Darton, 1972.
________. Method in Theology. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1990.
Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge,
2005.
Luciani, Rafael. Pope Francis and the Theology of the People. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2017.
Luzbetak, Louis. The Church and Cultures: An Applied Anthropology for the Religious
Worker. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1970/1963.
Lyotard, Jean Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff
Bennignton and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1979/1984.
MacCannell, Dean. The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. Berkeley: University
of California, 1999.
Magay, Melba P. Filipino Religious Consciousness: Some Implications to Mission. Quezon
City: Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture, 2002.
Majul, Cesar Adib. Muslims in the Philippines. Quezon City: University of the Philippines
Asian Center, 1973.
________. The Contemporary Muslim Movement in the Philippines. Berkeley: Mizan, 1985.
Malinowski, Bronislaw Freedom and Civilization. London: Unwin, 1947.
Mall, Ram Adhar. Intercultural Philosophy. Lanham, MD.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.
________. Philosophie im Vergleich der Kulturen. Interkulturelle Philosophie – Eine neue
Orientierung. Darmstadt, 1995.
Manuel, George and Michael Posluns. The Fourth World: An Indian Reality. Canada,
Collier-Macmillan, 1974.
Marcel Gabriel, Awakenings, trans. Peter Rogers. Milwaukee: Marquette University,
2002.
________. Being and Having. New York: Harper & Row, 1949.
________. Creative Fidelity, trans. and intro. Robert Rosthal. New York: Fordham
University, 2002.
________. Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope, trans. Emma Craufurd.
Chicago: Harper & Row, 1965.
________. Le Mystere de l’ Etre, vol. 1, Reflexion et Myster. Paris: Editions Montaigne,
1951.
________. Man Against Mass Society, trans. G.S. Fraser. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1962.
xxviii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
________. Metaphysical Journal, trans. Bernard Wall. Chicago, IL: Regnery, 1952;
London: Rockliff, 1952.
________. Presence and Immortality, trans. M.A. Machado. Pittsburg, PA: Duquesne
University, 1967.
________. Problematic Man, trans. Brian Thompson. New York: Herder and Herder, 1967.
________. The Existential Background of Human Dignity. Cambridge: Harvard University,
1963.
________. The Mystery of Being. Chicago: Regnery, 1960.
________. The Philosophy of Existentialism, trans. Manya Harari. New York: Citadel,
1961/1995.
________. Tragic Wisdom and Beyond (with conversations between Paul Riceour and
Gabriel Marcel), trans. Stephen Jolin and Peter McCormick. Evanston: Northwestern
University, 1973.
Marini, Piero. A Challenging Reform: Realizing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal,
Realizing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal, eds. Mark R. Francis, C.S.V., John R.
Page and Keith F. Pecklers, S.J. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2007.
Marins, José et al. The Church from the Roots: Basic Ecclesial Communities. Quezon City:
Claretians, 1983, 1997.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology in Karl Marx, Friderich Engels:
Collected Works, V.5. Marx and Engels: 1845-47. London: Lawrence and Wishart,
1976.
Marx, Karl. Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy in Karl Marx,
Frederich Engels: Collected Works, V. 29. Karl Marx: 1857-61. London: Lawrence and
Wishart, 1987.
Matsuoka, Fumitaka. Out of Silence: Emerging Themes in Asian American Churches.
Cleveland: United Church, 1995.
Maundelbaum, Maurice. History, Man and Reason. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1971.
Mc Cown, Joe. Availability: Gabriel Marcel and the Phenomenology of Human Openness:
AAR Studies in Religion. Montana: Scholars, 1978.
McWilliams, Carey. Brothers Under the Skin. Boston: Little, Brown, 1964.
Mendoza, Gavino, ed. Church of the People: The Basic Christian Community Experience
in the Philippines. Manila, Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference on Human
Development, 1988.
Mercado, Leonardo N., S.V.D. Doing Filipino Theology. Manila: Divine Word, 1997.
________. Elements of Filipino Theology. Tacloban City: Divine Word University, 1975.
________. Filipino Popular Devotions: The Interior Dialogue Between Traditional Religion
and Christianity. Manila: Logos, 2000.
________. Inculturation and Filipino Theology. Manila: Divine Word, 1992.
________. The Filipino Mind. Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and
Philosophy, 1994.
Mignolo, Walter. Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and
Border Thinking. Princeton and Oxford; Princeton University, 2000.
xxix
SAMBAYANIHAN
________. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options.
Durham & London: Duke University, 2011.
Milbank, John and Simon Oliver, eds., Radical Orthodoxy. Oxon and New York:
Routledge, 2009.
Miller, Stuart Creighton. “Benevolent Assimilation”: The American Conquest of the
Philippines, 1899 – 1903. New Haven and London: Yale University, 1982.
Miranda, Dionisio. Buting Pinoy: Probe Essays on Value as Filipino. Manila: Divine Word,
1992.
________. Loob: The Filipino Within. Manila: Divine Word, 1989.
________. Pagkamakabuhay: On the Side of Life: Prolegomena for Bioethics from a Filipino-
Christian Perspective. Manila: Logos, 1994.
Moltmann, Jürgen. The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God. N.p.: SCM, 1981.
Montgomery, James and Donald. McGavran.The Disciplining of a Nation. Manila: Global
Growth Bulletin, 1980.
Morin, Edgar. Paradigma pierdută: natura umană (The Lost Paradigm: Human Nature),
trans., Iulian Popescu. Iaşi: Al. I. Cuza University, 1999.
Nagler, Norbert and W. Meyer zum Farwig. Auf eine neue Weise Kirche sein. In
Zukunftsfähige Gemeinde. Hrsg. Gregor von Fürstenberg, Norbert Nagler, Klaus
Vellguth. München: Ein Werkbuch mit Impulsen aus den Jungen Kirchen, 2003.
Nakpil, Carmen Guerrero. The Philippines and the Filipinos. Quezon City: Vidal, 1977.
Neo, Julma, D.C., Ma. Teresa Mueda, D.C. and Heidi Villareal, D.C. Towards a New
Way of Being Church Today. Philippines: Claretian, 1995.
Newman, John Henry. On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, ed. John
Coulson. Maryland, Rowman and Littlefield, 1961.
Nick Joaquin. Culture and History. Pasig City: Anvil, 2004.
Nicolescu, Barasab, ed. Transdisciplinarity - Theory and Practice. USA: Hampton, 2008.
________. From Modernity to Cosmodernity: Science, Culture, and Spirituality. Albany,
New York: State University of New York, 2014.
Niebuhr, Richard. Christ and Culture. New York: Harper and Row, 1951.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One, 28th,
modern ed. Np.:Penguin, 1969.
Nkrumah, Kwame. Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. London: Heinemann,
1965.
Nouwen, Henri. Reaching Out: Three Movements of the Spiritual Life. New York: Image,
1975.
Novick, Peter. That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical
Profession. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1988.
Nye, Joseph S., Jr. Soft Power: The Means to Success in the World Politics. New York:
Public Affairs, 2004.
________. Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. New York: Basic
Books, 1990.
xxx
BIBLIOGRAPHY
O’Halloran, Jim. Small Christian Communities: Vision and Practicalities. Dublin:

Columba, 2002.
Ocampo, Ambeth R. 101 Stories on the Philippine Revolution. Pasig: Anvil, 2010.
________. Looking Back: Prehistoric Philippine. Philippines: Anvil, 2012.
________. Makamisa; The Search for Rizal’s Third Novel. Pasig: Anvil, 2009.
________. Meaning and History. Pasig: Anvil, 2001.
Ortega, Jose Gasset. Mission of the University, trans. Howard Lee Nostrand. London and
New York: Routledge, 1946.
Orwell, George. Animal Farm. London, England: Secker and Warburg, 1945.
Ostdiek, Gilbert. Catechesis for Liturgy: A Program for Parish Involvement. Washington
DC: Pastoral, 1986.
Pagden, Anthony. Peoples and Empires: A Short History of European Migration,
Exploration, and Conquest from Greece to Present. New York: Modern Library, 2001.
Palazzo, Eric. A History of Liturgical Books From the Beginning to the Thirteenth Century.
Collegeville: Liturgical,/Pueblo, 1998.
Paredi, Angelo. Storia del Rito Ambrosiano. Milan, Edizioni O.R., 1990.
Patte, Daniel. Introduction to the Global Bible Commentary. Nashville, TN: Abingdon,
2004.
Paul, Gregor. Einführung in die Interkulturelle Philosophie. Darmstadt: WBG, 2008.
Pecklers, Keith. The Genius of the Roman Rite: The Reception and Implementation of the
New Roman Missal. London: Burns and Oates, 2009, 2010.
Pe-Pua, Rogelio, ed. Filipino Psychology: Theory, Method and Application. Quezon City:
Surian ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino, 1982.
Perrin-Jassy, Marie France. Basic Community in the African Churches. Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis, 1973.
Phan, Peter. Being Religious Interreligiously: Asian Perspectives on Interfaith Dialogue.
Philips, Dewi Z. Faith and Philosophical Enquiry. London: Routledge & Keagan Paul,
1988.
________. Wittgenstein and Religion. Basingtoke: Macmillan,1993.
Picardal, Amado. Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Philippines: An Ecclesiological
Perspective. Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University, 1995.
Pigafetta, Antonio. Magellan’s Voyage Around the World by Antonio Pigafetta, vol. 2;
trans., ed., and annotation, James Alexander Robertson. Cleveland: The Arthur H.
Clark, 1906.
Pinell, Jordi. Liturgia: Diccionario de Historia Ecclesiástica de España II. Madrid: Centro
De Pastoral Liturgica, 1972.
Plekhanov, Georgii. Art and Social Life, trans. E. Hartley, in Art and Social Life, eds. P.
Davidson et al. Cambridge: Chadwick Healey, 1978.
Pobee, John. Toward an African Theology. Nashville: Abingdon, 1979.
xxxi
SAMBAYANIHAN
Poupard, Paul. The Church and Culture: Challenge and Confrontation; Inculturation and
Evangelization, trans. John Miller. New Hope, KY: St. Martin de Porres Dominican
Community, 1994/ 1st ed. 1989.
Prestige, George Leonard. God in Pastristic Thought. London: S.P.c.K., 1952,1956.
Rafael, Vicente. Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog
Society under Early Spanish Rule. Ithaca and London: Cornell University, 1988.
Raheb, Mitri. I Am a Palestinian Christian. Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress, 1995.
Rahner, Karl. Geist in Welt. MunichL Kösel-Verlag, 1957.
________. Spirit in the World, trans., William Dych. London: Sheed and Ward, 1968.
________. The Shape of the Church to Come. New York: Seabury, 1974.
Ramsey, Ian T. Christian Discourse: Some Logical Explorations. Oxford: Oxford
University, 1965.
________. Models and Mystery. Oxford: Oxford University, 1964.
________. On Being Sure in Religion. London: Athlone, 1963.
Ratzinger, Josef. The Feast of Faith. San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986.
________. The Organic Development of Liturgy, trans. Henry Taylor, ed. Alcuin Reid,
O.S.B. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005.
________. Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, trans., Henry Taylor.
San Francisco: Ignatius, 2004.
Rausch, Thomas. Towards a Truly Catholic Church: An Ecclesiology for the Third
Millenium. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2005.
Rawls, John. Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University, 1973.
Ricoeur, Paul. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. New Haven: Yale
University, 1970.
Reid, Alcuin, O.S.B. The Organic Development of the Liturgy. San Francisco: Ignatius,
2005.
Reid, Alcuin, O.S.B., ed. Sacred Liturgy: The Source and Summit of the Life and Mission
of the Church. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2014.
Retana, Wenceslao E. Archivo del Bibliofilo Filipino: Recopilacion de docuentos historicos,
cientificos, literarios, y studios bibilograficos, 5 vols. Madrid: Impr. De la viuda d M.
Minuesa de los Rios, 1895-1905.
Rex, John. Dictionary of Marxist Thought, ed. Tom Bottomore. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University, 1983.
Rieger, Jeorg. Christ and Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times. Minneapolis: Fortress,
2007.
________. Globalization and Theology. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2010.
Rodriguez, Isacio. Cronica de la Orden de N.P.S. Agustin en las Provincia de la Nueva
Espana. Mexico, 1624.
Rodriguez, Robyn Magalit. Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor
to the World. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota, 2010.
xxxii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rouner, Leroy J. Within Human Experience: The Philosophy of William Ernest Hocking.
New York: Harvard University, 1969.
Rowland, Tracey. Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI. Oxford: Oxford
University, 2008.
Rynne, Xavier. Vatican Council II. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1999.
Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage, 1993.
________. Orientalism. London: Penguin, 2003.
San Juan, Epifanio Jr. Beyond Postcolonial Theory. New York: St. Martin, 1999.
________. From Exile to Diaspora: Versions of Filipino Experience in the United States.
Colorado: Westview, 1998.
________. After Postcolonialism: Remapping Philippines-United States Confrontations.
Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.
________. Hegemony and Strategies of Transgression: Essays in Cultural Studies and
Comparative Literature, by James R. Bennet. Albany, New York: State University of
New York, 1995.
________. Toward Filipino Self-Determination: Beyond Transnational Globalization.
Albany, NY: SUNY, 2009.
________. Commentary on Hegemony and Strategies of Transgression: Essays in Cultural
Studies and Comparative Literature, by James R. Bennet. Albany, New York: State
University of New York, 1995.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism and Humanism. London: Methuen 1973.
________. No Exit. New York: Samuel French, 1945.
Scarre, Geoffrey. Utilitanism. London: Vintage, 1994.
________. Utilitarianism: The Problem of Philosophy. London/New York: Routledge, 1996.
Schickel, Joachim ed., Grenzenbeschreibung: Gespräche mit Philosophen. Hamburg:
Margherita von Brentano, 1980.
Schillebeeckx, Edward. Christ: The Human Story of God. New York: Crossroad, 1990.
Schineller, Peter, S.J. A Handbook on Inculturation. New York: Paulist, 1990.
Schirmer; Daniel and Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, eds. The Philippines Reader: A
History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship and Resistance. Boston: South
End, 1987.
Schmemman, Alexander. Introduction to Liturgical Theology. Crestwood, NY: St
Vladimir’s Seminary.
________. Liturgy and Tradition: Theological Reflections of Alexander Schmemman, ed.
Thomas Fisch. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 2003.
Schmidt, Herman A.P., S.J. Liturgie et Langue Vulgaire: Le problème de la langue
liturgique chez le premiers Réformateur et au Concile de Trente. Roma: Analecta
Gregoriana 53, 1950.
Schopenhauer, Arthur.The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1, trans. E.F.J. Payne.
New York: Dover, 1969.
xxxiii
SAMBAYANIHAN
Schott, Joseph L. The Ordeal of Samar. New York and Indianapolis: Solar, 1964.
Schmemann, Alexander. Introduction to Liturgical Theology. Crestwood, NY: St
Vladimir’s Seminary, 1966.
Schreiter, Rober. Constructing Local Theologies. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1985,1999.
________. The New Catholicity: Theology Between the Global and the Local. Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis,1997, 2004.
Schrijvers, Joeri. Between Faith and Belief: Toward a Contemporary Phenomenology of
Life. Albany, NY: State University of New York, 2016.
Schumacher, John N. Father Jose Burgos: Priest and Nationalist. Quezon City: Ateneo
de Manila University, 1972.
________. Growth and Decline: Essays on Philippine History. Quezon City: Ateneo de
Manila University, 2009.
________. Revolutionary Clergy: The Filipino Clergy and the Nationalist Movement 1850-
1903. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 1981.
________. The Propaganda Movement 1880-1895: The Creation of a Filipino
Consciousness; The Making of the Revolution. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila
University, 2000.
________. Readings in Philippine Church History, 2nd ed. Quezon City: Loyola School of
Theology AdMU, 1987.
Schwarz, David. Culture and Power. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1997.
Scott, James. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven:
Yale University,1985.
Scott, William Henry. Prehistoric Source Materials for Study of Philippine History. Manila:
University of Santo Tomas, 1968.
Seiterich, Thomas. Die andere Kirche Basisgemeinden in Europa. Wuppertal:
Jugenddienst Verlag, 1982.
Shirley, Steven. Guided by God: The Legacy of the Catholic Church in Philippine Politics.
Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International, 2004.
Shorter, Aylward. Toward a Theology of Inculturation. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1999.
Siliman, Robert B., ed. Religious Beliefs and Life at the Beginning of the Spanish Regime
in the Philippines. Dumaguete City: College of Theology, Silliman University, 1964.
Simpson, Gerry. Great Powers and Outlaw States: Unequal Sovereigns in the
International Legal Orders. New York: Cambridge University, 2004.
Sitoy,T. Valentino. A History of Christianity in the Philippines: The Initial Encounter, vol.
1. Quezon City: New Day, 1985.
Smart, Ninian. World Philosophies. London: Routledge, 1999.
________. Weltgeschichte des Denkens. Die geistigen Traditionen der Menschheit.
Darmstadt, 2002.
Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, vol. 1, ed.
R. H. Campbell. Oxford: Clarendon, 1976.
Smith, Seba. The Money Diggers. N.p., 1840.
xxxiv
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Smolarski, Dennis C. Liturgical Literacy: From Anamnesis to Worship. New York,

NY/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1990.
Smyth, Matthew. ‘Ante Altaria’ Les rites antiques de la messe dominicale en Gaul, en
Espagne et en Italie du Nord. Paris: Cerf, 2007.
Society of Jesus. Documents of the Thirty-First and Thirty-Second General Congregations
of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1977.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Nationalism and the Imagination. Calcutta: Seagull, 2010.
________. The Spivak Reader, eds. Donna Landry and Gerald Maclean. New York and
London: Routledge, 1996.
Steinberg, David Joel. The Philippines: A Singular and Plural Place. Oxford: Westview,
2000.
Stonequist, Everett V. The Marginal Man: A Study of Personality and Cultural Conflict.
New York: Russell & Russell, 1937.
Stranghellini, Giovanni. Disembodied Spirits and Deanimated Bodies: The
Psychopathology of Common Sense. England: Oxford University, 2004.
Sugirtharajah, R.S. The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial
Encounters. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2001.
Sulloway, Frank. Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend. New
York: Harvard University, 1979.
Tamez, Elsa. Against Machismo. Oak Park, Il.: Meyer Stone Books, 1987.
Tan, Samuel K. A History of the Philippines. Quezon City: University of the Philippines
Diliman, 2008/ e-book version 2011.
________. The Muslim South and Beyond. Quezon City: University of the Philippines
Diliman, 2010.
Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University, 2007.
________. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University, 1989.
Triandis, Harry C. Individualism and Collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995.
Tylor, Edward. Primitive Culture, vol. 1. New York: Harper, 1871.
Teichgraeber Richard III.‘ Free’ Trade and Moral Philosophy: Rethinking the Sources of
Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth of the Nations’. Durham: Duke University, 1986.
ter Haar, Gerrie. Halfway to Paradise: African Christians in Europe. Cardiff: Cardiff
Academic, 1998.
The Committee for the Pastoral Council of the Korean Catholic Church. 200
주년기념사목회의 사회조사보고서 [A Social Survey Report of the Committee in the
Bicentennial Anniversary of the Korean Catholic Church]. Seoul: The Committee for
the Pastoral Council of the Korean Catholic Church, 1985.
The National Committee for Small Christian Communities. Report on the Korean Catholic
Church: AslPA General Assembly III. Seoul: The National Committee for Small
Christian Communities, 2003.
xxxv
SAMBAYANIHAN
Thompson, Marjorie. Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life. Louisville:
Westminster John Knox, 2005.
Towler, Robert. Conventional Religion and Common Religion in Great Britain. Leeds:
Department of Sociology, University of Leeds, n.d.
Turner, Victor W. Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Ithaca: Cornell University,
1969.
Twain, Mark. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. London and New York: Harper
and Brothers, 1889.
Tylor, Edward. Primitive Culture, vol. 1. New York: Harper, 1871.
Udeani, Chibueze. Inculturation as Dialogue: Igbo Culture and the Message of Christ.
Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007.
van Deurzen-Smith, Emmy. Everyday Mysteries: Existential Dimensions of
Psychotherapy. London: Routledge, 1997.
van Leeuwen, A. Compendium praelectionum ethicae. Nijmegen: Berchmanianum ca.,
1960.
Vanhaegendoren, Maurits and H.D. De Vries Reilingh. Noord-Zuid verbinding.
Samenhorigheid en samenwerking van Lage Landen (‘North-South connection. Unity
and cooperation in the Low Countries’), trans. Jane Fenoulhet. Tielt, The Hague,
1961.
Vergara, Benito, Jr. Pinoy Capital: The Filipino National in Daly City. Philadelphia:
Temple University, 2009.
Viswanathan, Gauri, ed. Power, Politics and Culture: Interviews with Edward W. Said.
London: Bloomsbury, 2005.
Volf, Miroslav. Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness,
and Reconciliation. Nashville: Abingdon, 1996.
von Balthasar, Hans Urs. The Word Made Flesh, trans. A. V. Littledale with Alexander
Due. San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989.
________. Verbum Caro, I. Einsiedeln, Switzerland: Johannesverlag,1960.
Von der Menden, Fred R. Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia: Burma, Indonesia,
The Philippines. Madison, Milwaukee and London: The University of Wisconsin,
1968.
Vuković, Željko. Ubijanje Sarajeva (The Killing of Sarajevo). Beograd: Kron, 1993.
Waters, Malcom. Globalization. London: Routledge, 1995.
Wiersinga, Herman. Verzoening met het Lijden?. Baarn: Nelissen, 1975.
Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society: Coleridge to Orwell. London: Hogarth, 1993.
________. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, rev. ed. New York: Oxford
University, 1988.
________. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Fontana, 1985.
________. Marxism and Literature. London: Oxford University, 1977.
________. Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism, ed. Robin Gable. London:
Verso, 1989.
xxxvi
BIBLIOGRAPHY
________. The Long Revolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961.

________. Towards 2000. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.
Williamson, Clark. Ways of Blessing, Way of Life: A Christian Theology. St. Louis:
Chalice, 1999.
Wilson, Bryan. Contemporary Transformations of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University,
1976.
________. Religion in Secular Society. Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1966/969.
________. Religion in Sociological Perspective.Oxford: Oxford University, 1982.
Wimmer, Franz Martin. Interkulturelle Philosophie. Vienna: UTB, 2004.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Culture and Value, ed. G.H. von Wright, trans. Peter Winch.
Oxford: Blackwell, 1980.
________. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958.
________. Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell,
1968.
________. Philosophical Investigation, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. New York: MacMillan,
1989.
Wojtyla, Karol. Person and Community: Selected Essays, New York, NY: Peter Lang,
1993.
________. The Acting Person. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979.
Wolff, Christian. Oratorio de Senarum philosophia practica. (Speech Regarding Chinese
Practical Philosophy), ed. and trans. M. Albrecht. Hamburg, 1985.
Young, Robert. Postcolonialism; An Historical Introduction. Massachusetts: Blackwell,
2008.
Zaide, Sonia M. The Philippines: A Unique Nation, 2nd ed. Philippines: All-Nations, 1999.
Zinn, Howard. The Politics of History. 2nd ed. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois,
1990.
________. You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times.
Boston, MA: Beacon, 2002.
Zizioloulas, John D. Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church.
Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 1985.
1.3. ARTICLES IN COLLECTIONS AND FESTSCHRIFTEN
Abesamis, Carlos. “Doing Theological Reflection in a Philippine Context.” In The
Emergent Gospel: Theology from the Developing World, eds. Sergio Torres & Virginia
Fabella, 112-123. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1978.
Anzaldua, Gloria. “Preface: (Un)natural Bridges, (Un)safe Spaces.” In This Bridge We Call
Home: Radical Visions for Transformations, eds. Gloria E. Anzalúa and Analouise
Keating, 1-5. New York and London: Routledge, 2002.
Aquino, Maria Pilar. “The Collective Dis-covery of our Own Power.” In Hispanic/Latino
Theology: Challenge and Promise, eds. Ada Maria Asasi-Diaz and Fernando Segovia,
240-260. Minneapolis; Fortress, 1996.
xxxvii
SAMBAYANIHAN
Arias, Mortimer. “Global and Local: A Critical View of Mission Models.” In Global Good
News: Mission in a New Context, ed. Howard Snyder, 55-64. Nashville: Abingdon,
2001.
Arrupe, Pedro, S.J. “Letter to the Whole Society on Inculturation.” In Other Apostolates
Today: Selected Letters and Addresses of Pedro Arrupe, SJ., vol. 3, ed. J Axiala, 172-
81. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources,1978.
Bagasao, Ildefonso F. “Filipinos in Europe: An Economic Profile.” In In de Olde World:
Views of Filipino Migrants in Europe, ed. Filomenita Mongaya Hoegsholm, 28-57.
Quezon City: Philippine Social Science Council, 2007.
BCC Members. “The European BCCs Face Today’s Challenges.” In Small Christian
Communities, eds. Joseph Healey and Jeanne Hinton, 77-83. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis,
2005.
Bentham, Jeremy. “An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789).”
In Utilitarian and Other Essays: J.S. Mill and Jeremy Bentham, ed. Alan Ryan, 65-
112. London: Penguin, 1987.
Binswanger, Ludwig. ‘Brief von Binswanger and Richard Hönigswald, 6 February
1947.” In Vorträge und Aufsätze: Ausgwählte Werke3, ed. M. Herzog, 35-69.
Heidelberg: Asanger, 1994.
________. “On the Manic Mode of Being-in-the-World.” In Phenomenology: Pure and
Applied, ed. Erwin W. Straus, 127-141. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University,1964.
________. “The Existential Analysis School of Thought.” In Existence, trans. Ernest Angel,
eds. May Rollo, Ernest Angel and Henri Ellenberger, 121-213. New York: Basic
Books, 1958.
Bishop, Edmund. “The Genius of the Roman Rite.” In Liturgica Historica: Papers on the
Liturgy and Religious Life of the Western Church, 1-19. Oxford: Clarendon,
1918/1962.
Blauner, Robert. ‘‘Colonized and Immigrant Minorities.’’ In From Different Shores:
Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America, ed. Ronald Takaki 149-160. New York
and Oxford: Oxford University, 1987.
Blokker, Paul and Gerard Delantey. “European Identity, Post-Western Europe, and
Complex Cultural Diversity;” In The Struggle for the West: A Divided and Contested
Legacy, eds. Christopher Browning & Marko Lehti, 117-133. London & New York:
Routledge, 2010.
Boas, Franz. “Anthropology.” In Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 2, ed. Edwin R.
A. Seligman, 73-111. New York: Mcmillam, 1930.
Boszormenyi-Nagy, Ivan et al. “Contextual Therapy.” In Handbook of Family Therapy,
vol. 2, eds. A. Gurman and D. Kniskern, 200-238. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1991.
Boszormenyi-Nagy, Ivan. and David Ulrich. “Contextual Family Therapy.” In Handbook
of Family Therapy, eds. A. S. Gurman, P. Kniskern, 159-186. New York:
Brunner/Mazel, 1981.
Bourne, Edward Gaylord. “Historical Introduction,” vol 1. In The Philippine Islands 1493-
1898, 55 vols., eds., Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson, 19-87.
Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1903-1909.
xxxviii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brazal, Agnes M. and Emmanuel S. de Guzman. “Intercultural Church: A Challenge in

the Asian Migrant Context.” In Christianities in Migration: The Global Perspective,
eds. Elaine Padilla and Peter C. Phan, 71-88. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Brigham, Susan M. “Filipino Domestic Workers: Contradictions, Resistances, and
Implications for Change.” In Migration, Globalization, and the State, ed. Rachel
Brickner, 101-124. New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2003.
Brock, Rita Nakashima. “Cooking without Recipes: Interstitial Integrity.” In Off the
Menu: Asian and Asian North American Women’s Religion and Theology, eds. Rita
Nakashima Brock, et al., 125-144. Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox,
2007.
________. “Interstitial Integrity: Reflections toward an Asian American Woman’s
Theology.” In Introduction to Christian Theology: Contemporary North American
Perspectives, ed. Roger A. Badham, 183-196. Louisville: Westminster John Knox,
1988.
Camara, Joao Brito. “Historical Relations between Philippines and Portugal.” In
Centennial Commemorative Lectures. Philippines: Department of Foreign Affairs,
1998.
Carrier, Hervé. “The Church Meeting Cultures: Convergences and Perspectives.” In The
Church and Culture Since Vatican II: The Experience of North and Latin America, ed.
Joseph Gremillion, 140-152. Indiana: University of Notra Dame, 1985.
Cassanova, Jose. “Beyond European and American Exceptionalisms: Toward a Global
Perspective.” In Predicting Religion, eds. G. Davie, P. Helas and Linda Woodhead,
17-29. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003.
Castillo Guerra, Jorge E. “An opportunity to foster inter-Christian reciprocity: The View
from ‘World Christianity’ and ‘the Next Christendom’.” In The Decline of Established
Christianity in the Western World: interpretations and responses (Studies in World
Christianity and Interreligious Relations), ed. P.S. Peterson, 189-201. New York:
Routledge, 2017.
Cavanaugh, William. “The City Beyond Secular Parodics.” In Radical Orthodoxy: A New
Theology, eds. John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock and Graham Ward, 182-200.
London and New York: Routledge, 1999.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for Indian
Pasts?” In Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Padminis Mongia, 223-
47. London: Arnold, 1997.
Chupungco, Anscar J. “Shaping the Filipino Order of Mass.” In Worship: Beyond
Inculturation, ed. Anscar Chupungco, 129-156. Washington, DC: Pastoral, 1994.
________. “Liturgical Inculturation.” In Handbook for Liturgical Studies II: Fundamental
Liturgy, ed. Anscar Chupungco, OSB, 337-376. Colleville, MN: The Liturgical Press,
1998.
Cieslikiewicz, Christopher. “Pastoral Involvement of Parish-Based SCCs in Dar es
Salaam.” In Small Christian Communities, eds. Joseph Healey and Jeanne Hinton,
99-105. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005.
Clarke, W. Norris. “The Integration of Personalism and Thomistic Metaphysics in
Twenty-First-Century Thomism.” In The Creative Retrieval of St. Thomas Aquinas:
Essays in Thomistic Philosophy, New and Old, ed. W. Norris Clarke, 226–232. New
York, NY: Fordham University, 2009.
xxxix
SAMBAYANIHAN
________. “To be is to be Substance-in-Relation.” In Explorations in Metaphysics: Being,

God, Person, ed. W. Norris Clarke, 102-122. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame, 1994.
Constantino, Renato. “The Miseducation of the Filipino.” In The Philippines Reader: A
History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship and Resistance, eds. Daniel
Schirmer and Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, 45-48. Boston: South End, 1987.
Cragun, Ryan T. “The Declining Significance in Religion in Ireland.” In Values and
Identities in Europe: Evidence from the European Social Survey, Routledge Advances
in Sociology, ed. M. J. Breen, 17-35. UK: Routledge: 2017.
Crapanzano, Vincent. “Hermes’ Dilemma: The Masked Subversion of Ethnographic
Description.” In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, eds. James
Clifford and George Marcus, 51-76. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London. University of
California, 1986.
Crollius, Roest. “What is So New About Inculturation?” In Inculturation: Working Papers
on Living the Faith and Cultures, ed. Ary A. Roest, 1-20. Rome: Gregorian University,
1984.
Dacey, John. “Action and Reflection at the Heart of SCCs in Australia.” In Small
Christian Communities Today: Capturing the Moment, eds. Joseph Healey and
Jeanne Hinton, 135-141. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005.
Davalos, Karen Mary. “The Real Way of Praying: The Via Crucis, Mexicano Sacred Space,
and the Architecture of Domination.” In Horizons of the Sacred: Mexican Traditions
in U.S. Catholicism, ed. Timothy Matovina and Gary Riebe-Estrella, 41-68. New York:
Cornell University, 2002.
de Benavidez, Miguel; O.P. “Letter to King Philip III., dated July 5 and 6, 1603.” In The
Philippine Islands 1493-1898, vol. 12, eds. Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander
Robertson, 108-126. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1903-1909.
De Castro, Leonardo. “Kagandahang loob: A Filipino Concept of Feminine Bioethics.” In
Globalizing Feminist Bioethics, ed. Rosemarie Tong, 51–61. Colorado: Westview,
2000.
de Loarca, Miguel. “Relacion de las Yslas Filipinas.”. In The Philippine Islands 1493-
1898, vol. 5, eds., Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson, 34-187.
de Salazar, Domingo. “Affairs in the Philippine Islands.” In The Philippine Islands 1493-
1898, vol. 5, eds., Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson, 210-255.
De Schrijver, Georges SJ. “Preface.” In Back to the Rough Grounds of Praxis: Exploring
the Theological Method with Pierre Bourdieu, Daniel Franklin Pilario, vii-xii. Leuven,
Belgium: Leuven University, 2005.
Dogan, Mattei. “Religious Beliefs in Europe: Factors of Accelerated Decline.” In Research
in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, volume 14, eds. Ralph L. Piedmont and
David O. Moberg, 161-188. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003.
Edwards, Jonathan. “A Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the
World.” In Edward’s Ethical Writings, vol. 8, ed. Paul Ramsey, 403-536. New Haven:
Yale University, 1989.
Eliot, Thomas Stearns. “Notes Towards the Definition of Culture.” In Christianity and
Culture, 79-187. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1977.
xl
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Elizondo, Virgilio. “Popular Religion as Support of Identity based on the Mexican-

American Experience in the U.S.A.” In Spirituality of the Third World, ed. K.C.
Abraham and Bernadetter Mbuy-Beya, 55-63. New York: Orbis, 1994.
Emeis, Dieter. Realistische Treue zur Vision der Gemeinde. In Zukunftsfähige Gemeinde,
hrsg. Gregor von Fürstenberg, Norbert Nagler and Klaus Vellguth, 13-16. München:
Don-Bosco-Verlag, 2003.
Engels, Friedrich. “A Letter to J. Bloc.h [1890].” In Marxism and Art: Essays Classic and
Contemporary, ed. Maynar Solomon. Detroit: Wayne State University, 1978.
Enriquez, Virgilio. “Indigenous Personality Theory.” In Indigenous Psychology: A Book of
Readings, ed. Virgilio Enriquez, 285-310. Quezon City: Akademya ng Sikolohiyang
Pilipino, 1990.
Fernandez, Eleazar. “Exodus-toward-Egypt: The Filipino-Americans’ Struggle to Realize
the Promise Land in America.” In The Postcolonial Biblical Reader, ed. R.S.
Sugirtharajah, 291-233. Malden, MA.: Blackwell, 2006.
Ferriols, Roque J. “Fr. Norris Clarke, S.J.: Heswitang Metapisiko.” In Pagdiriwang sa
Meron: A Festival of Thought Celebrating Roque J. Ferriols, S.J., eds. Nemesio Que,
S.J. and Agustin Martin G. Rodriguez. Quezon City: Office of Research and
Publications, Ateneo de Manila University, 1977.
Fornet-Betancourt, Raúl. “Hermeneutics and Politics of Strangers: A Philosophical
Contribution on the Challenge of Convivencia in Multicultural Societies.” In A
Promised Land; A Perilous Journey: Theological Perspectives on Migration, ed. Daniel
Groody and Gioacchino Campese, 210-224. Notre Dame, IN.: University of Notre
Dame, 2008.
Francia, Luis. ‘‘The Other Side of the American Coin.’’ In Flippin’: Filipinos on America,
eds Luis Francia and Eric Gamalinda, 6-9. New York: The Asian American Writers’
Workshop, 1996.
Fuchs, Ottmar. “Immer noch: Neue Impulse aus der Weltkirche.” In Zukunftsfähige
Gemeinde, hrsg. Gregor van Fürstenberg, Norbert Nagler and Klaus Vellguth, 17-
27. Freiburg/Basel/Wein: Herder, 2013.
________. “The Invention of History: A German Perspective.” In The Invention of History:
A Century of Interplay Between Theology and Politics in Palestine, ed. Mitri Raheb,
131-148. Bethlehem: Diyar, 2011.
Gemelli, John Francis. “A Voyage Round the World.” In A Collection of Voyages and
Travels, ed. Awnsham Churchill, vol. 5, 1704-1732. London: Henry Lintot; and John
Osborn.
Gerry Proctor. “Analyzing the Present Moment: Latin American BECs in 2004.” In Small
Christian Communities Today. Eds. Joseph Healey and Jeanne Hinton, 32-40.
Giddens, Anthony. “The Consequences of Modernity.” In Colonial Discourse and Post-
Colonial Theory: A Reader, eds. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman, 181-190. New
York: Columbia University, 1994.
Goizueta, Roberto. “Reflecting on America as a Single Entity: Catholicism and U.S.
Latinos.” In Many Faces, One Church: Cultural Diversity and the American Catholic
Experience, ed. Peter Phan and Diana Hayes, 69-82. Lanham, MD: Sheed and Ward,
2004.
xli
SAMBAYANIHAN
Gonzales Joaquin L. and Andrea Maison. “We Do Not Bowl Alone: Social and Cultural
Capital from Filipinos and Their Churches.” In Asian American Religions: The
Making and Remaking of Borders and Boundaries, eds. Tony Carnes and Fenggang
Yang, 338-360. New York: University, 2006.
Gonzales, Lydia F. “Ang Pagtatanong-tanong: Dahilan at Katangia.” In Sikolohiyang
Pilipino: Teorya, Metodo at Gamit (Filipino Psychology: Theory Method and
Application), ed. Rogelia Pe-Pua, 175-186. Quezon City: Surian ng Sikolohiyang
Pilipino, Philippine Psychology Research and Training House, 1982, originally pub.,
1980.
Goodenough, Ward. “Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics.” In Report of Seventh
Annual Round Table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Study, ed. P. Garvin, 167-
173. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 1957.
Gopin, Marc. “The Heart of the Stranger.” In Explorations in Reconciliation: New
Directions in Theology, eds. David Tombs and Joseph Liechty, 3-21. England:
Ashgate, 2006.
Gorospe, Vitaliano S.J. “Understanding the Filipino Value System.” In Values in
Philippines Culture and Education, ed. Manuel B. Dy, part 1, no. 6. Washington D.C.:
Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1994.
Gramsci, Antonio. “Notes on Italian History?” In Selections from the Prison Notebooks of
Antonio Gramsci, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, 54-55.
New York: International Publishers, 1971.
Gripaldo, Rolando M. “Bahala na: A Philosophical Analysis.” In Filipino Cultural Traits:
Claro R. Ceniza Lectures, ed. Rolando M. Gripaldo, 203-220. Washington D.C.:
Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2005.
________. “Renato Constantino’s Philosophy of Nationality: A Critique.” In Filipino
Philosophy: Traditional Approach, part I, section 1. Quezon City: C & E, 2013.
Guevara, Jaime “Pakikipagkapwa [Sharing/Merging oneself with Other].” In Filipino
Cultural Traits, ed. Rolando Gripaldo, 9-20. Washington, DC: The Council for
Research in Values and Philosophy, 2005.
Häberli, Rudolf et al. “Synthesis.” In Transdisciplinarity - Joint Problem Solving among
Science, Technology, and Society, eds. Thompson Klein et al., 6-22. Basel:
Birkhäuser, 2001.
Hacbang, Nonoi and Fe Jusay, “Filipino Migrant Workers in Europe: Organising
Strategies, Agendas and Campaigns.” In In de Olde World: Views of Filipino Migrants
in Europe, ed. Filomenita Mongaya Hoegsholm, 110-135. Quezon City: Philippine
Social Science Council, 2007.
Henau, Ernest. “Popular Religiosity and Christian Faith.” In Popular Religion, ed.
Norbert Greinacher and Norbert Mette, 71-81. London: T&T Clark, 1986.
Hennecke, Christian. “Mehr und anders als man denkt: Small Christian Communities.”
In Small Christian Communities verstehen, Ein Weg, Kirche mit den Menschen zu sein
10-28. Würzburg, 2009.
Hinton, Jeanne and Stephen Rymer. “The Story of Seeds in the United Kingdom.” In
Small Christian Communities Today. Eds. Joseph Healey and Jeanne Hinton, 84-89.
xlii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hollaender, Kirsten; Marie Celine Loibl, and Arnold Wilts. “Managemen.” In Handbook
of Transdisciplinary Research, ed. G. Hirsh Hadorn, 385-397. New York: Springer,
2008.
Huang, Daniel P. “Mission Spirituality: The Paschal Mystery.” In Telling God’s Story.
National Mission Congress 2000 Resources and Documents, ed. James H. Kroeger,
91-96. Quezon City, Philippines: Claretian, 2001.
Husserl, Edmund. “Die Krisis des Europäischen Menschentums und die Philosophie.” In:
Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale
Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, vol. VI. Den
Haag: Husserliana, 1962.
International Congress on Mission. “Workshop V: Basic Christian Communities and
Local Ministries.” For All the Peoples of Asia, vol 1, ed. Gaudencio Rosales D.D. and
Carles.G. Arévalo, S.J., 148-152. Manila. Claretian, 1997.
Jantsch, Erich. “Vers l’interdisciplinarité et la transdisciplinarité dans l’enseignement
et l’innovation.” In L'interdisciplinarité, 98- 112. Paris, OCDE, CERI, 1972.
Kang, Peter Wooil. “한국 천주교 소공동체 도입에 대한 성찰 [A Reflection on the Introduction
of SCCs in the Korean Catholic Church],” 2004 소공동체 심포지움 전국모임 후속자료집
[Additional Sources of the National Meeting of Small Christian Communities in 2004],
ed, Administrative Office for Evangelization. Seoul: Administrative Office for
Evangelization, 2004.
Kathleen Sullivan, “St. Catherine’s Catholic Church: One Church, Parallel
Congregations,” in Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations
in Immigrant Congregations, ed. Helen Rose Ebaugh and Janet Saltman Chafetz,
255-289. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira,2000.
Keating, Ana Louise. “Charting Pathways, Marking Thresholds… A Warning, An
Introduction.” In This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformations, eds.
Gloria E. Anzalúa and Ana Louise Keating, 6-20. New York and London: Routledge,
2002.
Kim, Stephen. “1992 사목교서 [1992 Pastoral Letter].” In 소공동체 길잡이 (A Guide for the
Small Christian Community, ed. Administrative Office for Evangelization. Seoul:
Seoul Archdiocese, 1995.
Kluckhohn, Clyde and William H. Kelly. “The Concept of Culture.” In The Science of Man
in the World Crisis, ed. Ralph Linton, 78-106. New York; Columbia University, 2007.
Kluckhohn, Clyde. “Values and Value-Orientations in the Theory of Action.” In Towards
a General Theory of Action, eds. Talcott Parsons and Edward A. Shils, 388-433.
Cambridge: Harvard University, 1951.
Lagmay, Alfredo. “Bahala Na.” In Ulat ng Ikalawang Pambansang Kumperensya sa
Sikolohiyang Pilipino, eds. Antonio, L., L. Samson, E. Reyes and M. E. Paguio, 120-
130. Quezon City: Lathalainng Pambansang Samahan ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino,
1977.
Lee, Helen. “Hospitable Household: Evangelism.” In Growing Healthy Asian American
Churches: Ministry Insights from Groundbreaking Congregations, eds. Peter Chan et
al., 122-144. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2006.
xliii
SAMBAYANIHAN
Lichnerowicz, André. “Mathématique et transdisciplinarité.” In Interdisciplinarity:

Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities, eds. Leo Apostel, et al., 121-127.
Paris: OCDE, 1972.
Lonergan, Bernard? S.J. “Dialectic of Authority.” In A Third Collection: Papers by
Bernard J. F. Lonergan SJ. Ed. Frederick Crowe 5-12. London: Geoffrey Chapman,
1985.
Macdonald, Peter. “A Moment of Revitalization: The European Collective of BCCs.” In
Small Christian Communities Today, eds. Joseph Healey and Jeanne Hinton, 73-76.
Majul, Cesar Adib. “The Muslims in the Philippines; An Historical Perspective.” In The
Muslim Filipinos, eds. Peter. G. Gowing and Robert D. McAmis, 1-12. Manila:
Solidaridad, 1974.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. “Basic Needs and Cultural Responses.” In A Scientific Theory
and Other Essays, 91-119. New York: Van Rees, 1944.
________. “The Nature of Derived Needs.” In A Scientific Theory and Other Essays, 120-
131. New York: Van Rees, 1944.
Mansukhani, Raj. “Pakikiramdam [Sensitivity to Feelings]: A Critical Analysis.” In
Filipino Cultural Traits: Claro R. Ceniza Lectures, ed. Rolando M. Gripaldo, 185-202.
Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2005.
Marcel, Gabriel. “Les Menace de Guerre.” In Gabriel Marcel Et les injustices de ce Temps:
La Responsabilite du Philosophe, eds. Joël Bouëssée and Anne Marcel, Presence de
Gabriel Marcel, cahier 4. Paris: Aubier, 1983.
Matarangnon, Rita H. “Pakikiramdam in Filipino Social Interaction: A Study of Subtlety
and Sensitivity.” In Asian Contributions to Psychology, eds. Anand C. Paranjpe,
David Y.F. Ho, and Robert Rieber, 251-261. New York: Praeger, 1988.
Matovina, Timothy. “Marriage Celebrations in Mexican-American Communities.” In
Mestizo Worship: A Pastoral Approach to Liturgical Ministry, ed. Virgilio P. Elizondo
and Timothy Matovina, 93-102. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998.
Messer, Donald. “More Than Random Acts of Kindness.” In Ending Hunger Now: A
Challenge to Persons of Faith, eds. George McGovern et al., 87-107. Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2005.
Mette, Norbert. “Die Situation der Gemeindepastoral in Deutschland.” In Zukunftsfähige
Gemeinde, hrsg. Gregor von Fürstenberg, Norbert Nagler and Klaus Vellguth.
München: Ein Werkbuch mit Impulsen aus den Jungen Kirchen, 2003.
Metz, Johann Baptist. “Im Aufbruch zu einer kulturellen polyzentrischen Wel.” In
Zukunftsfähigkeit, Suchbewegungen im Christentu, hrsg. Franz.-Xaver Kaufmann
and Johann Baptist Metz. Freiburg, 1987.
Mill, John Stuart. “Bentham.” In Utilitarianism and Other Essays: J.S. Mill and Jeremy
Bentham, ed. Alan Ryan, 132-176. London: Penguin, 1987.
Mignolo, Walter. “DELINKING: The Rhetoric of Modernity, the Logic of Coloniality and
the Grammar of De-coloniality.” In Globalization and the Decolonial Option, eds.
Walter Mignolo and Arturo Escobar, 303-368. London and New York: Routledge,
2010.
xliv
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Muweesi, John Vianney and Emmanuel Mwerekande. “SCCs Diocesan Training Team
Reaches Out in Uganda.” In Small Christian Communities, eds. Joseph Healey and
Nagler, Norbert and W. Meyer zum Farwig. Auf eine neue Weise Kirche sein. In
Zukunftsfähige Gemeinde, hrsg. Gregor von Fürstenberg, Norbert Nagler, Klaus
Vellguth. München: Ein Werkbuch mit Impulsen aus den Jungen Kirchen, 2003.
Narayan, Uma. “Essence of Culture and a Sense of History: A Feminist Critique of
Cultural Essentialism.” In Decentering the Center, ed. Uma Narayan and Sandra
Harding, 80-100. Bloomington: Indiana University, 2000.
Netland, Harold. “Globalization and Theology Today.” In Globalizing Theology: Belief and
Practice in the Era of World Christianity, eds. Craig Otto and Harold Netland, 14-34.
Grand Rapids: Baker Academics, 2006.
Omolo, Alphonce. “Small Communities Light Up Neighborhoods in Kisumu.” In Small
Christian Communities, eds. Joseph Healey and Jeanne Hinton, 110-114.
Padilla, Malu. “Women Changing our Lives, Making HER story: Migration Experiences
of Babaylan Philippine Women’s Network in Europe.” In In de Olde World: Views of
Filipino Migrants in Europe, ed. Hoegsholm, Filomenita Mongaya, 83-109. Quezon
City: Philippine Social Science Council, 2007.
Pe-Pua, Rogelio. “Indigenizing the Social Sciences: Achievements in the Development of
Indigenous Social Research Methods.” In Filipino Psychology: Theory, Method and
Application. Manila: Princeton, 1982.
Pertierra, Raul. “’The Market’ in Asian Values.” In Asian Values: Encounter with
Diversity, eds. Josiane Cauquelin, Paul Lim and Birgit Mayer-König, 118-138.
Surrey: Curzon, 1998.
Phan, Peter. “Betwixt and the Between: Doing Theology with Memory and Imagination.”
In Journeys at the Margin: Toward an Autobiographical Theology in American-Asian
Perspectives, eds. Peter Phan and Jung Young Lee, 113-134. Collegeville, MN.:
Liturgical, 1999.
________. “The Experience of Migration as Source of Intercultural Theology.” In
Contemporary Issues of Migration and Theology, eds. Elaine Padilla and Peter Phan,
179-209. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013.
Phiri, Isabel. “South Africa,” In Introduction to Third World Theologies, ed. John Parrat,
37-162. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2004.
Piaget, Jean. “L’épistémologie des relations interdisciplinair.” In Interdisciplinarity:
Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities, eds. Leo Apostel, et al., trans.,
Basarab Nicolescu, 127-139. Paris: OCDE, 1972.
Piddington, Henry, “Remarks on the Philippine Islands and on their Capital, Manila:
1819-1822.” In The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, vols. 51, eds., Emma Helen Blair
and James Alexander Robertson, 73-181. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1903-1909.
Pierce, Joanne M. “The Evolution of the Ordo Missae in the early Middle Ages.” In
Medieval Liturgy, ed. Lizette Larson-Miller, 3-24. New York: Garland, 1997.
Pigafetta, Antonio. “Primo viaggio intorno al mondo.” In The Philippine Islands 1493-
1898, vol. 33., eds., Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson, 142-145.
xlv
SAMBAYANIHAN
Pilario, Daniel. “Back to the Rough Grounds: Locating Resistance in Times of

Globalization.” In Postcolonial Europe in the Crucible of Cultures: Reckoning with God
in a World of Conflicts, eds. Jacques Haers SJ, Norbert Hintersteiner, Georges De
Schrijver SJ, 21-54. Netherlands: Rodopi, 2007.
Ramis, Gabriel “Liturgical Families in the West.” In Handbook for Liturgical Studies:
Introduction to the Liturgy, ed. Anscar Chupungco, 25-32. Collegeville, MN.: The
Ribeiro, Gustavo Lins. “‘Post-Imperialism: A Latin American Cosmopolitics’.” In Brazil
and the Americas: Convergences and Perspectives., eds. Peter Birle, Se´rgio Costa
and Horst Nitschack, 31-50. Madrid/Frankfurt: Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2008.
Rollo, May and Irvin Yalom. “Existential Psychology.” In Current Psychotherapies, eds.
Raymond Corsini and Danny Wedding, 363-404. Itasca, IL: Peacock 1989.
Roth, Michael. “The Nostalgic Nest at the End of History.” In Ironist’s Cage: Memory,
Trauma and the Construction of History, 163-174. New York: Columbia University,
1995.
Royal Audiencia. “Letter to King Phillip III., July 11, 1607. In The Philippine Islands
1493-1898, vol.14, eds., Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson, 208-
213. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1903-1909.
Sales, Paolo. “Italy: Christian Base Community, Pinerola,” trans. Toni Salmonson. In
Small Christian Communities, eds. Joseph Healey and Jeanne Hinton, 79-80.
Santiago, Carmen E. “Pakapa-kapa: Paglilinaw ng Isang Konsepto sa Nayon” (Clarifying
Concept in a Rural Setting). In Sikolohiyang Pilipino: Teorya, Metodo at Gamit
(Filipino Psychology: Theory Method and Application), ed. Rogelia Pe-Pua, 161-170.
Quezon City: Surian ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino, Philippine Psychology Research and
Training House, 1982, originally pub.,1977.
Schmemann, Alexander. “Theology and Liturgical Tradition.” In Liturgy and Tradition:
Theological Reflections of Alexander Schmemann, ed., Thomas Fisch. Crestwood, NY:
St Vladimir’s Seminary, 2003.
Schreiter, Robert. “Globalization, Postmodernity and the New Catholicism.” In For All
People: Global Theologies in Contexts, ed. Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen, Holger Law
and Peter Lodberg, 13-31. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002.
Slemon, Stephen. “Modernism’s Last Post.” In Past the Last Post, eds. Ian Adam and
Hellen Tiffin, 1-11. Harvester Wheatleaf: Hemel Hempstead, 1991.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Colonial Discourse and
Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, eds. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisma, 66-111.
New York: Columbia University, 1994.
Terbatz -van Elst, Franz-Peter. “Exploring Closeness – Small Christian Communities as
Hubs of Pastoral Care.” In Small Christian Communities (one World Theology, Volume
2): A Fresh Stimulus for Forward Looking Church. Eds. Klaus Krämer and Klaus
Vellguth, 99-110. Quezon City: Claretian, 2013.
Thernstrom, Stephen. “Ethic Pluralism: The U.S. Model.” In Minorities: Community and
Identity, ed., Charles Fried, 247-254. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1983.
Trevarthen, Colwyn. “The Self Born in Intersubjectivity: The Psychology of an Infant
Communicating.” In The Perceived Self: Ecological and Interpersonal Sources of self-
Knowledge, ed. Ulric Neisser, 121-173. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1993.
xlvi
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Tucci, Robert. “The Proper Development of Culture.” In Commentary on the Documents

of Vatican II, vol. 5, The Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, ed.
Herbert Vorgrimler, 146-187. New York and London: Herder and Herder/Burns and
Oates, 1969.
Valdes, Guadalupe G. “Heritage Language Students: Profiles and Possibilities.” In
Heritages Languages in America: Preserving a National Resource, eds. Joy Kreeft
Peyton, Donald A. Ranard and Scott McGinnis, 37-77. McHenry, IL: The Center for
Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems, 2001.
Vellguth, Klaus. “A Spark Ignites the Flame – Small Christian Communities in
Germany.” In Small Christian Communities (one World Theology, Volume 2): A Fresh
Stimulus for Forward Looking Church, eds. Klaus Krämer and Klaus Vellguth, 199-
235. Quezon City: Claretian, 2013.
Wainwright, Geoffrey. “Method in Theology.” In The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern
Christian Thought, ed. Alister E. McGrath, 369-73. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.
Walker, Randi Jones. “Lessons for a New America: An Anglo-American Reflection on
Korean American Christian History.” In Realizing the America of our Heart:
Theological Voices of Asian Americans, eds. Fumitaka Matsuoka and Eleazar
Fernandez, 180-99. St. Louis: Chalice, 2003.
Warrior, Robert Allen. ‘‘A Native American Perspective: Canaanites, Cowboys, and
Indians.’’ In Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World, ed. R.
S. Sugirtharajah, 287–95. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991.
Welsch, Wolfgang. “Transculturality: The Puzzling Form of Cultures Today.” In Spaces
of Culture: City-Nation-World, ed. Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash, 194-213.
London: Sage, 1999.
Williams, Raymond. “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory.” In Problems
in Materialism and Culture. London: Verso, 1980/reprinted as Culture and
Materialism, 31-49. London: Verso, 2005.
________. “Culture and Revolution: A Response.” In From Culture to Revolution: The Slant
Symposium, eds. Brian Wicker and Terry Eagleton, 296-308. London: Sheed and
Ward: 1967.
_________. “Culture is Ordinary.” In Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism,
ed. Robin Gable, 3-18. London: Verso, 1989.
________. “Mill on Bentham and Coleridge.” In Culture and Society: Coleridge to Orwell ,
49-70. London: Hogarth, 1993.
________. “Mining the Meaning: Keywords in the Miners’ Strike.” In Resources of Hope,
ed. Robin Gable, 120-127. London: Verso, 1989.
Wilson, Bryan. “Secularization: The Inherited Model.” In The Sacred in a Secular Age,
ed. P. E. Hammond. Berkeley: University of California, 1985.
________. “The Secularization Thesis: Criticisms and Rebuttals.” In Secularization and
Social Integration, eds. R. Laermans, B. Wilson and J. Billiet. Leuven: Leuven
University, 1998.
Wilson, Irene. “Project Linkup: A Model of Adult Initiation in Australia.” In Small
Christian Communities Today: Capturing the Moment, eds. Joseph Healey and
xlvii
SAMBAYANIHAN
Wilson, Stuart. “’At Your Word, Lord’: Renewal Program in the Diocese of Westminster.”
In Small Christian Communities Today., eds. Joseph Healey and Jeanne Hinton, 90-
98. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005.
Wojtyla, Karol. “The Person: Subject and Community.” In Person and Community:
Selected Essays, ed. Karol Wojtyla, 219–262. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 1993.
1.4. ARTICLES IN JOURNALS/PERIODICALS/MAGAZINES AND NEWPAPERS
Abesamis, Carlos et al. “A Philippine Search for a Liberation Spirituality.” Kalinangan
10, no. 1(1990): 1-24.
Alterado, Danilo. “Nakem ken Ulimek: A Hermeneutics of Silence in the Ilocano Cosmic
Self.” Philosophia International Journal of Philosophy 16, no. 2(2015): 127-139.
Ankersmit, Frank. R. “Historicism: An Attempt at Synthesis.” History and Theory
36(1995): 143-161.
Arbuckle, Gerald A. “Inculturation, Not Adaptation: Time to Change Terminology.”
Worship 60, no. 6(1986): 515-520.
Arevalo, Catalino S.J. “Mary in Philippine Catholic Life.” Landas. Journal of Loyola
School of Theology 14, no. 1(2000):106-116.
Astley, Jeff “Ordinary Theology as Lay Theology: Listening and Learning from Lay
Perspectives.” Marriage, Families & Spirituality 20 no. 2(2014):182-190.
Augsburg, Tanya. “Becoming Transdisciplinary: The Emergence of the Transdisciplinary
Individual.” World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research 70, nos. 3-
4(2014): 233-247.
Balsiger, Philip W. “Supradisciplinary Research Practices: History, Objectives and
Rationale.” Futures 36, no. 4(2004): 407–421.
Berger, Peter L. “Secularism in Retreat,” The National Interest 46(1996): 3-12.
Beyer, Otley. “Memorial Issue on the Prehistory of the Philippines.” Philippine Studies
15, no. 1(1967): 41-62.
Blomjous, Joseph. “Development in Mission Thinking and Practice 1959-1980:
Inculturation and Interculturation.” African Eclessial Review 22(1980): 393-98.
Boszormenyi-Nagy, Ivan. “From Family Therapy to a Psychology of Relationships:
Fictions of the Individual and Fictions of the Family.” Comprehensive Psychiatry
7(1966): 406-423.
Bourdieu, Pierre. “What Makes.a Social Class? On the Theoretical and Practical
Existence of Groups.” Berkeley Journal of Sociology 32(1987).
Brazal, Agnes. “Redeeming the Vernacular: Doing Post-colonial and Intercultural
Theological Ethics.” Asian Horizons 3, no. 2(2009): 46-62.
Breyfogle, Todd and Thomas Levergood. “Conversation with David Tracy.” Cross
Currents 44(1994): 293-315.
Brunner, Edward M. “Transformation of Self in Tourism.” Annals of Tourism Research
18(1991): 238-50.
Bugnini, Annibale. “Ordo Missae;” La riforma liturgica [1948-1975] (1983): 332-88.
________. “Rituale Romano.” La riforma liturgica (nd):566-69.
xlviii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Burke, Cormac. “Inculturation: John Paul II and the Third World.” East Asian Pastoral
Review 32(1995): 277-290.
Busch, William. “The Liturgical Movement. Proceedings of the Catholic Education
Association, Twenty-Second Annual Meeting, June 29-July 2, 1925, Pittsburgh,
PA.” The Catholic Education Association Bulletin 22(1925): 673-685.
Butler, Carolyn. “A Flowering of Faith.” The Tablet 258(2004).
Carby, Hazel. “Multi-Culture.” Screen Education 34(1980): 62-70.
Castillo Guerra, Jorge E. “Teología de la migración: movilidad humana y
transformaciones teológicas.” Theologia Xavieriana 63 no.176(2013):367-401.
Catapusan, Benicio T. “Filipino Repatriates in the Philippines,” Sociology and Social
Research 21(1936): 72–77.
Christie, Ann. “Responding to Ordinary Theology: Issues and Challenges for Theological
Education.” Journal of Adult Theological Education 10, no. 1(2013): 38-49.
Chupungco, Anscar. “A Filipino Attempt at Liturgical Indigenization,” Ephemerides
Liturgicae 91, nos. 4-5(1977): 370-376.
_________. “Filipino Culture and Christian Liturgy.” Concilium 2(1977): 62-71.
Clark, Victor S. “Labor Conditions in the Philippines.” Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor
58(1905): 721-905.
Clarke, W. Norris. “Person, Being and St. Thomas.” Communio 19(1992): 601-18.
Comblin, Jose. “As Aporias da Inculturaςão.” REB 56(1996): 664-84.
Constantino, Renato. “The Miseducation of Filipinos.” Weekly Graphic, [Originally
written in 1959] (1966).
Cooper, Krishna. “Feel the Spirit.” The Tablet 267(2013): 4-5.
Cuccioletta, Donald. “Multiculturalism or Transculturalism: Towards a Cosmopolitan
Citizenship.” London Journal of Canadian Studies 17(2001/2002): 1-11.
De Mesa, Jose. “A Hermeneutics of Appreciation: Approach and Methodology.” MST
Review 4, no. 2(2006):21-24.
Demetrio, Francisco, S.J. “Myths and Symbol in Philippines.” Philippine Studies 28, no.
2(1980): 228-231.
Durkee, Edward F. and S. L. Pederson. “Geology of Northern Luzon, Philippines.” AAPG
Bulettin 45, no. 2(1961):137-168.
Espin, Orlando. “Popular Religion as an Epistemology (of Suffering).” Journal of
Hispanic/Latino Theology 2, no. 2(1994): 55-78.
Etzkowitz, Henry and Loet Leydesdorff. “The Dynamics of Innovation: From National
Systems and ‘‘Mode 2’’ to a Triple Helix of University–Industry–Government
Relations.” Research Policy 29(2000):109–123.
Foitzik, Alexander. “Neue Formen gemeindlichen Lebens, Ein Gesprach mit Regens
Christian Hennecke uber Kirchenbilder.” Herder Korrespondenz 64, no. 4(2010):
177-181.
________.“Kirche in der Nachbarschaft, Impulse aus der Weltkirche zur
Gemeindeerneuerung;” Herder Korrespondenz 60, no. 9(2006): 463-468.
xlix
SAMBAYANIHAN
Francisco, José Maria S.J. “Two Currents of Filipino Christianity II.” Landas 2(1988).
Funtowicz, Silvio O. and Jerome R. Ravetz. “Science for the Post-Normal Age.” Futures
25(1993): 739-755.
Genosko, Gary. “Felix Guattari: Towards a Transdisciplinary Metamethodology.”
Angelaki 8, no. 1(2003): 129-40.
Giordano, Pasquale T., SJ and Heidi K. Gloria. “The Christianization of Davao: A
Commemorative Issue of the 50th Anniversary of the PME Fathers in Davao.”
Tambara 4(1987): 1-122.
Giri, Ananta Kumar. “The Calling of a Creative Transdisciplinarity.” Futures 34,
no.1(2002): 103-115.
Gomez, Raul R. “Beyond Sarapes and Maracas: Liturgical Theology in a Hispanic/Latino
Context,” Journal of Hispanic Theology 8, no. 2(2000): 55-71.
Gosh, Durba. “Another Set of Imperial Turns?” American Historical Review 117,
no.3(2012): 772-793.
Gurevitch, Zali D. “The Embrace: On the Element of Non-Distance in Human Relations.”
The Sociological Quarterly 31, no.2(1990): 187-201.
Gutierrez, Eric and Saturnino Borras, Jr. “The Moro Conflict: Landlessness and
Misdirected Policies.” Policy Studies 8(2004):7-8.
Halman, Loek and Veerle Draulans. “How Secular is Europe?” The British Journal of
Sociology 57, no.2(2006): 169-343.
Hardgrove, Barbara. “Religion, Development, and Changing Paradigm.” Sociological
Analysis 49(1988): 33-48.
Hirmer, Oswald. “Small Christian Communities. Ein starkes Werkzeug zur inneren
Reform der Kirche.” Anzeiger für die Seelsorge 115, no. 9(2006):20-21.
Jameson, Fredric. “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism.”
Social Text 15(1986): 65-88.
Johnson, Lawrence. “Filipinos.” Rice Magazine, July 1988.
Kaune, Matthias and Christian Hennecke. “Mehr als Bibel-Teilen, Auf dem Weg zu einer
‘Kirche in der Nachbarschaft’ im Bistum Hildesheim.” Anzeiger für die Seelsorge
115, no. 9(2006):16-19.
Keesing, Roger. “Anthropology as Interpretive Quest.” Current Anthropology 28(1987):
161-176.
Klein, Julie Thompson. “Prospects for Transdisciplinarity.” Futures 36 (2004): 515–526.
Komonchak, Joseph. “The Church Universal as the Communion of Local Churches.”
Concilium 6(1981):30-35.
Lanaria, Levy Lara. “Kapwa in Pamilya Rooted in Loob of Divine Image: Thoughts from
a Filipino Catholic Theologian.” Religions: A Scholarly Journal 6(2014):36.
Lee, Thea. “Trapped in a Pedestal.” Dollars and Sense 15(1991): 12-15.
Leittersdorf-Wrobel, Ludmilla. “Small Christian Communities in Deutschland, Eine
andere Art, Kirche vor Ort zu leben.” missio konkret 1(2007): 13-15.
Lotman, Jurij. “On the Metalanguage of a Typological Description of Culture.” Semiotica
14(1975): 97-123.
l
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lukaszyk, Ewa. “The Brazilian Case: Towards a Paradigm of Transcolonial Studies.”

Politeja 7 no. 38(2015): 181-194.
Lutz, Bernd. “Small Christian Communities – ein weltweites, aber sehr heterogenes
Phänomen.” Pastoraltheologische Informationen 26, no. 1(2006): 22-37.
Maduro, Otto. “The Desacralization of Marxism within Latin American Liberation
Theology.” Social Compass 35(1988): 371-385.
Maggay, Melba P. “Early Protestant Missionary Efforts in the Philippines: Some
Intercultural Problems.” Journal of Asian Mission 5, no. 1(2003): 119-131.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. “Culture.” Encyclopedia of Social Sciences 4(1944):634-642.
Marins, Jose. “Communidades eclesiais de base na América Latina.” Concilium
104(1975): 27-38.
Mall, Ram Adhar. “Wie indisch ist das Indienbild Schopenhauers?” Schopenhauer
Jahrbuch 76(1955): 151-172.
Marivoet, Camilo J., CICM. “Interview with Fr. Camilo J. Marivoet, CICM.” Ugnayan
Diwa 1, no. 1(1989): 3-8.
Martini, Carlo Maria. “Bernard Lonergan at the Service of the Church.” Theological
Studies 66(2005): 517-526.
Masson, Joseph. “L'Église ouverte sur le monde.” Nouvelle Revue Théologique 84, no.
10(1962): 1032-1043.
McCarthy, Donald. “Marcel’s Absolute Thou.” Philosophy Today 10(1966): 175-181.
McGregor, Sue L.T. “Transdisciplinarity and a Culture of Peace.” Culture of Peace 1,
no.1(2005): 1-12.
Mendoza, Sr. Fe, R.G.S. “Formation of the Basic Ecclesial Community as an Authentic
Community.” Landas 18, no. 2(2004): 265-282.
Mercado, Leonardo S.V.D. “Reflections on Buut-Loob-Nakem.” Philippine Studies 20, no.
4(1972): 577–601.
Montuori, Alfonso. “Complexity and Transdisciplinarity: Reflections on Theory and
Practice.” World Futures 69(2013): 200-230.
________. “The Joy of Inquiry.” Transformative Education 3, no. 1(2008): 8-26.
Nagler, Norbert. “Spiritualitat und Gemeindebildung – eine neue Art Kirche zu sein.”
Lebendige Seelsorge 56, no. 4(2005): 211-218.
________. “Meditation in Gemeinschaft, Bibel- und Leben-Teilen als Gemeinde am Ort.”
Anzeiger fur die Seelsorge 114, nos. 7/8(2004): 18-23.
Nicolescu, Barasab. “Methodology of Transdisciplinarity – Levels of Reality, Logic of The
Included Middle and Complexity.” Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering &
Science 1, no:1(2010): 19-38.
Occeña, Bruce. “The Filipino Nationality in the U.S.: An Over,” Line of March (1985): 29-
41.
Phan, Peter. “Where We Come From, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going: Asian
and Pacific Catholics in the United States.” American Catholic Studies 118, no.
3(2007): 1-26.
li
SAMBAYANIHAN
Pilario, Daniel. “Politics of ‘Culture’ and the Project of Inculturation: Some Challenges
from the Perspective of Cultural Materialism.” Jahrbuch fur Kontextuelle (1999): 172-
194.
Pinell, Jordi. “La liturgia Ispanica.” AA. VV. Anamnesis 2(1963): 70-88.
Pohl, Christian. “Transdisciplinary Collaboration in Environmental Research.” Futures
37(2005):1159-1178.
Postma, Antoon. “The Laguna Copper-Plate Inscription: Text and Commentary.”
Philippine Studies 40 no. 2(1992): 183-203.
Quibuyen, Floro C. “How are Critical Text to be Read? My Final Rejoinder to John N.
Schumacher, S.J.” Kritika at Kultura 5(2004): 96-106.
Ramirez, Ricardo. “Liturgy from the Mexican-American Perspective.” Worship 51(1997).
Reyes, Jeremiah. “Loób and Kapwa: An Introduction to a Filipino Virtue Ethics.” Asian
Philosophy 25, no. 2(2015): 148-171.
Ribeiro, Gustavo Lins. “Why (Post)colonialism and (De)coloniality are not Enough: A
Post-Imperialist Perspective.” Postcolonial Studies 14, no. 3(2011): 285-297.
Robinson, John. “Being Undisciplined: Transgressions and Intersections in Academia
and Beyond.” Futures 40, no. 1(2008):70–86.
Rodriguez, Robyn. “Migrant Heroes: Nationalism, Citizenship, and the Politics of Filipino
Migrant Labor.” Citizenship Studies 6(2002): 341–356.
Rosenfield, Patricia L. “The Potential for Transdisciplinary Research for Sustaining and
Extending Linkages between the Health and Social Sciences.” Social Science and
Medicine 35, no. 11(1992):1343–1357.
Ruiz, Lester Edwin J. “Diaspora, Empire, Solidarity: Hope and the (Marginalized)
Subaltern as Rupture(s) and Repetition(s).” CTC Bulletin 23, no. 1(2007): 39-59.
________. “Towards a Theology of Politics: Meditations on Religion, Politics, and Social
Transformation.” Tugόn 6, no. 3(1996): 18-31.
Rouse, Roger. “Making Sense of Settlement: Class Transformation, Cultural Struggle
and Transnationalism among Mexican Migrants in the United States,” Annals of the
New York Academy of Sciences 645(1992):25-52.
Saroca, Cleonicki. “Filipino Women, Migration, and Violence in Australia: Lived Reality
and Media Image.” Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies 21, no.
1(2006): 75-110.
Scannone, Juan Carlos S.J. “Pope Francis and the Theology of the People.” Iglesia
Descalza: A Voice from the Margins of the Catholic Church, August 2014.
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph. “Zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie.”
Münchener Vorlesungen. Darmstadt 1959.
Schilebeeckx, Edward. “Overweginen ronds Gods ‘weerloze overmacht’.” Tijdschrift voor
Theologie 21(1987): 370-381.
Schreiter, Robert. “Communication and Interpretation Across Cultures.” International
Review of Mission 85(1996): 227-239.
________. “Mission as a Model of Reconciliation.” Neue Zeitschrist für
Missionwissenschaft 52, no. 4(1996): 243–50.
lii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
________. “The World Church and Its Mission: A Theological Perspective.” Proceedings of
the Canon Law Society of America 59(1997):47-60.
Schumacher, John N. “Valuable but Flawed: Review Article; A Dictionary of Asian
Christianity.” Landas 17, no. 2(2003): 283-297.
________. Reply of John N. Schumacher to Floro Quibuyen’s Response to the Review of
his, “A Nation Aborted.” Philippine Studies 50, no. 3(2002): 435-437.
Seigel, Micol. “World History’s Narrative Problem.” Hispanic American Historical Review
84, no. 3(2004): 431–446.
Shah, Nasra M. and Indu Menon. “Violence Against Women Migrant Workers: Issues,
Data and Partial Solutions.” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 6, no. 1(1997): 5-
30.
Shankman, Paul. A Comment on “The Thick and the Thin: On the Interpretive
Theoretical Program of Clifford Geertz.” Current Anthropology 25(1984): 261-280.
Steffen, Paul B., S.V.D. “Lumko Institute: Towards Building a Participatory Church.”
East Asian Pastoral Review 51(2011):.109-139.
________. “Lumko Institute: Towards Building a Participatory Church.” SEDOS Bulletin
(2014): 3-17.
Talledo, Tomasito. “Construction of Identity in Central Panay: A Critical Examination of
the Ethnographic Subject in the Works of Jocano and Magos.” Asian Studies 40, no.
1(2004): 111-123.
Taylor-García, Daphne V. “Decolonial Historiography: Thinking about Land and Race in
a Transcolonial Context.” Tensions Journal 5(2011):1-24.
Tewes, Dieter. “Kirche in der Nachbarschaft. Von AsIPA zu Kleinen Christlichen
Gemeinschaften in Deutschland – Erfahrungen im Bistum Osnabrück. Lebendige
Seelsorge 56, no.4(2005): 228 –234.
________. “Kirche unter den Menschen, Small Christian Communities in großen
pastoralen Strukturen.” Unsere Seelsorge 3(2011): 48-51.
Thompson, Edward P. “The Long Revolution: Part I.” New Left Review 9(1961): 24-33.
________. “The Long Revolution: Part II.” New Left Revolution 10(1961): 34-39.
Tipton, Lane G. “The Function of Perichoresis and the Divine Incomprehensibility.”
Westminster Theological Journal 64(2002): 289-306.
Triacca, Achille Maria. “La liturgia Ambrosiana.” AA. VV. Anamnesis 2(1978): 88-110.
Turner, Victor. “Passages, Margins, and Poverty: Religious Symbols of Communitas.”
Worship 46(1972):390-412.
van Rossum, Roger. “Latin American Theological Journals and the Culture Debate.”
Exchange 24(1997): 114-140.
Wall, Sarah and Irene Shankar. “Adventures in Transdisciplinary Learning.” Studies in
Higher Education 33, no.5(2008): 551-565.
Wallace, Anthony. “Revitalization Movements.” American Anthropology 58(1956): 264-
281.
Westbrook, Mary T.; Varoe Legge and Mark Pennay, “Attitudes towards Disabilities in a
Multicultural Society,” Social Science & Medicine 36, no. 5(1993): 615-623.
liii
SAMBAYANIHAN
Wilson, Bryan. “Aspects of Secularization in the West.” Japanese Journal of Religious

Studies 3(1976): 259-276.
________. “If Religion Declines, Will the Social Order Survive?” Onze Alma Mater
48(1994): 85-96.
Wustenberg, Michael. “Small Christian Communities. Kraftvolle Zukunftsperspektive der
Kirche als Familie.” Anzeiger für die Seelsorge 118, no. 10(2009):5-8.
________. “Small Christian Communities. Kraftvolle Zukunftsperspektive der Kirche als
Familie.” Anzeiger für die Seelsorge 118, no. 10(2009):5-8.
Yousefi, Hamid Reza. “On the Theory and Practice of Intercultural Philoyophy.” On
Community and Civil Society, 12 no.47/48(2007): 105-124.
Zialcita, Fernando. “Culturally We are All Mestizos.”. Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and
Culture 2, no. 1(1998): 137-158.
________. “Culturally We are All Mestizos.”. Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture 2, no.
1(1998): 137-158.
1.5. UNPUBLISHED DISSERTATIONS, THESES, PAPERS
Belita, Jaime. “A Filipino Eucharist? A Theological Reflection on the Misa ng Bayang
Pilipino in the Light of Tillichian Sacramentology”. PhD. Dissertation, Faculty of
Theology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 1979.
Boeve, Lieven. Unpublished lecture in Fundamental Theology. KU Leuven, 2012.
Bowman, Lapetra Rochelle. “Trans-colonial Historiographic Praxis: Dis/memberment,
Memory, and Third-Space Chicana, Latina, and Caribbean Feminist Embodied
Re/membrance.” Unpublished dissertation, San Antonio: The University of Texas,
2010.
Cavanaugh, William. “The Wars of Religion as the Foundation Myth of the Modern
State.” Public lecture, Expert Seminar, Faculty of Theology, KU Leuven, May 10,
2017.
Covi, Giovana. “The Slow Process of Decolonizing Language: The Politics of Sexual
Differences in Postmodern Fiction.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
Binghamton, State University of New York, 1995.
Cueto, Victorino A. “Tactics of the Weak: Exploring Everyday Practice with Michel de
Certeau: Towards a Theology of Everyday Life.” Unpublished dissertation, Faculty
of Theology, KU Leuven, 2011.
Fraser, Ian and Margaret Fraser. “Interview with Cira Castaldo.” Naples, Italy, 1984.
Jacobo, Jayson Pilapil. “Mood of Metaphor: Tropicality and Time in the Philippine
Poetic.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stony Brook University, New York, 2011.
Kim, Daesup S.T.D. “The Church as Communion in Small Christian Communities
(SCCs) in South Korea.” Unpublished dissertation, Catholic University of America,
2011.
Lesigues, Lope. “Liberative Theoludics: Mikhail Bakhtin’s Challenge to the Play-World
of Skholé and Agon.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Theology, KU
Leuven, 2004.
liv
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Llenado, Ferndinand. “Developing a Contextual Theology of Postcolonial Filipino

American Diasporic Identity,” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Asbury
Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky, 2008.
Madar, Martin “The Contribution of Joseph A. Komonchak to the Theology of the Local
Church in Light of Lumen Gentium.”. PhD dissertation, Catholic University of
America, 2014.
Mendoza, Fe Terecita. “Basic Ecclesial Communities: Authentic Formation and
Interreligious Dialogue: A Lonerganian Perspective.” Doctoral dissertation,
Gregorian University, 2001.
Pilario, Daniel. “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation: A Critical Assessment of Some
Theories of Culture in the Church's Inculturation Discourse from the Perspective of
Raymond Williams Cultural Materialism.” Unpublished master's thesis, Faculty of
Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium, 1998.
Rebustillo, Rowan. “‘Ordinary’ Bahala Na Theology: A Critical Preliminary Exploration
on a Theology for the Filipino Diaspora.” Unpublished thesis, Faculty of Theology,
KU Leuven, 2013.
Reyes, Jeremiah. “Loób and Kapwa: Thomas Aquinas and a Filipino Virtue Ethics.”
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte, KU, Leuven,
2015.
Rimando, George B. “History of the BECs in the Diocese of Tagum: a Never Ending
Journey.” Unpublished paper, 1996.
Rodriguez, Robyn. “The Labor Brokering State: The Philippine State and the
Globalization of Philippine Citizen- Workers.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
University of California Berkeley, 2005.
Rowe, Richard. “The Daseinsanalyse of Ludwig Binswanger and the Biblical Concept of
Agape: A Treatise on the Creative Power of Love in Psychotherapy.” Unpublished
thesis, Faculty of Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, MA, 1966.
Schrijvers, Joeri. From Love to Life?:Toward a Contemporary Phenomenology of Religious
Life. Lecture, Doctoral Seminar, KU, Leuven; 2014.
Vellguth, Klaus. Antrag zur Etablierung eines Projekts (Small Christian Communities).
Unpublished document, Aachen, 1999.
Woo, Wesley. “Asians in America: Challenges to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).”
Unpublished paper, May 1987.
Zafe, Pedro Vasquez. Marian Devotion: Its Role in the Evangelization of the Philippines.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Sacred Theology, Pontifical University
of Saint Thomas, Rome, 1968.
1.6. CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
AsIPA. Working Group on Spirituality and Community Building, Minutes of the Meeting,
14 September 2000, Aachen 2000.
Bacus, Elisabeth; Ian C. Glover. and Vincent C. Pigott. Uncovering Southeast Asia’s Past:
Selected papers form the 10th International Conference of the European Association of
Southeast Asian Archaeologists. Singapore: National University of Singapore, 2006.
Busch, William. “The Liturgical Movement.” Proceedings of the Catholic Education
Association, Twenty-Second Annual Meeting, June 29-July 2, 1925, Pittsburgh, PA.
The Catholic Education Association Bulletin 22 (1925).
lv
SAMBAYANIHAN
Chammartin, Gloria Moreno. “Migration, Gender Equality and Development.”

International Conference on Gender Migration, Ration and Development: Seizing
Opportunities, Upholding Rights, Manila, Philippines, 25-26 September 2008.
de Achútegui, Pedro S. Asian Colloquium on Ministries in the Church. Hong Kong,
February 27-March 5, 1977. Manila, Ateneo de Manila University, 1977.
Fernandez, Eleazar. “Journeying Together Toward an Empowering and Transforming
Ministry.” Paper presented at PANA API Clergy Consultation, October 8, 2008.
Gera, Lucio. “The Meaning of the Christian Message in the Context of Poverty and
Oppression.” Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) 1964, Petropolis,
Brazil.
Hirmer, Oswald. “AsIPA, A Tool for Implementing Our Vision of Church as a Co-
Responsible Community of Brothers and Sisters.: A New Way of Being Church in
the New Millennium,” 26-31. AsIPA General Assembly II, Taipei, 2002.
Hull, John. “North England Institute for Christian Education (NEICE) Symposium,” July
1996.
Mette, Norbert.. Der europaische Kontext. Lecture given at the conference. “In the
Modern World? The Church on the Way through History in Basic Ecclesial
Communities.” International Consultations, Aachen, 14-16 December 2010.
Quevedo, Oscar. “SCCs/BCCs, Empowering People to Serve.” Lecture, the Third AsIPA
General Assembly, Seoul, 4 September 2003.
Taylor, Simon. “Applied Philosophy, Applied Psychiatry: Ludwig Binswanger and the
Birth of Existential Analysis.” International Conference on New Practices of
Philosophy, University of New Texas, 7-9 March 2011.
Villegas, Socrates. “’Caritas in Veritate’from a Mariological Perspective.” Marian
Conferences, San Carlos Seminary, Guadalupe, May 15, 2010.
2. Digital Sources
2.1. SOURCES ON THE INTERNET
Aboelela, Sally W. et al. “Defining Interdisciplinary Research: Conclusions from a
Critical Review of the Literature.” Health Services Research 42(2007): 329–346,
doi:10.1111/j.1475-6773.2006.00621 [accessed July 28, 2016].
Advincula, Anthony. “Profile of the New Filipino Family: House-Husbands Watch the
Home Front While Women Fill U.S. Demand for Nurses” New America Media,
September 25, 2009,
http://www.alternet.org/story/142860/profile_of_the_new_filipino_family%3A_ho
use-husbands_watch_the_home_front_while_women_fill_u.s._demand_for_nurses
Amaladoss, Michael. “Liturgical Inculturation and Postmodern Culture.” East Asian
Pastoral Institute 44, no. 1(2007), http://www.eapi.org.ph/resources/eapr/east-
asian-pastoral-review-2007/volume-44-2007-number-1/liturgical-inculturation-
and-postmodern-culture/ [accessed February 13, 2015].
Amora, Manuel. “The Filipino Diaspora (A Closer Look),” Overseas Filipino Worldwide
(OFW) Empowerment, December 11, 2007,
http://ofwempowerment.com/2007/12/11/the-filipino-diaspora-part-3/
[accessed May 30, 2012].
lvi
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arevalo, Catalino, S.J. “Thoughts on Filipino Theology.” Loyola School of Theology

(December 12, 2017), http://www.lst.edu/academics/landas-archives/532-some-
thoughts-on-filipino-theology-cg-arevalo-sj [accessed December 27, 2014].
Arkhipov, Ilya Eleni Chrepa and Henry Meyer. “Greece’s Prime Minister Tells Vladimir
Putin EU Sanctions on Russia are ‘Economic War’.” Economic Post, April 8, 2015,
http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/greek-prime-minister-tells-
vladimir-putin-eu-sanctions-on-russia-are-economic-war [accessed May 20, 2016].
Australian Catholic Social Justice Council. Reading the Signs of the Times,
http://crosscurriculum.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/9/3/11936953/reading_the_si
gns_of_the_times.pdf [accessed December 15, 2016].
Bansa.org. “Ilokano English Dictionary,”
http://www.bansa.org/dictionaries/ilo/?dict_lang=ilo&type=search&data=inside
[accessed July 16, 2016].
Bantayog ng mga Bayani. “Renato Constantino.” Tinig.com, November 30, 2001,
http://www.tinig.com/v8/v8rc.html [accessed March 3, 2016].
Banti, Jean. “Contextual Therapy,” Contextual Family Services,
http://www.contextualfamilyservices.org/contextualtherapy.asp [accessed
September 3, 2016].
BBC Europe. “How is the Migrant Crisis Dividing EU Countries?” BBC News, March 4,
2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34278886 [accessed October 1,
2016].
BBC Middle East. “Syria: The Story of the Conflict.” BBC News March 11, 2016,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26116868 [accessed September 5,
2016].
BBC UK. “What’s Happening in Syria.” BBC News, September 21, 2016,
www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/16979186 [accessed October 1, 2016].
BBC World. “The US-Mexico Border.” Migration Policy Institute, June 1, 2006,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911 [accessed June 23, 2016].
Becker, Franςois. “Report on the Base Communities in Europe.” Small Christian
Communities: Global Collaborative Website (December 12, 2017),
http://smallchristiancommunities.org/europe/france/388-report-on-the-base-
communities-in-europe.html [accessed October 1, 2017].
Begum, Rothna. “’I was sold:’ Abuse and Exploitation of Migrant Domestic Workers in
Oman.” Human Rights Watch, July 13, 2016,
https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/13/i-was-sold/abuse-and-exploitation-
migrant-domestic-workers-oman [accessed October 10, 2016].
BehaveNet. “Multidirectional Partiality,” http://behavenet.com/multidirectional-
partiality [accessed September 3, 2016].
Bible Gateway, “Genesis 2:7,”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A7&version=NRSV
[accessed November 1, 2016].
Black Lives Matter. “Network Advocates for Dignity, Justice and Respect,”
http://blacklivesmatter.com/ [accessed May 20, 2016].
lvii
SAMBAYANIHAN
Bloomberg. “The 20 Fastest-Growing Economies this Year,”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-25/the-20-fastest-growing-
economies-this-year [accessed June 3, 2015].
Bretzke, James. “Minjung Theology and Inculturation in the Context of the History of
Christianity in Korea.” East Asian Pastoral Review 28 (1991),
http://www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/bretzkesj/MinjungContext.pdf [accessed February
13, 2015].
Bukas Palad Ministry. “Stella Maris.” Youtube,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxVpIqsgVqk [accessed December 20, 2017].
Butalid-Echaves, Maya. “Cross-cultural Counselling: Applications to Overseas Filipinos
in the Netherlands” (July 1999), http://home.planet.nl/~butal000/M-
thesis/counseling.html [accessed February 18, 2015].
Butler, Christopher, OSB. “Who was at Vatican II: Papal Voices.” Vatican II- Voice of the
Church, http://vatican2voice.org/4basics/papal.htm [accessed October 1, 2017].
Cabacungan, Gil. “Duterte Explains Why…I’ll Never Kneel Before the Americans.”
Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 4, 2016,
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/146114/duterte-explains-why-ill-never-kneel-
before-americans [accessed October 5, 2016].
Carino, Jennifer and Ellecer Cortes. “Constantino, Renato R.,” Bantayog, January 11,
2017, http://www.bantayog.org/constantino-renato-r/ [accessed July 20, 2017].
Caritas Internationalis. “The Female Face of Migration,”
http://www.caritas.org/includes/pdf/backgroundmigration.pdf/ [accessed
February 23, 2015].
Cassanova, Jose. “Catholic Poland in Post-Christian Europe.” Institute for Human
Sciences. http://www.iwm.at/transit/transit-online/catholic-poland-in-post-
christian-europe/ [accessed March 8, 2018].
Castillo Guerra, Jorge E. “Theology of Migration: Human Mobility and Theological
Transformations,”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317505887_Theology_of_Migration_Hu
man_Mobility_and_Theological_Transformations [accessed May 20, 2018].
Center for Humanitarian Dialogue. “Primer on the Proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law,”
http://www.hdcentre.org/uploads/tx_news/Primer-on-the-proposed-
Bangsamoro-Basic-Law.pdf [accessed June 10, 2015].
Changing Minds. “Coping Mechanisms,”
https://www.google.be/search?q=coping+mechanism&rlz=1C1OPRA_enBE560BE
561&oq=coping+mechanism&aqs=chrome..69i57.4227j0j8&sourceid=chrome&esp
v=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8 [accessed December 13, 2013].
Cardijn, Joseph. “Note 22.” Vatican II, Cardijn Archives, trans. Stefan Gigacz, January
11 2017, http://cardijnresearch.blogspot.be/2017/01/breathtaking-
misconceptions-about-see.html [accessed December 15, 2018].
Chiang, Howard and Alvin K. Wong. “Queering the Transnational Turn: Regionalism and
Queer Asias.” Gender, Place & Culture 23, no. 11(2016): 1643-1656, DOI:
10.1080/0966369X.2015.1136811[accessed August 12, 2016].
CICM. Bukal ng Tipan,
https://www.facebook.com/278645845482362/photos/pcb.1300234916656778/
1300234753323461/?type=3 [accessed June 8, 2016].
lviii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Colins, James. “May You Live in Interesting Times: Using Multi-Disciplinary and
Interdisciplinary Programs to Cope with Changes in Life Sciences.” BioScience 52,
no. 1(2002): 75-83, http://www.msu.edu/user/gradschl/es/pubs/collins.pdf
Considine, Kevin Patrick. “Is the Future Mestizo and Mulatto? A Theological-Sociological
Investigation into the Racial and Ethnic Future of the Human Person within the
U.S,” www.zygoncenter.org/studentsymposium/pdfs/papers03/symposium03
[accessed December 10, 2012].
Contreras, Volt. “From Revolution to ‘Reblocking’: Edsa 28 Years Later.” Inquirer. Net,
February 23, 2014, http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/579900/from-revolution-to-
reblocking-edsa-28-years-later [accessed March 20, 2014].
Cook, A. William Jr. “Base Ecclesial Communities: A Study of Reevangelization and
Growth in the Brazilian Catholic Church,”
http://www.internationalbulletin.org/issues/1980-03/1980-03-113-cook.pdf
[accessed January 25, 2015].
Cortez, Marc. “The Church is not a Democracy.” Everyday Theology, (June 27, 2013),
http://marccortez.com/2013/06/27/congregational-church-is-not-a-democracy/
Cruz, Vida. “F. Landa Jocano, Anthropologist and UP Professor Emiritus, Passes Away.”
GMA News, October 8, 2015,
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/332871/lifestylre/peopleandevents/f-
landa-jocano-anthropologist-and-up-professor-emeritus-passes-away [accessed
January 4, 2015].
Cuenca, Joseph Gerald B. “Filipina Live-in Caregivers in Canada: Migrants’ Rights and
Labor Issues: A Policy Analysis.” Unpublished thesis, University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, 1998, https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/8907
David, Randy. “Is the Catholic Church in Crisis.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 13,
2013, http://opinion.inquirer.net/50645/is-the-catholic-church-in-crisis
[accessed August 21, 2017].
Davie, Grace. “Is Europe an Exceptional Case?” The Hedgehog Review 8, nos.1-2 (2006):
27, www.virginia.edu/iasc/HHR_Archives/AfterSecularization/8.12DDavie.pdf
[accessed March 3, 2017].
De Castro, Leonardo. “Debts of Good Will and Interpersonal Justice.” Proceedings of
Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, 10-15 August 1998, Boston University,
www.bu/edu/wcp/Papers/Asia/AsiaDeCa.htm [accessed March 20, 2014].
________. “Debts of Good Will.” Philosophy in Asia,
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Asia/AsiaDeCa.htm [accessed July 6, 2015].
De Guzman, Emmanuel. “Come Near, Stand in the Center! Reflections on the Political
Dimensions of the Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Philippines.” CBCP-BEC,
http://cbcpbec.com/?p=139 [accessed June 8, 2016].
de la Victoria, Junar. “What is GKK or Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC) for Canon
Law and What is the Role of Canon Law for the BEC’s?” (20 August 2013),
http://www.davaocatholicherald.com/2013/08/what-is-gkk-or-basic-ecclesial-
communities-bec-for-canon-law-and-what-is-the-role-of-canon-law-for-the-becs/
lix
SAMBAYANIHAN
de Quiros, Conrado. “Filipino Resilience.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 20, 2009,
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20091020-
231079/Filipino-resilience [accessed October 1, 2009].
De Vera, Ben O. and Amy R. Remo. “Philippines, No Longer ‘Sick Man’ of Asia,”
http://www.asianewsnet.net/Philippines-no-longer-sick-man-of-Asia-71170.html
Department of Education, Republic of the Philippines. “Kindergarten,”
http://www.deped.gov.ph/k-to-12/curriculum-guides/kindergarten [accessed May
20, 2015].
________. “Standards and Competencies for Five-Year Old Filipino Children,”
http://www.deped.gov.ph/sites/default/files/page/2014/Final%20Kindergarten%
20CG%20December%202013.pdf [accessed May 20, 2015].
Diamond, Jeremy. “Loreta Lynch Calls Violent Baltimore Protests ‘Counterproductive’.”
CNN, April 19, 2015, http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/29/politics/barck-obama-
baltimore-riots-interview/ [accessed May 26, 2015].
Dickens, Charles. “A Tale of Two Cities,” All the Year-Round Weekly Journal no.1, April
30, 1859, http://dickens.stanford.edu/dickens/archive/tale/pdf/tale_01.pdf
Dictionary.com. “Humus,” http://www.dictionary.com/browse/humus [accessed
November 1, 2016].
Dictionary.com. “Humus.” Online Etymology Dictionary,
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/humus [accessed November 1, 2016].
Distor, Emere “Filipino Way.” Kasama 11, no.2(1997):
http://cpcabrisbane.org/Kasama/1997/V11n2/FilipinoWay.htm [accessed July
18, 2016].
Drona, Bert M. “The Filipino Mind,” http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/
https://nonlinearhistorynut.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/miseducation-of-a-
filipino.pdf [accessed December 21, 2013].
Dumlao-Abadilla, Doris. “Duterte Assails U.S. for Strict Visa Policy.” Philippine Daily
Inquirer, October 21, 2016, http://globalnation.inquirer.net/12833/how-hard-is-
it-to-get-a-us-visa [accessed October 24, 2016].
Elizondo, Virgilio. Interview with Virgilio P. Elizondo. “Diversity is a Sign of New
Creation,” http://www.faithandleadership.com/multimedia/virgilio-p-elizondo-
diversity-sign-the-new-creation [accessed December 10, 2012].
Esplanasa, Jerry. “How Hard is it to Get a US Visa.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, September
18, 2011, http://globalnation.inquirer.net/12833/how-hard-is-it-to-get-a-us-visa
Farrell, Emmet. “The Wider Church Can Learn from Latin America.” National Catholic
Reporte, 3 January 2017, https://www.ncronline.org/news/world/wider-church-
can-learn-latin-america [accessed July 14, 2017].
Fernandez, Eleazar. “Burning Heart, Generous Spirit: Identity, Mission, and
Stewardship.” Global Ministries, http://globalministries.org/resources/mission-
study/college-of-mission/burning-heart-generous.html [accessed July 16, 2016].
lx
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fernandez, Eleazar. “Personal Reflection.” United Theological Seminary of the Twin

Cities, http://www.unitedseminary.edu/faculty/efernandez.asp [accessed
November 15, 2015].
Fieser, James and Bradley Dowden, eds. “Gabriel Marcel (1889—1973).” Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/marcel/ [accessed December
22, 2014].
Filipino-American Catholic Community of St. Mary Catholic Church of Huntley, Illinois.
Sambayanihan, https://www.stmaryhuntley.org/get-involved/parish-
organizations/sambayanihan/ [accessed July 16, 2016].
Filipino-American Catholic Community of St. Mary, Alpha, New Jersey. Sambayanihan
ni Maria, http://sambayanihan-stmaryalphanj.blogspot.be/ [accessed July 16,
2016].
Fitch, David. “Not a Hierarcy, Not a Democracy, But a Pneumatocracy: The Church’s
True Politics.” Missio Alliance, (September 13, 2015),
http://www.missioalliance.org/not-a-hierarchy-not-a-democracy-but-a-
pneumatocracy-the-church%E2%80%99s-true-politics/ [accessed July 18, 2016].
Flavis-Villafuerte, Nelly. “The Resilience of Filipinos Tested.” Manila Bulletin, October 9,
2009, http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/223926/the-resilience-filipinos-tested
[accessed September 2, 2012].
Fornet-Betancourt, Raúl. “Philosophical Presuppositions of Intercultural Dialogue.”
Polylog: Platform for Intercultural Philosophy, https://them.polylog.org/1/ffr-en.htm
________. “Teoría y Praxis de la Filosofía Intercultural.” Recerca, http://www.e-
revistes.uji.es/index.php/recerca/article/view/1925 [accessed May 20, 2018].
Francis, Mark. “Pro-Pinoy Worship.” Cebu Daily News, January 22, 2016,
http://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/82836/pro-pinoy-worship [accessed February
11, 2016].
Gabriel, Msgr. Manny. “Missiological Perspectives to the Experiences of Basic Ecclesial
Communities in the Philippines.” CBCP-BEC, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=143
Garcera, Bishop Gilbert D.D. “Filipino Migrants as New Evangelizers,”
http://www.familiam.org/pcpf/allegati/1593/4_Garcera_ENG.pdf [accessed June
23, 2017].
Groody, Dan. “A Theology of Migration: A New Method for Understanding a God on the
Move.” America, February 7, 2011.
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=12682 [accessed:
December 10, 2012].
Halik, Tomas. “Europe after Secularization: What Future has Christianity on the
Continent.” ABC Religion and Ethics, 16 September 2014.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/09/16/4088574.htm [accesed
March 19, 2017].
Harvard School of Public Health. “Transdisciplinary Research.” Harvard
Transdisciplinary Research in Energetics and Cancer Center,
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/trec/about-us/definitions/ [accessed July 28,
2016].
lxi
SAMBAYANIHAN
Healey, Joseph. “Historical Development of the Small Christian Communities/ Basic

Ecclesial Communities in Africa.” Global Collaborative Website,
http://www.smallchristiancommunities.org/africa/africa-continent/231-
historical-development-of-small-christian-communitiesbasic-ecclessial-
communities-in-africa.html [accessed June 8, 2016].
Hellenbroich, Elisabeth. “A Poor Church for the Poor, Pope Francis Theological Roots.”
Frontiere, May 8, 2015, www.frontiere.info/a-poor-church-for-the-poor-
popefrancis-theological-roots/ [accessed February 17, 2016].
Hempton, David and Hugh McLeod. “Comparative Secularization in Europe and North
America: New Directions.” Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard
University, https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/exploratory-seminars/comparative-
secularization-in-europe-and-north-america-new-directions [accessed March 3,
2017].
Høgsholm, Filomenita Mongaya. Review of In de Olde Worlde: Views of Filipino Migrants
in Europe, by Filomenita Mongaya Høgsholm. “Babaylan-Denmark: The Philippine
Women Network in Europe,” http://www.babaylan.dk/index.php/in-de-olde-
worlde-views-of-filipino-migrants-in-europe/ [accessed September 24, 2014].
Holenstein, Elmar. “A Dozen Rules of Thumb for Avoiding Intercultural
Misunderstandings,” trans. D. Goodwin. Polylog: Platform for Intercultural
Philosophy, https://them.polylog.org/4/ahe-en.htm [accessed May 20, 2018].
Horrowitz, Jason. “Francis Shifts Power from Rome with ‘Hugely Important’ Liturgical
Reform.” The New York Times, 09 September 2017,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/world/europe/pope-francis-liturgical-
reform.html?mcubz=1 [accessed 15 September 2017].
Hunter, Isabel. “Crammed Squalid Factories Produce Clothes for the West on Just 20-
p Day, the Children are Forced to Work in Horrific Unregulated Workshops in
Bangladesh.” The Daily Mail, November 30, 2015,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3339578/Crammed-squalid-factories-
produce-clothes-West-just-20p-day-children-forced-work-horrific-unregulated-
workshops-Bangladesh.html [accessed October 3, 2016].
International Organization for Migration. Country Migration Report: The Philippines
2013, June 27, 2013, Makati, Philippines, p. 5,
https://www.iom.int/files/live/sites/iom/files/Country/docs/CMReport-
Philipines-2013.pdf [accessed February 13, 2015].
International Network on Cultural Policy. Annual Ministers Meetings, “Interculturality
Moving Towards a Dialogue among Nation.” INCP-RIPC, http://www.f-
duban.fr/Sitaduban/Master1/Plurinling_USA/plurilinguisme_files/multiculturalis
m-in28326_1.html [accessed February 13, 2015].
Jacobs, Inga M. and Shanna Nienaber. “Waters without Borders: Transboundary Water
Governance and the Role of the ‘Transdisciplinary Individual’ in Southern Africa.”
Water SA 37(2011), doi: 10.4314/wsav37i5.4 [accessed July 25, 2016].
Jahn, Thomas, Matthias Bergmann and Florian Keil. “Transdisciplinarity: Between
Mainstreaming and Marginalization.” Ecological Economics 79(2012),
http://woodhous.arizona.edu/geog596m13/Jahn_2012.pdf [accessed July 25,
2016].
Jazeera, Al. “Syria’s Civil War Explained,” Al Jazeera News May 24, 2016,
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/syria-civil-war-explained-
160505084119966.html [accessed September 5, 2016].
lxii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kelly, Philip; Mila Astorga-Garcia; Enrico Esguerra and Community Alliance for Social
Justice, Toronto, “Explaining the De-professionalized Filipino: Why Filipino
Immigrants Get Low-paying Jobs in Toronto.” CERIS Working Paper, series no. 75,
Toronto: Joint Centre of Excellence on Research on Immigration and Settlement,
2009,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242537196_EXPLAINING_THE_DEPR
OFESSIONALIZED_FILIPINO_WHY_FILIPINO_IMMIGRANTS_GET_LOW-
PAYING_JOBS_IN_TORONTO [accessed July 15, 2016].
Kersting, Teresa. “Remittances Hit All-Time High in 2014.” Focus Economics, February
16, 2015, http://www.focus-
economics.com/news/philippines/remittances/remittances-hit-all-time-high-2014
Klein, Julie Thompson. “The Transdisciplinary Moment(um).” Integral Review 9, no.
2(2013): 1-10, http://www.integral-
review.org/issues/vol_9_no_2_klein_the_transdiciplinary_moment(um).pdf
Koehler, Brian. “Ludwig Binswanger: Contributions to an Intersubjective Approach to
Psychosis.” International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to
Psychosis, December 25, 2004, United States Chapter, http://www.isps-
us.org/koehler/binswanger.htm [accessed December 22, 2014].
Laguna Copper Plate Inscription,
https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/
wiki/Laguna_Copperplate_Inscription.html [accessed August 15, 2014].
Laquian, Aprodicio. “The Planning and Governance of Asia’s Mega-Urban Regions.”
Paper presented at the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Population
Distribution, Urbanization, Internal Migration and Development, January 21-23,
2008, New York,
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/events/pdf/expert/13/P04
_Laquian.pdf [accessed January 12, 2014].
Levs, Josh. “One Challenge for Ferguson Grand Jury: Some Witnesses’ Credibility.”
CNN, December 14, 2014, http://edition.cnn.com/specials/us/ferguson-shooting-
protests/index.html?hpt=hp_c2 [accessed May 26, 2016].
Liquisearch. “Models of Migration to the Philippines Core Population Theory.”
Liquisearch.com,
http://www.liquisearch.com/models_of_migration_to_the_philippines/core_popula
tion_theory [accessed May 23, 2016].
Liturgy for the Philippine Conference on New Evangelization (PCNE), “Blessed are You,”
Philippine Conference for New Evangelization II, University of Santo Tomas, Manila,
Philippines, 2014, http://ust1611official.blogspot.be/2014/10/[accessed
September 15, 2017].
Luciani, Rafael and Félix Palazzi. “The Latin American Origins of Pope Francis’
Theology.” America: The National Catholic Review, February 1, 2016,
www.americamagazine.org/issue/rooted-vision [accessed February 17, 2016].
________. “The Latin American Origins of Pope Francis’ Theology, Part 2.” America: The
National Catholic Review, November 13, 2015 [accessed February 17, 2016].
________. “The Latin American origins of Pope Francis’ Theology, Part 3.” America: The
National Catholic Review, November 19, 2015, www.americamagazine/issu/call-
coversion-o [accessed February 17, 2016].
lxiii
SAMBAYANIHAN
Lukaszyk, Ewa. “A Definition.” Transcolonial Studies, http://www.ewa-

lukaszyk.com/transcolonial-studies.html [accessed August 14, 2016].
Lynch, Frank. “Henry Otley Beyer 1883-1966.” Philippine Studies 15, no. 1(1967): 3-8,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/42720171 [accessed December 12, 2016].
Lyons, Aoileann. “Historical Literary Analysis of Queixumes dos pinos by Eduardo
Pondal and Comparative Analysis of the Poetry of W. B. Yeats in the Context of
Nineteenth-Century Regionalism.” Uunpublished thesis, Cork, Ireland: University
College, 2009, http://www.ucc.ie/en/galician/research/projects/degcomp/
Manchin, Robert. “Religion in Europe: Trust Not Filling the Pews.” Sept. 21, 2004,
www.gallup.com/poll/13117/religion-europe-trust-filling-pews.aspx [accessed
July 6, 2017].
Manila Mail US. “‘Misa ng Bayan’ Focuses on Migrants’ Plight, Victims of Terror War.”
manilamail.us, April 15, 2016, http://www.manilamail.us/?p=2180 [accessed July
20, 2016].
Mapayo, Hansel. “Sizing Up the Inculturation of our Liturgy.”
IEC2016SOCIALMEDIA,·January 21, 2016, http://iec2016.ph/wp-
content/uploads/2016/01/Sizing-Up-the-Inculturation-of-our-Liturgy.pdf?924c5f
McGregor, Sue. “The Nature of Transdisciplinary Practice and Research.” Human
Sciences Working Papers Archive (2004),
http://www.kon.org/hswp/archive/transdiscipl.html [accessed July 28, 2016].
McKenzie, James. “Pope Francis Attacks ‘Throw-Away’ Economic Globalization.”
Reuters, February 28, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-economy-
idUSKBN0LW0NZ20150228 [accessed March 25, 2015].
Meloto, Antonio. “Gawad Kalinga: The Spirituality of Nation-Building.” Gawad Kalinga,
http://www.gkswiss.org/attachments/GKThe_Spirituality_of_Nation_Builidng.pdf
________. “I Want to be a Good Catholic.” Gawad Kalinga, http://
gk1mb.multiply.com/journal [accessed May 23, 2015].
Merriam-Webster. Henotheism, http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/henotheism [accessed May 25, 2015].
Merriam-Webster as ‘subordinate’. Merriam-Webster. Subaltern, http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/subaltern [accessed May 29, 2016].
Milbank, John. “What is Radical Orthodoxy?,
http://www.unifr.ch/theo/assets/files/SA2015/Theses_EN.pdf [accessed June
19, 2015].
Monsanto, Rey Manuel. “Theologico-Canonical Reflections on BECs.” Paper, Annual
Convention of the Canon Law Society of the Philippines, April 8-11, 2013, Bacolod
City, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=2299 [accessed June 8, 2016].
Montelibano, Jose Ma. “GK Bayani Challenge: Sulu -Only for the Brave.” Gawad
Kalinga, http://gk1mb.multiply.com/journal [accessed May 23, 2015].
Montuori, Alfonso. The 22nd Annual National Leadership Symposium. “Five Dimensions
of Applied Transdisciplinarity.” Integral Leadership Review, August 2, 2012,
lxiv
BIBLIOGRAPHY
University of Richmond, Virginia, http://integralleadershipreview.com/7518-

transdisciplinary-reflections-2/ [accessed July 25, 2016].
Namara, Keith Mac and Jeanne Batalova. “Filipino Immigrants in the United States.”
Migration Policy Institute 21 (2015),
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/filipino-immigrants-united-states
National Economic and Development Authority. “January 2015 Employment Figures
Show Stronger Ph Jobs Marker,” http://www.neda.gov.ph/?p=5201 [accessed May
29, 2015].
National Museum Collections. “National Cultural Treasurers of Philippine Archaeology,”
http://goo.gl/6avlj8 [accessed August 15, 2014].
Nicolescu, Basarab. First World Congress of Transdisciplinarity, “Charter of
Transdisciplinarity,” November 2-6, 1994, Convento da Arrábida, Portugal,
http://basarab-nicolescu.fr/chart.php [accessed July 18, 2016].
________. “Transdisciplinarity and Complexity: Levels of Reality as Source of
Indeterminacy,” Bulletin Interactif du Centre International de Recherches et Études
transdisciplinaires 1(2000), http://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/bulletin/b15c4.php
________. “The Transdisciplinary Evolution of the University Condition for Sustainable
Development.” Bulletin Interactif du Centre International de Recherches et Études
transdisciplinaires 12(1998), http://ciret-
transdisciplinarity.org/bulletin/b12c8.php [accessed July 18, 2016].
Osi, Carlo. “Filipino Diaspora as a Form of Revolt.” Global Nation, January 25, 2008,
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080125-
114815/Filipino-Diaspora-as-a-Form-of-Revolt [accessed September 23, 2012].
Our Pacific Ocean. “Austronesian People.” Ourpacificocean.com,
http://www.ourpacificocean.com/austronesian_people/ [accessed May 20, 2015].
Pannikar, Raimund. “Religion, Philosophy and Culture.” polylog,
http://them.polylog.org/1/fpr.en.htm [accessed February 13, 2015].
Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). The Philippine Population to Grow 105. 75 million
by the end 2017, Sunstar Manila, December 29, 2016,
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2016/12/29/philippine-
population-grow-10575-million-end-2017-517377 [accessed January 26, 2017].
Porcalla, Delon. “K-12 for All, Use of Mother Tongue Now Law.” The Philippine Star, May
16, 2013, http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/05/16/942653/k-12-all-use-
mother-tongue-now-law [accessed: May 20, 2015]. Cf. also Department of
Education, Republic of the Philippines, Standards and Competencies for Five-Year
Old Filipino Children,
http://www.deped.gov.ph/sites/default/files/page/2014/Final%20Kindergarten%
20CG%20December%202013.pdf [accessed May 20, 2015].
Picardal, Amado. “Basic Ecclesial Communities: Agents of Communion, Participation
and Mission.” CBCP-BEC, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=3346 [accessed May 31, 2017].
________. “Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Philippines: A Reception and Realization
of the Vatican II Vision of a Renewed Church.” CBCP-BEC,
http://cbcpbec.com/?p=277 [accessed January 25, 2015].
lxv
SAMBAYANIHAN
________. “Communion of Communities: Ecclesiological Perspectives.” CBCP News,

http://www.cbcpnews.com/cbcpnews/?p=87326 [accessed June 8, 2016].
________. “Letter on May 4, 2017.” CBCP BEC, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=4209 [accessed
June 18, 2017].
________. “Sambayanihan: The Basic Eccelesial Communities in the Philippines,”
http://frpicx.tripod.com/ [accessed July 16, 2016].
________. “The Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Philippines: Recent Developments
and Trends.” CBCP BEC, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=397 [accessed June 8, 2016].
________. “The BEC in the Philippines.” CBCP-BEC, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=397
Pilario, Daniel Franklin. “Theology and Reflexivity.” YouTube, May 8, 2017,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQVki3G61vo&t=20s [accessed March 12,
2017].
Pui-lan, Kwok. “Reading the Christian New Testament in the Contemporary World.”
Fortress Commentary On The Bible, 9.
http://www.augsburgfortress.org/media/downloads/9780800699178NTChapter1
excerpt.pdf [accessed July 16, 2016].
Radio Poland. “Church Attendance Drops Slightly in Poland.” 5 May 2018,
http://www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/342928,Church-attendance-drops-slightly-
in-Poland [accessed May 18, 2018].
Rappeport, Alan. “Pope Francis Weighs in on Merits of Globalization.” The New York
Times, September 26, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/live/pope-visit-2015/pope-
francis-weighs-in-on-merits-of-globalization/ [accessed March 24, 2016].
Reddit.com “Reddit Asks Historians,”
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ohvf6/what_causes_led_to
_the_secularization_of_europe/ [accessed May 18, 2018].
Republic of the Philippines. “Reorganizing the Ministry of Labor and Employment,
Creating the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, and for other
Purposes.” POEA, http://www.poea.gov.ph/mandates/files/eo797.pdf [accessed
May 27, 2015].
Rico, Therese Marie. “Bahala Na.” Unpublished paper, National College of Public
Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines, 2003,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33899837/BAHALA-NA [accessed November 25,
2015].
Riggs, Richard. An Excerpt from CWIS Occasional Paper. The Meaning of ‘Nation’ and
‘State’ in the Fourth World,’ http://cwis.org/GML/background/FourthWorld/#40
Rimando, Bishop George D.D. “Brief History of the Development of the Basic Ecclesial
Communities in the Philippines and the Ecclesiological Foundation of Basic
Ecclesial Communities.” National BEC National Meeting of Diocesan Directors of
Liturgy, 11-14 August 2014, www.davaocatholicherald.com/.../final-of-the-final-
bgbr-talk-as-of-aug-82014.docx [accessed June 1, 2016].
Rocca, Francis X. “Pope Calls for ‘Globalization of Hope;” The Wall Street, July 9, 2015,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-francis-asks-bolivians-to-remember-the-poor-
1436465872 [accessed August 4, 2016].
lxvi
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rodriguez, Evelyn I. “Primerang Bituin: Philippines-Mexico Relations at the Dawn of the

Pacific Rim Century.” Asia Pacific: Perspectives 6, no. 1 (2006), [journal online],
http://www.pacificrim.usfca.edu/research/perspectives/app_v6n1.pdf [accessed
November 28, 2013].
Romero, Alexis.“Rody: Philippines will Survive without Foreign Aid.” The Philippine Star,
October 7, 2016, http://globalnation.inquirer.net/146114/duterte-explains-why-
ill-never-kneel-before-americans [accessed October 9, 2016].
Rueda, Nimfa U. “Filipinos 2nd Largest Asian Group in US, Census Shows.” Inquirer
Net, March 25, 2012, http://globalnation.inquirer.net/30477/filipinos-2nd-
largest-asian-group-in-us-census-shows [accessed May 13, 2015].
Reuters. “FACTBOX-Philippines’ Ties with China and the United States?” CNBC,
October 11, 2016, http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/11/reuters-america-factbox-
philippines-ties-with-china-and-the-united-states.html [accessed October 22,
2012].
Rusling, James F. “Interview with President McKinley.” The Christian Advocate 78,
January 27,1903,
http://www.ksassessments.org/sites/default/files/HGSS_Preview_Texts/Grade_1
1/Interview%20with%20President%20William%20McKinley.pdf [accessed May 19,
2015].
San Martin, Inés. “The Philippines is Increasingly Secular, still deeply Catholic.” Crux,
https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/01/15/the-philippines-is-increasingly-
secular-but-still-deeply-catholic/ [accessed September 13, 2016].
Schumacher, John N., S.J. Review of A History of Christianity in the Philippines. vol. 1:
The Initial Encounter.” By T. Valentino Sitoy, Jr.,
http://www.internationalbulletin.org/issues/1986-04/1986-04-178-
bookreviews.pdf [accessed October 4, 2015].
Seah, Audrey. “Inculturation in the Philippines.” Pray Tell: Worship, Wit and Wisdom,
http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2014/09/10/inculturation-in-the-
philippines/ [accessed July 20, 2016].
Seton, Kathy. “Fourth World Nations in the Era of Globalisation: An Introduction to
Contemporary Theorizing Posed by Indigenous Nations,”
http://nointervention.com/archive/pubs/CWIS/fworld.html [accessed July 11,
2017].
Sicat, Gerardo P. “Filipino Labor Migration,” The Philippine Star; September 12, 2012,
http://www.philstar.com/business/2012-09-12/847951/filipino-labor-migration
Siltala, Aino. “Brazil Experience 2014: The Power of Religion in Brazil,” 13 January
2014, https://brazilexperience2014.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/theme-iii-
dnace/ [accessed May 10, 2016].
Slimbach, Richard. “Transcolonial Journey.” Messiah College, 2014: 206,
http://www.messiah.edu/downloads/download/168/richard_slimbach_article_-
_transcultural_journey [accessed February 13, 2015].
Small Christian Communities (SCC) in India. “History of SCCs,” The Official Website of
the NST of SCCs in India (CBCI), http://www.sccind.org/home/inner/22 [accessed
June 8, 2016].
________. The Pioneers of SCCs in India.” DIIPA Newsletter 10 no. 3, July 2009.
http://sccind.org/home/inner/15 [accessed June 8, 2016].
lxvii
SAMBAYANIHAN
Small Christian Communities in Mumbai. “Church Documents on SCCs,”

http://www.mumbaiscc.in/sccchurchdocs [accessed June 8, 2016].
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak.” In Marxism and the
Interpretation of Culture, eds. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Crossberg, 24-28. London:
McMillan, 1988,
http://www.maldura.unipd.it/dllags/docentianglo/materiali_oboe_lm/2581_001.
pdf [accessed August 23, 2014].
Stamatovic, Slobodan. “The Meaning of Perichoresis.” Open Theology 2(2016): 303-326,
http://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/opth.2016.2.issue-1/opth-2016-
0026/opth-2016-0026.xml [accessed June 20, 2016].
Stephenson, Emily. “Trump Returns to Hardline Position on Illegal Immigration.”
Reuters, September 1, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-
trump-immigration-idUSKCN1173F7 [accessed October 1, 2016].
Stoney, Sierra and Jeanne Batalova, “Filipino Immigrants in the United States,”
Migration Policy Institute, June 5, 2013,
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/filipino-immigrants-united-states-0#10.
Strobel, Leny. “A New Twist to Filipino American Ecolonization: Aileen Tabio’s Poetry”
(1998), http://home.jps.net/~nada/strobel.htm [accessed February 18, 2015].
Tagle, Luis Antonio. “Cardinal Tagle Thanks Pope for Visit to Philippines.” Vatican Radio,
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/01/18/cardinal_tagle_thanks_pope_for_vi
sit_to_philippines/1118795 [accessed March 10, 2015].
Tan, Samuel K. Review of A History of the Philippines. By Kenneth Masong,
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7253884-a-history-of-the-philippines
The Top Tens. “Missouri,” http://www.thetoptens.com/most-racists-states-
us/missouri-459217.asp [accessed May 26, 2015].
The Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN). “Cardinal Ratzinger Urges Asian Bishops to
Adopt Term ‘Inter-culturality.’” UCANews.com, March 9, 1993,
http://www.ucanews.com/story-archive/?post_name=/1993/03/09/cardinal-
ratzinger-urges-asian-bishops-to-adopt-term-interculturality&post_id=42924
[accessed March 27, 2015].
Times of India. “SCCs can Transform Societies. Ucan India,
http://www.ucanindia.in/news/-Small-Christian-Communities/tag [accessed
June 8, 2016].
Trenin, Dmitri. “How Effective are Economic Sanctions?” World Economic Forum (2015),
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/02/how-effective-are-economic-
sanctions/ [accessed May 20, 2016].
Ubac, Michael Lim. “Philippines as Next Asia Tiger Economy,” Philippine Daily Inquirer,
June 8, 2012, http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?id=34545&sec=2
UCL Flemish Movement. “Catholic Flamingantism.” History of Flemish Movement UP to
1914,
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dutchstudies/an/SP_LINKS_UCL_POPUP/SPs_english/fle
mish_movement/catholic.html [accessed July 10, 2017].
lxviii
BIBLIOGRAPHY
University of Colorado. The U.S. Occupation (1898-1946),

http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/usoccupy.htm [accessed
August 1, 2013].
Vatican Insider. “Basic Ecclesial Communities Make a Comeback: Representatives will
meet in Brazil in the first week of January.” Vatican Insider: World News, 12
December 2013, http://www.lastampa.it/2013/12/30/vaticaninsider/eng/world-
news/basic-ecclesial-communities-make-a-comeback-
te8QG64FjkFxjdB11XvPpL/pagina.html [accessed February 9, 2016].
Vatican Radio. “Pope Addresses Another Group of Indian Bishops,” May 30, 2011,
http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2011/05/30/pope_addresses_another_group_
of_indian_bishops/in2-491584 [accessed June 8, 2016].
Villegas, Bernardo. “OFWs Did It Again,” Inquirer.net, June 8, 2012,
http://business.inquirer.net/63859/ofws-did-it-again [accessed June 30, 2012].
Wade, Rick. “Secularization and the Church in Europe,” May 20, 2016,
https://probe.org/secularization-and-the-church-in-europe/ [accessed March 3,
2017].
War on Wants. “Sweatshops in China,” http://www.waronwant.org/sweatshops-china
[accessed October 3, 2016].
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “What is Transdisciplinary
Research?” Trec Centre, http://www.obesity-cancer.wustl.edu/en/About/What-Is-
Transdisciplinary-Research [accessed July 28, 2016].
Wildman, Wesley ed. “David Tracy.” Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western
Theology, http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/bce/tracy.htm [accessed October 10,
2017].
Wilkinson, Bob. “Adelaide’s Basic Ecclesial Communities Project [The pastoral
restructuring of parishes].” Australasian Catholic Record 73, no. 4(1996): 448,
http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=970504414;res=IELAPA>I
SSN: 0727-3215 [accessed June 8, 2016].
Wimmer, Franz Martin. “Poylogues on Conflicting Values – the Role of Cultural
Centrism,” https://www.slideshare.net/ARGE-Bildungsmanagement/wimmer-
franz-martin-polylog-between-conflicting-values [accessed May 20, 2018].
Wooden, Cindy. “Vatican Theologians: Don’t Confuse Sensus Fidelium with Majority
Opinion.” Catholic Herald, June 23, 2014,
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/06/23/dont-confuse-sensus-
fidelium-with-majority-opinion-of-the-faithful-say-vatican-theologians/ [accessed
February 17, 2016].
Ziabari, Kourosh. “The Devastating Impacts of Economic Sanctions on the People of
Iran: Ordinary Citizens are the Silent Victims.” Global Research, August 3, 2012,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-devastating-impacts-of-economic-sanctions-on-
the-people-of-iran/32180 [accessed May 20, 2016].
Zirulnick, Ariel. “Sanction Qaddafi? How 5 Nations have Reacted to Sanctions: Iran.”
The Christian Science Monitor, February 24, 2011,
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2011/0224/Sanction-Qaddafi-
How-5-nations-have-reacted-to-sanctions./Iran [accessed May 20, 2016].
Zong, Jie and Jeanne Batalova. “Mexican Immigrants in the United States.” Migration
Policy Institute, March 17, 2016, http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/mexican-
immigrants-united-states [accessed June 23, 2016].
lxix
SAMBAYANIHAN
Zulueta, Lito. “Fr. Anscar Chupungco: Filipino Benedictine who Tangled with Pope
Benedict.” Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 18, 2013,
http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/90517/fr-anscar-chupungco-filipino-benedictine-who-
tangled-with-pope-benedict/#ixzz4QvxAEQaA [accessed April 3, 2016].
2. OTHER DIGITAL SOURCES
Alatas, Syed Hussein. The Myth of the Lazy Native: A study of the Image of the Malays,
Filipino and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th Century and its function in the Ideology
of Colonial Capitalism. Kindle edition. London: Frank Cass, 1977.
Barrows, David Prescott. The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and the Ilongot
or Ibilao of Luzon. Kindle edition. Michigan: University of Michigan, 2005.
Cavanaugh, William. The Myth of Religious Violence and the Roots of Modern Conflict and
Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. Kindle edition. New York and
Oxford: Oxford University, 2009.
Duara, Prasenjit. Decolonization: Perspectives from Now and Then; Rewriting Histories,
ed. Prasenjit Duara. Kindle edition. London and New York: Routledge, 2004.
Kempf, Arlo, ed. Breaching the Colonial Contract: Anti-Colonialism in the US and Canada.
Kindle edition. Ontario, Canada: Springer, 2009.
Nagel, Thomas. Equality and Partiality. Kindle edition. New York: Oxford University,
1991.
Kohn, Margaret and Kelly McBride. Political Theories of Decolonization: Postcolonialism
and the Problem of Foundation. Kindle edition. New York: Oxford University, 2011.
Volf, Miroslav. The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World. Kindle
edition. Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans, 2006.
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present. Kindle edition.
Harper Collins e-books, EPub edition 2009.
lxx
ABBREVIATIONS
AMB Ang Mahal na Birhen

AMECEA The Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern
Africa
AsIPA Asian Integration Pastoral Approach
AYWL At Your Word, Lord
BCC Basic Christian communities
BCC-CO Basic Christian Community – Community Organizing
BEC Basic Ecclesial Communities
CBCP Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines
CBCP-BEC Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines – Basic Ecclesial
Communities Committee
CBCP-NASSA National Secretariat for Social Action under the umbrella of the
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines
CCC Catechism of the Catholic Church
CCc Christian Community in the city
CDF Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
CDWDS Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments
CEB Comunidades eclesiale de base
CELAM Conference of Latin American Bishops
CERI Centre for Educational Research and Innovation
CFC Catechism for Filipino Catholics
CFMW Commission on Filipino Migrant Workers
CPP Communist Party of the Philippines
CTA/ECC Call to Action and Eucharist Centered Communities
DWDS Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments
EA Ecclesia in Asia
ECCCE Episcopal Commission on Catechesis and Catholic Education
EG Evangelii Gaudium,
EN Evangelii Nuntiandi
FABC Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences
FCCCB Filipino Catholic Charismatic Community in Brussels
GS Gaudium et Spes
GSC the Broad General Type of SCC
ICEL International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc.
SAMBAYANIHAN
IEC International Eucharistic Congress

ITC International Theological Commission
LCI Laguna Copper Plate Inscription
LCP Live-in Care Program
LDCs “Less Developed Countries”
LG Lumen Gentium
MBP Misa ng Bayang Pilipino
MDCs “More Developed Countries”
MHC Migrant Heritage Commission
MM Mater et Magistra
MSPC Mindanao-Sulu Conference
NDF National Democratic Front
NEICE North England Institute for Christian Education
NGO Non-government organizations
NICs “Newly Industrialized Countries”
NPA New People’s Army
NPCCR National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
OCW/OFW Overseas Contract Workers/Overseas Filipino Workers/Overseas
Filipinos Worldwide
PCC Parish Core Community
PCP II Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines
PCNE Philippine Conference on New Evangelization
POEA Philippine Overseas Employment Administration
Popcom Commission on Population
PCC Parish Core Community
PSA Philippine Statistics Authority
PWC Philippine Women’s Centre
RCIA The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults
RD Radical Orthodoxy
RM Redemptoris Missio
ROACO Organizations for Aid to the Eastern Churches
lxxii
ABBREVIATIONS
SC Sacrosanctum Concilium
SCC Small Christian Communities
TAC/FABC Theological Advisory Commission of the Federation of Asian
Bishops’ Conferences
UCAN The Union of Catholic Asian News
UCL The Université Catholique de Louvain
USCCB United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
VAT II Vatican Council II
YCW Young Christian Workers
lxxiii
SAMBAYANIHAN1
FROM ECONOMIC MIGRATION TO SOFT-POWER EVANGELIZATION
TOWARDS A TRANS-DISCIPLINARY AND TRANS-COLONIAL INQUIRY INTO THE
IMPACT OF FILIPINO CATHOLIC COMMUNITIES IN DIASPORA
1This term is not new. Several Filipino Catholic groups (both in the Philippines and in the US) have used
this composite word to refer to their respective Filipino Catholic communities, which embodies the meaning
of worship (samba), community (sambayanan) and solidarity (bayanihan). Cf. Filipino-American Catholic
Community of St. Mary Catholic Church of Huntley, Illinois, “Sambayanihan,”
https://www.stmaryhuntley.org/get-involved/parish-organizations/sambayanihan/ [accessed July 16,
2016]; Filipino-American Catholic Community of St. Mary, Alpha, New Jersey, “Sambayanihan ni Maria,”
http://sambayanihan-stmaryalphanj.blogspot.be/ [accessed July 16, 2016]; Amado Picardal,
“Sambayanihan: The Basic Eccelesial Communities in the Philippines,” http://frpicx.tripod.com/ [accessed
July 16, 2016]. Our notion of Sambayanihan does not deviate from the abovementioned meanings. What is
novel in our understanding of the term is our more explicit articulation of other concepts embedded in
Sambayanihan: sam or isang which means one/unity; samba which means, as already mentioned above,
worship; bayan which means community; sambahayan which means household; bayani which means hero;
bayanihan which means solidarity and cooperative service. The word, without a doubt, hits the target spot
on, because it directly and clearly expresses the whole point of this dissertation: to find a suitable model of
transcolonial Filipino church in diaspora rooted in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
SOWING A FILIPINO SEED ON THE CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPE OF

WESTERN EUROPEAN SOCIETY
A TRANSDISCIPLINARY EXPLORATION ON A POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTION OF FILIPINO

DIASPORA IN THE AREAS OF HISTORY, THEOLOGY, LITURGY AND ECCLESIOLOGY
Status Quaestionis
T
his project is inspired by an immersion in the Filipino Catholic communities in
California and in the European countries of Belgium, Spain, Italy and France.
Thus, this is not just an academic pursuit but a personal journey. Certainly, this
can be properly referred to as an advocacy. With this scholarship, therefore, we hope to
articulate the impact of the Filipino diasporic communities on the contemporary
configuration of Catholic theology, liturgy and ecclesiology from a trans-colonial
perspective. This critical vantage point, therefore, is deemed to aid us in making the
Filipino migrant communities in the Western Europe aware of their potential to transfer
from being economic migrants to becoming “accidental” global missionaries. We say
“accidental” because this responsibility is not something that was originally intended by
these people but, because of their mere presence and humble practice of their faith in
whatever country they find themselves in, they unwittingly touch the lives of the people
in their host countries who have not been so explicit in their utterance or performance
of their religious or spiritual sensibilities, if not totally unfamiliar to Catholic religious
doctrines and rituals. This academic lens shall provide us a tool in order to assert that
Filipino migrant communities can do more than just being touted as a “model minority
group” in the Western hemisphere of the globe together with other Asian communities.
Their phenomenal presence can, thus, be maximized as they expand their “usefulness”
from merely being recognized as trustworthy and dependable powerhouse in the service
industry to genuinely participating in the spiritual and ecclesiological evolutions
currently unfolding in the world beset by so many pressing issues, such as globalization,
migration, multiculturality, religious conflicts, nationalism, xenophobia, populism, and
the like.
Thesis Statement
Formation of sambayanihan (i.e., one worshipping community of hero-martyrs

who journey together in the spirit of collaboration and agape) in Western Europe can be
a viable contribution of the Filipino migrants to the areas of history, theology, liturgy,
and ecclesiology because the members of such a community can be considered as
invaluable bearers (vessels and conduits) of trans-colonial and trans-cultural history,
theology, liturgy, and ecclesiology. Sambayanihan can be a venue and an event where
Filipinos in diaspora can migrate from being economic migrants to becoming global
missionaries employing soft-power approach which is imbued with the spirit of weerloze
overmacht or subversive subservience.
Statement of Problem
The problem that is mainly addressed by this dissertation is how the

contributions of the Filipino migrant communities (i.e., in the areas of history, theology,
liturgy and ecclesiology) be properly recognized and further enhanced amidst the
SAMBAYANIHAN
challenges posed by their colonial baggage, by the situation of marginality and by the
complex phenomenon of secularization in the present-day globalized world?
Purpose of the Study
The aim of this dissertation is simply to bring to the table of conversation -

without demonizing a particular sector of society, without denigrating the merits of other
perspectives, without downplaying the complexity of reality and without devaluing the
importance of others’ contributions – particular but, hopefully not reified or
essentialized, versions of history, theology, liturgy and ecclesiology that can be
provisionally or heuristically be referred to as Filipino. With this exposition, we are
inviting others to simply “come and see” as we also endeavor to visit other cultural
perspectives in view of creating a mutually beneficial conversation that allows each one
to have a platform where various voices can be heard, cognizant of the ever-present
possibility of conflict, in order to allow mutual fecundation without going to the direction
of amalgamation or “melting-pot” mentality where identities are dissolved into one
common or uniform identity but rather to creatively deal with the complexity of unity-
in-diversity. This project aims, therefore, at identifying some historical, theological,
liturgical and ecclesiological treasures embedded in the Filipino culture/s that are
brought by the Filipino migrants with them as they venture into a foreign soil and
negotiate their identity/ies in the country that welcomed them for employment or
residence.
Methodology
Having said that, we deem it necessary that in this doctoral project we utilize a
contextualized2 version of the Cardijnian See-Judge-Act (SJA) methodology. SJA is a
methodology which traces its origin to the late Belgian Cardinal, Joseph Cardijn, who
was the founder of a movement referred to as Young Christian Workers (YCW). SJA was
formally recognized on May 15, 1961 by Pope John XXIII in the encyclical Mater et
Magistra which Cardinal Cardijn himself suggested to Pope John XXIII in observance of
the 70th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, the landmark encyclical of Pope Leo XIII that
addressed for the first time the issues of the working class. To prepare the said encyclical
of Pope XXIII, Cardijn was requested by the former to provide him of the pertinent issues
to be tackled in the upcoming papal document. Thus, the Belgian founder of YCW
produced a memoramdum in 20 pages which, perhaps to the surprise and delight of
2This contextualization is based on the indigenous methods developed and utilized by Filipino Psychology,
which according to Virgilio Enriquez, are “culturally meaningful and innovative methods”: Virgilio Enriquez,
From Colonial to Liberation Psychology: The Philippine Experience (Quezon City: The University of the
Philippines, 1992). “Pakapa-kapa (literally “groping”) as a field method. [Cf. Carmen E. Santiago, “Pakapa-
kapa: Paglilinaw ng Isang Konsepto sa Nayon” (Clarifying Concept in a Rural Setting), in Sikolohiyang
Pilipino: Teorya, Metodo at Gamit (Filipino Psychology: Theory Method and Application), ed. Rogelia Pe-Pua
(Quezon City: Surian ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino, Philippine Psychology Research and Training House, 1982,
originally pub.,1977), 161-70] together with “pagtatanong-tanong” (literally “asking question” or
“questioning’) [Cf. Lydia F. Gonzales, “Ang Pagtatanong-tanong: Dahilan at Katangian,” in Sikolohiyang
Pilipino: Teorya, Metodo at Gamit (Filipino Psychology: Theory Method and Application), ed. Rogelia Pe-Pua
(Quezon City: Surian ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino, Philippine Psychology Research and Training House, 1982,
originally pub., 1980), 175-86]; “pakikiramdam” (“shared sensitivities”); “pakialam” (“concerned
interference”); “pakikilahok” (“participation as one-with-the-others”); “pakikisangkot” (“integral
involvement”); and “pagdadalaw-dalaw” (“casual but repeated visits”). These are discussed in detail in
Enriquez, From Colonial to Liberation, 96-97.
2
Cardijn, provided the basis for John XXIII’s endorsement of the three-fold methodology
“which should normally be followed in the reduction of social principles into practice.
First, one reviews the concrete situation; secondly, one forms a judgment on it in the
light of these same principles; thirdly, one decides what in the circumstances can and
should be done to implement these principles. These are the three stages that are
usually expressed in the three terms: look, judge, act.”3 “Seeing” here should not be
understood as mere observance of what is happening. It is certainly accompanied by a
critical analysis of the situation because it involves a deliberate act of careful
examination through seeing and hearing as well as of experiencing the real or actual
situation at stake in order to correctly and fairly name or identify the real cause or
causes of concern. “Judging” is the phase wherein social analysis and theological
reflection are done. Hence, the collected data and the analysis conducted in the first
stage are scrutinized through the lenses of the teachings of the Church anchored in the
Deposit of Faith. “Acting,” being the third stage, requires a clear decision to address
concretely the issue at stake. Cardijn, the person responsible for coining the term “See-
Judge-Act” described the method in these words:
“Tout ce numéro 29 pourrait être consacré à montrer comment la paedagogie voir, juger, agir
est nécessaire pour tous. Tous les chrétiens laïcs ont besoin pour se former à une vie
apostolique de « découvrir » le monde dans lequel ils vivent (milieu, autres personnes,
conditions de vie, mentalité et attitudes de vie), (VOIR), de découvrir dans la foi la pensée et
la présence active du Seigneur par rapport à cette situation de vie (JUGER), de découvrir à
partir de cela l'appel concret que le Christ leur adresse dans le monde et dans l'Eglise (AGIR).
Toutes ces découvertes se font en équipe (cellule d'Eglise) et la réponse à l'appel du Christ
set possible grâce au soutien mutuel et dans la collaboration fraternelle. Ces principes de
formation, valent pour tous.”4
During the discussion on what would eventually be known as Dignitatis Humanae, the
Church’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, Cardijn underlined that, as an important
way for the development of “interior freedom” which already “exists in germ in every
human person as a natural gift”, it cannot be obtained overnight but only through a
long and rigorous process of education.5
Our preferred methodology is, admittedly, loosely derived from what Cardinal
Cardijn introduced into the world of research. Instead of simply employing this popular
approach in research, we employ the following procedure which we have put together
based on different schools of thought that are prevalent in Philippine academic circles:
1) Pakikiramdam6/Pakikipagkuwentuhan (“shared inner perception” and story-telling);
3John and William J. Gibbons, Mater Et Magistra: Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope John XXIII,
Christianity and Social Progress (New York, N.Y.: Paulist, 1962), 236.
4“The whole of Number 29 could be consecrated to showing how the see, judge, act pedagogy is necessary
for all. All lay Christians need to be formed for an apostolic life of "discovering" the world in which they live
(milieu, other persons, conditions of life, mentality, attitudes to life) (VOIR), to discover in faith the thought
and active presence of the Lord with respect to this life situation (JUDGE), to discover beginning from that
the concrete call that Christ addresses to them in the world and in the Church (ACT). All these discoveries
take place in a team (Church cell) and the response to Christ's call is possible thanks to mutual support
and in fraternal collaboration. These principles of formation are valid for all.” Cf. Joseph Cardijn, “Note 22,”
Vatican II, Cardijn Archives, trans. Stefan Gigacz, January 11 2017,
http://cardijnresearch.blogspot.be/2017/01/breathtaking-misconceptions-about-see.html. [accessed
December 15, 2018].
5Cf. Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, Reading the Signs of the Times,
http://crosscurriculum.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/9/3/11936953/reading_the_signs_of_the_times.pdf
6Pakikiramdam, according to Enriquez, “is the pivotal value of shared inner perception. It refers to
heightened awareness and sensitivity… as ‘feeling for another,’ a kind of emotional a priori… an active
process involving great care and deliberation manifested in ‘hesitation to react,’ inattention to subtle cues,
3
SAMBAYANIHAN
2) Pagdadalaw-dalaw/Pagtatasa (regular immersion and reflective assessment); 3)

Pakikisangkot/Pagtataya (involvement and risk-taking); and 4) Pagpipiging (Feasting)
and Pagsasalu-salu (Communion/Sharing). We must warn our readers, at the very
outset of our discussion, that engaging this contextualized approach necessitates a
more casual or conversational tone of presentation. In other words, our chosen
methodology requires us to veer away from the usual type of scholarly literature that
strictly observes antiseptic and clear-cut ‘objectivity’. Hence, the language that we will
use in the project, we hope, will not be too lofty to the ordinary people, like the Filipinos
in diaspora, and not too pedestrian for the highly educated theologians who will evaluate
the merit of this project as a legitimate work in academic theology.7
This contextualized methodology, we believe is another way of executing what is
considered as a relatively young research process, Trans-disciplinarity, whose origin can
be traced back to the well-known philosopher cum psychologist from Switzerland, Jean
Piaget, who first articulated this concept in the 1970’s international workshop held in
France with the theme of “Interdisciplinarity – Teaching and Research Problems in
Universities”.8 Together with him in this ‘academic’ meeting put together by a
collaboration among the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), the French Ministry of National Education, and the University of Nice, were
Erich Jantsch and André Lichnerowicz who also offered their personal views on
‘transdisciplinarity’.9 In 1972, Piaget unequivocally expressed his positive appreciation
of the development of this approach by saying that “[f]inally, we hope to see succeeding
to the stage of interdisciplinary relations a superior stage, which should be
‘transdisciplinary,’ i.e. which will not be limited to recognize the interactions and/or
and non-verbal behavior in mental role-playing (if I were in the other’s situation, how would I feel) [cf. Rita
H. Matarangnon, “Pakikiramdam in Filipino Social Interaction: A Study of Subtlety and Sensitivity,” in
Asian Contributions to Psychology, eds. Anand C. Paranjpe, David Y.F. Ho, and Robert Rieber (New York:
Praeger, 1988), 251-261]. Enriquez, From Colonial to Liberation, 63. Pakikiramdam is rooted, according to
Enriquez, on two closely related concepts: “paki” (i.e., “an affixation indicating a request or a plea”); and
“ramdam” (i.e., “a variation of damdam which means to feel”). Ibid., 66. “Although damdam and dama would
both mean “to feel,” this English equivalent does not consider the externality-internality dimensions of
feeling. Strictly speaking, dama is external in quality; that is, having a social dimension, concerning one’s
interactions with other people. “Pakidama,” according to Enriquez, “would therefore be external in
character. On the other hand, damdam is internal in nature; that is, it involves one’s ‘loob’ (“shared inner
self, interior, internal part, the inside, courage, valor”) a recognition of a person’s individuality.” Ibid.
7This also means that our readers may find at times awkward sentence constructions in English, which
may sound like careless transliterations. These instances are not simply accidental but, we must admit,
are intentional for we want to make our distinct accent, linguistic structure, and cultural background more
palpable to our audience.
8Basarab Nicolescu, “Methodology of Transdisciplinarity – Levels of Reality, Logic of the Included Middle
and Complexity,” Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science 1, no:1(2010):19.

9Transdisciplinarity was initially given a definition in 1970 as “a common system of axioms for a set of
disciplines” and focused on general structures and systems. Cf. Julie Thompson Klein, “Prospects for
Transdisciplinarity,” Futures 36 (2004): 515. Cf. also Jean Piaget, “L’épistémologie des relations
interdisciplinair,” in Interdisciplinarity: Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities, eds. Leo Apostel,
et al., trans., Basarab Nicolescu (Paris: OCDE, 1972), 127-139. Cf. also André Lichnerowicz, “Mathématique
et transdisciplinarité,” in Interdisciplinarity: Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities, eds. Leo
Apostel, et al. (Paris: OCDE, 1972), 121-127. Speaking of the definition of this new methodology,
Lichnerowicz highlighted the role of the mathematic as an interlanguage, while Piaget was interested in the
hierarchical structure of epistemological relationships. Erich Jantsch [“Vers l’interdisciplinarité et la
transdisciplinarité dans l’enseignement et l’innovation “, in L'interdisciplinarité (Paris, OCDE, CERI, 1972),
98-124] described a multidimensional innovative approach to education that was coordinated as a multi-
level and multi-goal system. Of the three definitions, Jantsch’s became the most influential, with much of
the subsequent scholarship on transdisciplinarity either revising his definition, expanding it, or offering
alternatives practices.” Tanya Augsburg, “Becoming Transdisciplinary: The Emergence of the
Transdisciplinary Individual”, World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research 70: nos.3-4(2014):
234.
4
reciprocities between the specialized researches, but which will locate these links inside
a total system without stable boundaries between the disciplines.”10 For Basarab
Nicolescu, one of the major proponents of transdisciplinary approach, this rather vague
statement of Piaget can be commended for pointing out “a new space of knowledge” that
is seen as having no “stable boundaries between disciplines.”11 Nevertheless, what is
problematic in the abovementioned declaration of Piaget, according to Nicolescu, is the
notion of a ‘“total system’ that elevates transdisciplinarity to the level of the ‘hyper-
discipline’ or ‘a kind of ‘science of sciences’”.12 Piaget’s description, therefore, implies
that this “superior stage”, in the words of Nicolescu, “leads to a closed system, in
contradiction with his own requirement of the instability of boundaries between
disciplines.”13 Perhaps, this is because Piaget overlooked the idea of ‘beyond’ which is
also embedded in the prefix trans that means ‘across’ and ‘between’ that were quite
evidently expressed in his statement. Nicolescu suggests that “understood in such a
way, transdisciplinarity is just a new, ‘superior’ stage of interdisciplinarity. I think Piaget
was fully conscious of this alteration of transdisciplinarity, but the intellectual climate
was not yet prepared for receiving the shock of contemplating the possibility of a space
of knowledge beyond the disciplines.”14 In 1985, therefore, Nicolescu proposed that one
must not be oblivious of the connotation that the term transdisciplinary carries, that it
can always be construed or misconstrued as a “beyond discipline”.15
On his part, Erich Janstch, a California-based Austrian intellectual, proposed that
transdisciplinarity entails “the coordination of disciplines and inter-disciplines of the
teaching system and the innovation on the basis of a general axiomatic approach.”16
What was ambiguous in Piaget became unequivocally clear in Janstch. Indisputably, on
the basis of his statement, he did consider “transdisciplinarity as a hyper-discipline”.17
His position, however, is not without merit because he underlined, according to
Nicolescu, “the necessity of inventing an axiomatic approach for transdisciplinarity and
also of introducing values in this field of knowledge.”18
Concerning the third intellectual giant who played a prominent role in the said
international workshop held in France, André Lichnerowicz, a renowned French
mathematician, it was not a surprise that he offered a radically mathematical approach.
His version of transdisciplinarity which is solely understood in a mathematical
language, to borrow the words of Nicolescu, is “a transversal play to describe ‘the
homogeneity of the theoretical activity in different sciences and techniques,
independently of the field where this activity is effectuated.’”19 This “vantage point”, as
articulated by Lichnerowicz, “[puts] the Being… between parentheses, and it is precisely
this non-ontological character which confers to mathematics its power, its fidelity, and
its polyvalence.”20
10Piaget, “L’épistémologie des relations,” 144. Cf. Nicolescu, “Methodology of Transdisciplinarity” 20.
11Nicolescu, “Methodology of Transdisciplinarity” 20.
12Ibid.
13Ibid.
14Ibid.
15Ibid., 21.
16Jantsch, “Vers l’interdisciplinarité, » 108. The same ideas are expressed in Erich Jantsch, Technological
Planning and Social Futures (London: Cassell/Associated Bussiness Programmes, 1972).
17Nicolescu, “Methodology of Transdisciplinarity,” 20.
18Ibid.
19Ibid.
20Lichnerowicz, “Mathématique et transdisciplinarité,” 127. Nicolescu opines that “[the] interest of
Lichnerowicz for transdisciplinarity was accidental, but his remark about the non-ontological character of
mathematics has to be remembered.” Nicolescu, “Methodology of Transdisciplinarity,” 20.
5
SAMBAYANIHAN
For Basarab Nicolescu, the most prominent advocate of transdisciplinarity who

critically incorporates whatever is worth keeping in the transdisciplinary triumvirate we
have mentioned above, this approach, which was galvanized in 1994 with the adoption
of a “Charter of Transdisciplinarity”21 in Portugal, “concerns that which is at once
between the disciplines, across different disciplines, and beyond all disciplines. Its goal
is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity
of knowledge.”22
In contrast to this, he states that multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity are
insufficient because
“multidisciplinarity concerns itself with studying a research topic in not just one discipline
but in several simultaneously. From this perspective, any topic will ultimately be enriched
by incorporating the perspectives of several disciplines. Multidisciplinarity brings a plus to
the discipline in question, but this “plus” is always in the exclusive service of the home
discipline. In other words, the multidisciplinary approach overflows disciplinary boundaries
while its goal remains limited to the framework of disciplinary research.”23
On its part,
“Interdisciplinarity… has a different goal than multidisciplinarity. It concerns the transfer of
methods from one discipline to another. Like multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity overflows
the disciplines, but its goal remains within the framework of disciplinary research.
Interdisciplinarity even has the capacity of generating new disciplines, such as quantum
cosmology and chaos theory.”24
Nicolescu contends that transdisciplinarity did not just come from nowhere, but it is
something that has been lurking in the horizon of quantum physics.25 In
“Transdisciplinary and Complexity”, Nicolescu explains what he considers as reality and
how quantum physics enlightens us with what reality is really about. For him reality is
“that which resists our experiences, representations, descriptions, images or
mathematical formalizations”.26 Quantum physics, as far as Nicolescu’s understanding
of this science is concerned, is not only “a tool for describing reality” but, most
importantly, it is “one of the constituent parts of Nature” because, in it, we become
aware that “mathematical formalization is inseparable from reality” and, like reality, it
“resists in its own way by its simultaneous concern for internal consistency, and the
need to integrate experimental data without destroying that self-consistency.”27 With
this in mind, he contends that “[reality] is not only a social construction, the consensus
of a collectivity, or an intersubjective agreement. It also has a trans-subjective
dimension, to the extent that one simple experimental fact can ruin the most beautiful
scientific theory.”28 Thus, this approach which entails transgression of boundaries (i.e.,
taking the enterprise “beyond separate academic disciplines by weaving a new kind of
21Cf. Basarab Nicolescu, First World Congress of Transdisciplinarity, “Charter of Transdisciplinarity,”

November 2-6, 1994, Convento da Arrábida, Portugal, http://basarab-nicolescu.fr/chart.php [accessed
July 18, 2016]. Nicolescu, “Methodology of Transdisciplinarity,” 21.
22Ibid., 22.
23Ibid.
24Ibid.
25Ibid.
26Basarab Nicolescu, “Transdisciplinarity and Complexity: Levels of Reality as Source of Indeterminacy,”
Bulletin Interactif du Centre International de Recherches et Études transdisciplinaires 1(2000), http://ciret-

27Ibid.
28Ibid.
6
knowledge through interactions among academia and civil society”)29 places the “status
of the Subject,” according to Nicolescu, as a fundamental vital point.30
Perhaps in the future there will be a better terminology that can be used to refer
to this kind of approach, not just a discipline, whose objective, according to the Sue
McGregor, includes an “[understanding of] the present world, the human condition, in
all its complexities, instead of focusing on one part of it,” but in the meantime we can
settle for trans-disciplinarity as a “name for this new vision of humanity, of human
knowledge and human relationships ” because it entails, as the prefix suggests, the idea
of moving “across the disciplines, between the disciplines and beyond and outside all
disciplines” in view of “[increasing] knowledge by integrating and transforming different
perspectives”.31 For Lattanzi, this is a “practicing knowledge” performed reflexively that
takes into consideration integrally a plurivocal milieu upon which complex human
reality is grounded.32 In other words, according to McGregor, “[transdisciplinary] inquiry
involves: (a) multiple disciplines, (b) other elements of society and (b) the space between
them, with the possibility of new perspectives beyond those disciplines and actors.”33
At this point, it is interesting to say that, according to Tanya Augsburg, this
process which “presupposes an individual ethics, a desire to improve society and to
contribute to the advancement of the common good”34 continues to elude definitive
definition because it continues to evolve. As conceptual evolution continues to unfold,
key exponents of transdisciplinarity continue to follow two diverging currents: One
group is identified with Basarab Nicolescu and Edgar Morin,35 and another one which,
for easy identification, is called alternately as either Swiss, Zurich or German school.
The track pursued by Nicolescu emanates from the region of quantum physics wherein
multidimensionality are buttressed by three axiomatic poles: “(a) knowledge as
complexity (epistemology); (b) multiple levels of reality mediated by the Hidden Third
(ontology); (c) the Logic of the Included Middle, which is in contrast to the binary,
exclusive logic of disciplinary knowledge.”36 Under this rubric, Nicolescu had asked
“Why does transdisciplinary have to be reduced to ‘hard science’?” on which he
responded by saying that “To me, the Subject/Object interaction seems to be at the very
core of transdisciplinary, and not the Object alone.”37 In the same vein, he stated that
the “different levels of Reality [TD Object] are accessible to human knowledge thanks to
the existence of different levels of perception [TD Subject]”38 “through the attendant zone
of nonresistance”.39 Moreover, he contended that knowledge cannot be seen as either
29Sue L.T. McGregor, “Transdisciplinarity and a Culture of Peace,” Culture of Peace 1, no.1 (2005):3.
30Nicolescu, “Methodology of Transdisciplinarity,” 21.
31McGregor, “Transdisciplinarity,” 3.
32Lattanzi, Transdisciplinarity.
33McGregor, “Transdisciplinarity,” 3. Cf. also Basarab Nicolescu, “The Transdisciplinary Evolution of the
University Condition for Sustainable Development,” Bulletin Interactif du Centre International de Recherches
et Études transdisciplinaires 12(1998), http://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/bulletin/b12c8.php [accessed
July 18, 2016].
34Augsburg, “Becoming Transdisciplinary,” 234. Cf. also Thomas Jahn, Matthias Bergmann and Florian
Keil, “Transdisciplinarity: Between Mainstreaming and Marginalization,” Ecological Economics 79(2012): 1,

http://woodhous.arizona.edu/geog596m13/Jahn_2012.pdf [accessed July 25, 2016].Philip W. Balsiger,
“Supradisciplinary Research Practices: History, Objectives and Rationale,” Futures 36, no. 4 (2004):407–
421.; Klein,“Prospects.”
35Cf. Edgar Morin, Paradigma pierdută: natura umană (The Lost Paradigm: Human Nature), trans., Iulian
Popescu (Iaşi: Al. I. Cuza University, 1999).

36Augsburg, “Becoming Transdisciplinary,” 235.
37Basarab Nicolescu, ed., Transdisciplinarity - Theory and Practice (USA: Hampton, 2008), 12.
38Nicolescu, Transdisciplinarity, 9.
7
SAMBAYANIHAN
belonging to the exterior realm or to the interior sphere. It is both at the same time. For
him “The studies of the universe and the studies of the human being sustain one
another.”40 Understandably, within the logic of Nicolescu’s transdisciplinarity,
according to de Frietas et al., ‘“an ethic of shared knowledge’ is fundamentally taken for
granted which endeavors to arrive at ‘a shared understanding based on an absolute
respect for the collective and individual Otherness united by our common one and the
same earth.’”41
In contrast to the strand of transdisciplinarity identified with Nicolescu and Morin,
the Swiss “current”, otherwise known as the Zurich or German school, is perceived to
be throwing its weight more on issues related to societal problems that are undoubtedly
complex and affecting almost all areas known to human consciousness, especially the
question of sustainability. Augsburg surmises that this school of thought “emerged as
a response to societal needs in an age of post-normal science”42… “and to a new type of
research referred to… as ‘Mode 2,”’43 which is characterized by complexity, hybridity,
non-linearity, reflexivity, social accountability, mutual learning, heterogeneity, and of
course, transdisciplinary.”44 This obviously means that the transdisciplinary track
pursued by what is widely known as the Swiss/Zurich/German school aims at a
collaborative and integrative effort of all stakeholders and practitioners, which means
including areas beyond the confines of science, technology and academia, in order to
find viable solutions to a wide-ranging problem that impinges on the world. This
relatively new approach, as expounded by Rudolf Häberli and his co-authors, includes
“everyone who has something to say about a particular problem and is willing to
participate.”45 With the introduction of transdisciplinarity, one must not think, however,
that traditional forms of conducting research work will be placed on the back-burner or
considered as obsolete. What trans-disciplinary simply does is to build on and augment
whatever efforts and results have been harnessed by former ways of doing research
because it is, as Häberli explains, “an additional and mainly demand-driving form of
research that involves partners from outside academia”.46 Thus, based on the Charter

41Nicolescu, First World Congress of Transdisciplinarity.
42Cf. Silvio O. Funtowicz and Jerome R. Ravetz, “Science for the Post-Normal Age,” Futures 25 (1993): 739-
755.
43This term first came out in a book entitled The New Production of Knowledge. As a term coined to express
the production of knowledge that transpires within the province of sociology of science, which can be
distinguished from Mode 1 whose motivation is solely scientific and uninterested in any practical
application of knowledge gained from a monodisciplinary activity, Mode 2 is basically about pulling together
in a specific length of time several disciplinary teams in order to find viable solutions to problems
encountered in the real world. Cf. Michael Gibbons et al., The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics
of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies (London: Sage, 1994). Limoges, in this regard, argues
that “We now speak of ‘context-driven’ research, meaning research carried out in a context of application,
arising from the very work of problem solving and not governed by the paradigms of traditional disciplines
of knowledge.” Camille Limoges, L’université à la croisée des chemins: une mission à affirmer, une gestion à
réformer (Quebec: Actes du colloque ACFAS.CSE.CST, Gouvernement du Québec Ministère de l'Éducation,
1996), 14-15. Cited in Gráinne Conole, Designing for Learning in an Open World (New York, Heidelberg,
Dordrecht and London: Springer, 2013), 27. Cf. also Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff, “The Dynamics
of Innovation: From National Systems and ‘‘Mode 2’’ to a Triple Helix of University–Industry–Government
Relations,” Research Policy 29(2000):116.
44Augsburg, “Becoming Transdisciplinary,” 235. Cf. Gertrude Hirsch Hardon et al., eds., Handbook of
Transdisciplinary Research (The Netherlands: Springer, 2008). Cf. also Julie Thompson Klein, “The
Transdisciplinary Moment(um),” Integral Review 9, no. 2(2013): 1-10, http://www.integral-
review.org/issues/vol_9_no_2_klein_the_transdiciplinary_moment(um).pdf [accessed July 25, 2016].
45Rudolf Häberli et al., “Synthesis”, in Transdisciplinarity - Joint Problem Solving among Science, Technology,
and Society, eds. Thompson Klein et al. (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2001), 7.

46Häberli et al., “Synthesis”, 8. According to Augsburg, “[primary] intrinsic motivation is “a desire to engage
with issues in the non-academic world, issues that do not primarily emerge in disciplinary journals, or in
academic discourse alone, but often have to do with fundamental dilemmas or crises in society that do not
8
of Transdisciplinarity which was drafted in 1994 by the participants of the First World
Congress of Transdisciplinarity convened in Portugal in the year 1994, Sue McGregor
enumerates what she deems as integral in developing a transdisciplinary attitude.47
Fundamentally, as Augsburg tries to explain it, the Charter makes clear that those who
engage transdisciplinary approach must bear in mind that there is “(a) a recognition of
the existence of different levels of reality governed by different types of logic, (b) an
openness toward myth and religions, (c) an attitude of absolute respect for the collective
replete with shared knowledge and understandings, (d) rigor in argument, (e) openness
to and acceptance of the unknown, and (f) tolerance of ideas opposed to one’s own.”48
Thus, transdisciplinarity involves “individual creativity, permanent inquisitiveness,
adaptability, flexibility and capacity to build bridge… [necessarily] grounded in a
discipline or profession, but also… being open to access of another.”49 In this regard,
“Nicolescu asserted that respect for the norms of a collectivity must be validated by
individual interior experiences.”50 Certainly, a genuinely trans-disciplinary attitude
cannot easily be imbibed. As a matter of fact, Pohl contends that transdisciplinary
“researchers need several years of collaboration to become acquainted with and develop
respect for the other ‘culture’ before they will be able to develop joint concepts”51
pertinent to any trans-disciplinary endeavor. This entails, for Wall and Shankar, a
willingness for those who take transdisciplinary approach seriously that, apart from the
intellectual humility and shift in the way one thinks and acts that are imperative,52 one
seem to lend themselves to easy solutions by traditional approaches or methods of analysis” John Robinson,
“Being Undisciplined: Transgressions and Intersections in Academia and Beyond,” Futures 40, no.
1(2008):71. Cf. Augsburg, “Becoming Transdisciplinary,” 237-38.
47For a more detailed discussion on the prescribed attitude for transdisciplinary approach which is basically
about “our ultimate intent…to understand the world as complex whole rather than to understand problems
about parts of the world”, please consult Sue McGregor, “The Nature of Transdisciplinary Practice and
Research,” Human Sciences Working Papers Archive (2004),
http://www.kon.org/hswp/archive/transdiscipl.html [accessed July 28, 2016]. Cf. Nicolescu, First World
Congress of Transdisciplinarity.
49Ibid., 236-37. She continues by saying that “[they] identified certain “crucial” skills and traits for
transdisciplinarians, a number of which they borrowed from Ananta Kumar Giri (“The Calling of a Creative
Transdisciplinarity,” Futures 34, no.1(2002): 103-115). These traits include the ability to build networks
within the realm of what they term the “unfamiliar” and the capacity to engage in meaningful dialogue that
suspends one’s point of view. They agreed with Giri that one needs to be embedded enough within a
discipline to know that one’s discipline is in itself diverse and heterogeneous. Finally, one needs to have a
“powerful societal conscience and awareness” to be able to think in a complex interlinked manner, be able
to relate to the logic of complexity, and needs to have a “modest positionality,” which they describe as the
capacity of admitting that “it is impossible to ever perfectly solve or understand an issue completely. The
pursuit of knowledge is always imperfect. Similarly, there is never a perfect solution to a problem” Inga M.
Jacobs and Shanna Nienaber, “Waters without Borders: Transboundary Water Governance and the Role of
the ‘Transdisciplinary Individual’ in Southern Africa,” Water SA 37(2011):674, doi: 10.4314/wsav37i5.4
[accessed July 25, 2016]. Augsburg, “Becoming Transdisciplinary, 240-41.
50“In contrast,” according to Augsburg, “the Swiss school’s focus on new forms of scientific, Mode 2, post
normal research has relied to a great extent on traditional approaches such as scientific generalization and
objectivity. Consequently, participants have been referred to in general terms as researchers, active agents,
practitioners, managers, stakeholders, community partners, or actors (of the lifeworld). What has been of
interest is not so much individuals, individual behavior, or personal experience, but group function,
process, and dynamics within teams. Within the Swiss school, transdisciplinary teams are heterogeneous
due to differences in disciplinary worldviews, orientations, and methodologies among members. Thus,
heterogeneity—which stems from differences among individuals—is seen as a potential for project failure
given the inevitability for conflicts due to these differences. Kirsten Hollaender, Marie Celine Loibl, and
Arnold Wilts, [“Management,” in Handbook of Transdisciplinary Research, ed. G. Hirsh Hadorn (New York:
Springer, 2008): 385–397] pointed out that while heterogeneity is viewed as transdisciplinary’s biggest
threat to success, it is also its fundamental characteristic; hence, it is deemed the transdisciplinary
paradox” (Ibid., 386).Cf. also Augsburg, “Becoming Transdisciplinary,” 236-37.
51Christian Pohl, “Transdisciplinary Collaboration in Environmental Research,” Futures 37(2005):1175.
52Cf. Gary Genosko, “Felix Guattari: Towards a Transdisciplinary Metamethodology,” Angelaki 8, no.
1(2003): 129-40. Cf. also Patricia L. Rosenfield, “The Potential for Transdisciplinary Research for Sustaining
9
SAMBAYANIHAN
must “overcome the feeling of threat by means of an inwardly felt need for the other
point of view.”53 That being said, Wall and Shankar strongly believe that this approach
can only be employed by researchers who are “intellectual risk takers, confident enough
in their own roles and professional identities to respect each other as equals, and share
responsibilities, knowledge and autonomy with others.”54 In other words, it is imperative
for a transdisciplinarian researcher to leave behind his or her comfort zone and allow
oneself to be led with all the growing pains that it entails, instead of insisting of being
“the alpha” in control, in order to arrive at a level of genuinely shared understanding.
In this regard, Alfonso Montuori, a professor who developed and promotes
“Transformative Leadership”, suggests that transdisciplinary endeavor requires a five-
fold attitudinal metanoia: (a) “inquiry-based rather than discipline-driven;” (b) “trans-
paradigmatic rather than intra-paradigmatic;” (c) “complex thinking rather than
reductive-disjunctive thinking;” (d) “integration of the inquirer rather than ‘objective’
elimination of inquirer;” and (e) “creative inquiry rather than reproductive inquiry.” 55 At
the center of all these, Montouri insists, “is the integration of the inquirer in the process
of inquiry, and that for many of us our passion for transdisciplinarity emerges out of a
felt need to go beyond some of the limitations of more traditional disciplinary academic
approaches, and certain established ways of thinking”56 Elsewhere, he expounds his
contention by saying that
“Again, although this discussion takes me into deeply philosophical fields, it emerges out of
questions in my own life, and has found applications and articulations in my own teaching.
What I am looking for in the process of my inquiry is always returning to its applications and
implications for my life, and more broadly, for how we, as human beings, make sense of the
world, how we live our lives together. Unless it’s grounded in experience, and the possibility
of making a difference in my life and that of others, it has little interest to me.”57
Personal embeddedness in such a transdisciplinary inquiry, for Montuori, is not

tantamount to solipsism because he critically cautions a transdisciplinarian “subject”
to creatively avoid falling into “the sickly quagmire of narcissism.”58
Having said that, we believe that what we offer as a contextualized research
methodology in this particular doctoral project can be considered as a trans-disciplinary
approach, because we endeavor not only to incorporate as many academic disciplines
that we deem pertinent to our subject matter, but we also allow ourselves to be
personally immersed – humbly abandoning our comfort zone as well as the power to
control the course of the inquiry – in order to arrive at a point not only of integrative but
and Extending Linkages between the Health and Social Sciences,” Social Science and Medicine 35, no.
11(1992):1343–1357.
53Sarah Wall and Irene Shankar, “Adventures in Transdisciplinary Learning,” Studies in Higher Education
33, no.5(2008): 552. Cf. Giri, “The Calling of a Creative,”103. For Giri, transdisciplinarity is understood as
‘interspecpetivity’ which is performed by an individual. He explains this point by using the definition
provided by Dunder Rajan, a noted Indian philosopher: “[f]or Sunder Rajan, ‘each perspective or point of
view is such only as a member of a community of points of view; this is a community and not a collection,
for each perspective, from within its own resources, refers to the possibility of others”’ (Ibid.,105). Thus,
according to Giri, “this [interperspectivity] calls for looking at disciplines in relational terms rather than in
isolationist or oppositional terms” wherein “the relational approach to disciplines has to face the primary
task that in many a case this relationship has to be created” (Ibid., 106). To put it in simple words,
transdisciplinarity is a field of relationship” (Ibid., 107) where the “ego must be left at the door”. Giri, “The
Calling of a Creative,”107.
54Wall and Shankar, “Adventures in Transdisciplinary,” 552.
55Alfonso Montuori, The 22nd Annual National Leadership Symposium, “Five Dimensions of Applied
Transdisciplinarity,” Integral Leadership Review, August 2, 2012, University of Richmond, Virginia,

http://integralleadershipreview.com/7518-transdisciplinary-reflections-2/ [accessed July 25, 2016].
56Ibid.
57Alfonso Montuori, “Complexity and Transdisciplinarity: Reflections on Theory and Practice,” World Futures
69(2013): 225.
58Alfonso Montuori, “The Joy of Inquiry,” Transformative Education 3, no. 1(2008): 14.
10
of transformative knowledge, that is, to genuinely see how Filipino migration is affected
by, transformed by, influencing and transforming the globalized world, especially in the
areas of history, ecclesiology, theology, and liturgy.
That being said, we design that the first level of our methodology is represented by
the author’s casual conversations with the Filipino migrants that take place before and
after the celebration of the mass, in the parties and in whatever occasions that bring
Filipinos together. In these encounters one can, without even exerting an effort, already
scratch deeper than the surface and extract, with the right amount of sensitivity, some
vital information about the inmost sentiments, hopes, struggles, and joys of the Filipino
people. Facts gathered from this non-intrusive approach can be validated by the several
literature published concerning Filipino customs and traditions, which the author
certainly examined in the course of this research.
The second level of our methodology is done through the formal interviews,
counseling sessions, consultations and discernment processes conducted by the
researcher as a Filipino priest exposed in a diocese in California, as a volunteer chaplain
of the Filipino community in Brussels, and as an occasional speaker/lecturer/retreat
facilitator in Greece, Spain, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Germany. The
information gathered in these contexts is thereby evaluated through a serious library
work (i.e., accessing all pertinent scholarly resources and Church documents) and
consultations with fellow Filipino chaplains in some North American and European
dioceses to ensure a more profound understanding of the issue at stake coupled with
formal interviews conducted to the Filipino migrant communities in the said
ecclesiastical regions (please refer to Appendix 1 for the tabulated result of the random
survey).
By being involved in the actual daily life of the Filipino migrants and in their
discernments and decision-making processes, we do not simply learn about them but,
certainly, we know their stories in a very personal way, which unavoidably brings us to
the third level of our methodology that entails immersion into the struggles and
successes of the Filipinos in diaspora. The author’s personal story and theirs naturally
flow into each other like two different streams meeting in the confluence of solidarity,
with all its richness and riskiness. The concerns of the diasporized Filipinos become our
concerns as well. Their joys become ours too. In the same manner, we become part of
their lives. Hence, this project, with all the challenges that come with it, becomes a
collaborative and communal vocation of the Filipinos who consider the Church as their
home away from home, trying to make their voices heard, trying to find their niche in
the globalized world, and trying to share their unique contribution to the growth of the
Christian Church.
The fourth level of our methodology, which we obviously borrow from the Latin
American BECs as affirmed by fifteen Mexican bishops,59 does not necessarily come at
the end of the process. In fact, it may be found inserted in every stage of our research
project, because it allows us to have a foretaste of the glory of God and the joy of heaven,
serving as a fuel for its development, a fire to sometimes timorous heart, and an
inspiration to sometimes discouraged soul. This particular aspect of the research project
is naturally found in every Filipino endeavor – in every stage of Filipino life. It is a
trademark of the Filipino communities, migrants or not, that amidst difficulties Filipinos
still find a way to share and to celebrate. Every Filipino gathering, no matter how big or
59Cf.Mexican Bishops, Pastoral Message, “The Base Ecclesial Communities, Church in Movement,” April
7, 1989, Guadalajara, Jalisco. Cf. also Margaret Hebblethwaite, Basic is Beautiful: Basic Ecclesial
Communities from Third World to First World (Great Britain: Fount Paperbacks, 1993), 36.
11
SAMBAYANIHAN
small, is considered an occasion for fellowship and festivity, for hospitality and
generosity, for eating, drinking and celebrating, transforming something ordinary to
something extraordinary, something negative to something positive, something
sorrowful to joyful, from something challenging to something worth celebrating, from
something banal to something sacral, which is the very essence of the renewed trans-
colonial ecclesiology rooted in an inculturated theology and liturgy that we propose in
the context of the Filipinos in diaspora.
Our usage of the contextualized “see-judge-act” methodology may raise some
questions and provoke scepticism about its academic value. Amidst the suspicions and
the pitfalls surrounding this venture, however, it is our hope that by opting for this
unchartered ground we shall take the discussion away from the stereotypical Euro-
centered style of history and ecclesiology so that we can retrieve the muted voices of
those in the fringes60 and silenced by hegemonic and colonizing voices. This process
may resemble what Jeff Astley considers as an “onlook”61 vantage point that
characterizes “ordinary theology.”62 A caveat must be mentioned here, however, since
this way of looking may fold back into a solipsistic or subjectivist stance when it is left
unguarded or is overdone. We are aware that a historian’s personal and emotional
engagement may jeopardize what Sir Geoffrey Elton considers as genuine “rational
enquiry into the past.”63 Nevertheless, we maintain that the use of the abovementioned
contextualized methodology, when carefully executed, safeguards the level-
headedness/rationality of the discussion, because it requires the element
intersubjectivity where two or more interlocutors or dialogue-partners are essential.64
This approach, as we see it, is not only interdisciplinary, wherein “[researchers] interact
with the goal of transferring knowledge from one discipline to another [which] allows
researchers to inform each other’s work and compare individual findings.”65 In trans-
60Fringes here may also include the marginalized “fourth world” in the geographical Western countries who
also offer alternative narratives. Thus, the West here is to be understood in a more nuanced way.
Sometimes, we may portray the West as a caricature or as a stereotype to drive a point. But, we are aware
that there is more to West that meets the eye.
61Jeff Astley cites in his book the distinction made by Evans between “onlook” and “outlook.” An onlook is
different from an outlook (i.e., “an intellectual ‘opinion’, ‘conception’ or ‘view’”), which does not require a
commitment from the proprietor of the perspective, because the former expresses one’s “feelings and
behavioral intentions towards it.” Jeff Astley, Ordinary Theology: Looking, Listening and Learning in Theology
(Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2002), 83.
62“Ordinary theology,” based in Astley’s understanding of the phrase, means “non-academic” way of
theologizing. Although, some might question the validity of such “God-talk,” given the fact that it is mostly
“brewed” outside the realm of academic theology, he insists that it is a legitimate expression of the
“fundamental theological dimension of every Christian’s vocation.” He supplies that this concept is based
on how the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary comprehends the meaning of an “ordinary person” (i.e.,
an ‘ordinary person’ who is someone ‘without exceptional experience of expert knowledge’). Thus, this kind
of theology emanates from those who are not trained in “scholarly theological education.” Ibid.
63Sir Geoffrey Elton, an advocate of traditional historiography, stresses, according to Claus and Marriot, the
importance of “a high degree of precision” or “objectivity” of any given historical account. Peter Claus and
John Marriot, History: An Introduction to Theory, Method, and Practice (UK: Pearson, 2012), 5. See also
Geoffrey Elton, The Practice of History (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1967). Edward Carr, however, directly
opposes the view of Elton for he argues that subjectivity cannot be removed from any historical writing. All
those involved in writing history wittingly or unwittingly are “guided” by their own prejudices; hence, they
cannot simply rid themselves of “interpretation, presupposition, bias or any mark of the author’s personal
views”. See Edward Hallett Carr, What is History? (New York: Vintage Books, 1961).
64Pakikiramdam is about empathy, which entails internal connection between two parties. Pakikipag-usap
is about conversation, which entails an exchange or interaction between two or more interlocutors – a
dialogue where possibilities for both agreement and discord are certainly present. Pakikiramdam and
Pakikipag-usap provide as a platform for affirmation, negation, confirmation, validation and revision.
65Cf. Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, “What is Transdisciplinary Research?,” Trec
Centre, http://www.obesity-cancer.wustl.edu/en/About/What-Is-Transdisciplinary-Research [accessed
12
disciplinary research, the process engages resources from different disciplines which
“[allow] investigators to transcend their own disciplines to inform one another’s work,
capture complexity and create new intellectual spaces.”66 More than that, the process
also tries to access the voices of those in the grassroots, or those on the ground, which
profoundly enrich the result of the collaborative project, or sometimes even change the
course of the entire endeavor.
This program opens an avenue towards a genuine recognition of the value of
Filipino migration in the areas of history, economics, politics, sacramentology and
ecclesiology considering the fact that we endeavour to use a Filipino vantage point to re-
member their multi-faceted migration history, to re-right their critical position in the
globalized67 world, and to re-imagine their liturgical stance in the complexity of Church
life. We are keenly aware, however, that there are still some aspects of the Filipino
perspectives that will continue to escape the grasp of our academic conceptualizations.
Nevertheless, in this venture we attempt to represent the Filipino version/s of history,
sociology, theology, sacramentology and ecclesiology to the best of our abilities.68
Scope and Limitations
Having laid down the status quaetionis and the methodology that shall be employed
in this doctoral work, we would like to inform our readers that this post-graduate
research will try to explore areas that are connected to the issue of Filipino migration
and its impact on the issue of ecclesiology. With that in mind, we believe that it is
necessary that we revisit the history of the Filipino people which reaches as far back as
the pre-Hispanic era and also extends to the contemporary circumstances of Filipino
migration. It is also deemed important that we dig into the issue of how Filipinos
articulate their God-talk because their peculiar way of theologizing will definitely shed
light to how they view liturgies and ecclesiology. Intimately link to the aforementioned
areas that should be included in this research project is the realm of ecclesiology,
specifically the different manifestations of Basic Ecclesial Communities or Small
Christian Communities.
July 28, 2016]. Cf. also Harvard School of Public Health, “Transdisciplinary Research,” Harvard
Transdisciplinary Research in Energetics and Cancer Center, https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/trec/about-
us/definitions/ [accessed July 28, 2016]. Cf. also Sally W. Aboelela et al., “Defining Interdisciplinary
Research: Conclusions from a Critical Review of the Literature,” Health Services Research 42(2007): 329–
346, doi:10.1111/j.1475-6773.2006.00621 [accessed July 28, 2016]. Cf. also James Colins, “May You Live
in Interesting Times: Using Multi-Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Programs to Cope with Changes in Life
Sciences,” BioScience 52, no. 1(2002): 75-83, http://www.msu.edu/user/gradschl/es/pubs/collins.pdf
66McGregor, “The Nature of Transdisciplinary.”
67Generally, we understand globalization here mainly as an “intensification,” according to Anthony Giddens,
“of worldwide social relations which link distinct localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped
by events occurring many miles away and vice-versa.” Anthony Giddens, “The Consequences of Modernity,”
in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, eds. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (New
York: Columbia University, 1994), 181. Cf. also Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity
(Cambridge: Polity, 1990), 63-78; 183.
68Carlos Abesamis in his article, maintains that “The doer of theological reflection is ideally the person
whose daily life-situation is in all respects the life situation of the people. For example, a worker, not a
university professor, is, from the point of view of the need for experience, ideally the best person to reflect
on the life-situation of workers. Those who have a vicarious and occasional experience of the life of the
worker could also (although as a poor second best) do theological reflection, but they must be acutely aware
of their very, very serious limitations and be strictly on guard against them.” Carlos Abesamis, “Doing
Theological Reflection in a Philippine Context,” in The Emergent Gospel: Theology from the Developing World,
eds. Sergio Torres and Virginia Fabella (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1978), 115.
13
SAMBAYANIHAN
Because the dissertation is precisely about the role that Filipino migrants play in
the sphere of Catholic ecclesiology, we shall limit our discussion, as much as possible,
to the Filipino migrants. Certainly, we are cognizant of the fact that most of the aspects
that we attribute to the Filipinos can also be analogically attributed to other migrant
communities, such as those from the African continent and the Latin American region.
Whatever characteristics they possess, though specifically ascribed to the Filipinos, are
not exclusively theirs. They are definitely shared by others and are produced by their
multiple contacts with other cultures. They do not exist in a vacuum. There is no such
thing as pure culture. If ever we mentioned these other migrant communities only
sparingly in this current endeavour, it does not mean that we are downplaying their
roles and their contributions. We are very much aware that there are so many
interesting and meritorious things that the Universal Church can learn from them. We
believe, however, that their contributions or cases can be properly dealt with by people
who either come from their own cultural family or by those who are profoundly
knowledgeable about the ins and outs of the circumstances that surround their
respective migrant situations. Moreover, we are convinced that highlighting the role of
the Filipino migrants does not imply that we are putting them on the pedestal or
considering them as perfect models of contemporary discipleship, theology and
ecclesiology. They are not a cut above the rest. They have their own share of dark sides
and human foibles. They also need evangelization and salvation. What we simply would
like to stress in this doctoral work is, despite their weaknesses or limitations, they still
have something to share in view of the continuous growth of Catholic theology and
ecclesiology.
Overview of the Dissertation
Whatever information, facts and experiences we have gathered, therefore, from our
encounters/immersions and library work, courtesy of our chosen methodology, will be
recounted in a two-fold framework that follows the initial stages of agricultural endeavor
prevalent in the Philippines, namely: 1) Pagbubungkal:69 A Cartographic Exploration of
the Complexities of Transcolonialism, Historiography, Globalization and Migration; and
2) Paglilinang:70 An Exploration on Filipino History, Theology, Liturgy and Ecclesiology.
With these two agronomic procedures we hope to reap, as a possible response to the
signs of the times, a veritable ecclesiological framework that is in keeping with the
complex condition of the Filipino migrant communities and assert the relevance of the
Church in the highly globalized and evidently secularistic 71 world that we experience
today.
Part I, which serves as a conceptual substratum for the arguments we shall
develop in the main portion of this project, will be tackled in the following sections: 1)
Unpacking Transcolonialism: A Walk through Different Approaches in Addressing and
Transcending Colonialism; 2) Re/Membering History: An Attempt to Re-Right our
69This Tagalog word can be equated to the English words ‘tilling’ and ‘plowing’.
70This Tagalog term is akin to the English concepts of cultivation and development.
71We must caution our readers, however, that we do not discount the fact that a lot of the contemporary
conflicts arise from the issues of religion and, mostly, wars being fought today are not only economically
and politically motivated but are obviously in the name of religion or of religious ideologies. We believe that
underneath the veneer of secularism lies, perhaps astutely encrypted, and regardless of religious affiliations
or non-affiliations, a profoundly religious spirit fuels the contemporary discourses of the major movers and
shakers of global politics.
14
Constructions of History; 3) The Challenge of Globalization: Pervasiveness and

Vagueness; 4) Migrant People: Where Do they Stand?; 5) Setting the Record Straight:
Can We Provincialize Europe?; 6) The Role of Intercultural Philosophy or “Polylogue” in
Overcoming Eurocetrism; and 7) The “Death or Eclipsed of God” Exposed: A Discussion
on the Various Manifestations of Secularization. These sections, because they provide
the necessary foundation to build-up the central arguments of this paper, will simply
discuss pertinent issues that will help clarify the basic concepts presupposed in the
forthcoming discussion. Therefore, there will be no sectional or general conclusion
provided in this part of the paper.
Part II, which comprises the main bulk of this doctoral research work, will be
composed of the following chapters: 1. Luksong-Tinik: A Story of Colonization and
Migration Straight from the Carabao’s Mouth; 2. From Bahala Na to Bayanihan:
Towards a Trans-colonial Ordinary Theology for Filipinos in Diaspora; An Eloquent
Expression of Loob and Kapwa Relationship; 3. Misang-Bayanihan: Anamnesis From
the Liminal Place; A Liturgical Remembrance of the Passion and a Festive Celebration
of Communion; 4. Sambayanihang Filipino: Gathering and Sending from the Margins;
From Economic Migration to Global Mission Via Basic Ecclesial Communities in Union.
As a whole, we envision these chapters as different interlocking layers of concentric
circles that move from a re-framing of historical perspective, with the help of trans-
coloniality, to a re-articulation of theology emanating from the ‘ordinary’ members of the
global church. Building up from these two intimately linked spheres, we proceed to a
re-imagining of the Holy Eucharist that take into serious account the reality of Filipino
migration in critical dialogue with the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, and then we
uncover a re-configuration of Ecclesiology in the contemporary landscape of
globalization riddled with narratives of migration. In other words, our project entails a
trans-disciplinary approach with a trans-colonial lens that will undertake: 1) a
cartographic sketch of Filipino history as nation and as people in migration; 2) a survey
of Filipino theological articulation, especially in the context of migration; 3) a closer look
at how liturgy is celebrated by the Filipinos, especially in the context of migration; and
4) an analysis of how Filipino migrant communities will become positive influence to the
ongoing development of Catholic ecclesiology, especially in the context of migration.
In view thereof, Chapter One attempts, while being acutely aware of our bias and
our limitation to access sources, to re-write/re-right Philippine colonial history and
Filipino migration by incorporating accounts from mainstream and peripheral authors
and informants. This chapter, as already intimated in the foregoing statement, will be
divided into two sections, namely: 1) Straight from the Carabao’s72 Mouth: A Trans-
colonial Retrieval of the Filipino Kasaysayan; Re-Writing History towards a Re-Righting
of Filipino Legacy; And 2) Luksong-Tinik:.73 Nagivating the Liminal Place; Towards a
Trans-colonial Reading of Filipino Diaspora. Scattered and interspersed in these two
72This is certainly derived from the idiomatic expression “straight from the horse’s mouth”. We replace the
horse, however, with the carabao to make it more indigenized, because the carabao is a Filipino beast of
burden that is used most of the time as a symbol of what is traditionally and culturally Filipino. Thus, in
this paper, we use this image as representation of the collective views of the Filipino historians and theorists
we engage in the discussion.
73This is a traditional Filipino game where the player jumps over a barrier represented by two fellow players
seated across each other placing their feet and hands alternatively on top of each other that will serve as a
hurdle for the jumper. We use this as the image of the Filipinos in diaspora who are straddling between two
worlds overcoming barriers and challenges.
15
SAMBAYANIHAN
major sections are the discussions on Filipino religiosity and ecclesiology that are main
features in the national identity of the Filipino in the country as well as in diaspora.
Section One hopes to show that an appropriate re-inscription of Filipino history
necessarily recovers the organic confluence of Church, liturgy, culture and nationalism
in the Filipino psyche, which becomes even more defined in the experience of Filipinos
in diaspora. In order to achieve this goal, we engage both Filipino and non-Filipino
historians, mainstream and marginal, to provide an intersubjective narration (i.e., both
for and against our preferred perspective) and interpretation of colonization and
migration that appropriately represent the Filipinos. We believe that it is of utmost
importance that we re-write Filipino history from the perspective of the “subaltern”74 if
we want to achieve a trans-colonial Eucharistic ecclesiology for Filipinos in diaspora.
Through this path we attempt to transform facts and figures from being data of
oppression and marginalization to a platform of growth and recognition – a
transformation needed by Filipinos to rise above the unfortunate situation and to grow
or to move forward towards healing and reconciliation – quickening the coming of the
reign of God. Without this necessary re-righting of history there will be no re-imaging of
the contemporary society, which also means no re-imagining of the future of ecclesiology
and liturgy. To name some of our discussants, we have the following authors: Renato
Constantino; F. Landa Jocano; Teodoro Agoncillo, Horacio de la Costa; Jose Arcilla;
Ambeth Ocampo; Samuel Tan and John Schumacher.
Section Two tackles the pertinent issues surrounding Filipino migration in the
context of Globalization (i.e., the political, sociological and economic impacts of
Globalization on Filipino Diasporic communities). This portion, on the one hand, hopes
to expose the continuous colonization taking place in the world as Globalization (i.e.,
top-down which bears some semblance to what Joseph Komonchak understands as
“descending” ecclesiology or “ecclesiology from above” 75) continues to extend its arms
to ever-widening territories – not leaving any stone unturned. On the other hand, this
particular portion wishes to retrieve an alternative globalization (i.e., bottom-up, which
is analogous to Komonchak’s “ascending” ecclesiology or “ecclesiology from below”76)
that diasporic communities have to offer for a possible re-imaging of the present-day
Catholic Church which is profoundly marked by heightened globalization. Having this
objective in mind, both Filipino and non-Filipino theorists are placed in the discussion
table to present a trans-disciplinary critical assessment and revaluation of the role of
the Filipino migrants vis-à-vis the Church in a highly and massively globalized world.
74In the second edition of the Post-Colonial Studies: They Key Concepts, it is said that “Subaltern, meaning
’of inferior rank’, is a term adopted by Antonio Gamsci to refer to those groups in society who are subject
to the hegemony of the ruling classes. Subaltern classes may include peasants, workers and other groups
denied access to ‘hegemonic’ power.” Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Hellen Tiffin, eds., Post-Colonial
Studies: The Key Concepts, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), 198. This word is defined by
Merriam-Webster as ‘subordinate’. Merriam-Webster, Subaltern, http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/subaltern [accessed May 29, 2016]. The subaltern, accordingly are those who
“write history from the underside.” Although, this concept has been criticized for the very reason that it is
still a product of Eurocentric view of history that views the subaltern as the groups of people who are non-
western. Cf. Antonio Gramsci, “Notes on Italian History”, in Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio
Gramsci, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Press, 1971),
54-55.
75Komonchak’s approach is referred to as “ascending” ecclesiology, or an ecclesiology from below. Cf. Joseph
Komonchak, “The Church Universal as the Communion of Local Churches,” Concilium 6(1981):30. Cf. also
Martin Madar, “The Contribution of Joseph A. Komonchak to the Theology of the Local Church in Light of
Lumen Gentium,” (PhD dissertation, Catholic University of America, 2014), 173.
76Ibid.
16
We believe that a lopsided appraisal of the condition of the Filipinos in diaspora will not
only render injustice to our stakeholders but will also hinder our access to what are
considered to be relevant materials for our goal to develop a trans-colonial eucharistic
ecclesiology for Filipinos in diaspora as well. Hence, we have chosen the following
authors as our main protagonists in the discussion board: Epifanio San Juan, Jr.;
Eleazar Fernandez; Daniel Pilario; Filomeno Aguilar, Andrew Geddes; and Joerg Rieger.
It is important to note at this point that our appropriation of Bowman’s “re-
membering” tries to deviate from the “objective” lens mostly utilized by scholars who
rabidly adhere to scientistic process. Instead, guided by our bias, we try to retrieve the
“muted” voices of the colonized, by employing Jeff Astley’s “onlook”77 vantage point that
he proposes in his “Ordinary Theology.”
Chapter Two explores a distinctive articulation of Filipino theology in three
sections: 1) Revisiting Ordinary Theology vis-à-vis Filipino Spirituality; 2) Locating the
Filipino Notion of Bahala Na within the Ambit of Ordinary Theology Grounded in the
Intersubjective Relationship of the Loob-Kapwa; and 3) Finding the Place of Ordinary
Bahala Na Theology in the Realm of Contemporary Theological Discourse. It is hoped
that through this chapter we will be able to retrieve and re-contextualize the Filipino
input in the area of theology – not only as a localized theology but something that is also
significant to the international community. This can be, thus, conceived as a true
reflection of the Tagalog notions of faith, which is pananampalataya that combines
(pagnamnam) “foretaste” and (pagtataya) “risk-taking,” and of intersubjectivity, which
is the union of loob-kapwa that evokes the sense of organic mutuality78 between the I
and the other that was unfortunately ruptured by Modernity. This Filipino Ordinary
Theology finds its most eloquent theological expression in the Bayanihan system where
people, as a united community, help each other, despite and amidst all the challenges,
in carrying the “oikos” in a journey from a former less desirable place to a new one which
brings hope for a better future. Certainly, this exploration does not tone down the innate
ambivalence in these concepts or values as attested by a plethora of articulations in
various regional/provincial Filipino tongues. It is our hope that presenting bahala na as
an ordinary theology will facilitate our search for an appropriate trans-colonial
articulation of “Eucharistic” ecclesiology in the context of the diasporic lives of the
Filipinos, which we call Sambayanihan. In this section, therefore, we will engage the
following authors as our main interlocutors: Jeff Astley, Leslie Francis, Manuel de
Guzman, Jaime Belita, Jose de Mesa, Stephen Cherry, Melba Padilla-Magay, Leonardo
Mercado, F. Landa Jocano, Virgilio Enriquez, and Mary Ann Betsayda. It must be noted
at this point that a portion of this chapter will soon appear in the International Journal
of Practical Theology under the title “Bahala Na: In Search of an ‘Ordinary Theology’ for
the Filipino Diaspora”. Moreover, the main bulk of this chapter appeared in the
Advanced Master’s thesis submitted to the Faculty of Theology of KU Leuven in 2013
under the title of “‘Ordinary’ Bahala Na Theology: A Critical Preliminary Exploration on
a Theology for the Filipino Diaspora.”
Chapter Three explores the area of inculturated liturgy in the context of Filipino
Diaspora in three sections: 1) A Closer Look at Culture and Cultural Formation; 2)
Transculturality: A New Way of Looking at Inculturation in the Context of Migration;
and 3) Towards an Inculturated Liturgy for Filipinos in Diaspora. This chapter will,
therefore, explore the theology of inculturation and the appropriateness of Misa ng
77Astley,
Ordinary Theology, 83.
78Organicmutuality here is not understood as absence of conflict or perfect relationship. Mutuality is about
the primordial bond that unites the loob to the kapwa.
17
SAMBAYANIHAN
Bayan proposed by Anscar Chupungco. Thus, it requires a synoptic analysis of

Chupungco’s and Schmemann’s positions which reveals a convergence on their
respective view on adaptation that it is, indeed, an ongoing process owing to the dynamic
nature of Church. Preventing any form of adaptation, according to Chupungco, strips
the Church of its relevance to the contemporary world. Schmemann, on his part, claims
that when the Church’s liturgical life is devoid of any development it suffers “fatal
sclerosis.”79 A healthy Church is not only an ecclesia semper reformanda, Chupungco
surmises, it is also Liturgia semper reformanda.80
Inspired by this, we conceptualize a liturgical celebration that embodies the
Filipino BECs and the bahala na ordinary theology, which serves as sacramental act of
worship to God who calls the migrant church to be a place of experiencing the great love
of God and an opportunity for living a life of charity, generosity, solidarity, hospitality,
forgiveness, healing, reconciliation, liberation and salvation: Misang-Bayanihan.
This particular portion will incorporate all the preceding discussions – historical,
sociological, political and theological - to formulate the contribution we hope to offer in
the continuing development of systematic theology. Having this goal in mind, we engage
the following as our main interlocutors: Nicolas Afanasiev, Alexander Schmemman,
John Zizioulas, Anscar Chupungco, Maria Pilar Aquino, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, Lapetra
Rochelle-Bowman, Elsa Tamez. Virgilio Elizondo, Daniel Groody, Daniel Izuzquiza,
Gemma Tulod-Cruz, Agnes Brazal and Emmanuel de Guzman who have offered their
own contributions in the areas of Ecclesiology and Liturgy, especially in the areas of
inculturation and migration.
Chapter Four explores the possibility of building Basic Ecclesial Eucharistic
Communities for Filipinos in diaspora, which embody the bahala na religio-cultural
identity of the Filipinos in Diaspora. The presentations incumbent to this portion, on
the one hand, will expose the “dark sides” of Filipino communities that can lead to a
“ghettoish” and “stand-offish” attitude, and, on the other hand, uncover the beauty and
wisdom of forming small communities that will serve as ecclesial communities that,
according to Fernandez, have “burning center and porous borders.”81 On this note, we
envision this chapter to include: 1) A survey of pertinent Church documents regarding
Basic Ecclesial Communities; 2) A review of the emergence of the Basic Ecclesial
Communities in several parts of the globe which is deemed as a fruit of the Second
Vatican Council; 3) An assessment of the growth and sustainability of the Basic
Ecclesial Communities in the Philippines which has been declared as a pastoral priority
by the Philippine Church hierarchy; 4) An adaptation of the notion of BEC in the context
of Filipino Migration in Western Europe which we refer to as sambayanihan
communities; and 5) A brief discussion on the issue of trust and decentralization. The
discussions in this chapter are designed to argue for a possibility of using BEC as a
viable model for migrants’ ecclesiology that takes into serious account the situation and
contribution of the complex nature of Filipino diasporic communities who are
interestingly known for forming small “independent” groups where social and ecclesial
79Alexander Schmemann, Liturgy and Tradition: Theological Reflections of Alexander Schmemann, ed.
Thomas Fisch (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 2003), 42.
80Anscar J. Chupungco, “Shaping the Filipino Order of Mass,” in Worship: Beyond Inculturation
(Washington, DC: Pastoral, 1994), 129-156.

81A detailed discussion regarding this peculiar concept of the church will be done partly in the third chapter
and mostly in the fourth chapter. Suffice it to say that for E. Fernandez this means that the migration
ecclesial communities serve as venues for an experience of burning love of God and avenues for hospitality,
solidarity, healing and reconciliation. Cf. Eleazar Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Borders (Eugene, OR:
Wipf & Stock, 2011).
18
aspects of life intricately converge. Considering the fact that Filipinos are the second
biggest “cultural” ecclesial “minorities” in the US and in the Western Europe, we suggest
that these Filipino migrant communities can ‘remodel” themselves into becoming
SAMBAYANIHAN communities that can challenge the present state of the Catholic
Church in the aforementioned territories. These communities, transformed from
economic migration to global mission, mainly fueled by the active participation of the
laity who are, according to Lee, the “privileged contact zone with society and culture”
can become veritable wellsprings for liturgical renewal, societal development and
liberative movements where issues of social justice, peace-building, human rights,
environmental degradation and poverty alleviation are addressed head-on. This chapter
shall include the following theologians as our major resource persons in the
conversation table: Alvaro Barreiro, Jose Marins, Marcello de Azevedo, Leonardo Boff,
Philipp Jenkins, Peter Hogdson, James Kroeger, Brendan Leahy, Francisco Claver,
Arthur Baranowski, Frank Viola and Bernard Lee.
It is hoped that the aforementioned chapters will lead to a conclusion that
Sambayanihang Filipino is a viable trans-colonial eucharistic ecclesiology for the
Filipinos in diaspora: A church that transforms itself into a united (as indicated by the
prefix sam or isa, which means one), worshipping (as indicated by the word samba,
which means worship in Tagalog), oikos-ekklesia or house-church/basic ecclesial
communities (as indicated by the word bahay, which means house in Tagalog) in the
contemporary intercultural world.
19
PART I
PAGBUBUNGKAL
A CARTOGRAPHY OF SOME FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS UNDERLYING FILIPINO

DIASPORA AND THE COMPLEXITIES OF TRANSCOLONIALISM, HISTORIOGRAPHY,
GLOBALIZATION AND MIGRATION
Introduction
T
his portion of the doctoral dissertation is aptly referred to as the Pagbubungkal
stage because, as a prelude to the “main act”, it tries to critically uncover
pertinent issues surrounding the concepts that will be put forward in the second
part of the research project. By plowing through, as the Tagalog word indicates, the
messy ground of Filipino Diaspora (i.e., identifying the salient points and evaluating the
validity of possible arguments) we establish the necessary condition for the implantation
of the seed of Filipino BECs in the complex soil of globalization. In this regard, we
proceed by, first, clarifying some concepts related to trans-colonialism which includes
colonialism/colonization, decolonization, anti-colonialism, post-colonialism,
imperialism and neocolonialism and, secondly, by offering a critical exploration on the
issues relevant to history and historiography. Thirdly, this portion shall examine some
issues that concern the contemporary phenomenon of migration. Thereafter, we embark
on a substantial discussion on the issues of globalization, multiculturalism,
interculturality and secularization.
It is, thus, our hope that this overture will help attune our readers to the program
that we have set for this research work and let them see the value of our proposal which
is to bring the Filipino Catholic migrant communities to the table of discussion so that
the academic community, as well as the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the Western
European countries, will hear them out and take seriously the contributions that they
can offer in terms of historical writing, articulating theology, celebrating liturgies and
organizing/structuring ecclesial communities. Considering the nature of this current
project, it is not surprising, therefore, that the following presentations will appear like
entries in an encyclopedia with some parenthetical remarks from the author. Moreover,
being true to its nature as a prologue or as a tilling phase, this portion will not provide
concluding remarks as far as the entire part is concerned, but will just leave the ground
fallow with the intricacies of the concepts exposed. This pagbubungkal, we hope, will
provide a reliable map as we navigate through the project’s fundamental issues and a
rich background to the core concepts we shall develop in the main body of our research
work.
We would like to note at this point, however, that there are instances in this
doctoral research work where our statements would appear to be highly combative or
oppositional, especially when we speak in general terms of the ‘West’ vis-à-vis Filipino
culture/s or worldview/s or other non-western viewpoints, despite our awareness of the
multiplicity of perspectives and cultures found also in the geographically designated
western hemisphere of the globe. We are keenly aware of the complexities involved in
understanding these important concepts. But we hope that, because the purpose of this
section is to provide a cartographic sketch of the concepts linked to the idea of trans-
coloniality, our caricature-like discussion will suffice, noting from time to time some
conceptual nuances and alternative views which may at times be found in the footnotes.
Moreover, we would like to explain that there are occasions in this doctoral work wherein
we are either simply expressing the thoughts of the authors that we are citing in this
SAMBAYANIHAN
post-graduate project even if we do not necessarily agree with them or support their
views, or we are simply stating the belief that has been traditionally held by people who
have been unfortunately made to think that the ‘West’ is indeed a monolithic block. We
cannot deny the fact that there was a time in written history when the ‘West’ was
presented as a well-defined unified whole located at the very center of global reality,
especially with regards to the massive impact of Modernity, which we shall be discussing
later. As a matter of fact, a lot of people still hold on to that view despite the pieces of
evidence that prove otherwise. On this note, we recall Walter Mignolo who relates that
“I am aware that many readers would feel uncomfortable with the description of Western
civilization as a homogenous entity, particularly now that, with globalization (or, to be more
precise, with ‘globalism’ that is the neo-liberal narrative of its doctrine and the Washington
Consensus), the border are broken and trades fly over the borders and migrants manage to
crack the walls and move around police forces to enter developing countries and blur the
distinction between Western and Eastern civilizations, Christianity and Islam, Latin and
Anglo America, and Africa and Europe. In that view Western civilization may be a dream: the
dream of actors and institutions that managed and built the modern/colonial world in the
name of the universality of Western values.
However, during the period 1500 to 2000, one local history, that of Western civilization, built
itself as the point of arrival and owner of human history. Ownership was expressed by
building a system of knowledge as if it were the sum and guardian of all knowledges, past
and present – G.W.F. Hegel’s lessons in philosophy of history remain the single and most
telling document of that epistemic victory.”82
Even if we do not and should not equate the ‘West’ with ‘Modernity’, the massive
impact of the ‘Modern way of thinking’ resulting from Descartes’ discovery of the cogito
on the systems of belief and intellectual pursuits of the people coming from the western
hemisphere of the globe, as well as on those colonized and influenced by western
powers, cannot be simply swept under the rug and considered to be untenable or
outright irrational. This brings to mind again Mignolo who argues that his
“discomfort with modernity and Western civilization (two face of the same phenomenon) is
not with Western modernity’s contribution to global history, but rather with the imperial
belief that the world shall submit to its cosmology, and the naïve or perverse belief that the
unfolding of world history has been of one temporality and would, of necessity, lead to a
present that corresponds to the Western civilization that Hegel summarized in his celebrated
lessons in the philosophy of history. Both the political and the economic expansion of
Western civilization have gone hand in hand with the management of all spheres of
knowledge. Or, worded differently, Western civilization’s ability to manage knowledge
explains its success in expanding itself politically and economically. My discomfort with
Western civilization and modernity is also a discomfort with capitalist economy, an economy
that puts growth before life and individual success before communal well-being.”83
We would like to caution our readers at this juncture that, when it seems like we
are painting a caricature of the West or Europe in our discussion, it is simply meant to
highlight the evils that Western colonial thought have brought to the world, but, then
again, we are not oblivious of the fact that the West or Europe or even European identity
is not mono-dimensional or purely evil. It is certainly multi-dimensional and, just like
any other nation or identity, has darker and brighter sides. As Paul Blokker and Gerard
Delantey rightly point out that
“The idea of a European identity should be employed with some caution. Europe as a concept
or idea has been differently understood over time: in medieval times it was mostly a
geographical concept, to become increasingly equated with Christianity during the
Renaissance, while during the Enlightenment it was filled in with ideas of a modern
82Walter Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking
(Princeton and Oxford; Princeton University, 2000), x.
83Ibid., x-xi.
22
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
civilisation. The notion of Europe should be regarded as an essentially contestable concept,

taking on different meanings depending on its proponents, context and significant Others.
This is equally true for notions of the West and those notions of European identity that
convey an overlap with or inclusion into the wider notion of the West. Even if the identity of
the Western and its subjection to a Western identity during the Cold War could be seen as
largely unproblematised at the time, it cannot be said that there was only one way of seeing
the relation between Europe and the United States…[there is] no single understanding of
this relationship.”84
Aside from the aforementioned concern, we would like to inform our readers that
a great deal of our discussion regarding the contrast between the “West” and the “rest”
will revolve mainly around the ‘geographical aspect’ of the debate, which means that we
are mainly exploring the manifestations of whatever is ‘Western’ as they unfold in a
geographically designated location in the western hemisphere of the globe. This is also
true regarding our discussions on what we consider as Filipino or as belonging to the
‘rest’ of the world. We do not forget, however, that the ‘West’ – as well as the ‘South’,
‘North’, and ‘East’ – covers a host of ramifications. Having said that, we will do our best
to make our discussion as nuanced as possible according to the limitations set by
sources and methodology.
I.1. Unpacking Transcolonialism: A Walk through Different Approaches in

Addressing and Transcending Colonialism
Although we are particularly interested in how trans-colonial discourse can

provide a critical lens in conceptualizing contemporary ecclesiology that addresses the
challenges posed by Filipino migration in the context of massive globalization, we deem
it necessary to walk our readers through the intricacy of the main theory that we are
espousing in this current project. It is of utmost importance that we provide a
cartographic sketch of the pertinent concepts surrounding our preferred theory, which
is trans-coloniality. We will not fully understand the notion of trans-coloniality, a term
that we prefer to use instead of the word trans-colonialism whose “ism” connotes an
extreme position, unless we explain, even in broad strokes, the concepts of colonization,
decolonization, anti-colonialism, neocolonialism/imperialism and post-colonialism.
Colonization, which we believe to be vital to our understanding of our preferred
theoretical framework, was originally construed by the Europeans as the migration of
communities from a previous national abode to a new one in search of a better economic,
religious or political prospect in life without necessarily severing the ties from their
homeland. This phenomenon bears some semblance to the case of non-Western
migrants in the present world wherein the “primary aim”, according to Young, “was to
settle elsewhere rather than to rule others.”85 The metamorphosis of colonization into
the beast that we now know, began only when segregation started to be the order of the
day.86 Colonization, thus, has become synonymous with control, suppression,
oppression, discrimination, violence and extermination in pursuit of “god, gold and
glory”. Young, following the logic of Edward Said, points out that “The appropriation of
land and space” is “fundamentally an act of violence, a geographical violence employed
84Paul Blokker and Gerard Delantey, “European Identity, Post-Western Europe, and Complex Cultural
Diversity,” in The Struggle for the West: A Divided and Contested Legacy, eds. Christopher Browning &
Marko Lehti (London & New York: Routledge, 2010), 117-118.
85Robert Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2008), 20.
86According to Young, the colonizers “sought to retain a distinction between the colonizers and natives,
rather than integrate with the local population.” Ibid.
23
SAMBAYANIHAN
against indigenous peoples and their land rights.”87 For Ashcroft et al., colonialism is
understood in this way:
“[t]he term colonialism is important in defining the specific form of cultural exploitation that
developed with the expansion of Europe over the last 400 years. Although many earlier
civilization had colonies, and although they perceived their relations with them to be one of
a central imperium in relation to a periphery of provincial, marginal and barbarian cultures,
a number of crucial factors entered into a construction of the post-Renaissance practices of
imperialism. Edward Said offers the following distinction: ‘imperialism’ means the practice,
the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory;
‘colonialism’, which is almost always a consequence of imperialism, is implanting of
settlements of distant territory (Said, Culture and Imperialism, 8). The fact that European
post-Renaissance colonial expansion was coterminous with the development of a modern
capitalist system of economic exchange … meant that the perception of the colonies as
primarily established to provide raw materials for the burgeoning economies of the colonial
powers was greatly strengthened and institutionalized. It also meant that the relation
between the colonizer and the colonized was locked into a rigid hierarchy of difference deeply
resistant to fair and equitable exchanges, whether economic, cultural or social.”88
It is, therefore, of utmost importance that we understand the nuances embedded in the
concept of colonialism because ignorance of these will render our current project futile.
We can only promote a trans-colonial view of history, theology, liturgy and ecclesisology
appropriate for Filipino diaspora if we have enough understanding of the ins and outs
of colonialism. Thus, we recall Edward Said, one of the most ardent proponents of
postcolonial theory, who strongly stresses that
“Neither imperialism nor colonialism is a simple act of accumulation and acquisition. Both
are supported and perhaps even impelled by impressive ideological formations that include
notions that certain territories and people require and beseech domination, as well as forms
of knowledge affiliated with domination: the vocabulary of classic nineteenth-century
imperial culture is plentiful with words and concepts like ‘inferior’ or ‘subject races,’
‘subordinate peoples,’ ‘dependency,’ ‘expansion,’ and ‘authority.’ Out of the imperial
experiences, notions about culture were clarified, reinforced, criticized, or rejected.”89
He further states that
“There was a commitment to [the Western empires] over and above profit, a commitment in
constant circulation and recirculation, which, on the one hand, allowed decent men and
women to accept the notion that distant territories and their native peoples should be
subjugated, and, on the other, replenished metropolitan energies so that these decent people
could think of the imperium as a protracted, almost metaphysical obligation to rule the
subordinate, inferior, or less advanced people.”90
Decolonization, which is superficially construed as the ‘undoing’ of colonialism,

started, in theory, in the eighteenth century until the twentieth century when colonies
in Australia, the Americas, New Zealand, Angola, South Africa, Mozambique and Asia
87Young, Postcolonialism, 20. Edward Said opines that “Neither imperialism nor colonialism is a simple act
of accumulation and acquisition. Both are supported and perhaps even impelled by impressive ideological
formations that include notions that certain territories and people require and beseech domination, as well
as forms of knowledge affiliated with domination: the vocabulary of classic nineteenth-century imperial
culture is plentiful with words and concepts like ‘inferior’ or ‘subject races,’ ‘subordinate peoples,’
‘dependency,’ ‘expansion,’ and ‘authority.’ Out of the imperial experiences, notions about culture were
clarified, reinforced, criticized, or rejected.” Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage,
1993), 9. Moreover, Said claims that “There was a commitment to [the Western empires] over and above
profit, a commitment in constant circulation and recirculation, which, on the one hand, allowed decent
men and women to accept the notion that distant territories and their native peoples should be subjugated,
and, on the other, replenished metropolitan energies so that these decent people could think of the imperium
as a protracted, almost metaphysical obligation to rule to subordinate, inferior, or less advanced people.”
Ibid., 10. My brackets. Cf. Ibid., 1-15 for further discussion on colonialism.
88Ashcroft et. al., Post-Colonial Studies, 40-41.
89Said, Culture and Imperialism, 9.
90Ibid., 10. My brackets. Cf. Ibid., 1-15 for further discussion on colonialism.
24
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
were released from the stranglehold of the European colonial powers.91 Ania Loomba,
however, thinks that the “official” emancipation promised by the withdrawal of western
colonial rule did not translate into actual decolonization, because the fundamental
infrastructures of colonialism have never been dismantled.92 Thus, colonialism still
persists and continues to wreak havoc on the colonized. For genuine decolonization to
take place, therefore, a process of “de-linking from the colonial matrix of power”93 is
seen as a necessary undertaking, because formal decolonization does not automatically
give birth to post-colonial society.94 Walter Mignolo, an advocate of decolonial theory,
points out in his article that what
“[he is] arguing here [is] that both ‘liberation’ and ‘decolonization’ point toward conceptual
(and therefore epistemic) projects of de-linking from the colonial matrix of power. Because of
the global reach of European modernity, de-linking cannot be understood as a new
conceptual system coming, literally, out of the blue. Delinking in [his] argument presupposes
border thinking or border epistemology in the precise sense that the Western foundation of
modernity and of knowledge is on the one hand unavoidable and on the other highly limited
and dangerous.”95
That being said, we can agree with what the authors of the book Post-colonial Studies
who have asserted:
“[d]ecolonization is the process of revealing and dismantling colonialist power in all its forms.
This includes dismantling the hidden aspects of those institutional and cultural forces that
had maintained the colonialist power and that remain even after political independence is
achieved…. This was only to be expected, since early nationalists had been educated to
perceive themselves as potential heirs to European political systems and models of
culture.”96
Robert Young astutely observes that the shallow independence enjoyed by the
former colonies spawned “new form of subservience”97 that cemented their cooptation
to the “economic system of capitalist power”98, which is an indicator of the “triumph of
economic liberalism.”99 Strictly speaking, according to Kohn and McBride,
91Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism,2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 12. According
to Prasenjit Duara, “decolonization refers to the process whereby colonial powers transferred institutional
and legal control over their territories and dependencies to indigenously based, formally sovereign, nation
states.” Prasenjit Duara, Decolonization: Perspectives from Now and Then; Rewriting Histories, ed. Prasenjit
Duara (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), Kindle edition, loc. 242.
92Loomba argues that “the newly independent nation-state makes available the fruits of liberation only
selectively and unevenly that dismantling of colonial rule did not automatically bring about changes for the
better in the status of women, the working class or the peasantry in most colonized countries.” Loomba,
Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 17.
93Walter Mignolo, an advocate of decolonial theory, points this out in his article. Walter Mignolo,
“DELINKING: The Rhetoric of Modernity, the Logic of Coloniality and the Grammar of De-coloniality,” in
Globalization and the Decolonial Option, eds. Walter Mignolo and Arturo Escobar (London and New York:
Routledge, 2010), 309. My brackets. In a footnote of the same article, Walter Mignolo writes: “The concept
of ‘delinking’ (in French, “la disconnection”) was introduced by Egyptian sociologist Samir Amin” [Delinking
Towards a Polycentric World, trans. Michael Wolfers (London: Zed Books, 1985), 44-84].
94Loomba rightly notes that “many people living in both the once-colonized and once-colonizing countries
are still subject to oppressions put in place by colonialism.” Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 18.
95Mignolo, “DELINKING”, 309. According to Mignolo, “The concept is a crucial one, although in Samir Amin’s
version it’s formulated at the level of economic and political (state) delinking. Without an epistemic delinking
it is difficult to really delink from the modern notion of Totality. In the case of Amin, he was still caught in
the mirage of Marxism and, therefore, of modernity. Thus, his delinking was proposed at the level of the
content rather than at the epistemic level that sustain the logic of coloniality.” Ibid., 356.
96Ashcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies, 56.
97Young, Postcolonialism, 45.
98Ibid.
99Ibid., 89. He adds, “Far from decolonization being necessarily anti-capitalist, the freeing up of world
markets, a process which is still going on today, represents the final historical triumph of the arguments
of Adam Smith.” Ibid.
25
SAMBAYANIHAN
decolonization means “self-rule and self-determination”.100 Daphne Taylor-Garcia

weighs in on this particular issue by arguing that “[to] be clear, epistemic decolonization
is not about adding voices to a multicultural melting pot of scholarship, but rather it
works to redefine the very conditions in which knowledge is produced and legitimated,
situating ethical relationships as central, and recognizing that what is put forth is the
basis for thinking through another world.”101
We feel that the Philippines as a nation and the Filipinos as a people have not yet
decolonized themselves despite the fact that colonialism formally ended in the
Philippines in 1946. Thus, colonial mentality is still undeniably operative in the
Filipino’s way of life both in the country and abroad.
But, before we proceed to our discussion on some very important concepts
surrounding our subject matter, which is about the possible contribution of the Filipino
migrant Catholic communities to the on-going development of world history, theology,
liturgy and ecclesiology, we need to mention David Steinberg who has rightly pointed
out as early as 1982 that
“The Philippines is both singular and plural, and the problem is only partially grammatical.
The name Philippines refers to both an island archipelago and to nation of about 50 million
people102 – the world’s fifteenth most populous country – but the ambiguity exists on a more
profound level as well. The Philippines is both a unified nation with a single people, the
Filipinos, and a highly fragmented and plural society that is divided between Muslims and
Christians, rural and urban, up lander and lowlander, and rich and poor between the people
of one ethnic, linguistic, or geographic region and those of another. To understand the
Philippines, one must understand the two conflicting forces – the centripetal force of
consensus and national identity and the centrifugal force of division and instability.”103
Thus, we can ascertain that the Philippines is a good example of how creative
relationship of “unity-in-diversity” works. That being said, we need to inform our readers
that, when we use the word ‘Philippines’, it means to say that we are taking the entire
geographical territory as a whole and when we use the word ‘Philippine’, it goes to show
that we are using it as an adjective. Whenever we use the word ‘Filipino/Filipina’ either
in singular or plural form, we are either using it as a noun (i.e., referring to the Filipino
citizens or nationals themselves) or as an adjective to refer to something that describes
some characteristics attributable to the people or to the country or culture originating
from the Philippines.
Anti-Colonialism, which can be understood as an obvious counter-offensive to
colonialism, is a movement that requires a robust “hermeneutic of suspicion”104 against
100Cf. Margaret Kohn and Keally McBride, Political Theories of Decolonization: Postcolonialism and the
Problem of Foundations (New York: Oxford University, 2011) Kindle edition. In this book Decolonization is
related to “Westoxification” and Self-Determination. According to them, “self-governance and self-
determination came to be seen as synonymous with the rejection of external sources as opposed to self-
legislation.” Ibid., loc. 502.
101Daphne V. Taylor-García, “Decolonial Historiography: Thinking about Land and Race in a Transcolonial
Context,” Tensions Journal 5(2011): 5.

102According to Sun Star: “The Philippine population will continue to increase in 2017 and is projected to
reach 105, 758, 850 by December 31, 2017, based on projections made by the Commission on Population
(Popcom) using date from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).” PSA, The Philippine Population to Grow
105. 75 million by the end 2017, Sunstar Manila, December 29, 2016,
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2016/12/29/philippine-population-grow-10575-million-
end-2017-517377 [accessed January 26, 2017].
103David Joel Steinberg, The Philippines: A Singular and a Plural Place (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1982),
xi.
104In Freud and Philosophy, Paul Ricoeur unveils his hermeneutical framework that criticizes Gadamer’s
“openness” and Habermas’s “lack of criticality.” He argues that “Hermeneutics seems… to be animated by
26
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
the dominant idea of history, culture and philosophy emanating from western
patriarchal superiority complex.105 The main thrust of anti-colonialism is social change.
Thus, it rejects the totalizing and oppressive frameworks in contemporary society that
are, without a doubt, vestiges of colonial regimes.106 It strives, at the same time, to
revolutionize one’s understanding of “domination and resistance” to salvage the
territories that have been ambushed by colonialism (i.e., ethnicity, class, race, disability,
sexuality, gender, language and religion).107 In this enterprise, resistance, on the one
hand, is invoked on the side of the oppressed, and accountability, on the other hand, is
exacted on the colonizer. For the benefit of the colonized, they are roused to harness all
necessary aptitudes (i.e., mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical) to fight for change,
to overcome oppression and to liberate themselves from the iron claw of colonization. At
present, the discourse in the Philippines still revolves around the issue of anti-
colonialism, which we believe has proven ineffective in dismantling the colonial roots
deeply entrenched in the Philippines soil.
Post-colonialism/Postcolonialism108, with all the complexities that surround it,
defies any clear-cut definition or categorization. This movement, if we may call it as
such, bears multiple appearances, which made the likes of Stephen Slemon, an
advocate of postcolonial literary criticism, to suggest that post-colonialism cannot be
easily lumped into a monolithic definition.109 Ania Loomba shares the same estimation
of post-colonialism, because she believes that this particular discourse has penetrated
a myriad of contexts and engaged theorists from a variety of areas. In other words, it
has become inevitably and interestingly interdisciplinary.110 Post-colonialism, therefore,
cannot be simplistically construed, according to Slemon, as “post-independence
historical period in once-colonized nations.”111 In fact, to avoid the misleading
connotation of the word, Robert Young strongly recommends the use of the word
tricontinentalism instead of post-colonialism, because he argues that the former colonies
(i.e. the continents of Africa, Asia and Latin America) are, in reality, still controlled and
oppressed by their colonial masters despite the absence of actual colonial regimes. 112
Inevitably, post-colonialism discursively straddles between the anti and the post. It
represents both the attempt to contest the enduring imperialism of the center and the
commitment to social justice that necessarily encompasses transnational territories.113
It critically examines what anti-colonial movements have done so far and devise some
this double motivation: willingness to suspect, willingness to listen; vow of rigor, vow of obedience.” Paul
Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University, 1970), 27.
105Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 39.
106Ibid., 40.
107Cf. Arlo Kempf, ed., Breaching the Colonial Contract: Anti-Colonialism in the US and Canada (Ontario,
Canada: Springer, 2009), Kindle edition, loc. 383 and 395.

108In general, according to the book Post-Colonial Studies, “Post-colonialism (or often postcolonialism) deals
with the effects of colonization on cultures and societies.” Ashcroft et. al., Post-Colonial Studies, 168.
109Stephen Slemon, “Modernism’s Last Post,” in Past the Last Post, eds. Ian Adam and Hellen Tiffin
(Harvester Wheatleaf: Hemel Hempstead, 1991), 3.

110The fact that Postcolonial is inter-disciplinary, according to Loomba, contributes to the difficulty in
describing this movement. Loomba, Colonialism, 2. Young suggests that it is not only interdisciplinary but
“it is a dialectical concept that marks the broad historical facts of decolonization and the determined
achievement of sovereignty – but also the realities of nations and peoples emerging into a new imperialistic
context of economic and sometimes political domination… The postcolonial also specifies a transformed
historical situation, and the cultural formations that have arisen in response to changed political
circumstances, in the former colonial power.” Young, Postcolonialism, 57-58.
111Slemon, Modernism, 3.
113Ibid., 57-58.
27
SAMBAYANIHAN
new approaches to achieve liberation from oppression and coercion that have not been
successfully uprooted by anti-colonialism.114 Postcolonial discourse combines the
neither and the both, because, as Young puts it, “Post-colonialism is neither western nor
non-western, but a dialectical product of interaction between the two, articulating new
counterpoints of insurgency from the long-running power struggles that predate and
post-date colonialism.”115 We are of the opinion that the main battle ground for
Postcolonial movements is located within the regions of the former colonial powers where
migrant people from the former colonies are currently residing. We discover, however,
that despite the efforts of some Filipino theorists (i.e., Epifanio San Juan, Jr. and
Eleazar Fernandez) who are fighting the battle in their host country, the U.S., to make
use of postcolonial discourse to disabuse the Filipinos of the colonial legacies of the
Spanish, American, Japanese and the present imperialistic clout of Globalization,
majority of Filipinos have remained infirmed, as we have already mentioned above, with
colonial mentality.
Imperialism116, which is usually considered as the contemporary form of
colonialism, can be observed in its two manifestations: 1) A political system wherein the
powerful center controls the colonized countries; and/or 2) “An economic system of
penetration and control of markets,”117 according to Loomba. Unlike colonialism that is
usually associated with the notion of formal colonies, imperialism, in its current
embodiment, exercises its hegemonic control without formal occupation because it
infiltrates, in a more cunning and subtle way and with a powerful control of market flow
as its best weapon, almost all realms of contemporary life in the globalized world. Ania
Loomba is of the opinion that the United States of America best exemplifies this new
version of colonialism, because she believes that this superpower has spread its
tentacles to almost every corner of the globe and has forcefully implanted its imperial
mechanism in the areas of global politics and transnational economy without an explicit
demonstration of occupational control or colonial regime.118 It continues to manipulate
and exploit labor and material resources in the guise of international cooperation and
global economic progress. Hardt and Negri, although not agreeing totally with Loomba,
confirm what Loomba considers as the birth of the new empire. These two theorists
believe that the “empire” was “born through the global expansion of the internal US
constitutional project.”119 Loomba explains that, for Hardt and Negri, the sort of
imperialism perpetrated by the United States of America strikes a strong semblance to
that of the Roman Empire and less of the European (i.e., British, Portuguese, Dutch,
Spanish and the like) versions of colonization, because “it also loosely incorporated its
subjects’ states rather than controlling them directly.”120

115Ibid., 68.
116“In its most general sense,” according to Post-Colonial Studies, “imperialism refers to the formation of an
empire, as, as such, has been an aspect of all period of history in which one nation has extended its
domination over one or several neighboring nations… However, there is general agreement that the word
imperialism, as a conscious and openly advocated policy of acquiring colonies for economic, strategic and
political advantage, did not emerge until 1800… But from the 1880s imperial became a dominant and more
transparently aggressive policy amongst European states for a variety of political, cultural and economic
reasons.” Ashcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies, 111.
118Ibid.
119Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University, 2000), 182.
For them, “this imperial expansion has nothing to do with imperialism, nor those state organisms designed
for conquest, pillage, genocide, colonization, and slavery.” Ibid., 167.
28
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
Imperialism is also a “hybrid term” like post-colonialism, according to Baumgart,

because it is a multi-faceted reality that spans a vast array “of relationships of
domination and dependence that can be characterized according to historical and
theoretical or organizational differences.”121 In English language, according to Young,
imperialism has come to be understood in its two variant forms: originally, “an actual
conquest and occupation”; and more recently, in the 20th century, “used in its Marxist
sense of a general economic domination, with direct political domination being possible
but not necessary adjunct.”122
Neocolonialism,123 which is often used as an alternative nomenclature of
Imperialism, is properly associated, Young astutely observes, with the on-going “colonial
dependence” imposed by unbridled “economic hegemony” in the contemporary world.124
This terminology is conceived in the wake of the so-called independence acquired by
Ghana.125 Nkrumah, noting what happened to Ghana after being liberated from its
colonial ruler, strongly opines that “The essence of neocolonialism is that the State,
which is subject to it, is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of
international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus political policy is
directed from the outside.”126 In this context, according to this advocate of African
Marxism, foreign capital injected into the less developed nations is never intended to
boost local economies but to “exploit” them.127 As a result, the poor countries become
even more indebted to the economically prosperous ones as the economic gap between
them continues to expand.
Trans-colonialism/Transcolonialism is a term that has been in circulation since the
late 1990’s; thus, can still be considered as a fairly new theory that, we believe, lies very
close to or within the realm of post-colonialism.128 In fact, it would not be wrong to
consider it as an offshoot of the latter, since it does not deviate from post-colonialism
but takes its discourse only to a more focused task of “re/membering” and “re-righting”
what traditional history has, wittingly and unwittingly, silenced or obliterated. 129 Like
post-colonialism it endeavors, according to Bowman, to disabuse itself from “an imposed
121Winfried Baumgart, Imperialism: The Idea and Reality of British and French Colonial Expansion, 1880-
1914, rev. ed., trans., Winfried Baumgart with Ben V. Mast (Oxford: Oxford University, 1982), 1.
122Young, Postcolonialism, 26. Cf. also Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society
(London: Fontana, 1988).

123It was mentioned in Post-Colonial Studies that “Neo-colonialism… was a term coined by Kwame Nkrumah,
the first president of Ghana, and the leading exponent of pan-Africanism in his Neo-Colonialism: The Last
Stage of Imperialism (1965). The term has since been widely used to refer to any and all forms of control of
the ex-colonies after political independence.” Ashcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies, 146.
124Colonialism has mutated into another monster since the re-entitlement of political sovereignty of former
colonies, because “they nevertheless remained subject to the effective control of the major world powers.”
Young, Postcolonialism, 45.
125Ibid., 46.
126Nkrummah, perhaps echoed in Loomba’s allegation of American Imperialism, maintains that
“neocolonialism represented the American stage of colonialism that is an empire without colonies.” Kwame
Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism (London: Heinemann, 1965), ix.
127Ibid., x.
128Lapetra Rochelle Bowman, “Trans-colonial Historiographic Praxis: Dis/memberment, Memory, and
Third-Space Chicana, Latina, and Caribbean Feminist Embodied Re/membrance” (unpublished

dissertation, San Antonio: The University of Texas, 2010), 51.
129Trans-colonial theory, according to a dissertation abstract by Aoileann Lyons, is “an expansion of
postcolonial theory that analyses revivalist movements in different countries as part of a horizontal, cross-
boundary phenomenon, as opposed to a simple core-periphery paradigm.” Aoileann Lyons, “Historical
Literary Analysis of Queixumes dos pinos by Eduardo Pondal and Comparative Analysis of the Poetry of W.
B. Yeats in the Context of Nineteenth-Century Regionalism” (unpublished thesis, Cork, Ireland: University
College, 2009), http://www.ucc.ie/en/galician/research/projects/degcomp/ [accessed January 23, 2014].
29
SAMBAYANIHAN
Western lens” in reading history and in evaluating socio-political-economic

landscapes.130
Our notion of trans-coloniality is “predicated on revolution, movement, and
transformation”131 In other words, it tries to overcome the present configurations of
colonialism by “‘moving out of,’ ‘through,’ and ‘beyond’ them”132 that, according to Durba
Gosh, requires, “For historians who work within global historical frames, balancing the
histories of the parts of the world that were once colonized against the histories of those
that did the colonizing is a daunting project that requires ongoing revision. As Micol
Seigel trenchantly points out, it is hard to escape the constraints of a Europe-focused
narrative.”133 She decries that postcolonial critics may have insufficiently theorized the
impossibility of overcoming the dominant narratives of world history: “Dipesh
Chakrabarty urges scholars to listen to histories outside the logic of the capital, while
Ashis Nandy supports ‘ahistorical’ constructions of the past, Ranajit Guha resists
‘Reason,’ and Walter Mignolo calls for macronarratives that begin from Anı´bal Quijano’s
concept of coloniality. History’s affinity for narratives makes these approaches
difficult.”134 Trans-colonialism, according to Bowman, entails “acts of re-visioning and
re-writing/re-righting, calling other women of color to take action, to take inventory, to
claim their myriad-mindedness, and to come to an embodied consciousness which then
becomes an invitation, a testimony for other to follow suit and do the same.” 135 It is a
process that has remained underutilized by post-colonialism, which has perpetuated
the muteness and the paralysis of the subaltern.136 This is precisely because the
concepts of “margins” and “centers”, which have served as the rallying point for post-
colonialism, have not sufficiently addressed the issue of globalization and failed to purge
itself of the “residue and remnants” of colonialism. Loomba, in this regard, opines that
postcolonial discourse is limited in terms of its capability to analyze the issues
pertaining to the center and the margin, as far as the phenomenon of globalization is
concerned, because, “Today’s economies, politics, cultures and identities are all better
described in terms of transnational networks, regional and international flows and the
dissolution of geographic and cultural borders, paradigms which are familiar to
postcolonial critics but which are now invoked to suggest a radical break with the
narratives of colonization and anti-colonialism.”137 Thus, whatever is lacking in the
130Bowman, Transcolonial Historiographic Praxis, 4-5.

131Ibid., v. She argues “that through Trans-colonial Embodied Historiographic Re/membrance women can
transform their bodies as site of repression and oppression to sites of revolution through re/membrance.”
Ibid., vi.
132Ibid.
133Durba Gosh, “Another Set of Imperial Turns?,” American Historical Review 117, no.3(2012): 783. Cf.
Micol Seigel, “World History’s Narrative Problem,” Hispanic American Historical Review 84, no. 3 (2004):
434.
134Ibid., 783.
135Bowman, Transcolonial Historiographic Praxis, v. She further states that “I argue that women of color
must re/member themselves, as they were and as they are, if they are to effect real, global, communal
changes by re-imagining their individual Selves as Trans-colonial Subjects. Ultimately my dissertation is
about looking back in order to move forward, as I examine how, through Trans-colonial Embodied
Historiographic Praxis, women of color have actively engaged in a methodology of corporeal re-visioning,
using their bodies as bridges to healing and knowing and as stepping-stone towards Othered cultural shifts
in consciousness.” Ibid.
136Spivak expresses the impossibility to represent the subaltern in her written work entitled “Can the
subaltern speak?” Cf. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak,” in Marxism and the
Interpretation of Culture, eds. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Crossberg (London: McMillan, 1988), 24-28,
http://www.maldura.unipd.it/dllags/docentianglo/materiali_oboe_lm/2581_001.pdf [accessed August 23,
2014].
30
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
postcolonial project, as identified by Bowman, can be supplemented by trans-

colonialism’s attempt to reclaim othered138 subjectivity and corporeality via an
“embodied re/membrance” - a corporeal textuality and historiography – of the muted
voices and obliterated bodies in the contemporary political, socio-cultural and historical
landscapes.139 Having said that, we call to mind what Bill Ashcroft et al. stated in a
compendium on Post-colonialism that they have written:
“Although the term [Other] is used extensively in existential philosophy, notably by Sartre in
Being and Nothingness to define the relations between Self and Other in creating self-
awareness and ideas of identity, the definition of the term as used in post-colonial theory is
rooted in the Freudian and post-Freudian analysis of the formation of subjectivity, most
notably in the work of the psychoanalyst and cultural theorist Jacques Lacan. … In Lacan’s
theory, the other –with the small ‘o’ – designated the other who resembles the self, which the
child discovers when it looks in the mirror and becomes aware of itself as a separate being.
… The Other – with the capital ‘O’ – has been called the grande-autre by Lacan, the great
Other, in whose gaze the subject gains identity… The Other can be compared to the imperial
centre, imperial discourse, or the empire itself, in two ways: first, it provides the terms in
which the colonized subject gains a sense of his or her identity as somehow ‘other’,
dependent; second, it becomes the ‘absolute pole of address’, the ideological framework in
which the colonized subject may come to understand the world. In colonial discourse, the
subjectivity of the colonized is continually located in the gaze of the imperial Other, the
‘grande-autre.’”140
Trans-colonialism, as indicated by the prefix ‘trans’, (across, beyond, through), is

mainly aimed at transforming and transcending the unfortunate legacy of colonialism
through a re-imaging of the past in pursuit of a re-imagined future. Howard Chang and
Alvin Wong rightly inform us that “[the] ‘transcolonial’ here invokes the intimacies,
conflicts, collaboration, and sexual and racial proximity between subjects under
different forces of empire, colonialism, and imperial legacy.”141 It does not pursue a
nostalgic retrieval of the past in its pristine condition,142 because it is keenly aware of
the impossibility of such an undertaking. Against this theoretical framework we place
Daphe Taylor-Garcia’s understanding of trans-coloniality which tries to “underscore
that the delineated boundaries of influence by colonial empires were not as fixed as one
might believe, and to highlight spaces in which knowing of a confluence of colonialisms
is necessary for achieving the goal of inter-subjectivity.”143 Thus, for us, trans-coloniality
138According to Bowman, “Trans-colonialism represents going to, speaking from and claiming agency on
the Other side.” Bowman, Transcolonial Historiographic Praxis, 52. Cf. Bill Aschroft et al. Post-Colonial
Studies, 155-156.
139“Historiography,” according to Bowman, “is a study of both how individual and collective stories become
history and what historical methods were utilized in gathering and documenting of information and in the
creation of that history. The quintessential question for historiographer is: Whose stories become history
and why?” Bowman, Transcolonial Historiographic Praxis, 14.
140Ashcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies, 155-156.
141Howard Chiang and Alvin K. Wong, “Queering the Transnational Turn: Regionalism and Queer Asias,”
Gender, Place & Culture 23, no. 11(2016): 1643-1656, DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2015.1136811[accessed
August 12, 2016].
142According to Loomba, “Critics such as Spivak (Can the Subaltern Speak, 271-313) have repeatedly
cautioned against the idea that pre-colonial cultures are something that we can easily recover, warning
that ‘a nostalgia for lost origins can be detrimental to the exploration of social realities within the critique
of imperialism’ Spivak is suggesting here that the pre-colonial is always reworked by the history of
colonialism, and is not available to us in any pristine form that can be neatly separated from the history of
colonialism.” Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 21.
143Taylor-García, “Decolonial Historiography,” 13. She also argues that “Not all “Mexicans” in New Mexico
arrived under the same circumstances, nor are they of the same race and class background. These
differences, she shows, cannot simply be reduced to a settler/Indigenous binary, nor to Indian, Mestizo
and Spaniard racial categories, nor to a homogenous class location overlapping with any given racial
categorization.” Ibid.,15. Cf. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New
Mexico (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 2007).
31
SAMBAYANIHAN
is about contesting the legitimacy of the status quo while it condemns the dehumanizing,
marginalizing and hegemonizing effects of the colonial rule and its aftermath. In a
coterminous fashion, it allows the muted voices and shattered lives to re/member
themselves as an effective way of healing the trauma left by colonialism. Simply put, it
is a re-writing (transforming) of history in order to re-right (transcend) the present
condition of life to secure a more promising future. For Bowman, it is characterized by
“performative and transformative” movements that “seek to claim [the] multiple
subjectivities, at will, as needed;” by a movement to “coexist with contradictions;” and
by “fluidity” as “one may claim and exist within multiple subjectivities
simultaneously.”144 In this regard, Gustavo Ribeiro informs us that “Supporters of
different counterhegemonic cosmopolitics need to identify their mutual equivalences to
be able to articulate themselves in networks and political actions. Effective non-
imperialist cosmopolitics that inform transnational political activists and progressive
forms of global awareness also require a complex articulation of multilocated and plural
struggles and subjects.”145
Speaking of which, Taylor-Garcia contends that
“While culturally essentialist feminist representations of ‘Third World cultures sometimes

depict the practices and values of privileged groups as those of the ‘culture as a whole,
equally essentialist representations are produced when the ‘Representative Third-World
Woman’ is modeled on marginalized and underprivileged Third World women. The latter sort
of representation effaces Third World heterogeneity as effectively as the former, and bears
the marks of a curious asymmetry, in that the most underprivileged of Western women are
seldom cast as “representative of Western Culture…[Narayan] argues that the Third World
feminist effort to decenter the category “woman” as an implicitly white Western subject tends
to cast all women in the West, as white and middle class, denying the legal nuances,
economic, and social hierarchies between First Nations, black, brown, and white female
subjects who live in the West… Conversely, she argues, the same overgeneralization is often
repeated regarding female subjects outside the regions of ‘the West. The “average non-
Western woman” is constructed to be poor and marginalized, and thus conversations
regarding privilege within that group, or the hierarchies operating between non-Western
peoples is effaced in favor of a broad generalization that does not entirely hold up to historical
or material analyses. Uma Narayan argues that if we conduct historical and material
analyses of a given culture, it often emerges that what we understand to be distinct,
homogenous cultures are often in fact ‘shifting designations’ always ‘connected to various
political projects,’ thus foregrounding the contingent nature of many cultural differences
(87). Such an analysis also reveals much more complex and nuanced dynamics: it is through
the suspension of assumptions when approaching a controversial situation with (what
appears) to be incommensurable interpretations of events that Narayan wants to reinvigorate
feminist decolonial analysis as historically and materially attentive.”146
Having noted all this, we present what Taylor-Garcia believes are
“four key concepts towards the development of a transcolonial method of analysis: ethical
relations as a first principle, recognizing the consciousness of the colonized as evidence
regarding the contours and reality of colonization, and seeking the verification of research
through a process of intersubjective activities that ushers in the subjectivities of the enslaved
and colonized as central in the ongoing project of decolonizing knowledge production.
144Bowman, Transcolonial Historiographic Praxis,50. In this regard, Gustavo Ribeiro informs us that
“Supporters of different counterhegemonic cosmopolitics need to identify their mutual equivalences to be
able to articulate themselves in networks and political actions. Effective nonimperialist cosmopolitics that
inform transnational political activists and progressive forms of global awareness also require a complex
articulation of multilocated and plural struggles and subjects.” Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, “Why
(Post)colonialism and (De)coloniality are not Enough: A Post-Imperialist Perspective,” Postcolonial Studies
14, no. 3(2011): 288.
145Ibid.
146Taylor-García, “Decolonial Historiography,” 18. Cf. Uma Narayan, “Essence of Culture and a Sense of
History: A Feminist Critique of Cultural Essentialism,” in Decentering the Center, ed. Uma Narayan and
Sandra Harding (Bloomington: Indiana University, 2000), 84.
32
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
Crucially, transcolonial contexts require a critique of a confluence of colonial practices and

discourses.”147
In this trans-colonial venture, we are presented with two opposing positions of

Bowman and Ribeiro as far as envisioning the end-result of this advocacy. On the one
hand, Bowman contends that when we speak of trans-coloniality we do not think of a
representation of “a utopia (or dystopia) enterprise; it dwells within the world of reality
and possibility, both tangible and intangible,”148 while “it de-centers colonial patriarchy
and dominant systems of thought.”149 On the other hand, Ribeiro argues that
“If one of the aims of critical theory is to overcome an unjust past and contribute to the
construction of a different future, then utopias are a most important object of desire in the
progressive intellectual scene. While I am favorable to ideological struggles, without them it
wouldn’t be possible to denaturalize the naturalized present, I want to advocate for more
utopian struggles in a juncture where there is a dearth of future scenarios strong enough to
galvanize the imagination of a great number of political actors.
This is one of the reasons why I offered the notion of post-imperialism. Living in a world
region that has a longstanding experience with imperialism in its soft and hard expressions
the imagining of life after imperialism can prove to be an exercise in creativity and
audacity*qualities many times denied to the ‘subalterns’.”150
Our stand vis-à-vis these two options is not to privilege one position over the other but
to maintain the tensive middle ground between them to allow us to imagine something
hopeful while at the same time to keep our feet on the ground of “unsettling” reality that
critically informs us that this venture is, indeed, teleological yet without a precise telos.
This brings to mind what Gustavo Lins Ribeiro considers as ‘universal’. He
surmises, as he promotes an endeavor towards what he deems as ‘post-imperialism’
that closely resembles what we present as transcolonialism, that
“As an anthropologist, I cannot believe in total incommensurability among mindsets and

interpretations, a position that does not amount to a naϊve acceptance of a transcendental
universality. I am aware that most claims to universality are based on power effects. In a
globalized world, the problem is the imperial pretension to hegemony, the imposition of
viewpoints that are disseminated through painless structures of prestige diffusion from
global or national hegemonic centres. However, a claim to universality based on power
relations is one thing, a claim to universality based on empathy, sympathy, sharing and the
art of argumentation and convincing is another. The more different subject positions
proliferate and experiences of horizontal exchange within the world system of knowledge
production exist, the better for all of us. Anchored on more diverse grounds, the resulting
cross-fertilization will be more complex and capable of surpassing the current monotony of
the Anglo-American academic hegemony… What is unacceptable… is an imperial pretension
to universalism whether it comes from the Global North or from the Global South.”151
Elsewhere, he also underlines that

“If colonial discourse analysis and post-colonial theory are ‘critiques of the process of
production of knowledge about the Other’ (Williams and Chrisman, 1994: 8), it would be at
least ironic that post-colonialism with its trajectory marked by its growth and proliferation
in English-speaking academia colonizes if you excuse the wordplay the empty space left by
the absence of Latin American cosmopolitics and becomes a discourse to produce knowledge
about the Latin American Other. In Latin America post-colonialism would be equal to what
it condemns, a foreign discourse on the Other that arrives through the hands of a
metropolitan power. Post-colonialists would be, unwittingly, doing what they criticized.
Obviously, post-colonialism’s dissemination cannot be reduced to the force of the Anglo-
American hegemony behind it. Similar to other critical cosmopolitics, post-colonialism has
147Taylor-García, “Decolonial Historiography,” 19.

148Bowman, Transcolonial Historiographic Praxis,51.
149Ibid., 52.
150Ribeiro, “Why (Post)colonialism and (De)coloniality,” 297, 290-91.
151
Ibid., 286-287.
33
SAMBAYANIHAN
contributions to make in the analysis of social, cultural and political realities anywhere,
especially when power asymmetries are at stake. The issue is not to deny post-colonialism
but to assert the production of critical narratives in tune with Latin American subject
positions, in a heteroglossic dialogue with cosmopolitics from other glocalities.” 152
The term “transcolonialism” has been “(re)invented” by Eng-Beng Lim, an Associate

Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and an author of Brown Boys and
Rice Queens: Spellbinding Performance in the Asias.153 In his work in the area of
transcolonial discourse, he employs Lukaszyk’s understanding of verwindung.
Lukaszyk proposes in her article that instead of construing it as “the colonial transfer
or links of solidarity between the elites of the colonized countries”, it can be “reemployed”
as Verwindung, which means “an utmost liberation from the postcolonial frame of mind”
or, more properly perhaps, “a paradigm completing the postcolonial one,” which is what
we are inclined to use in this project.154 The modified meaning of “transcolonial studies”
for Lukaszyk, shall be marked by three essential stages:
“1. The colonial marked essentially by multiple forms of symbolic oppression, leading to 2.
the postcolonial, marked partially by remembrance and renegotiation of that symbolic
oppression, and partially by repeating its forms with or without significant variations. This
is why a 3rd stage appears as indispensable, which is the criticism of the postcolonial status
quo, understood typically not as the process of the renegotiation with the ex-metropolis, but
as a local (cultural, political, social) establishment that appeared to fill up the gaps remaining
after the withdrawal of the colonial power.”155
The last stage that we have mentioned above is an indication that, indeed, trans-
colonialism as proposed by Lukaszyk springs forth from the fertile ground of
postcolonial studies because some characteristic traits of the latter are discernible in
the former, such as using “similar modalities of expression (such as a novel written in
colonial/postcolonial language), institutions (such as a museum - see my Malaysian
case), etc.”156 Trans-colonialism, for him, is at the same time “a league of its own”
because it exhibits traits proper to Verwindung with everything that the term signifies.
Why? Because, following the tradition of verwindung that originated from Heidegger to
Vattimo, this renewed understanding of ‘trans-colonialism’ expresses the notion of
transgression of limitations, overcoming or overwhelming the previously set parameters
towards, ultimately, a state of healing. Thus, aligning trans-colonial studies with the
notion originally developed and explored by Heidegger, Vattimo and the likes, evokes an
air of optimism in its approach because, in Lim’s mind, “the trans-colonial may bring
the final healing of the colonial wounds, redoubled by those inflicted by the new political,
social and economic powers that occupied the place of the colonial agents.”157 For her
152Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, “‘Post-Imperialism: A Latin American Cosmopolitics’,” in Brazil and the Americas:
Convergences and Perspectives, eds. Peter Birle, Se´rgio Costa and Horst Nitschack (Madrid/Frankfurt:
Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2008), 38.
153Eng-Beng Lim, Brown Boys and Rice Queens: Spellbinding Performance in the Asias (New York/London:
New York University, 2014).

154Ewa Lukaszyk, “The Brazilian Case: Towards a Paradigm of Transcolonial Studies,” Politeja 7 no.
38(2015): 181. Cf. also Ewa Lukaszyk, “A Definition,” Transcolonial Studies, http://www.ewa-
lukaszyk.com/transcolonial-studies.html [accessed August 14, 2016].
155Ibid.
156Ibid.
157Lukaszyk elucidates that “Transcolonial studies deal thus with a heritage of memory and specific forms
of post-memory, similar to those present in the Holocaust studies. Yet I must still insist that concomitantly
with a heritage of victimhood there is also a heritage of violence: perhaps similar to inherited patterns of
domestic violence studied by the psychologists. These double ends of the colonial and postcolonial
victimhood have been suggestively exposed by Fatema Mernissi in her perspicacious vision of Maghrebian
masculinities. Her project of reconstructing intimacy is on the other hand an excellent example of the trans-
colonial as the ultimate healing of the oppressed culture. Curiously, the trans-colonial renegotiation,
34
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
this (re)invented transcolonial approach portrays in a very typical way the new
generation’s attitude, which is constituted in a globalized and pluralistic milieu or ethos,
wherein colonial oppression is “transcended” while remaining keenly conscious of the
shortcomings and misgivings of the postcolonial generation. In other words, as
Lukaszyk would frame it, “[a] trans-colonial culture redesigns its vision of the world in
an utmost oblivion of the coordinates dictated by the ex-metropolis. Not only the scheme
of alliances and animosities is changed, but also new external zones of activity are
discovered. As a consequence, the trans-colonial culture becomes able to participate in
the globalization as an autonomous entity.”158 But of course, it is to be expected that,
as pointed by Lukaszyk, new problems and questions will emerge in the employment of
trans-colonial approach. Despite these questions and problems; nonetheless, to pursue
such an approach is not a futile undertaking because what trans-coloniality essentially
does “is precisely” to effect “[the] rupture of the link established by the most typical
postcolonial activity: ‘writing back’ to the ex-metropolis.”159 Therefore, new “autonomous
canons” are formulated which are not dependent on the metropolis, one that provides a
fertile ground for “symbolic expansion”.
Of course, a word of caution is in order here. At present, we have been witnessing
the proliferation of mini or partial histories via social media, but certainly we also need
to teach people to be critical and not take all of them hook-line-and-sinker and be able
to creatively find ways to enter into a meaningful dialogue with one another, validating
each other’s stories. What we need here is a healthy amount of skepticism. There is
certainly no problem in taking whatever presents itself as truth with a pinch of salt.
Going back to the issue of trans-colonialism, at this juncture, we would like to
mention as well that trans-coloniality can also mean an unceasing readjustment or
moving up the bar of colonial activity to a higher level of sophistication, as the prefix
trans suggests, in order to circumvent or supersede any attempt to fight or get rid of
colonial clout or legacy. It may also be taken as transcending colonial legacies, refusing
to be weighed down by past colonial baggage, taking whatever is positive and discarding
whatever is negative in order to move on and evolve into something more proactive which
may necessitate going through the painful process of naming the horrors of colonialism
in order to give birth to a “new species”, one that allows a colonized individual to straddle
among multiple colonial identities and integrating and transforming them as they
become both “stranger” and “at home” in the transcultural world. The downside of this,
however, is that one becomes even more buried into subalternity that knows nothing
anymore about being liberated or independent. In other words, one becomes eternally
subservient.
To put it succinctly, our notion of trans-coloniality endeavors to salvage whatever
is worthwhile in anti-coloniality (i.e., the courage to confront or name directly the evils
of colonialism), decoloniality (i.e., the effort to de-link from the oppressive structures of
colonialism and re-link to more emancipatory undertaking), and postcoloniality (i.e., to
rectify whatever wrong colonialism has done to the colonized or the subaltern). Trans-
addressed rather to local oppressors that to the metropolitan one, often brings a surprising recuperation
and development of the cultural and intellectual heritage of the former oppressor. Such striking treats are
to be discovered in the pronounced Gallicism of Meddeb and other Maghrebian intellectuals. Numerous
aspects of the trans-colonial phenomena remain thus peculiar. Redesigning of global maps is one of these
characteristic traits. One of the main achievements of the trans-colonial stage is the final erasure of the
colonial palimpsests.” Lukaszyk, “The Brazilian Case.”
158Ibid.
159Ibid.
35
SAMBAYANIHAN
coloniality is, therefore, aimed at transformation and struggle for transcendence.

Admittedly, it cannot be denied that it also evokes the idea of a hyper state or something
that is beyond and over-aching owing to the prefix that is being used in this terminology,
just like the “post” in post-coloniality which, in its case, connotes an idea of something
that is either after or beyond. But, of course, we know that, judging on the current
status of the world right now, we are not yet in the after stage. We have not yet reached
the level of the beyond. What we are interested, specifically, as we make use of trans-
coloniality, is the notion of a movement that is expressed in the prefix. It is predicated
on a movement that is constant, which is about a constant struggle or agon. It is about
transferring from one place or state to another place or state. It is about a transition
that can be seen as a permanent state. It is about an unflagging endeavor for
transformation. Thus, it is never a static or settled state. Like a river, it continues to be
in flux because as the struggle for emancipation of the subaltern and for due recognition
of those relegated to the fringes advances its course, the mechanisms or structures of
colonialism mutates and becomes more sophisticated and subtle, but equally, at times,
even more damaging. Trans-coloniality is, indeed, a stance that implies supplanting,
undermining, transforming, and transcending coloniality. It stands on a ground that is
constantly shifting. Therefore, our own view of trans-coloniality entails looking at the
ugly truth of colonialism straight in the eye, while one endeavors to move forward
towards rectifying what needs to be corrected but not forgetting to salvage and
appreciate the “blessings in disguise” attendant to any colonial legacy in order to go
through the painful and liberating process of healing and reconciliation.
As far as this project is concerned, we would like to employ this concept in four
areas: history, theology, liturgy and ecclesiology. Historically speaking, trans-coloniality
is engaged here as an aid to recover the peripheral and muted accounts on history of
the local people – a decentering from the colonially imposed by North
American/European historical epicenter. Theologically, we see trans-coloniality as an
effort to advocate for a recognition of the legitimate place of ‘ordinary theology’ in the
ambit of contemporary theology. Liturgically, we translate trans-coloniality to an
advocacy to make the Church fully appreciate inculturated liturgies. In the area of
ecclesiology, trans-colonial discourse can play a role in the promotion and cultivation
of basic ecclesial communities/small Christian communities wherein the Filipino
migrant communities, as Sambayanihan, can serve as an inspiration.
With that concept in mind, “trans-colonial embodied re/membrance,” we believe,
finds a theological articulation in Miroslav Volf’s “Remembrace of the Passion of Jesus
Christ,” because it is a memory that teaches us to extend unconditional grace, to claim
valid justice, and to aim for communion as exemplified by the commemoration of the
Holy Eucharist and lived in everyday life.160 The “memory of the passion,” according to
Volf, “anticipates the resurrection from death into new life for both the wronged and
wrongdoers.”161 Since both are embraced by the unconditional grace of Jesus’
resurrection, reconciling them in “Jesus’ own flesh on the cross,” the memory of the
160Miroslav Volf, The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World (Grand Rapids,
Michigan/Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans, 2006), Kindle edition loc., 1320-1326. Volf suggests that
the “Exodus memory” is deficient (similar to postcolonialism) in remembering rightly. “Remembrance of the
Passion” transcends “Exodus memory”, because this framework perceives Christ as identifying with the
wronged while at the same time taking on himself the burden of wrongdoing. Ibid., loc., 1299.
161Volf, The End of Memory, loc., 1299. See also loc., 1283-1294.
36
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
Passion, according to Volf, “anticipates as well the formation of a reconciled community

even of the deadly enemies.”162
I.2. Re/Membering History: An Attempt to Re-Right our Constructions of History
“History is shot through and through with relativity.”163
-Edward Hallett Carr
“History is written by the victors.”164 This bold statement, which is usually but not
unequivocally attributed to Winston Churchill, continues to haunt us in our globalized
world. Unfortunately, but undeniably, we continue to be mesmerized by the Grand
Narratives imposed upon us by present-day authors of imperialism. Our contemporary
world continues to be plagued by a debilitating disease of globalized capitalistic neo-
colonialism that cripples the peripheries which may also include those belonging to what
is referred to as “fourth-world”165 that may also be found in Western European countries
like Belgium.
Speaking of which, we feel compelled to provide some background information,
although in broad strokes only, about the four categories of the “world” as explained by
Dr. Richard Riggs in 1992. He explains that it happened that after the Second World
War that “the core of the state system split into two large geopolitical blocs of associated
interests.”166 On the one hand, there was the “first world” which generally referred to as
“Euro-American bloc states with political and economic ties” that eventually included
Japan “to this monopoly of power.”167 On the other hand, there was the “Second world”
category which was composed of the “communist-socialist states” that, at the time of
his writing, included “Soviet Union, China, North Korea, North Vietnam and… Eastern
Europe.”168 The states which do not fall under these two blocs of geopolitical power came
to be known as the “Third world”.169 Those belonging to the third category were newly
decolonized states which were, due to a long history of colonial occupation that lasted
for centuries, “economically disadvantaged” and were critically dependent on the two
main blocs of power. The term “fourth world” was eventually coined in the 1970’s as a
category originally meant for those “indigenous peoples descended from a country’s
aboriginal population and who today are completely or partly deprived of the right to
their own territories and its riches.”170 As the concept of “fourth world” became popular,
more and more connotations were attached to it, such as the “internationally
162Volf, The End of Memory, loc., 1283-1294.

163Carr, What is History?, 70.
164There is no clear evidence to link this statement directly to Winston Churchill. But this can be considered
as expressing Hermann Göring’s pronouncement: “We will go down in history as the world’s greatest
statesmen or its worst villains.” This statement was quoted in Gerry Simpson, Great Powers and Outlaw
States: Unequal Sovereigns in the International Legal Orders (New York: Cambridge University, 2004), 291.
165The first time this term was widely used was in 1974 with the printing of a book written by George
Manuel, a Shuswap Chief. Cf. George Manuel and Michael Posluns, The Fourth World: An Indian Reality
(Canada, Collier-Macmillan, 1974). Quoted in Julian Burger, The Gaia Atlas of First Peoples (London: Gaia,
1990). Cited in Richard Riggs, An Excerpt from CWIS Occasional Paper, The Meaning of ‘Nation’ and ‘State’
in the Fourth World,’ http://cwis.org/GML/background/FourthWorld/#40 [accessed July 11, 2017].
166Burger, The Gaia Atlas.
167Ibid.
168Ibid.
169Ibid.
170Ibid.
37
SAMBAYANIHAN
unrecognized nations,” “the poorest, and most undeveloped states of the world,” or “any
oppressed or underprivileged victim of a state.”171
Unfortunately, those who are “prevented to speak”, which include people from the
Third and the Fourth worlds, have wittingly or unwittingly allowed themselves to be
shoved into this morass, so that many of them have been relegated to the outer borders
of society. But, trans-colonial perspective offers an avenue for them to disabuse
themselves of this inequitable position that make them swallow subserviently this
lamentable situation hook-line-and–sinker and remain mum about it. Trans-colonial
thinking makes them aware that something can still be done. Facts enshrined by the
so-called conquerors on the pedestal of truth can still be legitimately contested. Amidst
this hegemony people can still assert, inconveniently perhaps, that narratives of those
in the margins do matter.
Against this background, we would like to propose an alternative vision that will
combat the imperialistic virus that has plagued our present world, a vision that
perceives not only an emancipation of the victims of globalization, but one that allows
them to re-inscribe themselves in a re-righted and re-membered “order” of the world
through a confluence of trans-colonial discourse, Filipino migration issues, Eucharist
and Ecclesiology.
At this juncture, we believe that a brief introduction of our main authors for this
portion is in order: 1) Edward Hallet Carr who, in his book What is History?, endeavors
to open people’s critical awareness on the dangers posed by the practices and methods
that were traditionally employed by historians.172 2) Ania Loomba who provides a wide-
ranging but straightforward critical analysis of the “key features” incumbent to the
complex nature of colonialism and post-colonialism.173 3) Robert Young who makes use
of the postcolonial discourse to expose the pitfalls of Marxist philosophies and to
disabuse world histories of Eurocentrism.174 His advocacy is to push the envelope in the
area of postcolonial studies, which includes a recovery of histories that lie in the fringes
of “Western universal history” and allowing them to participate in the global dialogue on
world history.175 4) Lapetra Rochelle Bowman whose comparative study of feminist and
queer literature and theories in a dissertation entitled “Trans-colonial Historiographic
Praxis: Dis/memberment, Memory, and Third-Space Chicana, Latina, and Carribean
Feminist Embodied Re/membrance” aims to present a trans-colonial embodied re-
membering of the dis-membered stories of the colonized. This valuable work of Bowman,
171Burger, The Gaia Atlas. For further reading, please refer to George Demko and William Wood, eds.,
Reordering the World: Geopolitical Perspectives on the Twenty-first Century, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview,
1998). Cf. also Kathy Seton, “Fourth World Nations in the Era of Globalisation: An Introduction to
Contemporary Theorizing Posed by Indigenous Nations,”
http://nointervention.com/archive/pubs/CWIS/fworld.html [accessed July 11, 2017].
172Seton, “Fourth World Nations.”
173Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism.
174It is important, according to Robert Young, that postcolonial theory must not be placed in the same
rubric as the “orthodox European Marxism.” The latter represents the body of Marxist thought which
transpired after the death of Karl Marx. This branch of Marxism was considered as the official Marxist
philosophy that circulated among the members of the Second International (1889-1916), the organization
of those belonging to the labor and socialist parties which was founded on 14 July 1889 in Paris, until the
time when the First World War erupted. This school of thought endeavors to systematize Marxist
methodology and theory in order to resolve some seeming incongruities and vagueness found in Classical
Marxism. Young, Postcolonialism, 7.
175Young states “That archeological retrieval and revaluation is central to much activity in the postcolonial
field. Postcolonial theory involves a political analysis of the cultural history of colonialism, and investigates
it contemporary effects in western and tricontinental cultures, making connections between that past and
politics of the present.” Ibid., 6.
38
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
we must admit, inspired the formulation of the thesis statement of this current project.
5) Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak whose popularity as a postcolonial theorist and critic
was catapulted by the publication of her essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?”176 She is
noted for her keen eyes on the “legacy of colonialism” and “marginalization of the
subaltern”.177 6) Edward Said whose book Orientalism redefines the concept of “the East”
and unmasks the unrelenting imperialistic rule and the condescending treatment of the
western societies imposed on the countries and peoples from the East, including its
scholars.178 7) Ambeth R. Ocampo whose “bite-size” presentation of Philippine history
in the Philippine Daily Inquirer makes the hard facts of history palatable and accessible
to ordinary people, which in our opinion exemplifies trans-colonial historical re-
righting.179 8) Eleazar S. Fernandez whose version of constructive theology provides eye-
opening insights on Filipino diaspora particularly on the issues of suffering,
marginalization and church-building in the context of globalization.180 9) Howard Zinn
who, as a political science professor, is known for stressing the importance of reading
history that is narrated from the perspective of the ordinary people.181 In doing so, he
enlightens the people that politics and economics are more often than not “misused” by
the powers that be in an unequal society. Moreover, he tries to let people see that there
is an important “link” between “public life and theology” that we must not simply brush
aside or take for granted.182 10) Dipesh Chakrabarty who, despite the manifest
impossibility of undoing the Eurocentricism of historiography, advocates for a
recognition of the histories coming from non-western perspectives.183
I.2.1. The Invention of History: History in Proper Perspective
“Documents alone, no matter how numerous and helpful as sources of

information, are not enough to recreate the past, especially its ambience, for they
are mere bones of history. The historian should have the imagination to seek
legitimate and valid ways and means of supplying the flesh and blood [that] make
the past come alive for the present to see and feel and evaluate.”184
-Teodoro A. Agoncillo
176Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory:
A Reader, eds. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisma (New York: Columbia University, 1994), 66-111.
177Cf. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Nationalism and the Imagination (Calcutta: Seagull, 2010). Cf. also
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, The Spivak Reader, eds. Donna Landry and Gerald Maclean (New York and
London: Routledge, 1996).
178Cf. Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin Books, 2003). Cf. also Said, Culture and Imperialism. Cf.
also Gauri Viswanathan, ed., Power, Politics and Culture: Interviews with Edward W. Said (London:
Bloomsbury, 2005).
179Cf. Ambeth R. Ocampo, 101 Stories on the Philippine Revolution (Pasig: Anvil, 2010). Cf. also Ambeth R.
Ocampo, Meaning and History (Pasig: Anvil, 2001). Cf. also Ambeth R. Ocampo, Makamisa; The Search for
Rizal’s Third Novel (Pasig: Anvil, 2009).
180Cf. Eleazar Fernandez, Toward Theology of Struggle (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1994).
181Cf. Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present (n.p: HarperCollins, EPub ed.,
2009), kindle version 0803201.

182Cf. Howard Zinn, The Politics of History, 2nd ed. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois, 1990). Cf.
also Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times (Boston, MA:
Beacon, 2002).
183Cf. Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton
and Oxford: Princeton University, 2000). Cf. also, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rethinking Working-Class History:
Bengal 1890 to 1940 (Princeton: Princeton University, 2000).
184Teodoro A. Agoncillo, The Burden of Proof: The Vargas-Laurel Collaboration Case (Quezon City: University
of the. Philippines, 1984), ix.
39
SAMBAYANIHAN
Now that we have laid down the foundational concepts of what we intend to do in this
section (in particular) and in the whole dissertation (in general) we hope that,
considering the financial and logistical limitations imposed by this current project, we
can attempt to re-write the history of the Filipino nation and the diaspora of the Filipino
people by accessing the voices from the underside or more correctly, perhaps, from the
authors usually relegated to the fringes of world history (i.e., Filipino authors). Speaking
of which, we are reminded of Prof. Haers, in one of our discussions on this subject
matter, that there are “some non-fringe Filipino authors who would present themselves
as belonging to the ‘fringe’ in order to afford their perspective with more weight than
they usually carry.”185 But, of course, we are of the opinion that their views are not
without merit. They still offer us a specific view of history that will help us uncover the
complexities of human histories. Some of the historians featured in this doctoral
dissertation may be considered as “non-fringe” personalities, like Renato Constantino,
bearing in mind the widespread reception that they are enjoying in the present or the
fact that they have already joined the mainstream of historical scholarship, but they
were once part of the periphery when they were just starting to articulate alternative
views on Philippine history. On his part, Constantino avers that his
“present work offers a framework for viewing the contemporary situation and addresses a
challenge to all sectors of Philippine society to approach contemporary problems from the
nationalist point of view. It questions a number of generally accepted priorities and subjects
to a critical analysis assumptions which are still part of the national consciousness…Prof.
Constantino attempts to elevate the discussion of contemporary problems to a new level,
avoiding as much as possible those personal and sectoral considerations that have impedded
a real continuing dialogue on basic national issues. The work weaves facts and figures into
a coherent totality and brings out certain controversial points which should enliven any
national debate on Philippine directions and prospects.”186
It is our aspiration that through this humble undertaking we will re-member the
saga of those who were and are continuously silenced by colonization/imperialism as
we allow the disenfranchised Filipinos to re-inscribe themselves as genuine co-authors
of history and collaborators in building a world that respects difference and encourages
mutual cooperation. This goes without saying that contradictions and interpenetrations
are common and inevitable features of this enterprise.
Against the background of trans-colonial discourse, we openly confess that
history is never done without hermeneutics. History is, certainly and unavoidably,
replete with interpretations. As a matter of fact, Ottmar Fuchs, a retired German
professor in Practical theology who also spoke about writing history, claims that
“without interpretation, history is meaningless, speechless.”187 Histories are written,
without a doubt, by people who are indelibly marked by perspectives and prejudices.
Thus, we contend that invention is a necessary process in the writing of history. In view
of this, Ocampo, a self-proclaimed Filipino “public historian,” explicitly expresses his
preference for the Filipino term kasaysayan188 rather than the English word history. He
suggests that the word kasaysayan, is a conflation of two more basic Filipino words: 1)
185Comment made by Prof. Dr. Jacques Haers, S.J. on July 10, 2017.
186Cf. Renato Constantino, The Nationalist Alternative (Quezon City: Foundation for Nationalist Studies,
1979; 1980).
187Ottmar Fuchs, “The Invention of History: A German Perspective,” in The Invention of History: A Century
of Interplay Between Theology and Politics in Palestine, ed. Mitri Raheb (Bethlehem: Diyar, 2011), 136.
188Ocampo, Meaning and History, ix. This notion of history is not unique to Filipinos, because other
historians) have the same understanding of history (i.e., Howard Zinn, Thomas Nagel, Peter Novick, Joerg
Rieger, and Eleazar Fernandez). The merit of Ambeth Ocampo’s stance, however, is rooted in the etymology
of the word Kasaysayan.
40
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
salaysay, which carries the meaning of a straightforward statement of facts and figures
or simply a recounting of events, dates and personalities; and 2) saysay, which literally
refers to sense or the meaning behind the narrative.189 Hence, Kasaysayan, for him,
best exemplifies what historians do because he believes that “Facts are very small part
of history, the greater part of it being made up of judgments of events, situations and
characters”190 In other words, historians are supposed to breathe the life-giving saysay
(i.e., meaning) on the dry bones of salaysay (i.e, facts and figures). Otherwise, the
narration of facts becomes empty, impotent.
Whether they like it or not, it is not possible for historians to divest themselves
of such an hermeneutical undertaking, because, according to E. Fernandez, historians
are also human beings who “don’t simply see” but always and inescapably “see as.” 191
Human beings, as we have already initially discussed in our introduction, are naturally
endowed with biases or prejudice or perspectives, which led Thomas Nagel to assert that
“most of our experiences of the world, and most of our desires, belong to our individual
points of view: We see things from here, so to speak… Each of us begins with a sense of
concerns, desires, and interests of his own, and each of us can recognize that the same
is true for others.”192
By the same token, Howard Zinn, an American historian and social activist,
openly decries the “myth of objectivity”193 in any historical writing for he claims that
“scientists do not simply collect data at random.”194 Peter Novick, expressing the same
stance, is convinced that history cannot recapture the past “as it really was”; hence, it
is an illusion that must not be pursued by any serious historian. 195 ‘Objectivity’ is,
indeed, an unreachable dream but this does not mean that historians must simply
abandon their craft and discard the dates and data they possess like throwing useless
hay straws on the fiery furnace. Jeorg Rieger contends that while it is undeniably true
that “such objectivity and neutrality is illusionary,” it still cannot equally be maintained
“that history becomes simply a web of unreconstructed narratives.”196
Zinn, as if sharing the same discussion table with Rieger, stresses that “neutrality
is a fiction in an un-neutral world.”197 He maintains that writing history in the public
sector does not consider the usual distinction between narrative and interpretive as
profoundly pertinent.198 A straightforward recounting of events, names and dates is, for
Zinn, an item for “low-level” history. What he considers “high-level” history, which must
189Ocampo, Meaning and History, ix.

190Ibid., xiii.
191Fernandez asserts that “every reading of a societal text involves interpretation.” Fernandez quoting Ian
G. Barbour, Myths, Models, and Paradigms: A Comparative Study in Science and Religion (New York: Harper
& Row, 1974), 120. Fernandez, Toward a Theology of Struggle, 7.
192Thomas Nagel, Equality and Partiality (New York: Oxford University, 1991), Kindle edition, loc., 88.
193Zinn, The Politics of History.
194Ibid.
195Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1988), 315-16. See also Zinn, Politics of History.
196Jeorg Rieger, Christ and Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 8. In the
same breath, he criticizes the pretentious aura being projected by historical critical school of thought in
these words: “One of the problems of historical-critical research has been identified as the lack of a self-
critical moment. Historical-critical scholarship has often proceeded as if the historian’s perspective would
somehow be objective, able to sort out disputes of the past as a neutral judge.” He concludes by saying that
this kind of endeavor definitely misses the point of what history is really about. Rieger, Christ and Empire.
197Zinn, Politics of History, loc., 839.
198Ibid., loc., 669.
41
SAMBAYANIHAN
be pursued by any serious historian, necessarily includes interpretation of the given

data.199
Edward Schillebeeckx, although speaking from a different context, enlightens us
in the issue we are interested in. For him, “facts become history within a framework of
meaning, in a tradition of interpreted facts.”200 He claims that, as far as salvation history
is concerned, “Believers see the face of God in the history of human liberation.
Unbelievers do not.”201 It goes without saying that the perspective of faith plays an
important part in understanding salvation history, so much so saysay cannot be absent
in any salaysay of history. They are simply inseparable.
To give a clear illustration of what we have been discussing so far, we recall the
testimonies of Bishop Gabriel Reyes and Archbishop Socrates Villegas on the role of
Mary in the trailblazing non-bloody revolution that put the Philippines in the world map
in 1986: The EDSA Revolution.202 According to Bishop Reyes, in an interview, “[t]he
EDSA Revolution was more miraculous than the Battle of Lepanto or the ‘La Naval de
Manila.’ Thus did the idea of a memorial structure to thank the Lord and the Blessed
Mother for the peaceful EDSA Revolution come to mind.”203 He goes on to recount the
miracle by saying:
“[We] came upon the intersection of EDSA and Ortigas, and I pointed it out to the Cardinal
as the spot where intrepid but gentle nuns and young men and women stood in front of the
tanks and offered flowers to the soldiers. At that corner, on an empty lot had stood two huge
billboards of the Family Rosary Crusade, featuring the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and
the slogans, “The family that prays together stays together” and “A world at prayer is a world
at peace.” The felicitous coincidence could not but evoke the reality of Our Lady's presence
at EDSA during the People Power Revolution.”204
Corroborating Bishop Reyes’s account about the “miracles” of EDSA, Archbishop

Socrates Villegas, the first chaplain of the EDSA Shrine, confidently asserts that “first,
there were no more coups under the presidency of Corazon Aquino after the shrine was
consecrated.”205 With firm conviction, he contends that “[i]f those people in EDSA had
not prayed, that could not have succeeded as people power.”206 This assertion brings to
mind Schillebeeckx who claims that “for Christians, human history, to the degree that
it liberates men and women for true and good humanity in deep respect for one another,
is God’s saving history, and is so independently of our awareness of this gracious
structure of salvation, but not without the occurrence of intentional human
liberation.”207
Along the same line of reasoning, although not of a religious or theological nature,
Ocampo strongly believes that in 1890 Jose Rizal, referred to as the national hero of the
Philippine Republic, “used history as a weapon against Spain, how he re-created the

200Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Human Story of God (New York: Crossroad, 1990), 6.
201Ibid., 7.
202Cf. Volt Contreras, From Revolution to ‘Reblocking’: Edsa 28 Years Later,
http://www.edsashrine.com/v2/story.php [accessed January 20, 2014].
203Ibid.
204Ibid.
205Ibid.
206Ibid.
207Schillebeeckx, Christ, 10. Carr states that “Historical facts… presuppose some measure of interpretation;
and historical interpretation always involve moral judgments – or if you prefer a more neutral-sounding
term, value judgment.” Carr, What is History, 101-102. Moreover, he offers that “History is a process of
struggle in which results, whether we judge them good or bad, are achieved by some groups directly or
indirectly – and more often directly than indirectly – at the expense of others.” Ibid., 102.
42
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
pre-Hispanic Philippine past to give his countrymen a sense of history and a sense of
being Filipino, in short, an identity.”208 This statement sits perfectly well with Ocampo’s
argument that “a reading of Philippine history and social realities could not be but an
account of the oppressed and struggling Filipinos, for the emergence of the Filipino
national consciousness is synonymous with the struggle of the Filipinos from colonial
and neocolonial masters and their local conduits.”209 In the same vein, Renato
Constantino, a noted Filipino historian, maintains that Filipino historians must base
their writing on the struggles of the Filipino people if they want their work to be
considered as genuine history of the Philippines, because in these struggles and
“resistance to colonial oppression” they have unified “the thread of Philippine history”. 210
Thus, it necessarily follows that our re-writing of Filipino history and migration story
will be critical, at times suspicious, of “west-centered” historical accounts propagated
by western authors for, indeed, as Zinn rightly points out, there is “No such thing as a
‘neutral’ or ‘representative’ capitulation of facts” because we “live in an un-neutral world
(i.e., justice is mal-distributed)”.211
It is important to note at this point that with the remarkable resurgence of
populism amplified by social media, not only in the local scenario of Philippine politics
but also in the context of Europe and the United States of America, we encounter an
undeniable proliferation of a plethora of conflicting versions of history/ies that make it
difficult for us to see what is true and what are considered “fake news” or fabricated
narratives that have either no basis on reality or, at least, viciously twisted in order to
advance self-serving political agenda. Thus, it is of utmost importance that, while we
encourage people to speak up and unabashedly contribute to the expansion of the scope
of legitimate intersubjective history/histories presented in a transdisciplinary milieu,
we would educate people to be critically discerning of what present themselves,
especially on social media, as historical accounts or news items.
I.2.2. Hegemony and History: Whose Side of the Story are We Hearing?
“It is true that the inarticulate as individuals cannot have their deeds
recorded in history. However, their collective effort can be and should be chronicled
and given its deserved importance.”212-Renato -Renato
- Renato Constantino
Traditionally, there was no question whether the narration of history was sanitized
from interpretation or not, because in the early concepts of history,
histoire/historia/istoria, according to Claus and Mariott, “encompassed both an
208Ocampo, Meaning and History, xi.

209Fernandez, Towards a Theology of Struggle, 8.
210Renato Constantino, A History of the Philippines: From the Spanish Colonization to the Second World War
(New York and London: Monthly Review, 2008), 9.

211Zinn, Politics of History, loc., 602-620.
212Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 5. We acknowledge the difficulty, as of the moment, to include
in this research work actual accounts of individuals from the underside or those in the fringes, which we
ultimately aspire to achieve in order to do justice to the real intent of trans-colonial re/membrance, but for
now we will contain ourselves with the actual verifiable narratives contained in the works of Filipino
historians who, in their own limited ways, attempt to present a coherent salaysay. This statement, in our
estimation, answers the question posed by Spivak, “Can the subaltern speak?”
43
SAMBAYANIHAN
imaginative story of events and a narrative or chronicle of past events.”213 The obsession
towards objectivity became a trend when Modernity started to flourish and has extended
until the present. Regarding this claim, we consider Claus and Marriot to be particularly
instructive for they contend that
“Time and its relation to contemporary forms of history is inextricably bound up with
modernity and notions of time that historians tend to associate with advanced, industrial
countries. Whether that results in ideal time that are culturally contingent is explored as
‘family time’, ‘industrial time’ and time that became linked with the western imperial project,
such the struggle to locate longitude at the sea or the commodification and rationalization
of time by a dynamic, rapacious, capitalist system… ‘Watersheds’ and ‘periods’ imposed by
historians, such as the Victorian period and ‘the sixties’, depend on a particular
understanding of time developed in the West in the period since the eighteenth century. The
imposition by historians of ‘periods’, ‘eras’ and ‘ages’ on time is product of an understanding
which is historically influenced.” 214
Moreover, they state that
“From at least the revolution in France in 1789 to the rise of Marxism as a secular creed in
the twentieth century, the Enlightenment as a popular and intellectual movement has
transformed the world and transformed the way historians write about the world… Perhaps
more than Hume or Gibbon, the real historian of modernity (considered by historian John
Burrow (1935-2009) to be the first modern historian) is another figure of the eighteenth
century Scottish Enlightenment, William Robertson (1721-93). His History of America was
published in 1777 and used modern methods of research and scholarship, comparing what
we would now call the American or native Indian with the ‘tribes’ of Germany, while his
accounts of King Charles VI in 1769 and his history of Scotland were cosmopolitan in ways
quite unpresented.”215
Unfortunately, this development has radically limited the scope of history since
“personal input” came to be seen as suspect. As an effect, “interpretations” started to
be neurotically (and we can also say, artificially) pushed aside.
With modernism and colonialism as allies of Western civilization, in some ingenious
ways, Western history has come to be enthroned as THE history of the world, gazing
from a privileged vantage point considered to be not only as objective but also as all-
encompassing. Western history came to be regarded, according to Fernandez, as the
universal paragon for historical validity since this way of looking has been “transvalued
to the level of universality through the alchemy of power and ideological blindness.” 216
213Itis mentioned in a book written by Claus and Marriot that “The word ‘history’ meaning investigation or
inquiry comes from the Greek. It is at the moment in the second half of the nineteenth century, according
to the philosopher and historian R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943) in his The Idea of History (1994), that history
became scientific, that is, no longer simply recounting something that was already known to an audience
but was based on original research using tools of intellectual inquiry. This history was humanistic in that
it put ‘Man’ at the centre of its concerns, rational in that it applied enquiring questions to evidence and
derived conclusions accordingly, and was ‘self-revelatory’ in that it defined ‘Man’ through past actions.”
Claus and Marriot, History, 114.
214Ibid., 55.
215Ibid.
216Fernandez, Towards a Theology of Struggle, 6. Claus and Marriott are of the opinion, however, that “world
or global history is not necessarily a history of the world…, but it can be importantly a history of a country
region or episode that recognizes and takes account of the contact and connections, linkages and
interrelationships that have characterized human contact over centuries and which ought to be reflected
in our histories.” Claus and Marriott, History, 234. Claus and Marriott provide these as examples of
universality of western history: “destruction of the twin towers in New York on 9/11, 2001; the invasion of
Iraq in 2003 and the baking crisis in 2007/8… Diseases brought to South America in the sixteenth century
decimated the native populations; from that time, American plants such as potato, maize and manioc
spread through the Old World. Beginning with Portuguese incursion into Africa during the fifteenth century,
but reaching a peak in the eighteenth, enslaved Africans were forcibly transported to the New World. With
the abolition of the British slave trade early in the nineteenth century, indentured labourers from China
44
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
The universal validity of Western perspective or Eurocentrism has cunningly hi-

jacked even the realm of philosophy. 217 We can even argue that it has cleverly used
western ontology as its powerful vehicle for oppression and marginalization. Enrique
Dussel, with a palpable air of lament expressed in Philosophy of Liberation, decries that
“Ontology, the thinking that expresses Being – the Being of the reigning and central
system – is the ideology of ideologies, the foundation of the ideologies of the empires, of
the center. Classic Philosophy of all ages is the theoretical consummation of the
practical oppression of peripheries.”218
Dussel’s statement cannot simply be dismissed as a hypertensive ideological rant,
because we have experienced this in a personal way. A lot of times, in our attempt to
philosophize in our own language, with Fr. Roque Ferriols as the trailblazer, we have
been frowned upon and questioned with an air of condescension by western-oriented or
westernized scholars: “How do you translate Being to Tagalog?” Worse, on several
occasions we have been asked: “Is it really possible to do Filipino philosophy or theology?
These questions obviously, for us, reek of strong colonial mentality. This brings to mind
Cardinal Mercier who exhibited “lack of sympathy for the Flemish Movement derived
from what he [thought] as the superiority of the French culture and language and the
inadequacy of Dutch as a vehicle for serious intellectual pursuit.” 219 In line with this,
there is vintage editorial cartoon made available on the website of UCL-UK which shows
a caricature of Cardinal Mercier who actually said: “Moi je suis d’une race destinée à
domineret vous d’une race destinée às server.”220 Thus, we can also read this as
tantamount to internal colonialism (i.e., within Belgium) wherein Cardinal Mercier
represents the more dominant sector of society who looks down upon the Flemish people
and language.221
Going back to the aforementioned questions, we can surmise that, unfortunately,
such questions tell us that philosophy and theology have been coopted by westernism
that dogmatically imposes upon others that philosophy and theology are an exclusive
and India were shipped to South East Asia and the Caribbean.” Ibid., 235.These examples, certainly,
demonstrate “contact and connections, linkages and interrelationships,” that according to Claus and
Marriot, characterize world/global history. Ibid.
217Fernandez, Theology of Struggle, 7. Rieger is of the opinion that the “Empire, in sum, has to do with
massive concentrations of power that permeate all aspects of life and that cannot be controlled by any one
actor alone…Empire seeks to extend its control as far as possible; not only geographically, politically, and
economically… but also intellectually, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, culturally, and religiously.”
Rieger, Christ and Empire, 2-3.
218Enrique Dussel, Philosophy of Liberation, trans. Aquilina Martinez and Christine Morkovsky (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis, 1985), 5. Dussel offers that the “philosophy of domination, at the center of the ideological
hegemony of the dominant classes, plays an essential role in European history.” Ibid.
219Cf. Maurits Vanhaegendoren and H.D. De Vries Reilingh, Noord-Zuid verbinding. Samenhorigheid en
samenwerking van Lage Landen (‘North-South Connection. Unity and Cooperation in the Low Countries’),
trans. Jane Fenoulhet (Tielt, The Hague, 1961). Cited in Theo Hermans, Louis Vos and Lode Wils, eds., The
Flemish Movement: A Documentary History 1780-1990 (London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney:
Bloomsbury, 1992, 2015), 347.
220It is translated to English as “I represent a race that is predestined to rule and you represent a race
predestined to serve”. The editorial cartoon further states: “these are the words of His Excellency Cardinal
Mercier addressed to one of his Flemish priests. Never before has the oppression of pro-Flemish priests
been as harsh as under the tyranny of this Walloon politician.” UCL Flemish Movement, “Catholic
Flamingantism,” History of Flemish Movement UP to 1914,
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dutchstudies/an/SP_LINKS_UCL_POPUP/SPs_english/flemish_movement/catholi
c.html [accessed July 10, 2017].
221This position is triggered by the question thrown by Prof. Haers in his comment on this particular portion
of my work. He said: “The Flemish people too can claim to have been colonized, as Cardinal Mercier made
it very clear that to him Flemish was a language for peasants, not for philosophers.” Comment made by
Prof. Dr. Jacques Haers on July 10, 2017.
45
SAMBAYANIHAN
right of western and westernized scholars; others are either poor copycats or worthless
and useless “knock-offs.” Thus, we are made to believe of the inferior status of such
undertaking within the Philippine shores. As a matter of fact, we have a Filipino
colleague who, in one of our intellectual discussions, expressed his low estimation of
any philosophical scholarship in the Philippine universities and considered European
philosophical schools to be offering the most advanced studies in this field. Perhaps,
our colleague is simply naïve or, maybe, he is already coopted by his western academic
upbringing that, we must admit, has also in one way or another contaminated our
academic minds who have been bombarded by the concepts of Being, Cogito, Dasein and
the like. On this note, Fernandez, citing both Enrique Dussel and Lester Ruiz, asserts
that the mirror-image of the Cartesian “ego cogito” (I think) is “ego conquiro (I
conquer).”222 This conquest, according to Dussel, has resulted in the cycle of “castration”
of professors and students who have swallowed up the potion of the ego cogito and
conquero to the point of intoxication.223
Speaking about contaminating the realms of history, philosophy and theology,
Rieger suggests that this unfortunate phenomenon is incumbent to the top-down224
dynamics of globalization where power, in a covert manner, has become so
incrementally concentrated in the hands of fewer people that forces all facets of life,
including theology, to be held captive.225 This captivity, according to Rieger, leaves no
choice for genuine alternatives to flourish for they are almost always pre-maturely
deracinated by the powerful center that can only tolerate variations, which simply serve
as diversions to cover up the monotony of a highly-centralized power relation.226 What
is even worse and more deceiving, Hardt and Negri opine, is the burgeoning of a “new”
form of Empire where no identifiable center controls the entire process of domination227
but whose effect is equally228 totalizing and paralyzing that it leaves no option for the
subjects but to remain at the mercy of the Empire. 229 The structures of the Empire that
222Fernandez, Theology of Struggle, 7. Cf. also Dussel, Philosophy of Liberation, 8-9. Cf. also Lester Ruiz,
“Towards a Theology of Politics: Meditations on Religion, Politics, and Social Transformation,” Tugόn 6, no.
3(1996): 18-31.
223Dussel poignantly declares that “In Cairo, Dakkar, Saigon, and Peking – as in Buenos Aires and Lima –
they taught their pupils the ego cogito in which they themselves remained constituted as an idea or thought,
entities at the disposal of the ‘will to power,’ impotent, dominated wills, castrated teachers who castrated
their pupils.” Dussel, Philosophy of Liberation, 12. Cf. also Fernandez, Theology of Struggle, 8. Dussel,
moreover, claims that “Progressivist philosophy of the center, when simply repeated in the periphery,
becomes an obscurantist ideology. I am not thinking only of phenomenology or existentialism, or of
functionalism or critical theory, of science that becomes scientism, but also of a Marxism that does not
redefine its principles from the viewpoint of dependency… Ontology and non-radical criticism… are thus
the last ideological underpinnings of imperialist ideology.” Dussel, Philosophy of Liberation, 13-14.
224This issue will come back later in our discussion of “descending” and “ascending” ecclesiology
(“ecclesiology from above” and “ecclesiology from below”) in view of the role and relationship of the Basic
Ecclesial Communities to the Catholic/Universal Church.
225Joerg Rieger, Globalization and Theology (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2010), 3.
226Rieger, Globalization and Theology, 3 and 8. This view of Rieger is very important, as well, in our
discussion on the issue of unity in diversity in the Post-Vatican II Catholic Church that has divided a lot of
scholars in theology, especially the ecclesiologists, sacramentologists and liturgists.
227Hardt and Negri, Empire, xiii. It is so, because according to Rieger, it “incorporates more complex notions
of culture (including the constant tensions between dominant and subaltern forms of culture) and because
it incorporates concerns of power that commend to our attention a closer look at other phenomena as well,
not only politics but also economics, and the complex ways in which these phenomena impact each other.”
Rieger, Christ and Empire, vii. Cf. Anthony Pagden, Peoples and Empires: A Short History of European
Migration, Exploration, and Conquest from Greece to Present (New York: Modern Library, 2001), 70. Cf. also
Rieger, Christ and Empire, 2-3.
228This term may even be an understatement, because the new form of Empire is seen by other scholars as
more damaging than the previous embodiments of empire. Cf. Rieger, Christ and Empire, 5.
229Ibid., 3.
46
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
are currently operative in the globalized world that we live in are a lot more treacherous
and injurious due to the fact that they more all-encompassing than that of the previous
configurations of imperialism, not only in terms of their geographical reach and ability
to enforce their preferred order but also in their ability to reach into cultural and even
personal spheres that are re-defined in the process.230
Dussel, therefore, rightyly points out that
“The new imperialism is the fruit of third industrial revolution. (If the first was mechanistic
and the second monopolistic, the third is the international effort of the transnationals, which
structure their neocolonies from within.) … The transnationals do not occupy territories with
armies or create bureaucracies. They are owners, directly or indirectly, of the key enterprises
– production of raw materials, process industries, and services – of the periphery.
Furthermore, the new imperialism exercises political control over its neocolonies and their
armies. One utterly new feature is that the empire pursues policy of cultivating desires,
needs… This empowers it, through mass media advertising, to dominate peripheral peoples
and their own national oligarchies.”231
Hence, against this background, oppression in the “new” imperial system comes in these
form, according to Rieger: “in sanctions against nations that refuse to comply with
norms established by the powers that be; in economic arrangements that exploit the
labor power, the land, or the other assets of less powerful nations; and in the
stimulations of a seductive consumer culture that permeates more and more spaces
around the globe through media and the market.”232 Speaking of which, Dimitri Trenin
comes to mind for he contends that “Economic sanctions and restrictions are a prime
tool of geo-economics and can span from stricter sanitary controls to a full-blown
economic blockade. What matters is the size and capacity of the country being
sanctioned, and the power of the sanctioning country or international coalition. These
tools stand alongside economic incentives such as trade regimes, the use of export
credits, tied aid and other forms of sovereign-backed finance.”233 A clear example of this
is the sanction imposed by the US on Iran in the wake of Iranian Revolution in 1979,
which eventually was expanded in 1995.234 A more recent example of this is the
economic sanction imposed upon Greece. In view of this, Tsipras was reported to have
said, while lamenting on Greece’s sad fate, that the “logic of sanctions” meant nothing
else but “an economic war”.235
What is more perfidious about this new imperialism, which we find to be
corroborated by both Rieger and Dussel, is the fact that there is no singular “Super
Power” that can be identified as the center, because the entire web of relations is
controlled by “transnational corporations [that] often amass greater wealth than entire
nations and enjoy a great deal of freedom from the control of even the most powerful
230Rieger, Christ and Empire, 5.

231Dussel, Philosophy of Liberation, 13.
232Rieger, Christ and Empire, 2.
233Dmitri Trenin, “How Effective are Economic Sanctions?” World Economic Forum (2015),
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/02/how-effective-are-economic-sanctions/ [accessed May 20,
2016].
234Cf. Ariel Zirulnick, “Sanction Qaddafi? How 5 Nations have Reacted to Sanctions: Iran,” The Christian
Science Monitor (2011), http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2011/0224/Sanction-Qaddafi-

How-5-nations-have-reacted-to-sanctions./Iran [accessed May 20, 2016]. See also Kourosh Ziabari, “The
Devastating Impacts of Economic Sanctions on the People of Iran: Ordinary Citizens are the Silent Victims,”
Global Research, http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-devastating-impacts-of-economic-sanctions-on-the-
people-of-iran/32180 [accessed May 20, 2016].
235Cf. Ilya Arkhipov, Eleni Chrepa and Henry Meyer, “Greece’s Prime Minister Tells Vladimir Putin EU
Sanctions on Russia are ‘Economic War’,” Economic Post, April 8, 2015,

http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/greek-prime-minister-tells-vladimir-putin-eu-
sanctions-on-russia-are-economic-war [accessed May 20, 2016].
47
SAMBAYANIHAN
national governments.”236 Primarily, this new Empire is an economic reality co-terminus

with global capitalism. The Empire, based on Rieger’s understanding of Hardt and Negri,
manifests itself as “biopower” that works its way from the interior of social life and
conflating it with economic, political, and cultural forces.237 What makes this leviathan
strikingly dangerous, according to Rieger’s estimation, is the fact that it “is less
dependent on such visible structures” but it stealthily flows in the “superhighways of
technology” invading all territories, including “people’s minds”.238 This virus, if we may
call it as such, has spread so widely that even religion has not, Rieger asserts, remained
immune to the debilitating disease it carries, because, upon closer examination, the
most common images of Christ are also products of the “top-down” orientation of the
Empire. (i.e., “Christ is on the side of those who are successful, who have made it”).239
This is true, according to Rieger, even in the seemingly ‘anawim-oriented’ images of
Christ “who cares about the downtrodden and the marginalized, as we imagine Christ
who lifts them up, who integrates them into mainline society so they too can benefit
from the powers that be and find their place in the empire.”240
I.3. The Challenge of Contemporary Globalization: Pervasiveness and Vagueness241
Charles Dickens opened his novel A Tale of Two Cities with these famous lines:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age
of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of
Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven,
we were all going direct the other way —in short, the period was so far like the present period,
that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the
superlative degree of comparison only.”242
We believe that these poignant words of Dickens capture the essence of what we would
like to present in this current section, because we intend to examine both the perils and
the promises of globalization that has fueled the remarkable worldwide migration of
products, ideas, information, and, especially, of people in the contemporary world.
Indeed, the world has not witnessed a migration as massive and as wide-ranging as its
present-day manifestation. Hence, the dilemma has never been as serious as the one
people face today. We are thrown into a very serious crisis that we are left with no choice
but to painfully face the music. This response, however, is not that straightforward for
236Rieger, Christ and Empire, 3. My brackets. Joshua Karliner exposes the issue of “corporate greed” and
the unimaginable power that transnational corporations have in the contemporary world that far surpasses
that of the nation-states. Cf. Joshua Karliner, The Corporate Planet: Ecology and Politics in Age of
Globalization (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1997).
237Karliner, The Corporate Planet. Cf. also Hardt and Negri, Empire. 23.
238Ibid., 5.
239Ibid., viii.
240Rieger, Christ and Empire, viii.
241At this juncture, we must inform our readers that a considerable amount of this portion appeared in the
Advanced Master’s thesis that we submitted to the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of KU Leuven
in 2013 entitled “Ordinary’ Bahala Na Theology: A Critical Preliminary Exploration on a Theology for Filipino
Diaspora”. In the current version, we, however, have done our best to revise the format and content suited
for the present undertaking. Cf. Rowan Rebustillo, “‘Ordinary’ Bahala Na Theology: A Critical Preliminary
Exploration on a Theology for the Filipino Diaspora” (unpublished thesis, Faculty of Theology, KU Leuven,
2013).
242Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities,” All the Year-Round Weekly Journal, conducted by Charles
Dickens no.1, April 30, 1859, http://dickens.stanford.edu/dickens/archive/tale/pdf/tale_01.pdf

48
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
there are so many layers to unravel. Globalization is a complicated issue that requires
a multi-level and multi-faceted response, which includes appreciating the boons
brought about by the phenomenon and overcoming the banes that go with it. We
certainly acknowledge that there are some notable changes taking place in the
contemporary landscape of globalization that directly affect Filipino migration. We also
assert, however, that the infrastructures that had oppressed, marginalized and
disenfranchised the migrants in the past are still operative, or worse, have become more
damaging in the present.
I.3.1. Globalization: As Slippery as it Gets
Globalization is certainly not an invention of the contemporary world. It is as old

as the advent of written history, perhaps even older. It continues to extend its range
unhampered, dodging any natural phenomena or man-made structures that could
possibly limit the growth of such an event. In fact, it has progressed to an ever more
complex species. Because of this development, it is never easy to pin down the issue of
globalization. Any monolithic definition of this phenomenon will always fall short. One
thing is certain, globalization has been in existence since time immemorial and it is here
to stay. It may have established its permanent status in the world and has stamped
forever its effects; however, it has become so multifaceted that we cannot unequivocally
declare whether it is beneficial or perilous to the citizens of this world. It is not either/or;
it is both. It is an undeniable datum that Prof. Jacques Haers provides, in his
introduction to a book he co-edited with Prof. George De Schrijvers, a provisionary
descriptor in the following words:
“Whether as an opportunity or as a threat [t]o some it means increased facilities to

communicate – e.g. through the worldwide web – and to travel; to others it takes the shape
of new forms of economic exploitation and cultural hegemony. Some consider it to be a new
phenomenon in world history, while others perceive it as a worse repetition of colonialism.
Some want to promote globalization, others prefer to resist, and still others claim that it is a
fact we have to live with and make the best of… But whatever the differences of opinions and
interpretations, most people will agree that we are facing increasing, sometimes even risky,
interdependencies at various levels (economic, political, cultural, etc.), and that our life
conditions increasingly depend on the decisions and ways of life of people who live
geographically and culturally at a distance… Globalization also means that issues that would
have previously been considered local now appear to have worldwide implications – the
interconnectedness of markets and banking systems is a clear example, as are refugee crises,
violent conflicts, and gross violations of human rights or genocides. We can no longer live in
some kind of “splendid isolation”: the problems of other world citizens have become ours, as
ours have become theirs.”243
Indeed, no single perspective would suffice. There is no denying, however, that we have
all, in one way or another, benefited from globalization (i.e., faster and more affordable
travel, more choices in almost every aspect of life; quicker and more sophisticated means
of communications, etc.). The world has become, for billions of people, much better,
much more comfortable. At face value, globalization has made the world a lot cozier, if
we may use the term.
People are brought together more closely, to the delight of some and to the
disappointment of some. To be an “isolated island” is swiftly becoming out of fashion.
To be connected is the rule of the day. To be isolated is becoming an impossible
243Jacques Haers SJ, “Introduction,” Postcolonial Europe In the Crucible of Cultures: Reckoning with God in
the World of Conflicts (Netherlands: Rodopi, 2007), 4-5.
49
SAMBAYANIHAN
undertaking, because there is, in the words of Giddens, an “intensification of worldwide

social relations which link distant localities in a way that local happenings are shaped
by events occurring in many miles away and vice versa.”244 This happens certainly
because of what Schrieter calls as the “compression of boundaries” 245 where distance
between space and time becomes increasingly narrower; thus, providing a fast lane
towards modernization and interaction. The result of simultaneous “intensification” and
“compression” incumbent to globalization is “eclecticism,” which we can consider as, to
borrow Lyotard’s articulation, “the expression of the contemporary culture.”246 In this
context, “everything” becomes possible in a compressed space and time, wherein,
according to Lyotard,
“one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats a MacDonald’s food for lunch and local cuisine
for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and “retro” clothes in Hong Kong; Knowledge is a
matter for TV games. It is easy to find a public for eclectic works. But this realism of the
“anything goes” is in fact that of money; in the absence of aesthetic criteria, it remains
possible and useful to assess the value of works of art according to the profits yield. Such
realism accommodates all tendencies and needs have purchasing power.”247
In other words, globalization, in its newest incarnation, is about the intensified

conflation of the world where peoples and nations are brought together via physical or
cyber travels that make whatever is local to become global and vice-versa. Peoples and
nations are thrown together, whether they like it or not, via social media and hi-tech
global consumer industry. And there is no escaping from this. Day by day people are
drawn deeper and deeper into this system where simultaneous “homogenization” and
“particularization” take place; an era, in the words of Lyotard, of “eclecticism”248 or, in
Rausch’s vocabulary, “hyperculture”.249
The paradox, indeed, makes the damage less obvious but more injurious, because
San Juan argues that what we currently have is a “recently retooled program of
universal commodification, imperialism for the twenty-first century”250 because, he
adds, globalization “functions as the paradigm of supranational process of homogenizing
the world under the political and ideological hegemony monopoly capitalist states
through multilateral agencies (World Bank/IMF, WTO, United Nations) and
transnational banks and firms.”251 One may observe that nowadays almost everything
244Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 64. See also, Harold Netland, “Globalization and Theology
Today,” in Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in the Era of World Christianity, eds. Craig Otto and
Harold Netland (Grand Rapids: Baker Academics, 2006), 18-23.
245Cited in Thomas Rausch, Towards a Truly Catholic Church: An Ecclesiology for the Third Millenium
(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005), 11. Cf. Robert J. Schreiter, “The World Church and Its Mission:
A Theological Perspective,” Proceedings of the Canon Law Society of America 59(1997): 53.
246Jean Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota, 1984), 76.

247Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 76.
248Ibid.
249This paradox or hyper-culture, according to Rausch, is understood in this sense: “On the one hand, the
influence of a rich and powerful culture like that of the United States contributes to common tastes in food,
clothing, and entertainment, creating a type of “hyperculture,” while a similar homogenization affects
science, medicine, and education;249… On the other hand, the disruptive effect of this new mass culture
with its accompanying values has on traditional cultures leads to “particularization,” a reassertion of
identity which “include newly (re)constructed cultures, so-called fundamentalisms, and the violent drawing
of boundaries to try to keep out the modern world. Rausch, Towards a Truly Catholic Church,168. Cf. also
Schreiter, “The World and Its Mission,” 5.
250Epifanio San Juan Jr., Beyond Postcolonial Theory (New York: St. Martin, 1999), 198-199.
251San Juan Jr., Beyond Postcolonial Theory, 199. Moreover, he states that “Globalization occurs when
capital of select dominant states maps the productive resources of the world as a total integrated unit and
then locates elements of complex reproduction systems at points of greatest cost advantage in terms of
costs of labor, material, transport, and so on.” Ibid.
50
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
is dictated by the flow of money in the bank. Almost every financial transaction,
especially in the western or more technologically advanced countries, is conducted by
and through the bank system. In the myth propagated by these multilateral agencies,
according to this postcolonial thinker, nations and nationalities (especially the less
technologically and economically advanced countries) have become “obsolete, residual,
or inutile.” 252 This “myth” have been put into serious question in the recent times by
the so-called “Brexit” and the astounding declaration of the current president of the
Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, who announces with accompanying expletives that he will
not kneel down before the Americans.253 Aside from issuing tirades against the United
States, the United Nations and the European Union who have raised criticisms against
Duterte’s “war on drugs, the latter boldly claims that the Philippines can survive
economically and politically without foreign aid.254 But, then again, we have to take such
rhetoric (i.e., Brexit and Duterte’s war) with a grain of salt. Although, we must admit
that these bold gestures of Britain and the Philippine President indeed challenged the
legitimacy of global neo-imperialism, which we hope will spark the blossoming of a
genuinely trans-colonial (i.e., more equitable and humane relationship) global
community of emancipated nations in the near future.
I.3.2. The Paradox of Borders: Are You In or Out?
Any discussion on globalization will not be complete without touching upon the
sensitive issue of the ‘borders’. Yes, globalization seems to cover all the nooks and
crannies of our global village, which gives us an impression of “borderlessness”.
Nevertheless, we have to take this phenomenon with an ample skepticism. In fact, David
Harvey warns us that “borderlessness” is a myth. Unfortunately, it is one-sided because
it only works to the advantage of the so-called “first world citizens.”255 Indeed, as cynical
as it sounds, we cannot be complacent about this issue. Certainly, the mighty borders
still exist and they are meant for people from the “third world”. As a matter of fact, they
are becoming, literally and figuratively, higher and wider. The 2016 U.S. Presidential
election rhetoric was replete with the theme of migration and border with the Republican
presidential candidate, Donald Trump, at the epicenter, receiving both flak and praises
for his hardline position regarding illegal immigration and for his “outrageous racist and
anti-immigration statements” under the rubric of “America First”.256 Europe is also
divided on the issue of border control for immigrants and refugees amidst the onslaught
252San Juan, Beyond Postcolonial, 198-199.

253Philippine Daily Inquirer reports Pres. Duterte saying: “You can go to hell, State Department, you can go to
hell Obama. You can go to hell EU (European Union), you can choose purgatory because hell is full. Why will I
be afraid of you?” Cf. Gil Cabacungan, “Duterte Explains Why…I’ll Never Kneel Before the Americans,”
Philippine Daily Inquirer, October4, 2016, http://globalnation.inquirer.net/146114/duterte-explains-why-ill-
never-kneel-before-americans [accessed October 5, 2016].
254Cf. Alexis Romero, “Rody: Philippines will Survive without Foreign Aid,” The Philippine Star, October 7,
2016, http://globalnation.inquirer.net/146114/duterte-explains-why-ill-never-kneel-before-americans
[accessed October 9, 2016].
255He asserts that the “space-place dialectic is ever a complicated affair, that globalization is really a process
of uneven geographical and historical (spatiotemporal) development that creates a variegated terrain of anti-
capitalist struggles that need to be synthesized in such a way as to respect the qualities of different ‘militant
particularisms’ (such as those to be found in urban movements throughout the world) while evolving strong
spatial bonds and a global socialist politics of internationalism.” David Harvey, Justice, Nature and the
Geography of Difference (UK: Blackwell, 1996), 437.
256Cf. Emily Stephenson, “Trump Returns to Hardline Position on Illegal Immigration,” Reuters, September
1, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-immigration-idUSKCN1173F7 [accessed

October 1, 2016].
51
SAMBAYANIHAN
of refugees from Syria, and other Middle Eastern and African countries devastated by
both internal and international (political, economic and religious) conflicts. 257 The
current political debate in Western Europe is represented by two opposing sides: 1) The
heavily nationalist agenda extolled by the likes of Marin La Pen, Nigel Farage and Geert
Wilders; and 2) The relatively liberal agenda that is more open to migration and
international cooperation, espoused by Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel.
Amidst all this complex discourse on national borders, we are convinced that the
existence of one-sided borders creates more opportunities for people from the richer
nations to conquer the world facilitated by their “strong” passports and “visa upon
arrival” privilege, while at the same time they significantly limit the movements of people
from the poorer countries who possess, unfortunately, “weak” passports that require
them to move mountains to simply prove that they can indeed travel. This blatant
inequality, for Daniel Pilario, is brought about by “New Hellenism” 258 where the
“sheepskin” of greater mobility and respect for diversity hides the “real demon” of
“consumerist culture, the imprisonment into one’s socioeconomic boundaries and the
rule of sameness and ‘identity’ under the banner of the every powerful global capital.”259
In his article, he likens contemporary globalization to Alexander the Great’s project to
propagate Hellenistic democracy throughout the empire which ensured the accrual of
power and wealth of the monarchs and oligarchs but was presented in the guise of
eradicating “oligarchic rule and local tyrranies” and galvanized the perpetration and
perpetuation of slavery and exploitation.260 For him, globalization does exactly the same
thing. Instead of delivering the good that it promises (i.e., liberation and development),
it aggravates the contemporary situation of marginalization and dehumanization of the
people “on the edge”. On that note, we see “labor out-sourcing” as a glaring example of
this lop-sided borderlessness where companies from richer countries maximize their
profits at the expense of those workers from the poorer nations who are so “grateful” for
their financial benefits regardless of their working conditions261 and also to the
257Cf. BBC Europe, “How is the Migrant Crisis Dividing EU Countries?”, BBC News, March 4, 2016,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34278886 [accessed October 1, 2016].
258Daniel Pilario, “Back to the Rough Grounds: Locating Resistance in Times of Globalization,” in
Postcolonial Europe in the Crucible of Cultures: Reckoning with God in a World of Conflicts, eds. Jacques
Haers SJ, Norbert Hintersteiner, Georges De Schrijver SJ (Netherlands: Rodopi, 2007), 32.
259Pilario, Back to the Rough Grounds, 23-24. William Grieder pictures “globalization as a constantly
accelerating machine that reaps as it destroys, trampling down fences and ignoring familiar boundaries.”
William Grieder, One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1997), 11-26. Cited in William T. Cavanaugh, Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political
Meaning of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 69.
260Pilario, Back to the Rough Grounds, 32.
261Sweat shops with sub-human working conditions and oppressive wages continue to proliferate in the so-
called “Third world” countries. Cf. The Daily Mail account on the unregulated sweat shops in Bangladesh.
Isabel Hunter, “Crammed Squalid Factories Produce Clothes for the West on Just 20-p Day, the Children
are Forced to Work in Horrific Unregulated Workshops in Bangladesh,” The Daily Mail, November 30, 2015,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3339578/Crammed-squalid-factories-produce-clothes-West-
just-20p-day-children-forced-work-horrific-unregulated-workshops-Bangladesh.html [accessed October 3,
2016]. See also War on Wants, Sweat shops in Bangladesh, http://www.waronwant.org/sweatshops-
bangladesh [accessed October 3, 2016] where it is reported that “3.5 million workers [mostly women] in
4,825 garment factories produce goods for export to the global market, principally Europe and North
America” but continue to remain deep within the bowels of poverty. China, despite having a robust economy,
is home to countless sweatshops as well. According to a statistics issued by “War on Want”, “Despite the
rapid growth of the Chinese economy in the last decade, more than 482 million people in China – 36% of
the population – live on less than $2 a day.” Cf. War on Wants, “Sweatshops in China,”
http://www.waronwant.org/sweatshops-china [accessed October 3, 2016].
52
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
detriment of the ordinary wage-earners in the global north whose jobs are taken over by
the former. With this backdrop, Rausch rightly points out that
“As powerful economic interests push the campaign for global free trade, jobs are ‘out-
sourced’ from more affluent countries, while poorer ones, rich labor but lacking legal and
social controls to protect their workers, often see even greater poverty. The rush to develop
resources in poorer countries frequently does violence to environment. Production increases,
but their standards of living continue to decline in comparison to more prosperous countries,
while the gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to grow.”262
This oppressive scheme has, for San Juan, perpetuated the unchecked and unimpeded
transgressions and abuses of transnational companies “administered by aggressive
nation-states in the North on behalf of home-based flagship corporations”.263 Thus, he
condemns what he dubs as “ludic post-colonialism” or “reactionary anti-colonialism”
that he attributes to Homi Bhaba which has turned a blind eye “to state machinery as
a means of accelerating monopoly capital concentration through the private
appropriation of public resources in displacing crisis onto the backs of people of color,
in competition and combinations, including the neocolonial utilization of bourgeois
client states in colonies, semi-colonies, and dependent countries.”264
There is, indeed, something not right about globalization as we now know it. Pilario,
using the lens of Malcolm Waters’ “economic race towards Mount Progress”, 265 even
considers it “as a triumphant march, to the tune of capitalist production, at its most
advanced stage.”266 Popular lexicographical opposites inhabiting globalization rhetoric
attest to what Pilario decries as “picture of a bi-polar world” that glorifies the North and
vilifies the South.267 Without a doubt, these geo-political terms are downright lopsided
and deplorable. While the world continues to shrink,268 paradoxically, the cleavage
between the North and the South (the privileged and the less privileged, oppressor and
the oppressed, the rich and the poor) becomes more and more hardened and defined.
The border is indeed a double-edged sword.269
On that note, without being oblivious of the evils of globalization, we should not
lose sight, as well, of the fact that, in Haers’ words, “the core issue with regard to
globalization is how a worldwide sustainable and dignified life together can be organized
in such a way that the real and tangible evils and injustices that arise in the context of
and because of the processes of globalization may be fought with the resources of
262Rausch, Towards a Truly Catholic Church, 169.

263San Juan, Beyond Postcolonial, 200.
264Ibid., 200-201.
265Pilario tries to expose the “project of modernization and dependency theory” of present-day globalization
where “[a]ll climbers are made to believe that there is no other way to the top” apart from the ones traversed
by the “stronger mountain climbers” who are leading the troupe and are passing on to the inferior climbers
their so-called “time-tested” tools and strategies. Pilario, Back to the Rough Grounds, 29-30. Cf. Malcom
Waters, Globalization (London: Routledge, 1995), 19-20.
266Pilario, Back to the Rough Grounds, 29-30.
267These are the following: 1) “developed” and “underdeveloped” (1960s); 2) “first world” and “third world”
(1970s), with the “second world” as concession to the unclassifiable socialist economies; 3) the “more
developed countries” (MDCs) and “less developed” ones (LDCs), with “developing” as a condescending
description for those strugglers-in-between in the 1980s; 4) “industrialized countries” and “newly
industrialized” ones (NICs) in the 1990s. Pilario, Back to the Rough Grounds, 29.
268Pilario recommends that “One only needs to go to an assembly line in any Export Processing Zone in the
South in order to experience what ‘uniformity’ is all about: large box type buildings without air conditioning,
tedious work in a monotonous rhythm, a hazardous environment and workers in identical vests with IDs,
being watched in surveillance by bosses from the management office (also called the “aquarium,”
reminiscent of Bentham’s panopticon) in the center and above the production floor.” Pilario, Back to the
Rough Grounds, 31.
269He asks the question: “But is there really diversity (i.e., economy, politics and culture) within the global
economic world?” Pilario, Back to the Rough Grounds, 31.
53
SAMBAYANIHAN
solidarity and interconnectedness present in these very processes of globalization.”270

This issue has permeated even the areas of theology and religion where matters
concerning interreligious dialogue and encounter have become the hot-button topics.271
John Paul II, adeptly aware of the impact of globalization, issued a post-synodal
exhortation, Ecclesia in America, which says:
“There is an economic globalization which brings some positive consequences, such as

efficiency and increased production and which, with the development of economic links
between the different countries, can help to bring greater unity among peoples and make
possible a better service to the human family. However, if globalization is ruled merely by the
laws of the market applied to suit the powerful, the consequences cannot but be negative.
These are, for example, the absolutizing of the economy, unemployment, the reduction and
deterioration of public services, the destruction of the environment and natural resources,
the growing distance between rich and poor, unfair competition which puts the poor nations
in a situation of ever increasing inferiority. While acknowledging the positive values which
come with globalization, the Church considers with concern the negative aspects which
follow in its wake.”272
I.3.3. The Enigma of Multiculturalism: A Pervading Quandary
Because the world has gone global, it has inevitably become multicultural. Almost
everywhere, everything is labeled with the brand of multiculturalism attested by a
dizzying parade of different cultural images and sensibilities that we encounter day in
and day out. But multiculturalism does not only produce a cozy ambience where
everyone and everything falls into place. Behind the glossy picture of globalized
multiculturalism is the ugly face of polarization of the citizens of the world in all
directions. At face value, multiculturalism seems to be a benign solution to the diversity
experienced in our contemporary society for it promotes “equal recognition of cultures
and ethnicities”. We have to be wary of this for, indeed, the devil is in the details. A
closer inspection of multiculturalism reveals hegemonic tendencies camouflaged by
“laissez-faire market system”, according to San Juan.273 This is corroborated by Pilario
by warning us that multiculturalism is a “mask” that covers up “the violence of global
economic ‘identity’”.274 Thus, this shallow recognition of diversity and difference
ultimately leads to an absorption of the “weaker cultures” to the melting pot of “Grand
Narratives”275 wherein, according to San Juan, the dominant culture will only “pick and
wear anytime you please;”276thereby, “unifying national consensus that privileges one
segment as the universal measure.”277 On this note, Pilario points out the apparent
weakness of Appadurai argument on the value of multiculturalism by asserting that the
270Haers, Introduction, 5.
271Ibid.. See also Madeliene Albright, The Might and the Almighty (New York: HarperCollins, 2006).
272John Paul II, “Ecclesia in America,” Origins 28/33, no. 20(1999): 573.
273According to San Juan, “what the advocates of multiculturalism are innocent of is the concept of
hegemony… which allows a latitude of diverse trends and tendencies in a putative laissez-faire market
system provided these operate within the monadic framework of contractual arrangements and hierarchical
property relations.” Epifanio San Juan Jr., From Exile to Diaspora: Versions of Filipino Experience in the
United States (Colorado: Westview, 1998), 46. San Juan, accessing his Gramscian pedigree, regards
hegemony as signifying “the ascendancy of a historic bloc of forces able to win the voluntary consent of the
ruled because the ruled accept their subordinate position for the sake of a degree of freedom that indulges
certain libidinal drives, sutures fissured egos, fulfills fantasies, and so forth.” Ibid., 54-55. See also, Antonio
Gramsci, The Modern Prince (New York: International, 1971), 206 -76.
275Cf. Jean Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report of Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennignton
and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Press, 1979, 1984).

276San Juan, From Exile to Diaspora, 46-47.
277Ibid., 55.
54
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
“unevenness of global reality” must be accounted for, because there is always a question
of asymmetry involved in it.”278 This reality of unevenness that was pointed out by Pilario
in his critique on Appadurai makes San Juan, based on our understanding of the issue,
express his reservation about the notion of “racial subjects of an autonomous identity
envisaged by multiculturalism,” which he considers as a “guilty conscience or ‘bad faith’
of petty suburban liberalism.”279
Multiculturalism, thus, does not eliminate domination and subordination because
the conflictive reality of cultural diversity is simply tamed by a system of, as Gramsci
puts it, “parallelism, synchrony or cohesion of interests; thereby negotiating ‘acceptance
of a compromise, a homogeneous national lifestyle (innocent of gender or class or racial
antagonisms) into which other generalized cultures – Asian, Indian, Latino, African
American – can be gradually assimilated.”280 Thus, San Juan laments that “Culture is
nothing else but the complex network of social practices that signify or determine
positions of domination, equality, or subordination. U.S. normative pluralism denies
this definition of culture by concealing the contradictions and conflicts of interests in
society.”281 With the way things are in the present time, we cannot claim that there is
indeed a genuine multicultural, or perhaps intercultural, society that we can fully enjoy.
I.3.4. Can We Overcome the Pitfalls of Multiculturalism: A Nagging Question in

Globalization?
Multiculturalism is, as it stands at the moment, cannot be a viable option for a

genuine (i.e., sincere and fair) recognition of cultural differences. As long as asymmetry
in power dynamics still operates in our world, which is admittedly almost impossible to
be eradicated, multiculturalism cannot resolve the conflicts brought about by plurality.
In fact, it makes the matter worse. The “subaltern” culture, if we may use this
postcolonial terminology, continues to be controlled/supressed by the ruling class fully
armed with globalized hegemonic ammunition fortified by capitalism. It is nothing else
but a mirage. What the world truly needs is, San Juan asserts, “substantive changes in
the structure of power” for, without it, we only perpetuate an imposed “unity of all by
marginalizing the dissidents and neutralizing the unfit or deviant.”282 Unless a revolution
or “profound structural change” takes place, hegemony will be the last word.283
Speaking of perpetuation of hegemony (i.e., domination and subordination),
specifically capitalism, that takes place in the context of contemporary phenomenon of
globalization, we recall Prof. Boeve who offers an interesting insight on and a critical
analysis of the “conspiracy” among the four major social spheres: politics, science,
technology and economy. In a lecture in Fundamental Theology, he expressed that
“In capitalism, these four discourses [political, scientific, technological and economic] are
related to one another. First of all, there is an alliance of the economic and the political
discourses resulting in a mixed economy: state participates in the economic discourse, for
example as banker, employer, and employee. Secondly, also the technological and scientific
discourses enter into alliance with each other, and so doing thoroughly change the nature
of knowledge: the technological discourse provides criteria to validate cognitive claims;
278Pilario,Back to the Rough Grounds, 27.

279San Juan, From Exile to Diaspora, 46.
280Gramsci, The Modern Prince, 55.
282Ibid.
283Ibid.
55
SAMBAYANIHAN
scientific research is most often carried out in view of its possible applications. Capitalism
then is finally a merger between both alliances: the techno-scientific alliance is co-opted by
the alliance between capital and state, which, e.g., resulted in big industries associated with
the military, space travel, nuclear energy and others – recently also the eco-industry.” 284
Thus, the more the collusion among them becomes concentrated the more hegemony
will reign in the world; thereby, damaging severely the most vulnerable sectors of the
present-day society. And it seems that the world is, indeed, heading towards that
direction considering the new developments in global politics. This brings to mind San
Juan who decries the continuous sublation or castration of less powerful culture in
these words:
“To this now hackneyed glorification of consumer society as the site of creative freedom,
spontaneity – you can be whatever you want to be – and seemingly infinite libidinal
gratification, I encountered that the self-indulgence in this fabled cornucopia of simulacra,
replicas, commodified spectacles – the pastiche offered by yuppie catalogues and antiseptic
supermalls cloned from postmodernist Las Vegas – is a hallucinatory path that does not lead
to discovering one’s creative alterity. Rather, it leads to the suppression of the imagination’s
potential and unrelenting submission to the monolithic law of a racist dispensation.”285
Amidst this sordid socio-political scenario, Boeve, however,286speaks about the

possibility of harnessing the potential force emanating from the uneven terrain of
multiculturalism. He argues that “[p]redicated on the uneven but combined
development of political, economic, and ideological spheres of society, such inequality
engenders forms of resistance to the power of the dominant social bloc and its ideology
of pluralities.”287
We can, therefore, still continue to hope for a better tomorrow. We have not yet
reached the definitive end of our journey. Hence, instead of just wallowing in the dark,
wailing and grinding our teeth, we can still, if we truly want, rise above the toxic side-
effects of globalization and shallow multiculturalism. This endeavor is not an overnight
affair. Certainly, this is not a leisurely walk in the park. Sticking out our necks in this
endeavor will generate oppositions. It might even require martyrdom.
We can begin this quest, according to San Juan while addressing the Asian-
Americans scholars, by “[problematizing] the eccentric ‘and/or’ of their immigrant,
decolonizing heritage and of their conjectural embeddedness in the world system.” 288
We have to be critical of the “brands” we attach to ourselves. We cannot be oblivious of
the connotations that underpin these hyphenated labels. We must ask the question why
we always have to qualify our identity with terms like Asian, Filipino and the like (i.e.,
Asian-American, Euroasian, Filipino-American, Chinese-American, etc…), while the
Caucasians can simply get away by saying they are Europeans, Americans without
prefixing it with another “racial identifier”? We must ask, as well, why do we have to
always explain our origin based simply on our looks? We may be either natural born
citizens or immigrants, but we always need to clarify where we came from.
Therefore, the first step towards attaining a genuine multicultural or intercultural
society, no matter how painful it is, is to disabuse ourselves of the delusion that all
cultures are on equal footing. We must accept, first, that in this hierarchical world that
we live in, some are “more equal than other.” 289 Only after doing so will we be able to
284Lieven Boeve, Unpublished lecture in Fundamental Theology (KU Leuven, 2012), 63.
286Ibid., 45-46.
287Boeve, Unpublished lecture in Fundamental Theology, 55.
288Ibid.
289Cf. George Orwell, Animal Farm (London, England: Secker and Warburg, 1945).
56
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
work our way up to resist the “antagonistic relation of domination and subordination”
operative in our contemporary society that gives rise to racism and the like.290 Our
awareness of the cockeyed power relations existing in the world makes us agree with
John Rex’s appraisal of the present reality that “exploitation of clearly marked groups
in a variety of different ways is integral to capitalism… Ethnic groups unite and act
together because they have been subjected to distinct and different types of
exploitation.”291 Power relations are intimately tied to the issue of racial differentiation,
which for John Rex “becomes the means whereby men allocate each other to different
social and economic positions.”292
We must go against the tide, despite the difficulties it entails, of hegemonic
multiculturalism propelled by globalized capitalism.293 We must keep in mind that this
resistance requires living in an urgent and permanent “state of emergency”. 294 This
necessitates a sustained and unceasing “crying out in the wilderness” until every voice
is heard and every culture is properly treated and accepted. We say “properly” because
we are not unmindful of those elements in every culture that require purification. We
can probably say that, like the Church, cultura needs to be semper reformanda. In fact,
we can omit the word “need” because, in reality culture is never static, cultura is semper
reformanda. We just have to assert that no culture is ideal and universal; every culture
has its merits and flaws and we need to make sure, amid all odds, that no one culture
dominates.
Thus, when we use the hyphenated identifiers, we must always be aware of what
we mean by them? Are we empowered or are we marginalized? Are we emancipated or
emaciated? When Caucasians simply call themselves as Europeans or Americans, what
do they really want to convey? Is it about superiority or solidarity? What political and
economic baggage do they carry with it? We have to ask where, why, to whom and, who
use the labels? The question of context is of utmost importance.
On this note, we recall the proposal of Daniel Pilario, which states: “If we want to
locate resistance in times of globalization, we need to bring analysis back to the rough
grounds or to what Raymond Williams calls ‘placeable social identities’.” 295 He further
explains that the sites of resistance are “places where we have lived and want to go on
living, where generations not only of economic but also of social effort and human care
have been invested, and which new generations will inherit.”296 Moreover, he claims that
“resistance can be located within what Williams calls the “residual” and the “emergent”
which, together with the ‘dominant’ hegemonic force constitutes the entire process.” 297
These locations become the “stubborn bedrock”, if we can borrow the expression from
James Scott, “upon which other forms of resistance may grow and… are likely to
persist.” 298
290John Rex, “Race.” Dictionary of Marxist Thought, ed. Tom Bottomore (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University,
1983), 406-7. Cited in San Juan, From Exile to Diaspora, 42.
291Ibid.
292Ibid.
293Ibid., 68-69. See also Hazel Carby, “Multi-Culture,” Screen Education 34 (1980): 64-65.
294Ibid., 71. See also Walter Benjamin, Illuminations (New York: Schocken, 1969). Walter Benjamin,
Reflections (New York: Harcourt, 1978).

296Ibid.
297Ibid., 38.
298Ibid., 45.
57
SAMBAYANIHAN
I.4. Tourists vs. Migrants: Where do They Stand?
Any discussion on globalization, as we have alread argued above, will not be

sufficient without tackling the sensitive issue of migration. It is a delicate subject matter
but there is no way we can avoid it because this phenomenon (i.e., movement of people,
along with their ideas, products and cultures) is both the backbone and the product of
globalization. Migration enables contact between cultures. It is also a catalyst for
importation/exportation and implantation of foreign cultures or ideologies, which in
turn becomes an avenue for colonization. People have been crossing boundaries no
matter what it takes. They will migrate, especially now that globalization provides them
with a “conducive”299 atmosphere to do so.
Being a “hot button” issue, migration has spurred countless discussions, even
heated debates and fatal clashes – polarizing peoples, societies and states. Just recall
the recent “migration crisis” that divided Europe. Until now no compromise or universal
agreement has been reached by opposing camps. But this does not deter people from
moving in and out of regions and states as evidenced by the thousands of fateful and
dangerous or deadly “odysseys” that unfold each day in the Mediterranean waters and
the seas of Africa and Europe.300 In the same manner, the U.S.-Mexico border is a
witness to perilous journeys that countless Mexicans (and other Latinos) make each day
just in search of a greener pasture in the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”301
With political, economic, military and ideological crises experienced in the Middle East,
Africa and Asia at present, this issue has become more urgent. The world has never
before witnessed migration as massive as what we have in the present generation.
Amidst the perils and fatalities that challenge the values of both the rich and poor states,
this phenomenon continues to be on the rise. So immense it is that the wealthy nations
of the world, especially Western European countries, have been subjected to a crisis
they have not imagined before. The so-called “Brexit” is seen also as an effect of all this
multi-faceted crisis.302 European States are in a great dilemma whether to open up their
borders to welcome the displaced and disenfranchised people of Syria and the like or
fortify their walls to drive away possible threats of economic collapse, political unrest
and, worse, terrorist attacks brought in by these refugees from Syria and the like.303
Evidently, there is an overabundance of issues surrounding migration and we can
spend a whole lifetime just naming them one by one. Amidst this plethora of concerns,
we would like to zero in our discussion on the contrast between migration and tourism
299We have to put this word between quotation marks because this does not always mean a comfortable
and voluntary journey. In most cases, based on the data we have at the moment, migration is driven by
instability and a necessity to survive.
300Cf. BBC Europe, “Migrant Crisis.”
301Cf. BBC World, “The US-Mexico Border” in Migration Policy Institute, June 1, 2006,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911 [accessed June 23, 2016]. See also Jie Zong and
Jeanne Batalova, “Mexican Immigrants in the United States,” Migration Policy Institute, March 17, 2016,
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/mexican-immigrants-united-states [accessed June 23, 2016].
302Please see The Economist, “Brexit and Immigration: Raising the Drawbridge” where it says: “HOSTILITY
to immigration was a key driver of Britons’ vote on June 23rd to leave the EU,” August 27, 2016,
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21705870-hopes-cost-free-cut-european-union-migration-are-
illusory-raising-drawbridge [accessed September 5, 2016].
303Cf. BBC Middle East, “Syria: The Story of the Conflict,” BBC News, March 11, 2016,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26116868 [accessed September 5, 2016]. See also Al
Jazeera, “Syria’s Civil War Explained,” Al Jazeera News, May 24, 2016,
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/syria-civil-war-explained-160505084119966.html [accessed
September 5, 2016]. See also BBC UK, “What’s Happening in Syria,” BBC News, September 21, 2016,
www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/16979186 [accessed October 1, 2016].
58
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
explored by William Cavanaugh, 304 certainly without being oblivious of his alleged ties
with Radical Orthodoxy (RD)305, which was denied by Cavanaugh during the seminar
and public lecture that he gave at the Faculty of Theology of KU Leuven on May 10,
2017.306 He clarified that, perhaps, the supposed link with RD stemmed from his
previous collaboration with John Milbank on a certain academic project, Radical
Orthodoxy: A New Theology,307 and his “profuse” citation of Milbank in Torture and
Eucharist. Cavanaugh’s Migration of the Holy may also be seen as influenced by RD due
to the fact that it employs Augustine’s notion of the City of God on which RD finds its
roots. What is important for us, at the moment, however, is that we find Cavanaugh’s
analysis on migration, not overlooking its limitations of course, helpful to our quest for
a spirituality that is appropriate for Filipino migration. Suffice it to say that an ample
critique on Cavanaugh’s view on migration will be provided in this discussion to expose
the apparent incompatibility between the Filipino migrants and Cavanaugh’s notion of
medieval pilgrims.
Because he believes, and rightly so, that “images of mobility dominate the
literature of globalization”308 he proposes that there are basically, perhaps an over-
simplification or a stereotypical categorization, four kinds of people as far as ‘movement’
in globalization is concerned: tourist, migrant, pilgrim, and monk. What is of specific
interest for us, at the moment, is the distinction that he outlines between the migrant
people who stand for what Bauman refers to as “wasted lives” 309 and the “more
privileged” class represented by the tourist coming from the so-called “First World.”
The archetypal tourists “move,” according to Cavanaugh, “because they find the
world irresistibly attractive, the vagabonds move because they find the world unbearably
inhospitable... The tourists travel because they want to; the vagabonds – because they
have no other choice.”310 Tourist look at things from the top; thus, they have a panoptic
vision that can scan all the nooks and crannies of the world where they can replicate
their desired “experiences” of the “exotic.”311
304Cavanaugh, Migrations of the Holy, 69. William Cavanaugh is senior research professor at the Center for
World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology and professor of Catholic Studies at De Paul University. He
also wrote The Myth of Religious Violence and the Roots of Modern Conflict and Being Consumed: Economics
and Christian Desire (New York and Oxford: Oxford University, 2009), kindle ed., loc., 835-1039.
305John Milbank is one of the founders of an informal movement referred to as “Radical Orthodoxy” For a
brief introduction to the objectives of RD, which is presented in the form of seven theses, please see John
Milbank, “What is Radical Orthodoxy?, http://www.unifr.ch/theo/assets/files/SA2015/Theses_EN.pdf
[accessed on June 19, 2015]. Cf. John Milbank and Simon Oliver, eds., Radical Orthodoxy (Oxord and New
York: Routledge, 2009).
306William Cavanaugh, “The Wars of Religion as the Foundation Myth of the Modern State” (public lecture,
Expert Seminar, Faculty of Theology, KU Leuven, May 10, 2017).

307Cf. William Cavanaugh, “The City Beyond Secular Parodics,” in Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology, eds.
John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock and Graham Ward (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), 182-200.
308Cavanaugh, Migrations of the Holy, 69.
309Cf. Zygmunt Bauman, Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts (Cambridge: Polity, 2004). Bauman
understands ‘wasted lives’ as the ‘superfluous’ populations of migrants, refugees and other outcasts,” which
“is an inevitable outcome of modernization.”
310Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodernity and Its Discontents (Cambridge: Polity, 1997), 92-93.
311Cavanaugh, Migrations of the Holy, 75-76. The tourist has the propensity, according to Cavanaugh, “to
make the exotic an everyday experience, without its ceasing to be exotic”, which upon closer analysis makes
his/her experience of the other so artificial. The proliferation of festivals in the Philippines testifies to these,
to use vocabulary of Cavanaugh, “pseudo-events” crafted for the amusement of the tourists. Ibid., 76. See
also Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (New York: Vintage, 1961), 77.
59
SAMBAYANIHAN
In contrast to the tourists who can “stay or move at their hearts’ desire”,312 the
migrant who usually enter another country as workers find themselves in a precarious
condition where, deplorably, until the present time “[n]o international treaty
standardizing the treatment of workers has been signed, and there is little enthusiasm
at the level of national governments for such an agreement.”313 The migrants, being on
the other side of the fence, see the bordered world from below.”314
Dean MacCannell, in his book The Tourist: A New Theory of Leisure Class, is
convinced that “sight-seeing is a kind of collective striving for a transcendence of the
modern totality, a way of attempting to overcome the discontinuity of modernity, of
incorporating its fragments into unified experience.”315 In all these artificial and
fragmented experiences offered to the tourist, unfortunately according to Edward
Brunner, the tourist, as a delighted spectator from above, remains unchanged. 316 The
other, instead, is forced to modify itself simply to please the tourist. Tourism bears some
semblance to multiculturalism because, MacCannell alerts us, ultimately they both end
up in “the sucking of difference out of difference” in favor of the “old arrogant Western
Ego that wants to see it all, know it all, and take it all in.” 317 Both tourism and
multiculturalism eliminate genuine difference and conflate everything into a big ball of
Ego. Tourism is another blatant display of superiority of the affluent citizens of
economically advanced countries. Sometimes, they do not even have to be well-heeled
for them to be superior, as long as they are Caucasian and/or from a wealthy nation.
With only that as a passport, they will be accorded respect and priority.
Blatant inequality exists, as explained by Cavanaugh, because “[m]ost
significantly, capital is free to move across national borders, but labor is not. Indeed,
the impermeability of borders for laborers accounts for much of what we call
‘globalization’… It is the immobility of laborers that accounts for the mobility of
capital.”318 Indeed, oppression and dehumanization are perpetrated in the borders,
because in this space the tourists, more specifically the ones from the Global North,
enjoy privileges, while the migrants who usually come from the Global South are
subjected to stricter control and condemned to the perils of unregulated labor market.319
The case of U.S. and Mexico border is a classic example of this. The border between
these two countries is, indeed, not as impenetrable as one may think. Those who hold
American passports, generally without any complications, can come in and out of
Mexico. It is their privilege for being citizens of the “land of the free and the home of the
brave.” Unfortunately, people from the other side of the fence have to go through a lot
of hassles, sometimes resorting to some fatal strategies, just to get into the backyard of
“Uncle Sam.” Based on the assessment of Cavanaugh, and here is a very interesting
312Bauman, Postmodernity and Its Discontents, 92-93. They can easily travel to places where new prospects
summon. Freely, they can move and discover new horizons, which unfortunately denied the migrants who,
because of challenge to survive, do not even have a clear option whether to move or stay.
314Ibid., 75.
315Dean MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class (Berkeley: University of California,
1999), 13.
316Edward M. Brunner, “Transformation of Self in Tourism,” Annals of Tourism Research 18 (1991): 238-
50.
317MacCannell, The Tourist, xx-xxi. This quote is found in the introduction to the 1989 edition of the book.
Cited in Cavanaugh, Migrations of the Holy, 77.

318Ibid., 74.
319Cavanaugh contends that “[m]igration does occur across international borders.” Indeed, the
subordinated people could cross borders but “the occurrence of migration is regulated by the borders - not
prevented, as others would think.” Ibid., 73.
60
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
view, the border is never fortified as it ought, instead it is intentionally “relaxed” to allow
Mexicans who are so desperate to cross the border, despite the life-threatening journey,
in order to “welcome” some undocumented immigrants who can take on the “dirty,
deadly, dehumanizing” jobs loathed and refused by white Americans - a ready supply of
cheap labor in the black market.320 Apparently, the wealthier European nations are not
so different from the U.S., in Cavanaugh’s estimation. He argues that
“The reason guest workers were imported, beginning in the 1960s, was that advances in
social democracy in Europe after World War II had eliminated the availability of a large
reserve of cheap, easily exploited labor. The granting of fundamental social rights to a broad
range of citizens in European nation-states necessitated the importation of a large new
population of people who did not enjoy the rights of citizens.”321
At present, according to Pilario, “[t]o apply for a Schengen visa alone actually costs
a fortune which many cannot even dream of affording.”322 Indeed, Jameson is right that
the border makes more explicit the “asymmetry brought about by the march of global
capital.”323 Sadly, the borders are there not so much as an instrument of exclusion but
as a devise for imposition of identity of the other who involuntarily, in the words of
Cavanaugh, assumes “a liminal identity, an identity that straddles the border and
defines the person being neither fully here not there.” 324
Pope Francis, regarding the issue of globalization, states that “If a globalization
tries to make everybody even, as if it were a sphere, that globalization destroys the
richness and the specificities of each person and each people… If a globalization tries to
unite everyone, but does so respecting each individual, each person, each richness, each
specificity, respecting each people, that globalization is good and it enables us to keep
growing and take us to peace.”325 What Pope Francis is offering us an alternative to the
so-called “globalization of indifference”326 that has caused so much violence towards and
sufferings of the migrants and refugees. 327 That alternative form of globalization entails,
according to Pope Francis, a pursuance of “globalization of hope, a hope which springs
up from peoples and takes root among the poor, and must replace the globalization of
exclusion and indifference.”328
I.4.1. From Marginal to the Liminal: An Option for Resistance and Liberation
Amidst the oppressive inequality that people experience in our contemporary

world, there are some avenues that can still be pursued to offer resistance and, hopefully
or ultimately, liberation. The border that marginalizes can be properly transcended

321Ibid.
322Pilario,Back to the Rough Grounds, 29.
323Ibid. 29. See also, Fredric Jameson, “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism,”
Social Text 15(1986):65-88.
324Jameson, “Third-World Literature,” 74.
325Cf. Alan Rappeport, “Pope Francis Weighs in on Merits of Globalization,” The New York Times, September
26, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/live/pope-visit-2015/pope-francis-weighs-in-on-merits-of-

globalization/ [accessed March 24, 2016].
326Pope Francis, Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the Celebration of the XLIX World Day of Peace,
“Overcome Indifference and Win Peace,” Vatican, December 8, 2015,

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/peace/documents/papa-
francesco_20151208_messaggio-xlix-giornata-mondiale-pace-2016.html [accessed May 13, 2016].
327Cf. Francis X. Rocca, “Pope Calls for ‘Globalization of Hope,” The Wall Street, July 9, 2015,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-francis-asks-bolivians-to-remember-the-poor-1436465872 [accessed
August 4, 2016].
328Rocca, “Pope Calls for ‘Globalization of Hope.”
61
SAMBAYANIHAN
through a process that endeavors to access the innate potential of the marginal space
to be a liminal place.329 It is a threshold and not a limit. One can go through and beyond
the site of oppression. It is true that this ‘location’ is not voluntarily chosen by the
‘person in the margin’ who seldom has the luxury of time to sit down and discern
considering the many things that one has in his/her hand as a minimum-wage earner
or undocumented laborer, like the millions of overseas Filipino workers who are forced
to work abroad. It is thus, our task or vocation as theorists, ministers and theologians,
to help a person on the edge to re-imagine the border in order to find a way out of the
negativity of the “betwixt and between”330 situation. This task requires seeing the
“marginal space” as, according to Stonequist, “a crucible of cultural fusion” 331 that
allows, or even forces, one to change his/her unfortunate situation. A new way of looking
at the margin, therefore, arise from this undertaking: That is, to borrow from Phan,
“Being neither this nor that allows one to be both this and that. Belonging to both worlds
and cultures, marginal persons have the opportunity to fuse them together and, out of their
respective resources, fashion a new, different world, so that persons at the margins stand
not only between worlds and cultures but also beyond them. Thus, betwixt and between can
bring about personal and social transformation and enrichment.”332
It is certainly the same space, but the meaning is changed: the marginal now
becomes liminal, the border becomes a threshold. It is like looking at the same thing
with new eyes. What used to be a place for oppression becomes now a venue for
creativity and liberation.333 Instead of just complaining or romanticizing the marginality
that one experiences, it is more worthwhile, without denying the negative elements of
course, to find ways to “emigrate” towards “re-aggregation or incorporation” where,
according to Turner, one can discover “the structure with a new identity or with a new
perspective on the existing structure.”334 This brings to mind the idea of the “bridge”
being explored by the authors of the book entitled This Bridge We Call Home wherein
they acknowledge “Bridges are thresholds to other realities, archetypal, primal symbols
of shifting consciousness. They are passageways, conduits, and connectors that connote
transitioning, crossing borders and changing perspectives.”335 This “migration”,
nevertheless, is a continuous process. One must always strive to obtain a better
329Sang Hyun Lee’s understanding of the marginality as “a spatial metaphor” denoting “in-betweenness” or
“peripheral predicament”. Sang Hyun Lee, A Liminal Place: An Asian American Theology (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2010), 3.
330Phan explains that “To be betwixt and between is to be neither here nor there, to be neither this thing
nor that. Spatially, it is to dwell at the periphery or at the boundaries. Politically, it means not residing at
the centers of power of the two intersecting worlds but occupying the precarious and narrow margins where
the dominant groups meet and clash, and [being] denied the opportunity to wield powers in matters of a
minority, a member of a marginal(ized) group. Culturally, it means not fully integrated into and accepted
by either cultural system, being mestizo, a person of mixed race.” Peter Phan, “Betwixt and the Between:
Doing Theology with Memory and Imagination,” in Journeys at the Margin: Toward an Autobiographical
Theology in American-Asian Perspectives, eds. Peter Phan and Jung Young Lee (Collegeville, MN.: Liturgical
Press, 1999), 113.This quotation is cited in Lee’s A Liminal Place, 3.
331Everett V. Stonequist, The Marginal Man: A Study of Personality and Cultural Conflict (New York: Russell
& Russell, 1937), 221.

332Phan, Betwixt and the Between, 113.
333Cf. Victor W. Turner, Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1969).
334Cf. Turner, Ritual Process, 94ff. Cited in Lee, A Liminal Place, 5.
335Gloria Anzaldua, “Preface: (Un)natural Bridges, (Un)safe Spaces,” in This Bridge We Call Home: Radical
Visions for Transformations, eds. Gloria E. Anzalúa and Analouise Keating (New York and London:
Routledge, 2002), 1. Ana Louise Keating explains that the “Bridge is infused with an activist vision, a
concrete belief that we can and must assert ourselves and redefine our world; working together, we create
the world we want to inhabit.” Ana Louise Keating, “Charting Pathways, Marking Thresholds… A Warning,
An Introduction,” in This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformations, eds. Gloria E. Anzalúa
and Analouise Keating (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), 9.
62
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
structure to avoid being dissolved in our agonistic world. In the words of Anzaldúa,
“Change is inevitable; no bridge is forever.”336
On this note, we recall Pope Francis’ message for the 2017 “World Day of Migrants
and Refugees”, which was released on 8 September 2016, that clearly recognizes the
massive impact of migration in today’s world wherein, he argues, “It affects all
continents and is growing into a tragic situation of global proportions.” 337 Therefore, he
calls on the people of God to consider this phenomenon as “a sign of the times, a sign
which speaks of the providential work of God in history and in the human community,
with a view to universal communion.”338 In his 2016 address, he rightly points out that
“The presence of migrants and refugees seriously challenges the various societies which
accept them.”339 Thus, he poses the question: “How can we experience these challenges
not as obstacles to genuine development, rather as opportunities for genuine human,
social and spiritual growth, a growth which respects and promotes those values which
make us ever more human and help us to live a balanced relationship with God, others
and creation?”340 Having said that in the previous year, he underlines in his latest
message the need to work together as one community to ensure that the rights of the
migrants are respected and protected, to facilitate the integration of the migrants and
refugees, and to find long-term solutions, which include close cooperation of the
immigrants with their host communities and addressing directly the “causes of
migration in the countries of origins” to reduce, if not to totally eradicate, forced
migration brought about by poverty, wars or political crises.341 In order for us to
appreciate the importance of such an undertaking, we need to , according to Pope
Francis,
“In the first place…realize that, “mercy is a gift of God the Father who is revealed in the Son.
God’s mercy gives rise to joyful gratitude for the hope which opens before us in the mystery
of our redemption by Christ’s blood. Mercy nourishes and strengthens solidarity towards
others as a necessary response to God’s gracious love, ‘which has been poured into our
hearts through the Holy Spirit’ (Rom 5:5). Each of us is responsible for his or her neighbor;
we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they live… Hospitality, in fact, grows from
both giving and receiving… It is important to view migrants not only on the basis of their
status as regular or irregular, but above all as people with dignity who are to be protected
and who are capable of contributing to progress and the general welfare… The Church stands
at the side of all who work to defend each person’s right to live with dignity, first and foremost
by exercising the right to emigrate and to contribute to the development of one’s country of
origin.”342
Cardinal Tagle of the Philippines, as if responding to this call of Pope Francis, told the
Pope in his thanksgiving speech during the 2015 visit of the Pontiff to the Philippines
that
“You arrived in the Philippines 3 days ago. Tomorrow, you will go. Every Filipino wants to go
with you. Don’t be afraid. Every Filipino wants to go with you – not to Rome – but to the
336Keating, “Charting Pathways,” 9.

337Pope Francis, Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, “Child
Migrants, the Vulnerable and the Voiceless,” Vatican, September 8, 2016,
https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/migration/documents/papa-
francesco_20160908_world-migrants-day-2017.html [accessed October 24, 2016].
338Ibid.
339Pope Francis, Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees,
“Migrants and Refugees Challenge Us. The Response of the Gospel of Mercy,” Vatican, September 12, 2015,
340Ibid.
341Ibid.
342Ibid.
63
SAMBAYANIHAN
peripheries… We will go to those worlds with you to bring the light of Christ… Here in Luneta,
the Quirino Grandstand, where heroes are revered, where newly elected presidents take
office, and popes meet the Filipino people, here in this place of new beginnings, please, Holy
Father, send us as your missionaries of light. Send us. Before you go, Holy Father, send us,
your beloved Filipinos, to spread the light of Jesus, and wherever you see the light of Jesus
shining, even in Rome, even in Santa Marta, remember: the Filipino people are with you in
spreading the light of Jesus.”343
These words of Cardinal Tagle capture the essence of what we shall be exploring in this
current academic endeavor, which is about the positive contribution of the Filipino
migrant communities scattered all over the world who, according to Pope Francis, “are
not pawns on the chessboard of humanity,”344 but are possible modern-day
missionaries, in their own little ways, who, in the mind of Pope Francis, “offer
possibilities for a new evangelization, open vistas for the growth of a new humanity
foreshadowed in the paschal mystery: a humanity for which every foreign country is a
homeland and every homeland is a foreign country.”345 His “globalization of hope” goes
hand in hand with his attack on the “throw-away” culture that economic globalization
has bred in the contemporary world that, according to him, “seems fatally destined to
suffocate hope and increase risks and threats… [w]hen money becomes an idol, it
commands the choices of man and condemns him. It makes him a slave.”346 In the same
vein, Pope Francis asks us to understand that
“The multicultural character of society today, for that matter, encourages the Church to take
on new commitments of solidarity, communion and evangelization. Migration, movements,
in fact, call us to deepen and strengthen the values needed to guarantee peaceful
coexistences between persons and cultures. Achieving mere tolerance that respects diversity
and ways of sharing between different backgrounds and cultures is not sufficient. This is
precisely where the Church contributes to overcoming frontiers and encouraging the ‘moving
away from attitudes of defensiveness and fear, indifference and marginalization… towards
attitudes based on a culture of encounter, the only culture capable of building a better, more
just and fraternal world.’”347
I.5. Setting the Record Straight: Can We Provincialize Europe?
“Every historical conclusion is tentative and is valid only for the duration of
a historian’s accumulated facts… This is one of the reasons why interpretation in
history varies from person to person and from age to age and why history is
constantly being re-written.”348
-Teodoro Agoncillo
Our trans-colonial project, which we understand as moving from the marginal

place towards the liminal space, means re-inscribing muted histories in the annals
343Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, “Cardinal Tagle Thanks Pope for Visit to Philippines,” Vatican Radio,
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/01/18/cardinal_tagle_thanks_pope_for_visit_to_philippines/1118
795 [accessed March 10, 2015].
344Pope Francis, “Migrants and Refugees.”
345Ibid.
346Cf. James McKenzie, “Pope Francis Attacks ‘Throw-Away’ Economic Globalization,” Reuters, February
28, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-economy-idUSKBN0LW0NZ20150228 [accessed

March 25, 2015].
347Pope Francis, Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the 101 st World Day of Migrants and Refugees,
“Church Without Frontiers, Mother to All,” September 3, 2014, Vatican,

348Teodoro A. Agoncillo, “Historical Interpretation,” in History and Culture, Language and Literature:
Selected Essays of Teodoro A. Agoncillo, ed. Bernardita Reyes Churchill (Manila: UST, 2003), 32.
64
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
traditionally dominated by Western (i.e., European and American) Grand Narratives.

This is not to say that we are irresponsibly stashing away what is deplorable about the
stern thought, especially those that have spawned a myriad of abuses and inequalities
in the world which Zinn, Mignolo and other de-colonial and postcolonial thinkers are
trying to expose. It is also not about recklessly covering up what is undesirable about
the histories weaved by those who come from the fringes. For that reason, we deem it
necessary that we also engage in this doctoral research several Western interlocutors,
recognizing that the perpetration and perpetuation of global colonialism/imperialism is
not universally shared by the people from Europe and America. Certainly, as we have
already indicated earlier, there are also problematic and destructive tendencies that we
find in what is deemed to be non-western thought. That being said, we would like to say
in a level-headed manner that amidst the new imperial power, the Empire that controls
the world in more cunning and aggressive ways, we endeavor to revive the legitimacy of
the articulations of those in the fringes and to open avenues for a de-centralized
discourse, which, in the words of Chakrabarty, is a task to “provincialize Europe”. 349
With this idea in mind, we recall Walter Mignolo who explores the convergence between
coloniality and western modernity:
“modernity is a complex narrative whose point of origination was Europe; a narrative that
builds Western civilization by celebrating its achievements while hiding at the same time its
darker side, ‘coloniality’. Coloniality, in other words, is constitutive of modernity – there is
no modernity without coloniality. Hence, today’s common expression ‘global modernities’
implies ‘global colonialities’ in the precise sense that the colonial matrix of power is shared
and disputed by many contenders: if there cannot be modernity without coloniality, there
cannot either be global modernities without global colonialities. Consequently, decolonial
thinking and doing emerged and unfolded, from the sixteenth century on, as responses to
the oppressive and imperial bent of modern European ideals projected to and enacted in, the
non-European world.”350
Without being unfairly prejudice to the marginalized and oppressed sectors of the
European and American societies, those belonging to the “fourth world”, who are also
suffering from the “weight of globalizing forces”, we argue that the perpetrators of
Western colonial endeavors, which history tells us are coming mostly from the Western
hemisphere of the globe, have enjoyed for centuries being the epicenter of almost
everything about the world while the rest of the nations in the world have been at the
mercy of the colonial or imperial masters. People from the so-called “third world”
countries depend on or find their respective identities on what the powerful people,
institutions, organizations – multinational companies - with colonialist/imperialist
agenda think about and do to politics, economy, culture, religion and the like. The rapid
and widespread “Mcdonaldization” and “Starbucksization” that is happening in the
world at present is a strong indication of this. Worldwide fashion trends are still mostly
dictated by the designers and companies mostly located in the New York, Los Angeles,
London, Paris and Milan. Even the Catholic Church has been, for centuries, perceived
as enjoying western universalistic perspective, wherein western philosophy and theology
have dictated what the rest of the world must believe and practice. It is high time, as
extolled mainly by post-colonialism, to present alternatives and make the west realize
that there are other worlds as important as theirs, that there are alternative views as
349Chakrabarty points out that oftentimes the natives had to adjust to the “temperaments” of the colonizers
(i.e., language and cultures) as these invaders enjoy their self-declared superiority and privileges.
Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, xviii.
350Cf. Walter Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options (Durham &
London: Duke University, 2011), 2-3.
65
SAMBAYANIHAN
valid as theirs. 351 Narratives that had been unceremoniously pushed back to the
margins brought about by top-down globalization have to be reinstated via a revival of
the bottom-up approach of globalization, according to Rieger, that has been there since
the birth of Christianity. 352 One powerful example of this is Paul’s use of the title ‘Lord’
when referring to Jesus.353 This was clearly an act of defiance and subversion, because
the title was originally and exclusively attributed to the Roman emperor. This, indeed,
ushered in a different way of looking at “lordship,” one that offers humble service and
sacrifice.354 Jesus as the Lord, in the words of Paul, “though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking
the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:6-7). This Jesus that
Paul preached to the world is the “Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and
foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1;23-24).
Some postcolonial Scripture scholars may disagree with us in our reading of Paul.
We have no problem with that, because, certainly, pristine forms of Christology do not
exist (i.e., even Christology is infiltrated by imperialistic perspective). Nevertheless, we
cannot simply accept the idea that Christ allowed himself to be coopted by the empire
altogether. In fact, according to Rieger, Christ offers us various forms of resistance to
empire and fresh inspirations for alternative images of Christ.355
Now going back to the project of provincializing Europe, we assert that we must
endeavor to divest Western ideas and history of their universal validity, because we
should not forget that they are also products of particular political and intellectual
traditions.356 We are not alone in this attempt, however, for Chakrabarty rightly points
out that “No major Western thinker, for instance, has publicly shared Francis
Fukuyama’s ‘vulgarized Hegelian historicism’ that saw in the fall of the Berlin wall a
common end for the history of all human beings.”357 There is no more reason to swallow
the so-called “uninterrupted Greek-European intellectual genealogy” hook-line-and-
sinker.358 More informed people now know that it is nothing but a wishful thinking or
merely a fabrication.
351Rieger, Globalization, 15. Cf. also Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, xiii.

352He opines that these two “do not go together, and it is no accident that Jesus reject the devil’s offer to
rule over ‘all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor’ (Matt. 4:8-10).” Rieger, Globalization, 17.
353According to Rieger, “When Paul called Jesus ‘Lord’ he made use of one of the key titles of the Roman
emperor. Using this title in such a politically charged setting would only make sense if it were deliberately
subversive, especially since other titles would have been readily available… The only reason to call Jesus
‘Lord’ was to point out the difference between Jesus and the emperor; Paul must have seen Jesus modeling
a different sort of leadership and a different kind of power.” Ibid., 18.
354Rieger claims that “Whereas the Roman Emperor led the top down, Paul understood that Jesus led from
the bottom.” Rieger, Globalization, 18.

355He says, “Christ continues to assert a different reality.” Rieger, Christ and Empire, 1.
356Thus, he calls for a re-framing of perspective: “European history [should] no longer [be] seen as
embodying anything like a ‘universal human history.’ Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe e, xiii, 3. Cf. also
Oscar Halecki, The Limits and Divisions of European History (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame,
1962), chapter 2 and passim.
357Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 3. Cf. also Michael Roth, “The Nostalgic Nest at the End of History,”
in Ironist’s Cage: Memory, Trauma and the Construction of History (New York: Columbia University,
1995),163-174.
358Chakrabarty Provincializing Europe, 5. “Martin Bernal, Samir Amin, and others”, as cited by Chakrabarty,
“have justly criticized the claim of European thinkers that such an unbroken tradition ever existed or that
it could even properly be called ‘European’. The point, however, is that, fabrication or not, this is the
genealogy of thought in which social scientists find themselves inserted.” Ibid. Cf. Martin Bernal, The Black
Athena: The Afro-asiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, vol. 1 (London: Vintage, 1991); Samir Amin,
Eurocentrism, trans., Russel Moore (New York: Zed, 1989), 91-92, on “the myths of Greek ancestry.”
Chakrabarty understands that several of Bernal’s claims are being disputed in contemporary scholarship.
66
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
Western universalism, which we are trying to overcome now, is spawned, according

to Chakrabarty, by the so-called ‘historicism’ that has propagated “the idea that to
understand anything it has to be seen both as a unity and [a] historical development.”359
Sad to say, the “White Western World” has for centuries assumed the role of the
“almighty unifier.” This has lead European intellectual luminaries, like Karl Marx, to
claim “that the country that is more developed industrially [i.e., Europe] only shows, to
the less developed, the image of its own future.”360 Moreover, according to Chakrabarty,
‘historicism’ is the inspiration behind Phyllis Deane’s unapologetic declaration that the
first industrial revolution took place in England.361 Maundelbaum could not agree more.
For indeed, ‘historicism’ has elevated European history to the level of the ‘universality’
whence peripheral histories are gauged and validated.362 Western history has arrogated
itself as THE HISTORY, if we may use the word, with the help of Western philosophy
and philosophers, like Edmund Husserl who asserted that “the fundamental difference
between ‘oriental philosophies’ (more specifically, Indian and Chinese) and ‘Greek-
European science’ (or as he added, ‘universally speaking: philosophy’) was the capacity
of the latter to produce ‘absolute theoretical insights,’ that is ‘theoria (universal science),’
whereas the former retained a ‘practical-universal,’ and hence ‘mythical-religious,’
character.”363 This is like saying that Europe provides the basic core of history or the
“theoretical skeleton” while the rest of the world has no other business but to simply
provide the “empirical flesh” needed to validate the former’s substantial centrality.364
This reminds us again of the incident aforementioned about the “imagined” difficulty of
pursuing philosophy and theology in Filipino language, because there is no exact
translation for the concept of Being. So, we ask the question: can we not proceed with
philosophy without necessarily starting from the question of Being? Roque Ferriols, S.J.,
one of the most ardent promoters of Filipino Philosophy, claims that it is possible to
philosophize in our language and it is not imperative that we always have to find an
exact translation of western concepts for us to understand reality in its deepest causes
and reasons. In fact, he asserts, and any educated mind would agree to him, that
philosophizing in a particular language, unrestrained by strict western
conceptualizations, opens an entirely new world and a whole new possibility to explore
the mystery of what we call reality. Thus, Ferriols offers that, instead of finding the exact
equivalent of Being in Tagalog, we can make use of the word Meron, because this concept
speaks about what is already there as opposed to wala (i.e., nothing).365 Is it not possible
to do theology outside the parameters of logos? In response to this query, Lope Lesigues
But his point about the contributions made by non-Greek persons to so-called “Greek” thought cannot be
concealed from public view.
359Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 6.
360This was quoted by Chakrabarty in his book. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 7. Cf. also Ben Fowkes,
trans., “Preface to the First Edition” in Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1 (London:
Harmonds, 1990), 91. My brackets.
361Fowkes, “Preface.” Cf. Phyllis Deane, The First Industrial Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University,
1979).
362Maurice Maundelbaum, History, Man and Reason (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1971), 42. Quoted in
Frank. R. Ankersmit, “Historicism: An Attempt at Synthesis,” History and Theory 36 (1995): 143-161.
363Cited by Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 29. Cf. Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences
and Transcendental Philosophy, trans. David Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1970), 281-285.
364Ibid. He claims that this endeavor cannot in the form of “cultural relativism.” Ibid.
365Cf. Roque Ferriols, S.J., Pambungad sa Metapisika (Quezon City: Office Research and Publication, Ateneo
de Manila University, 1991).
67
SAMBAYANIHAN
wrote a whole doctoral dissertation, with the inspiration of Mikhail Bakhtin, exploring
the possibility of doing theology by using the concept of ludens or play. 366
Howard Zinn may have come from a different context than Chakrabarty, but his
advice may enlighten us in our efforts to decentralize historical, theological and
ecclesiological conversation from formerly established centers of power, because he
clearly underlines the “need to become critics of the culture rather than its apologists
and perpetrators.”367 Assuming a critical stance, however, is not total rejection of
Enlightenment rationalism, because it also has its merits.368 What needs to be done,
instead, according to Chakrabarty, is the re-inscription of “the ambivalences,
contradictions, the use of force, the tragedies and ironies” that littered what we now see
as the history of modernity.369
Considering the fact that modern rationalism cannot (i.e., not possible to turn back
time, undo the past and expel the whiteness of history and philosophy) and should not
(i.e., not completely abandoning western history and philosophy because they also have
their own value) be totally obliterated then we must admit, although in an unyielding
stance, that it is true that to provincialize Europe is almost an im-possible task.370
Chakrabarty suggests that, in this context, we need to assume a “politics of despair.” 371
He truthfully notes:
This is a history that will attempt the impossible to look toward its own death by tracing that
which resists and escapes the best human effort at translation across cultural and other
semiotic systems, so that the world may once again be imagined as radically heterogeneous.
This, as I have said, is impossible within the knowledge protocols of academic history, for
the globality of academia is not independent of the globality that the European modern has
created.372
This seems, indeed, to be a daunting task for us but there is no other way to move
forward than to be critical of what we traditionally consider to be modern and objective
as we carefully re-populate the history with varied voices that shall enrich our view of
the contemporary global landscape.373 We must re-claim our rightful place in the world
and there is no other option but to traverse the waters of trans-colonial remembrance
amidst and against the treacherous and powerful undercurrent of Eurocentrism or
Western universalism. Zinn, as if speaking as a contemporary of Chakrabarty,
underscores that “The point is not to omit the viewpoint of the privileged (that dominates
the field anyway), but to remind us forcibly that there is always a tendency, now and
then, to see history from the top.”374 Of course, we acknowledge the fact that the
privileged point of view that we are talking about here is not only limited to western
366Cf. Lope Lesigues, “Liberative Theoludics: Mikhail Bakhtin’s Challenge to the Play-World of Skholé and
Agon,” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Theology, KU Leuven, 2004).
369Ibid.
370This brings to mind Derrida’s critique of Nancy that one can never totally deconstruct Christianity
without entering into the logic of Christianity. Nancy’s apocalyptic vision of the history of Christianity still
is articulated, unbeknownst to him, in a heavily Christian terminology.
371Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 45. Cf. also Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Postcoloniality and the Artifice of
History: Who Speaks for Indian Pasts?”, in Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Padminis
Mongia (London: Arnold, 1997), 223-47.
372Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 45-46.
373Howard Zinn opines, “Unless we wrench free from being what we like to call ‘objective,’ we are closer
psychologically, whether we like to admit it or not, to the executioner than to the victim.” Zinn, Politics of
History, loc., 885.
68
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
colonial thought but also extends to non-western “Grand Narratives” that overshadow
the stories of those in the fringes. Besides, even in the western context, we know that
there are ‘downtrodden’ people who are lamentably silenced by the more powerful
personalities and who also need to be heard.
I.6. The Role of Intercultural Philosophy or “Polylogue” in Overcoming

Eurocetrism
The task we have elaborated above, we believe, can be better enlightened by

Intercultural Philosophy. To identify specific philosophical personalities as main
trailblazers of intercultural thought, however, presents itself as an impossible
undertaking, because if we examine closely the complex history of philosophy we shall
discover that it is punctuated by intellectuals who, in one way or another (more
elaborate or not), have touched upon or introduced an approach that would bear some
elements of interculturality. And, speaking of interculturality, it is not surprising that
their respective notions of this concept exhibit various idiosyncrasies precipitated by
their contexts or various personal backgrounds. Despite the multifariousness of their
views, they may be seen as converging in terms of their conviction regarding the
relevance, practically speaking, of such as approach. Given their contextuality and
historicity, each of the so-called “fathers and mothers” of intercultural philosophy gives
his or her own ruminations on how “this perspective” would enlighten us in dealing with
the issue of globalization and migration.
Hamid Reza Yousefi, a German philosopher who espouses intercultural
philosophy, suggests that intercultural philosophy can already be discerned in Karl
Jaspers who, on his part, can be credited to be “the originator” of what can be considered
as the “open concept” of “world history of philosophy” which attempted to reach out to
issues that went beyond the confines of what is perceived as the West.375 Jaspers posits
that a philosophy which is dialogic must strive to fulfill the “requisites that enable
universal communication.”376 What does this task entail then? In this framework,
Jaspers suggests that a movement “through the setting sun of European philosophy
and through twilight of our time” to the direction of the “sunrise of a world philosophy”
is necessarily part of this philosophical journey.377 We need to mention here, however,
that prior to this proposal of Jaspers he was also espousing what can be referred to as
a “Eurocentric philosophy”.378 The shift from his former way of looking at things to the
new one was, indeed, a gradual process.
Aside from Jaspers, we can also consider the philosophies of Liebniz, Wolff,
Schelling and Schopenhauer as contributory to the flourishing of intercultural
philosophy. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, on his part, argued for the “commensurability”
of European and Chinese concepts of “ethics and politics”.379 By assuming such a
“comparative view” Liebniz paved the way towards recognition, although still in a
rudimentary way, of the validity of other cultural perspectives. Christian Wolff had, in
375Hamid Reza Yousefi, “On the Theory and Practice of Intercultural Philoyophy,” On Community and Civil
Society, 12 no.47/48 (2007 ): 116.
376Karl Jaspers, Philosophische Autobiographie (1953), new expanded ed., trans. Hamid Reza Yousefi
(Munich, 1977) 122.

377Karl Jaspers, Rechenschaft und Ausblick. Reden und Aufsätze (1951).(Munich, 1958), 391. See also Karl
Jaspers, Philosophische Autobiographie (1953) new expanded ed., trans; Hamid Reza Yousefi (Munich, 1977,
122.
378Karl Jaspers, Weltgeschichte der Philosophie, ed. H. Saner (Munich 1982), 56.
379Cf. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Das Neuste von China (1967), Novissima Sinica, .ed; and trans. H.G.
Nesselrath & H. Reinbothe (Cologne: German China-Society, 1979), 11.
69
SAMBAYANIHAN
one way or another, promoted interculturality by extolling the validity of significance or

the validity of Chinese philosophy wherein he endeavored to “work with the basic ideas
from the classic works using his own criteria, arranging and assessing them and making
them fertile for his own considerations.”380 Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, in his
own way, was also advocating for interculturality by positing that “the truly general
philosophy… [must never be conceived as] the property of a single nation”.381 Moreover,
he argued that “as long as any philosophy does not exceed the confines of a single
people, it can be confidently assumed that it is not the true one.”382 Arthur
Schopenhauer, although not to be uncritically understood despite his serious
consideration of the religious, ethical and metaphysical merits of the complex Indian
tradition, can also be considered as a “catalyst” in the development of intercultural
philosophy because of his interest in Eastern worldview, such as Buddhism, which
became the source of his famous introductory line “The world is my representation”. 383
These philosophers, like Jaspers, may have not deliberately endorsed interculturality or
intercultural philosophy but they can be seen as sowing the seeds for the flourishing or
creating the tiny sparks for the flame of intercultural worldview.
Certainly, we cannot also disregard those who went the other way; thereby,
preserving or even fortifying Eurocentrism which we have already mentioned earlier, the
likes of Hegel who assigned sole proprietorship to the West of “historical awareness or
historical thinking” as he unabashedly likened the impossibility of the nature of an
African to “the soul of the dog”;384 Husserl who believed in the “uniqueness” of Europe
“which all other human groups perceive about us as that which, beyond the perspective
of usefulness, motivates them, despite an unbroken will to philosophic self-preservation,
to Europeanize themselves… I suppose we feel (and in all vagueness there is good reason
for this feeling) that an entelechy has been born into our European humanity which
pervades the changing European character and lends the sense of an eternal guiding
light to the development of an ideal form of life and being;” 385 and Heidegger who,
convinced of the “purity European philosophy and science,” declared that “For this
reason, the [Europeans] are capable today of lending a particular influence all over the
380Christian Wolff, Oratorio de Senarum philosophia practica (Speech Regarding Chinese Practical
Philosophy), ed. and trans. M. Albrecht (Hamburg, 1985), lxvii. Cf. also Yousefi, “On the Theory and
Practice,” 111.
381Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, “Zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie,” in: Münchener Vorlesungen
(Darmstadt 1959), 170.

382Ibid.
383Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1, trans. E.F.J. Payne (New York: Dover,
1969), 3. Cf. Ram Adhar Mall, “Wie indisch ist das Indienbild Schopenhauers?,” Schopenhauer Jahrbuch
76(1955): 151-172.
384Hegel declared that “for us, Africa is faceless and unreceptive, still in the clutches of a natural Spirit just
needing to be brought to the threshold of world history.” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosophie der
Weltgeschichte, ed. Georg Lasson, vol; 1 (Leipzig ,1944), 224. In what can be seen as a racist statement
nowadays, Hegel argued that “real philosophy [begins] in the Occident. The freedom of self-awareness
blossoms in the West, while natural awareness wilts and the spirit is plowed under. Contrary to the Orient,
the individual all but disappears; it is as if light in the West becomes the lightening of thought which strikes
itself and creates thereby its own world.” He also strongly stated that “With the entrance of Christian
principles, the world has become ripe for philosophy. The Earth, which Europeans know is round, has been
traversed by our ships; what we have not yet subjugated is either destined still to be conquered or else not
worth the effort.” Cf. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte.,
eds. Gerd Irrlitz and Karin Gurst, vol. 1 (Berlin, 1984), 96. Heinz Kimmerle criticised Hegel’s philosophical
perspective: see Heinz Kimmerle, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel interkulturell gelesen (Nordhausen, 2005).
Cf. also Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte (Hamburg,
1955), 763. Cf. also Yousefi, “On the Theory and Practice,” 112.
385Edmund Husserl, “Die Krisis des Europäischen Menschentums und die Philosophie,” in: Die Krisis der
europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die

phänomenologische Philosophie, vol. VI (Den Haag: Husserliana, 1962), 320. Cf. also Yousefi, “On the Theory
and Practice,” 113.
70
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
world to the history of mankind.”386 Surprisingly, in the present time, even with the
widespread acceptance of interculturality, we still have some thinkers like Günther
Patzig (died on February 2, 2018) who represents the Eurocentric positions held by the
aforementioned philosophers. Patzig strongly contends that “philosophy” is “only
conceivable as Western philosophy”.387 Another thinker who adamantly fought for the
superiority of Western philosophy in the recent history was Carl Friedrich von Weizäcker
who lived between the years 1912 and 2007. According to him, “I think it is fair to say
that I have yet to encounter philosophy as it has developed here and in Greece – it is a
Greek invention – at all in East Asia and only in rudimentary form in India…Their ideas,
insofar as I have been able to assimilate them, seem to me the thoughts of very
intelligent people who have interpreted what they have experienced, but it is not really
philosophy in the sense of the word the way I learned it.”388
The contemporary proponents of Intercultural thought are Raúl Fornet-
Betancourt, Heinz Kimmerle, Ram Adhar Mall, Franz Martin Wimmer, and J. E. Castillo.
Fornet-Betancourt who collaborates with other philosophers from other cultural
backgrounds pursues his interest in Latin-American philosophy which is aimed at
promoting intercultural philosophical approach towards an overcoming of Eurocentrism
which, unfortunately, still dominates the world.389 It is of paramount importance to him
that the diversity of cultures of the entire human race must be taken in account which
should include a critical consideration of the past and a creative “redesigning” of what
is experienced in the present in order to allow variety not only to flourish but also to be
duly recognized, respected and appreciated.390 Kimmerle promotes a “dialogic” approach
in philosophical enterprise wherein the “complete equality” among the dialogue
partners” are observed. He argues that philosophy must also adapt interculturality in
order for it to retain its “practical relevance”.391 One of the important “instruments” for
such an intercultural approach can be harnessed from the “philosophy of art”. 392 Ram
Adhar Mall is a professor of intercultural philosophy and hermeneutics who straddles
between the “insider’s” and the ‘outsider’s” views in his philosophical task owing to his
Indian cultural background and Western educational pedigree.393 His notion of
interculturality entails “overlapping of cultures” that have no existence outside the web
of relationality. No culture, for him, exists in a vacuum. With the idea of multiple
“overlappings” the cultures of others can be understood “analogously” despite their
386Martin Heidegger, Was ist das – die Philosophie? (1955) (Pfullingen, 1972), 7. Cf. also Yousefi, “On the
Theory and Practice,” 113.
387Cf. Joachim Schickel, ed., Grenzenbeschreibung: Gespräche mit Philosophen (Hamburg: Margherita von
Brentano, 1980, 194. Yousefi, “On the Theory and Practice,” 117.
388Cf. Schickel, Grenzenbeschreibung, 194. Yousefi, “On the Theory and Practice,” 117.
389He who was born and raised in Cuba and has served as a professor in the area of philosophy and
missiology in Germany. Cf. Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, “Philosophical Presuppositions of Intercultural

Dialogue,” Polylog: Platform for Intercultural Philosophy, https://them.polylog.org/1/ffr-en.htm [accessed
May 22, 2018].
390In his article entitled Teoría y Praxis de la Filosofía Intercultural, he summarizes his main arguments by
saying “Historicity in nowdays a central element of today's philosophical thought. However, intercultural
philosophy problematizes this perspective on historicity as a Western model of logos built for the distinction
between integrated and excluded people in History. Thus, intercultural philosophy advocates the
reconstruction of a temporarily pluralistic universality constructed on the basis of intercultural dialogue as
a mechanism for the enlargement of the world. Such enlargement is meant trough a contextual philosophy
without falling into relativism but finding universality in a common horizon of co-dignity able to affirm the
normative conviction of a dialogued intercultural encounter.” Raúl Fornet Betancourt, “Teoría y Praxis de
la Filosofía Intercultural,” Recerca, http://www.e-revistes.uji.es/index.php/recerca/article/view/1925
391Cf. Heinz Kimmerle, Die Dimension des Interkulturellen.( Amsterdam: Rodopi,1994).
392Ibid.
393Cf. Ram Adhar Mall, Intercultural Philosophy (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000).
71
SAMBAYANIHAN
difference. For him, no one particular perspective should lay claim of absoluteness in
theory and/or in practice.394 Franz Martin Wimmer, on his part, advocates for a
liberation from the Eurocentric view that has infected the concept of philosophy. He
argues that interculturality must pervade all philosophical quests even if, as of the
moment, it is still not the norm.395 For him, the time is ripe for a re-writing of the “history
of philosophical thought”; one that factors in all other traditions that exist outside the
scope of what is designated as Western or Occidental. With this in mind, he has
proposed some means to facilitate what he refers to as “polylogues” or “intercultural
dialogues.”396 Jorge Castillo, a theologian who is based in Nijmegen, considers
interculturality an important aspect in his theological endeavor. As an abstract he
provided for an article that he has written on the topic of migration, he mentions that
his “work analyzes the meaning of transformations in both the identity and the faith of
migrants and asks about the impact of human mobility on Theology and the changes
undergone by Theology when it grasps such phenomenon. This research is intended to
provide an answer to these demands on the basis of an analysis of an intercultural and
transnational approach to human mobility, as well as of the processes of both religion-
and-identity-related transformations. Likewise, it analyzes how both transformations
give rise to an intercultural transformation of Theology, which has been named
‘Theology of Migration.’”397 In order to facilitate “intercultural dialogues,” otherwise
known as “polylogues”, Elmar Holenstein and Gregor Paul propose their respective
versions of “rules of thumb”.
For Holenstein, a philosopher from Switzerland, it is important that the following
“rules” are to be observed properly in order for a successful intercultural understanding
to be achieved:398 First, one should never consider thoughts belonging to other cultures
or tradition as either “alogical” or “prelogical” or even “illogical” when they do not fall
under the same “logical category or standard” as the one espoused by a person trying
to understand. One must suspend his/her judgment because he/she must have only
misunderstood the others. Second, a distinction must be done in identifying what falls
under logical rationality and what falls under “teleology” because people’s intention or
purpose is not always expressed in a rational manner. Third, instead of immediately
judging other cultures, it is better to start with an assessment of one’s knowledge, as
well as of one’s judgment, whether it is well-founded or not. Fourth, the “nos-qouque”
rule which entails an awareness of the fact that what is seen as “unacceptable” as far
as one views an unfamiliar culture may also be present, sometimes even in worse forms,
in one’s own culture, whether in the past or in the present. Fifth, the “vos-quoque” rule
which allows one to consider that what is “unacceptable” for him/her may also be
394Mall, Intercultural Philosophy. Cf. also Ram Adhar Mall, Philosophie im Vergleich der Kulturen.
Interkulturelle Philosophie – Eine neue Orientierung (Darmstadt, 1995), 7.
395Franz Martin Wimmer, Interkulturelle Philosophie (Vienna: UTB, 2004).
396Cf. Franz Martin Wimmer, “Poylogues on Conflicting Values – the Role of Cultural Centrism,”
https://www.slideshare.net/ARGE-Bildungsmanagement/wimmer-franz-martin-polylog-between-
conflicting-values [accessed May 20, 2018].
397Jorge E. Castillo Guerra, “Theology of Migration: Human Mobility and Theological Transformations,”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317505887_Theology_of_Migration_Human_Mobility_and_The
ological_Transformations [accessed May 20, 2018]. A Spanish version of this article was made available in
Theologia Xavieriana. Cf. Jorge E. Castillo Guerra, “Teología de la migración: movilidad humana y
transformaciones teológicas,” in Theologia Xavieriana 63 no.176(2013):367-401.
398Elmar Holenstein, “A Dozen Rules of Thumb for Avoiding Intercultural Misunderstandings,” trans. D.
Goodwin, Polylog: Platform for Intercultural Philosophy, https://them.polylog.org/4/ahe-en.htm [accessed

May 20, 2018]. Cf. also Jorge E. Castillo Guerra, “An opportunity to foster inter-Christian reciprocity: The
View from ‘World Christianity’ and ‘the Next Christendom’,” in The Decline of Established Christianity in the
Western World: interpretations and responses (Studies in World Christianity and Interreligious Relations), ed.
P.S. Peterson (New York: Routledge, 2017), 189-201.
72
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
regarded in the same way in other cultures. Sixth, one must avoid “crypto-racism” which
comes to the fore whenever one is threatened. One must avoid unfairly analyzing other
cultures in order to assert one’s superiority. Seventh, consider members of other
cultures as fellow research or dialogue partners who have the same rights as “I”. One
must neither treat them as objects nor as means to one’s end, even in the area of
research. Eighth, one must avoid either overestimation or underestimation of oneself in
comparison to others. Ninth, the “ontology-deontology” rule which entails an
appropriate valorization of what is only perceived as an acceptable behavior proper to
only one particular vantage point and what really “is”. Tenth, avoid polarization brought
about by simplification or exaggeration, which may also lead to exclusivity and
absolutism, by a comparative view of more than just two cultures. Eleventh, one must
never look at a particular culture as homogeneous or uni-linear. Twelfth, one must
accept the unfathomable depth of mystery wherein one will never be able to arrive at
definitive or even satisfactory answers to one’s questions regarding one’s cultures and
others’ as well.
In a 16-fold rule, Gregor Paul, a philosopher whose interests include the area of
comparative philosophy, elaborated on how intercultural philosophy can be successfully
undertaken.399 He opines that it is important that: 1) similarities must not only be
determined but must also be made clear; 2) differences must be brought to the fore and
must be, as much as possible, clearly elaborated; 3) prejudices must be educated or
must be properly utilized; 4) one must not resort to a process that involves either
mystification or exocitism of one’s culture and of others’ as well; 5) one must always be
open to the idea that universal or logical laws do exist. 6) comparison of equalities can
be done but committing “category mistakes” must be avoided; 7) generalizations
certainly must be averted; 8) a particular aspect of a tradition must never be equated to
the entirety of the tradition; 9) universal validity is to be seen as heuristic in nature; 10)
there are “anthropological constants” that must be accepted as a reality; 11) issues
pertaining to similarities and dissimilarities must be justifiably identified;12) whatever
concept of philosophy that underlies or organizes/structures one’s perspective must be
exposed; 13) the temptation to be ethnocentric or Eurocentric in one’s view must be
avoided; 14) the conventional labels, such as West or East, must only be used as
“abbreviation” for those philosophies that are formulated in those respective
geographical regions; 15) multidisciplinarity of important examples or illustrations must
be brought in the table of conversation; and 16) contextuality must always be explicated.
Our various elaborations on the issue of intercultural dialogue and intercultural
philosophy bring to mind what Yousefi says about Intercultural philosophy. He
surmises that this “new culture of philosophizing” concerns “a science of peace” because
it endeavors to bring forth “a common level of respect between representatives of various
worldviews, cultures, religions, philosophies and scientific conceptions”.400 In other
words, it aims at having a “mutually beneficial dialogue”.401 In order to make this a
reality, one must be cognizant of the reality that people, such as philosophers, are
“thrown” in particular “homelands” imbued with contextual values and conceptions of
identities. Being aware of this, philosophers, as well as any dialogue partners in an
intercultural milieu, will make “positioned positionlessness of philosophy”402 as a
permanent stance. Against this background, Ninian Smart argues for the use of the
plural form of the word, i.e., ‘philosophies’. According to him, “a number of Western
399Gregor Paul, Einführung in die Interkulturelle Philosophie (Darmstadt: WBG, 2008).

400Yousefi, “On the Theory and Practice,” 105 and 106.
401Ibid., 105.
402Ibid.
73
SAMBAYANIHAN
philosophers use the singular only to refer to a particular kind of Western

philosophy.”403
Although Intercultural Philosophy is conceived to be embodying a “science” that
entails “peace”, one must not be oblivious of its “orientation towards conflict”. Conflicts
will always be part of a dialogue or conversation, especially when there are non-
reconcilable differences. There is no such thing as “perfect fit”. Polylogue is, indeed,
about making sense of unity amidst diversity. Shying away from conflicts should not be
considered as the best solution, no matter how difficult the situation is. Conflicts may
also be considered as “blessings in disguise” because, Yousefi contends, they open up
“new forms of interactions between partners or contributions to discourses that
previously had no contact, as well as lending strength to the inner cohesion.”404 On that
note, Yousefi avers that “Intercultural philosophy fulfils a double function. As a science
of peace it also performs an informative, enlightening purpose: the emancipation of
humankind from its conscious or unconscious lack of reflection about other peoples,
cultures, religions, philosophies and scientific conceptions.”405 For this to truly take
place, however, people involved in this endeavor must address the problem of
asymmetry in power relations. As long as there exists a dominant center that renders
powerless those in the peripheries and imposes its universal validity any effort towards
intercultural dialogue will prove to be futile or ineffective. Thus, efforts at remediating
the issue of equity or symmetry must be had because it is the only guarantee for
genuinely poly-historical/cultural dialogue. Intercultural philosophy, thus, is a science
that attempts to move the discourse from monologue to polylogue.
Having said all this, we argue that intercultural dialogue is, indeed, a very
important heuristic device for this dissertation which hopes to achieve not only a trans-
colonial and trans-cultural presentation of the subject matter in a trans-disciplinary
manner within the limits set by this current study. We are profoundly aware of the
deficiencies in our attempt to pursue such an undertaking because we have made the
case of the Filipino migrants, especially in Western Europe, as the focal point for this
research project. We are of the opinion, however, that intercultural thought or dialogue
or philosophy is implied in our discussions on the issue of Eurocentrism vis-à-vis the
attempt to “provincialize” Europe, historicism vis-à-vis the arguments of Enrique
Dussel, intercultural/trans-cultural inculturation in the area of liturgy, the adaption of
Boszormenyi-Nagy’s “multi-directed partiality”, and the exposition of the various Basic
Ecclesial Communities that flourished in the different parts of the planet. We accept
that we still have a long way towards an achievement of a truly “polylogical” theological
conversation, because we still have a lot of historical and contextual baggage that we
cannot simply shake off. We still have a lot of things to learn in this area but we, despite
our insecurities and fear of the unfamiliar, will do our best not to shy away from the
challenge of what is referred to as polylogue. We know that, somehow because of our
prejudices and the “undesirable way of trying to be understood” that we have imbibed
through time we, especially as a cleric or an academician, we also take part in the
403Ninian Smart, Weltgeschichte des Denkens. Die geistigen Traditionen der Menschheit (Darmstadt, 2002),
15. English translation is from: Ninian Smart, “Preface,” in: World Philosophies (Routledge, London 1999),
vii.
404Yousefi, “On the Theory and Practice,” 124.
405Ibid.
74
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
perpetuation of violence whether in practical or theoretical forms. Hopefully, we shall

overcome this as the conversation progresses.
I.7. The “Death or Eclipsed of God” Exposed: A Discussion on the Various

Manifestations of Secularization
We would like to caution our readers, however, that the expressions “death of God”
and “eclipse of God” must be understood in a proper perspective. Even if progressive
secularization in Europe is clearly visible, hence undeniable, the phenomenon is
contestably uneven.406 According to an article published in The British Journal of
Sociology by Loek Halman and Veerle Draulans, the “trajectories” of secularization in
Europe, although they occur in all corners of this continent, are of varying speed.407
There is definitely more than the “death” or “eclipse’ than meets the eye which we
associate with the issue of secularization. Undoubtedly, secularization cannot be simply
reduced to the significant decrease in Church attendance and the apparent
unpopularity of or indifference towards traditionally held Christian beliefs and
teachings. We cannot reduce people’s spirituality or religiosity to mere adherence to the
traditional teachings of the Catholic Church, or Christianity.
The late Peter Berger, an American sociologist born in Austria who was also a
Protestant theologian, once stated that
“The key idea of secularization theory is simple and can be traced to the Enlightenment:
Modernization necessarily leads to a decline of religion, both in society and in the minds of
individuals. It is precisely this key idea that has turned out to be wrong. To be sure,
modernization has had some secularizing effects, more in some places than in others. But
it has also provoked powerful movements of counter-secularization. Also, secularization on
the societal level is not necessarily linked to secularization on the level of individual
consciousness. Thus, certain religious institutions have lost power and influence in many
societies, but both old and new religious beliefs and practices have nevertheless continued
in the lives of individuals, sometimes taking new institutional forms and sometimes leading
to great explosions of religious fervor. Conversely, religiously-identified institutions can
play social or political roles even when very few people believe or practice the religion
supposedly represented by these institutions. To say the least, the relation between religion
and modernity is rather complicated.”408
Secularization, for him, is “value-free” in principle.409 He claims that it can either be

perceived as positive or negative, depending on who is looking at it. It can be a good
thing for those who are subscribing to the framework of Enlightenment or for those who
are considered to be espousing progressive mentality. Secularization, for them, exorcizes
the world that is afflicted with “backwardness and superstitions.”410 To those belonging
to the other side of the spectrum, secularization is bad news. It is a monster that they
need to grapple with, if not get rid of no matter what it takes. Thus, some resort to
preposterous strategies simply to eliminate the perceived enemy. But, of course, we
406Cf. Jose Cassanova, “Beyond European and American Exceptionalisms: Toward a Global Perspective,” in
Predicting Religion, eds. G. Davie, P. Helas and Linda Woodhead (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 17-29. Cf. also
Jose Cassanova, “Catholic Poland in Post-Christian Europe,” Institute for Human Sciences.
http://www.iwm.at/transit/transit-online/catholic-poland-in-post-christian-europe/ [accessed March 8,
2018].
407Loek Halman and Veerle Draulans, “How Secular is Europe?” The British Journal of Sociology 57, no.
2(2006): 169-343.
408Peter L. Berger, “Secularism in Retreat,” The National Interest 46 (1996): 3.
409Ibid.
410Ibid.
75
SAMBAYANIHAN
should not forget that the world is not just either black or white. There are some who in
varying degrees fall between the two extremes. In fact, it would not be a grave mistake
to conclude that most of the people belong to this third group.
According to the 2010 Eurobarometer survey there is an average of 51% who stated
among the EU citizens that they “believe that there is a God”, while 26% noted that they
“believe there is some sort of spirit or life force,” 20% said they “don’t believe there is
any sort of spirit, God or life force,” and 3% did not give an answer. In a study that was
done by Mattei Dogan entitled “Religious Beliefs in Europe: Factors of Accelerated
Decline”, it was mentioned that 47% of the French people had veered towards
agnosticism as of 2003.411 Amidst these numerical data presented to us in these studies,
one cannot deny that there is still a considerably high level of what is referred to as
“private individual religious beliefs” in Europe.412 As far as church attendance is
concerned, in contrast to the 40-60 percent of the faithful who went to mass in the mid-
19th century, only 10 percent of those considered to be baptized as of 2007 had gone to
church at least once a week in Britain.413 In 2004, the “weekly attendance at religious
services is below 10% in France and Germany, while in Belgium, the Netherlands,
Luxembourg” was reported by Gallup to range between 10 to 15 percent.414 Only two
countries are considered to be outliers in the so-called European trend with 54% weekly
church attendance in Ireland415 and in Poland, 37 %.416 As reported by Radio Poland,
as provided by the Catholic Church Statistics Institute, there has been a 3 % decrease
of attendance as compared to the year 2015. On the merit of this study, the head of the
said Institute, Father Wojciech Sadłoń, contends that “Polish Catholicism is stable”.417
He substantiates his claim by adding that still “about 93% of the Poles declares
themselves to be Catholics.”418 He also adds that in comparison to Western Europe,
Poland can still be regarded as a “highly religious country” which may be likened to the
case of those countries in the Eastern European block with Orthodox Christian
tradition.419 In contrast to Poland and Ireland which are judged as “the most religious
countries of Europe,” Cassanova avers that East Germany leads the pack in the march
towards deceleration of religiosity alongside the Scandinavian Countries and the Czech
Republic.420 Moreover, according to him, it can still be safely assumed that “with the
exception of France and the Czech Republic, Catholic countries still tend to be more
religious than Protestant or mixed countries.”421 He is of the opinion that
“even though the drastic secularization of post-World War II Western Europe may be an
incontrovertible fact, the standard explanations of the phenomenon in terms of general
411Mattei Dogan, “Religious Beliefs in Europe: Factors of Accelerated Decline,” in Research in the Social
Scientific Study of Religion, vol. 14, eds. Ralph L. Piedmont and David O. Moberg (Leiden/Boston: Brill,
2003), 161-188.
412Grace Davie, Religion in Modern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
413Robert Manchin, “Religion in Europe: Trust Not Filling the Pews,” Sept. 21, 2004,
www.gallup.com/poll/13117/religion-europe-trust-filling-pews.aspx [accessed July 6, 2017].
414Manchin, “Religion in Europe.”
415Ibid. See also Ryan T. Cragun, “The Declining Significance in Religion in Ireland,” in Values and Identities
in Europe: Evidence from the European Social Survey, Routledge Advances in Sociology, ed. M. J. Breen (UK:
Routledge: 2017), 17-35.
416Cf. Radio Poland, “Church Attendance Drops Slightly in Poland,” 5 May 2018,
http://www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/342928,Church-attendance-drops-slightly-in-Poland [accessed
May 18, 2018].
417Ibid.
418Ibid.
419Ibid.
420
Cassanova, “Catholic Poland in Post-Christian Europe.”
421Ibid.
76
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
process of modernization, by reference to either increasing institutional differentiation,

increasing rationality, or of other similar processes of modernization elsewhere (in the
United States, or in the other cultural areas of other world religions) are not accompanied
by the same secularizing results.”422
Steve Bruce, one of the leading figures in the area of sociology who is convinced of the
incontrovertible fact of secularization, admits that defining secularization is never an
easy task.423 He, however, outlines the discernible phenomena associated with
secularization by employing Bryan Wilson’s descriptions:424
“the decay of religious institutions; the displacement, in matters of behavior, of religious
rules and principles by demands that accord with strictly technical criteria; the
sequestration by political powers of the property and facilities of religious agencies; the
replacement of specifically religious consciousness (which might range from dependence
on charms, rites, spells, or prayers, to a broadly spiritually inspired ethical concern) by an
empirical, rational, instrumental orientation; the shift from religious to secular control of
variety of social activities and functions; the decline in the proportion of their time, energy,
and resources that people devote to supernatural concerns.”425
By providing these “indicators”, nevertheless, he is not naïve to the possibility or even

the fact of having in a highly secularized society some people who still adhere to some
religious traditions or who regard religion and its ritual profoundly influential to their
lives. This does not change the fact, though, that the world has been witnessing a steady
and massive decline of religious influence which goes together with the plummeting of
the number of people who participate in the traditional rituals of religious institutions.
In view of Bruce’s claim, we tried to investigate in the world wide web the causes
for secularization in Europe and we stumbled upon a site wherein Reddit asks some
historians what could be the reason behind the phenomenon? The questions posed by
Reddit went like these: “Why and how did Sweden/Norway/Denmark/the UK/the
Netherlands/Belgium get so secular over the 20th century? Considering most of these
states had an official church and almost all of them funded at least some religious
groups with public money and still do, how did they get to be some of the least religious
countries in the world over the 20th century? Did the World Wars have anything to do
with this? If not, when did the population start to shift away from religious belief?”426
The responses to the query were in no way monolithic. One explained that one of
the many causes of secularization in Belgium was the “state-controlled” scholastic
curriculum all over the country which was “a compromise between the catholic party
and liberal party in the 19th century after The First School War.”427 Obviously, according
to the respondent, this made “indoctrination” impossible. Another reply focused on the
422Cassanova, “Catholic Poland in Post-Christian Europe.”

423Cf. Steve Bruce, Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory (Oxford: Oxford University, 2011,
2013).
424
Cf. Bryan Wilson, Religion in Secular Society (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1966/969). Cf. also Bryan Wilson,
Contemporary Transformations of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University, 1976). Cf. also Bryan Wilson, “Aspects
of Secularization in the West,” in Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 3(1976): 259-276B. Cf. also Brayan
Wilson, Religion in Sociological Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University, 1982). Cf. also Bryan. Wilson, B.
“Secularization: The Inherited Model,” in The Sacred in a Secular Age, ed. P. E. Hammond (Berkeley:
University of California, 1985). Cf. also Bryan Wilson, “If Religion Declines, Will the Social Order Survive?”
in Onze Alma Mater 48(1994): 85-96. Cf. also Bryan Wilson, “The Secularization Thesis: Criticisms and
Rebuttals,” in Secularization and Social Integration, eds. R. Laermans, B. Wilson and J. Billiet (Leuven:
Leuven University, 1998).
425Bruce, “Introduction,”, in Secularization, 1.
426Cf.Reddit.com “Reddit Asks Historians,”
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2ohvf6/what_causes_led_to_the_secularization_of_
europe/ [accessed May 18, 2018].
427Ibid.
77
SAMBAYANIHAN
difficulty of precisely answering the question because of the “religious belief at the
population level is difficult to measure and haven’t been measured in earlier times”.428
Thus, it was suggested to make a distinction between the “countries that have a national
church and those that do not have” in order to decipher more clearly the impetus behind
various degrees secularization.429 Another possible answer to the question provided in
the thread was the existence of Socialism vis-à-vis the “conservatism” of the Church
which had been perceived as “anti-women’s rights and anti-democracy…that must have
turned off some.”430 Certainly, according to one of the responses, one cannot but identify
the “advancements in wealth and living conditions” as stimulus for secularization in
Europe. One can also add to this, according to a respondent to this inquiry, the
“advancements in science…[especially] Darwin’s theory of evolution.”431 Basing on all
the answers provided above, there is no single element that can be identified as the
main contributor to the undeniable loss of influence of religious institutions. We can
also include here the inability of the younger generation to relate to religious symbols
and language as indicated in the survey conducted in Europe. It was also pointed out
that the phenomenon of secularization in Europe cannot be seen as uniformly
experienced all throughout the continent because, according to a comment made in the
site, “places like Italy and Ireland showed very little sign of secularization in the 20th
century, even though they both increased in wealth and the Italian Communist Party
did surprisingly well after the war years. These theories also do not explain the large
differences in religion between Eastern and Western Germany (although that could be
tied to communism and anti-communism respectively) or Czech Republic and Slovakia,
which were the same country until 1993 and were both communist and have similar
levels of income and technological availability.”432 As reported by Stephen Bullivant, a
noted professor in the areas of theology and sociology of religion, the young people of
Czech Republic (i.e., 16-29 years old) are the least religious in Europe with a staggering
91% of them not professing any affiliation to a particular religious institution or
ideology.433
Having said all this, can we definitively conclude that religiosity is already a losing
proposition in contemporary Western European society, especially because generally
the European youth sector has already been “disconnected” to the traditional language
and rituals of the Church? Bullivant acknowledges the fact that a good number of young
Europeans “will have been baptized and then never darken the door of a church again.
Cultural religious identities are not just being passed on from parents to children. It
just washes straight off them.”434 Nonetheless, he asserts that “In 20 or 30 years’ time,
mainstream churches will be smaller, but the few people left will be highly
committed.”435 So, we ask: Could this be the direction that our proposed Sambayanihan
communities will go? If yes, then there is still a glimmer of hope. Besides, we believe
that the Church, aside from the fact that it should constantly renew itself, must not lose
its marginal status. It should maintain its place “in the edge”.
428Reddit.com “Reddit Asks Historians.”

429Ibid.
430Ibid.
431Ibid.
432Ibid.
433Cf. Stephen Bullivant, Europe’s Young Adults and Religion: Findings from the European Social Survey to
Inform the 2018 Synod of Bishops (N.P: Benedict XVI Centre Religion and Society, 2018).
434Ibid.
435Ibid.
78
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
In this regard, an article written by Rick Wade, an associate researcher of Probe

Ministries, has argued that “Although belief is on the demise in general in Europe, the
institutional church – the state church specifically, - still has a valuable place in
society.”436 He contends that religious tradition has never totally dissipated in the “social
psyche” despite the manifest rate of secularization in Europe because, as Grace Davie,
a noted contemporary sociologist, has indicated that the church still maintains its
“public utility.” She explains that the church still exists as such because “A public utility
is available to the population as a whole at the point of need and is funded through tax
system.”437 Although fewer people nowadays go to Church for marriage and baptism, it
cannot be denied that a good number of them still ask for the services of the church
when it comes to death.
Wade avers that another term that would characterize the church’s role in present-
day Europe is “vicarious religion” which, for him, means a “religion performed by an
active minority but on behalf of a much larger number, who...understand [and] approve
of what the minority is doing.”438 He points out that “Church leaders are expected to
believe certain things, perform religious rituals, and embody a high moral code.”439
The church has not totally lost its significance, Wade opines, because there is a
piece of evidence that proves it. Despite the fact that many have already ceased to
profess any religious affiliation so as to avoid paying church tax, such as in Germany,
there is still a high percentage of people who opt to continue paying taxes because they
do not preclude the possibility that one day they may need the services of the church.440
Rick Wade’s position may be questionable due to his affiliation with Probe
Ministries whose “mission,” as a non-profit ministry, “is to assist the church in renewing
the minds of believers with Christian worldview and to equip the church to engage the
world for Christ”.441 Nevertheless, we cannot simply dismiss his ruminations as utterly
baseless; hence, insignificant. His vision may defy the preponderant worldview but his
claim is not in any way invalid. Besides, Monsigor Tomas Halik, a professor who
specializes in Philosophy and Sociology of Religion in Prague, argues that “The
fundamental assumption of the theory of secularization – that what had been happening
in Europe for some time would necessarily happen throughout the world – is now
regarded as erroneous, especially by sociologists and analysts of globalization, who view
it as one of the many prejudices of an arrogant and naïve Eurocentrism.” 442 European
history, which is not uniform or monolithic, must not be seen anymore as the history of
the entire globe.
Speaking of which, we recall Charles Taylor who, in his monumental work entitled
A Secular Age identifies the different trajectories of the phenomenon of secularization
between U.S. and Europe. Based on his critical analysis of what is unfolding in the U.S.
436Rick Wade, “Secularization and the Church in Europe,” May 20, 2016, https://probe.org/secularization-
and-the-church-in-europe/ [accessed March 3, 2017].
437Grace Davie, “Is Europe an Exceptional Case?” The Hedgehog Review 8, nos.1-2 (2006): 27,
www.virginia.edu/iasc/HHR_Archives/AfterSecularization/8.12DDavie.pdf [accessed March 3, 2017].

438Wade, Secularization. Cf. also Davie, “Is Europe an Exceptional Case?”: 24-26.
439Ibid.
440Ibid. Cf. also Peter Berger, Grace Davie, and Effie Fokas, Religious America, Secular Europe? A Theme and
Variation (England/USA: Ashgate, 2008), 15.

441Wade, Secularization.
442Tomas Halik, “Europe after Secularization: What Future has Christianity on the Continent,” ABC Religion
and Ethics, 16 September 2014. http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/09/16/4088574.htm

[accesed March 19, 2017].
79
SAMBAYANIHAN
in comparison to that of Europe’s, the U.S. can be seen as having a more manifest sign
of religiosity than Europe which can be attributed to the factors, as summarized by:
“the separation of church and state; the differential roles of social elites; contrasting
processes of immigration and integration; the influence of commercialism, consumerism,
and popular culture; the relationship between religion, political culture, and the perceived
national project; the American capacity to found and establish ubiquitous congregations;
the different ways in which institutional carriers of secularization function in Europe and
the US; and the differential impacts of the shocks and aftershocks of the decade of the
1960s.”443
Based on his observation, the difference between the U.S. and Europe, as far as the
manifestations of secularization is concerned in their respective areas of responsibility,
lies in the small differences that had been accumulated through time which, eventually,
became large enough to steer the different courses that these two continents have gone
to in terms of religiosity. However, he is also quick to acknowledge the limits of his
analysis: “Here I confess that I am making stabs in the dark. A fully satisfactory account
of this difference, which is in a sense the crucial question facing secularization theory,
escapes me”.444 This confession of Taylor strongly suggests that we can never
simplistically explain the phenomenon of secularization that has “engulfed” the entire
planet.
Vis-à-vis what is happening in Europe and in the U.S., we can also present the
case of secularization in the Philippines. In an article written by Inés San Martin, a
Vatican correspondent, she claims that despite the increasing secularization in
the Philippines, its people have remained to be profoundly Catholic. 445 The
Philippines, a country predominantly Catholic since the 1500s and presently a
home to the third largest population of Catholics worldwide, has undeniably
joined the secularization bandwagon. Arguably, the influence of the Church or the
hierarchy in the Philippines has seen a significant decline. People consider the
ratification of the Reproductive Health Law in 2012 “as a watershed moment” in
view of the Church’s waning clout. 446 Nevertheless, despite the massive impact of
secularization, people’s religious “sensibility” and their “sensitivity to God” are
still palpable. Rev. Nestor Impelido, contends that “people still want to participate
in Mass” and oftentimes, “they stop him in the streets to ask him for prayers and
blessings.” 447 For him, these are strong indications that “[People] are [still]
conscious of the presence of God;” thus, he opines that “Our job as shepherds is
to intensify it.” 448 Despite the perceived decline of political influence that the
Church used to enjoy in the past, it cannot be denied that the Church still has
some bearing in the lives of the Filipino people, especially to the approximately 80
443Cf. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard
University, 2007). This summary that is based on the 14 th chapter of Taylor’s celebrated book is provided
by David Hempton of Harvard Divinity School and Hugh McLeod of University of Birmingham for the
Exploratory Seminary conducted by Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in Harvard University. Cf. David
Hempton and Hugh McLeod, “Comparative Secularization in Europe and North America: New Directions,”
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/exploratory-
seminars/comparative-secularization-in-europe-and-north-america-new-directions [accessed March 3,
2017].
444
Taylor, A Secular Age, 530.
445Inés San Martin, “The Philippines is Increasingly Secular, still deeply Catholic,” Crux,
https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/01/15/the-philippines-is-increasingly-secular-but-still-deeply-
catholic/ [accessed September 13, 2016].
446Ibid.
447Ibid.
448Ibid.
80
PART I: PAGBUBUNKAL
million belonging to the Catholic religion with more or less 12 million people are
deployed abroad. The fact that still a considerably big chunk of them recite the
Rosary and other novenas, go to Church to either light candle and/or participate
in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, indicates that their faith, as simple as it
may seem, has not yet been lost. What is interesting is that , when they are abroad
to work, not a few of would organize a praying community which would eventually
request for priests, Filipinos or not, to provide the sacraments for them, especially
Holy Mass.
Speaking of the issue of secularization vis-à-vis the Filipino people, there is a
prominent Sociologist in the Philippines, Randy David, who contends that, despite the
drop in the weekly church attendance in the Philippines as reported by Social Weather
Stations in 2013,
“It is futile to question the validity of these numbers. What is important is to understand
what is behind them. While it seems natural to relate these findings to a recent surge in
negative sentiments about the Church hierarchy, I believe the data indicate a constellation
of realities that may have little to do with any current disaffection with the institutional
Church. In my view, they reflect a worldwide historical trend whose complex manifestations
are often explained as outcomes of the process of “secularization.”449
This statement of David must not be taken to mean, however, that he believes that the
Catholic Church is needing no internal reform, because it is far from being perfect. There
are so many aspects of the Church that require thorough renewal, such as the power of
theological language and liturgical symbols that may no longer resonate to the actual
experience of the people in the contemporary world, just to name one urgent issue. He
even mentioned in the article Pope Francis’s call to Church to “break out of its ‘self-
referentiality’ by learning to see from the perspective of those in the ‘margins’”.450 He,
therefore, challenges the people to reexamine what the figures tell us. It is never easy to
pin down what is really behind the numbers. One must not see the decline in weekly
church attendance as tantamount to “giving up one’s faith”. It can be referred to, as the
Social scientists would suggest, as a phenomenon of “’de-churchification’ to distinguish
if from the nebulous concept of secularization.”451 Moreover, he points out the difficulty
in defining what would qualify for each individual as “’religious” when he/she is asked to
rate the level of his/her religiosity”.452 Another contentious issue for him is “how is one
supposed to understand the response.”453 Having said all this, we can conclude that we
should not develop a bad habit of judging reality by mere glancing at the numbers. In the
same manner, we should not be quick in reducing the issue of secularization to the mere
decline in church attendance or in the “disappearance” of public utterance of God-talk.
There is really no exact way that we can use to evaluate the religiosity or spirituality of an
individual, much more the societies.
This does not mean, however, that it is futile to bring to the fore in this doctoral
project what the Filipino people experience in the contemporary world and how they
express their faith, which may or may not resonate to others. This endeavor is simply an
invitation to “come and see”.
449Randy David, “Is the Catholic Church in Crisis,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 13, 2013,
http://opinion.inquirer.net/50645/is-the-catholic-church-in-crisis [accessed August 21, 2017].
450Ibid.
451Ibid.
452Ibid.
453Ibid.
81
PART II
PAGLILINANG
AN EXPLORATION ON FILIPINO HISTORY, THEOLOGY, LITURGY AND

ECCLESIOLOGY
Paunang-hasik: Some Preliminary Remarks
T
his short section is entitled paunang-hasik which is a combination of pauna
(preliminary) and hasik (scattering or dispersion of seeds), precisely because it is
meant to introduce the main portion of this doctoral work which is about the
“cultivation” of Filipino migrants’ contribution to the development of global
historiography, theology, culture and ecclesiology, especially within the landscape of
Western European society, after ploughing through the theoretical seedbed in the
previous part of this dissertation by way of a cartographic exposition of pertinent
sociological, anthropological, political, economic, cultural and theological concepts
against the background of contemporary globalization and migration. This endeavor, as
we have already explained earlier is trans-disciplinary in nature because we shall be
exploring the input of Filipino migrant communities in Europe in four disciplinary areas
that we believe to be intricately intertwined with each other: history, theology, culture
and ecclesiology. This project goes beyond the region of interdiscplinarity because it also
makes use of the notion of trans-coloniality that requires an involvement of the
participation of the people on the ground who are usually relegated to the fringes or not
given attention to, the Filipino migrants who are normally not situated within the
context of the aforementioned academic disciplines but are in their daily grind directly
impacted by what is going on in the historical, theological, cultural and ecclesiological
spheres, whether they are aware of it or not. Hence, briefly, we would like to mention
here the program of this part of our doctoral endeavor.
Our first chapter, as a trans-colonial endeavor, shall try to access the different, at
times conflicting, narratives of various resource persons or informants that we hope to
form a renewed understanding of Filipino story as a nation and as a migrant people. We
would like to point out that the history that the Filipino people carry with them is unified
but not monolithic, which may also be true for other nationalities. There are significant
events and personalities that are canonized and preserved in the pages of written
history, but what really affects the ordinary people’s mind and actions on a daily basis
are the narratives that are formed by people at the grassroots or the “sparks” that
naturally transpire on the “pan” of ordinary daily life. At the end of the re-counting of
significant events and elements that brought the Filipinos to where they are at now, we
shall see that Filipinos, due to the multiple colonization that they have been subjected
to, have undeniably experienced oppression and marginalization. Despite these
unfortunate historical baggage, however, they have been made remarkably resilient and
creative as they continue to negotiate their place in the contemporary globalized world
as a people imbued with a complexly rich cultural tapestry made up of the multiple
cultural heritages.
Our second chapter shall be an attempt to articulate Filipino theology, especially
of the ordinary people like the Filipino migrants, in a trans-disciplinary way because we
do not only consider the different disciplines that help shape our God-talk, but most
especially, because we also endeavor to access the voices of those in the grassroots,
which made us realize the importance of the “ordinary theologians” in the on-going
discernment of the People of God on God’s revelation and God’s relationship with the
People. What this chapter wants to attain is the affirmation that there is no one single
theology that encompasses the truth of God’s revelation and that various God-talk that
SAMBAYANIHAN
circulate around the Filipino people, especially the migrants, will be a breath of fresh
air to contemporary theology when they are given due consideration, because they are
basically anchored in a communitarian worldview which may be contrasted to a more
individualistic perspective espoused by a significantly large number of people, based on
our experience, in the Western Europe. Of course, we do not intend to belittle academic
theology and the various theological contributions of the Western thinkers in this
proposal. They have their own merits which cannot be simply discarded. To a great
extent, they have provided necessary equipment for people all over the world in
navigating the complex waters of theology. But, of course, they also have their
limitations. They cannot explain everything for there are things beyond their reach. A
truly Catholic theology, we believe, is a theology that is crafted by genuinely listening to
the theology of the people. Academic theology may be sophisticated and systematically
articulated but it is not meaningful or relevant if it is detached from or not enlightened
by the ordinary articulation of theology of the ordinary people. In the same manner,
ordinary theology may lose its coherence and may become misguided if it is not
enlightened by academic theology. We surmise that the most common utterance of
ordinary theology, as far as the Filipino migrants are concerned, is framed in the popular
Filipino expression “bahala na” which is derived from the name used by the indigenous
Filipinos to refer to God, that is Bathala. Although, there are other schools of thought
that consider this phrase as a sign of indolence or fatalism, most pundits believe that it
is an honest appeal to God for help in the midst of a seemingly insurmountable
predicament while one tries his/her best to overcome it. Thus, it is a theology of trust
in God who is perceived to be merciful and generous. We believe that this is the reason
why for Filipinos faith is referred to as pananampalataya which we consider to be a
contraction of two Filipino words: pagnamnam (tasting) and pagtataya (risk-taking).
Filipinos cry out to God “bahala na” as they take the risks in the face of a dilemma,
because they are assured of God’s love and providence which they have already tasted
before. When bahala na and pananampalataya are placed together against the
background of the Filipino concept of intersubjectivity best expressed by the intimacy
of the loob (the will that is relationally defined) and kapwa (the other that is intricately
enmeshed in the web of togetherness), reveal a profound theology of bayanihan, a
theology of communal and collaborative journey under the guidance of God towards the
reign of the Kingdom of love, justice, reconciliation and peace.
Our third chapter will help us understand how inculturation happens and how a
genuine inculturation of liturgy can be had in the context of globalization and migration,
which we believe is better seen through the prism of transculturality. This simply means
that culture, as a dynamic phenomenon, continuously incorporates and “discards”
elements from various cultures that come in contact with certain groups of people. Thus,
it is a never-ending ‘movement; hence, the prefix trans. As a movement, which can be
seen to follow a spiraling pattern, it involves the notion of a continuous change in the
configuration of a particular culture brought about by multiple contacts with other
traditional heritages. It is always experienced as an ever-growing hybridity that
creatively, knowingly and unknowingly, highlights and suppresses elements coming
from different sources, the acceptance of the fact that there are dissents within a
particular cultural network or mainstream, is seriously included in the cultural
equation as well. In the course of our discussion we shall discover that genuine
inculturation is seldom abrupt and ostentatious. The truth is, more often than not, it
goes through a gradual and less conspicuous process of assimilation or absorption.
Culture is never a static thing. One very important piece of information to note is the
fact that culture is always influenced by the power structure wherein emergent and
dissenting voices persist despite the presence of a dominant (hegemonic) voice that sets
84
PART II: PAGBLILINANG
the mainstream appearance of a culture. In our research, we shall find out whether
‘Filipinoness’ can be used as a good example of what transcultural inculturation means
which shall be metaphorically represented by the various versions of the famous Filipino
dishes: pancit and adobo. Using these gastronomic images as metaphors for liturgical
inculturation, we will show that Filipino migrant people celebrate inculturated liturgies
wherever they go by observing what is considered as normative but, like the adobo and
pancit, they also infuse their own twists that are coming from their specific cultural
contexts – combining those that are emanating from the host countries, those that are
considered to be “indigenously” Filipino, and those that are seen as “strictly Roman”.
The fourth chapter shall incorporate everything that we shall tackle in the first
three chapters, including the Part One, in order to propose a cultivation of
sambayanihan communities or Basic Ecclesial Communities of Filipino migrants in
Western Europe. We are convinced that this final chapter will serve as a converging
point because in these communities the story and history of the subalterns are given a
proper platform to be heard. We also believe that in the context of sambayanihan
communities we will not only access the various pieces of historical narratives but also
the ‘ordinary theologies’ of the members which can be seen as a “subterranean”
theological field or trajectory. It is our conviction that, as such, they are fed by and at
the same time are feeding the ongoing quest of academic theology. Culturally speaking,
the sambayanihan communities are bearers of a specific and dynamic culture. Thus,
their contact with the people in the parishes in their host countries is certainly an
opportunity for cultural exchange and enrichment. As they come together in an
atmosphere where they worship and talk about faith and life they help reconfigure the
image of global history as well as Catholic ecclesiology. What they bring into the Western
European ecclesial landscape is a more communitarian image of the church that is
profoundly moored in the intimate relationship of the loob and kapwa that solidifies
one’s pananampalataya which is best expressed in the practice of bayanihan as one
utters the terse but profound “prayer”, bahala na.
We are convinced that the term sambayanihan can also be applied to the first three
chapters of this doctoral research project. Sambayanihan is discernible in the history of
the Filipinos because it is about the unified story of Filipinos who have gone through a
lot of ordeal courtesy of an experience of multiple colonization but have continued to
hold on to their relationship with God which is considered by some Filipinos as second
nature to them and offer themselves as a humble sacrifice for the sake of their families
as they journey together for a brighter future. Sambayanihan can also be a “trademark”
of Filipino theology because it is about the common God-talk of the Filipino people
whose pananampalataya (faith) is uttered as bahala na that is founded in the intimacy
of the loob and kapwa and fulfilled in the act of bayanihan. Bahala na speaks about the
profound faith of the Filipino in the Divine Providence as they heroically find ways to
express their love and care for their families as they task the risks of migration and
martyrdom for the sake of their families and loved ones because they are assured that
God will never abandon them. Sambayanihan is also expressed in liturgical
inculturation because it is about the creative and collaborative celebration of liturgy
that is expressed transculturally. As one people of God they express their faith in various
but unified ways, incorporating different elements from different families of cultures.
On the basis of everything that we have said above, we now invite you to journey
with us as we try to unravel the different layers of our doctoral research work.
85
CHAPTER 1 A
LUKSONG-TINIK454
A STORY OF COLONIZATION AND MIGRATION STRAIGHT FROM THE CARABAO’S

MOUTH
Introduction
M
indful of the foregoing discussions, I,455 personally, would like to unequivocally
declare at the very outset of this current section that I am not neutral. Hence,
I do not claim to be objective in this regard, if objectivity is taken to mean as
detachment and neutrality. I am undoubtedly attached for, first, I am recounting history
based on the perspective of mostly Filipino authors who I can identify with as a Filipino
thinker, and, second, I am certainly immersed into the lives of the people I want to
represent in this project, the Filipino migrant communities in the West. I take sides, the
side of the Filipino people I have come to know in my life in general, and in both my
academic endeavors and ministerial services (i.e., especially the ordinary citizens and
the migrant Filipinos), not necessarily because they are better or holier than other
people, but because I see them as invaluable and irreplaceable bearers of important
stories and legacies. Besides, it is my fundamental self-declared vocation as a Filipino
theologian to give priority to Filipino articulations of reality and faith, something that
has been denied of them by Western dominated historiography and theology.
As already mentioned above, in this project, I endeavor to present a different story
– a story coming from the fringes, a story that has been either devalued or shelved in
the dark and dusty corners of history, a story that has been forced to fold back to its
undeserved reclusion but whose ghost continues to haunt us, a story that does not
come from the lips of the glorious winners but from those whose voices have been
unceremoniously drowned in the hegemony456 of grand narratives. Yes, I am not
objective and I am doing my best to not treat the people involved in this research simply
as objects but as companions in this journey, as collaborators in this search, as people
who deserve respect and attention: people who are entitled with the freedom to affirm
or negate, to support or reject my stance. If ever there are points of divergences, justice
demands that I should present their views vis-à-vis mine.
I am not objective, but it does not mean that I am partial. This claim is not without
a basis. This is inspired by Teodoro Agoncillo who opines that impartiality is what the
historian needs to achieve in writing history. He claims that “To be impartial is to be
fair. In objectivity, the historian is supposed to detach himself from any entanglement
with what he is writing in order to avoid intruuding himself into the picture. In
impartiality, the historian is asked to look at all possible angles or sides of a question.” 457
454This is a traditional Filipino game where the player jumps over a barrier represented by two fellow players
seated across each other placing their feet and hands alternatively on top of each other that will serve as a
hurdle for the jumper. We use this as the image of the Filipinos in diaspora who are straddling between two
worlds overcoming barriers and challenges.
455The first personal pronoun (singular form) is used in this section of the doctoral work in order avoid any
chance of misrepresentation. This is solely the personal view of the author.

456This term, according to the editors of Post-Colonial Studies, at first meant “the dominance of one state
within a confederation”; which eventually was taken to mean “domination by consent” following the lead of
Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist. Antonio Gramsci. Ashcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies, 106-107.
457Teodoro Agoncillo, a famous Filipino historian, is of the opinion that Teodoro Agoncillo, History and
Culture, Language and Literature: Selected Essays of Teodoro A. Agoncillo, ed., Bernardita Reyes Churchill
(Manila: University of Santo Tomas, 2003), 34. This notion of history as impartial shall be dealt with in
more detail in the section devoted on historiography that provides that foundation for the employment of
transcolonial re-writing of history needed for present project.
SAMBAYANIHAN
Thus, it is my conviction that, as far as my approach is concerned, I practice impartiality

despite my conspicuous inclination, because I am also trying my best, within the
temporal and physical limitations of this research project, to see other realities and
listen to other versions of a story. I am, to the best of my ability, not turning a deaf ear
to voices of contradiction and dissent, because I believe what a popular saying teaches:
“there are so many ways to skin a cat.”458 Hence, to the best of my abilities, I diligently
searched for and seriously considered different perspectives, those that support and
oppose my views, but, at the end of the day, I still needed to make my choice. And my
choice is to give importance to those who are relegated to the fringes of human history:
the Filipino story-tellers, both in the country and in diaspora, both famous and
infamous, mostly peripheral and some, inevitably, from the mainstream.
In order for us459 to accomplish the goal that we have set in this paper we have
chosen to engage some authors that we consider to be our best source of information
as far as historiography (in general) and Filipino history (in particular) are concerned.
We specifically choose the term Filipino instead of Philippines, because we are not only
interested in the history of the nation but, more particularly, in the stories of the Filipino
people. This means, therefore, that we are not only referring to the Filipinos in the
country but more significantly to the Filipinos scattered all over the world who carry on
their shoulders their past as a colonized people and their present as a diasporized
people. We acknowledge the fact that our most reliable informants are none other than
the ordinary Filipino citizens and Filipino migrants themselves. Nevertheless, this
scholarly work, in the meantime, can only afford us to rely on the random written and
oral interviews which were conducted in Brussels, Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, Nice,
Athens and Antwerp, which we also tried to validate by consulting published literature.
Thus, what the readers will encounter in the following pages are taken from several
sources that we deem relevant to the issue at stake.
It is our hope that by using the perspective of trans-coloniality we can present a
new way of reading Filipino history. Amidst the logistical limitations set by this research
project, we will try to discern how a re-imagined, but not romanticized, history can be
both liberative and restorative. We are aware that this undertaking requires going
through a painful process of asserting the validity of Filipino narratives and “exorcising”
westernized tendencies of Filipino historiography. Our task, following the different
phases in trans-colonial discourse, is to move against the status quo (i.e., anti), to
retrieve significant elements of Filipino history (i.e., through), and to transform the facts
and figures from being data of colonization to becoming building-blocks of emancipation
and reconciliation.
For the area of Filipino history, which comprise the first major section of this
chapter, we will offer a re-writing or re-righting of both Philippine pre-colonial and
colonial histories as we endeavor to highlight the organic confluence of Church, liturgy,
culture and nationalism in the Filipino psyche. In this portion, we shall try to bring up
some facts and figures that, we believe, can be transformed from being data of
oppression and marginalization to a platform of emancipation and recognition. In view
458A version of this expression, which means there are many versions or approaches available, first
appeared in the 1840’s short story of Seba Smith, The Money Diggers. Mark Twain used this expression in
1889 in his famous narrative entitled A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Mark Twain, A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (London and New York: Harper and Brothers, 1889).
459The change of first personal pronoun from singular to plural is intended to convey that this doctoral
research project is a collaborate effort, despite the fact that it carries a personal view of the author.
88
LUKSONG-TINIK: A STORY OF COLONIZATION AND MIGRATION
of this project, we shall make use of the following authors in this particular part of the
chapter: 1) Renato Constantino whose radical and heavily anti-imperial views on
history, politics, economy and society that, according to a website called bantayog, “[in]
the 1950s, [he] had already been branded a security risk by [Philippine] state
intelligence agencies” due to the perceived radicality of his views.460 2) F. Landa Jocano
whose invaluable contribution in the field of anthropology has earned for him, according
to F. Sionil Jose, an accolade of being “the country’s first and foremost cultural
anthropologist”461 and the most prestigious award given by the National Commission for
Culture and Arts, Dangal Haraya (i.e., the highest honors for arts and culture). His
contributions as a prolific writer include a retrieval of Philippine prehistory that eschews
western categorization.462 3) T. Valentino Sitoy who comes from the Filipino Protestant
tradition and had served as a professor of Christian History and Asian Religions and
dean of the Divinity School of Siliman University in the Philippines. His narration of
Philippine history serves as a strong contrast to the Catholic historians who have placed
high premium on the contribution of Catholicism in Philippine nation building. 463 4)
Teodoro Agoncillo who, together with Renato Constantino, is known for promoting an
unambiguously nationalistic presentation of a history of the Philippines as nation and
Filipino as a people in his books, essays and poems.464 5) John Schumacher who, as a
Jesuit historian particularly interested in Philippine history, has produced numerous
literary works on Philippine history, especially on the role of the Church in Philippine
nation building.465 6) Samuel K. Tan whose professional life as a historian allowed him
to produce twenty-two books and seventy essays that mostly focused on, according to a
write up about him in his book The Muslim South and Beyond, “Islamic Philippines and
on the promotion of Filipinism and nationalism.”466 7) Cesar Adib Majul who, as a
Muslim, provides a glimpse of the history of Islam in the Philippines in contrast to the
Christian-centered Philippine history usually presented in the history books.467
460Cf. Jennifer Carino and Ellecer Cortes, “Constantino, Renato R.,” Bantayog, January 11, 2017,
http://www.bantayog.org/constantino-renato-r/ [accessed July 20, 2017]. His views were seen as too
radical, especially by those in power in the 1970’s, which cost him his position in the Department of Foreign
Affairs in 1951 and a work-ban issued by the “intelligence agents” attached to the government. As soon as
the martial law was declared in 1972, he “was placed under house arrest for seven months” and was
prevented from traveling outside the country for good number of years. Cf. Bantayog ng mga Bayani,
“Renato Constantino,” Tinig.com, November 30, 2001, http://www.tinig.com/v8/v8rc.html [accessed
March 3, 2016]. Cf. Renato Constantino, A History of the Philippines: From the Spanish Colonization to the
Second World War (New York and London: Monthly Review, 2008). Cf. also Renato Constantino, The Making
of a Filipino: A Story of Philippine Colonial Politics (Quezon City: Malaya, 1985).
461Vida Cruz, “F. Landa Jocano, Anthropologist and UP Professor Emiritus, Passes Away,” GMA News,
October 8, 2015, http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/332871/lifestylre/peopleandevents/f-landa-

jocano-anthropologist-and-up-professor-emeritus-passes-away [accessed January 4, 2015].
462F. Landa Jocano, Filipino Prehistory: Rediscovering Precolonial Heritage (Metro Manila: PUNLAD, 2001).
463Cf. T. Valentino Sitoy, A History of Christianity in the Philippines: The Initial Encounter, vol. 1 (Quezon
City: New Day, 1985).

464Cf. Agoncillo, History and Culture. Cf. also Teodoro A. Agoncillo, History of the Filipino People, 8th ed.
(Quezon City: GAROTECH, 1990).

465Cf. John N. Schumacher, Growth and Decline: Essays on Philippine History (Quezon City: Ateneo de
Manila University, 2009). Cf. also John N. Schumacher, The Propaganda Movement 1880-1895: The
Creation of a Filipino Consciousness; The Making of the Revolution (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila
University, 2002). Cf. also John N. Schumacher, Revolutionary Clergy: The Filipino Clergy and the Nationalist
Movement 1850-1903 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 1981). Cf. also John N. Schumacher,
Father Jose Burgos: Priest and Nationalist (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 1972).
466Samuel K. Tan, The Muslim South and Beyond (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Diliman, 2010).
Cf. also Samuel K. Tan, A History of the Philippines (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Diliman,
2008, e-book version 2011).
467Cf. Cesar Adib Majul, The Contemporary Muslim Movement in the Philippines (Berkeley: Mizan, 1985).
89
SAMBAYANIHAN
Choosing them as our interlocutors in this chapter does not mean, however,
absolute adherence to their views. We are aware of the criticisms on their respective
views on and renditions of Philippine history.
As far writing history is concerned, Teodoro Agoncillo, the only “home-grown”
historian, believes that an academic training overseas is not necessary to learn how to
write local histories when he confronted Guerero of her desire to pursue graduate study
in history abroad. With this mindset, he tried to articulate history from the perspectives
of the masses, one that was criticized by John Schumacher as being too centered on
the “Imperial Manila”; thereby, failing to see that the revolution emanating from Cavite
was fueled by those belonging to the middle-class (i.e., people with higher economic
statuses or in the civil government like Emilio Aguinaldo).
In his effort to decolonize Filipino historiography, Renato Constantino had
produced a remarkably extensive collection of writings.468 Ronaldo Gripaldo, however,
identifies Constantino with Robert Owen who is known to be a “socialist” rather than a
“communist”, because he is still, in Gripaldo’s estimation, “a bourgeois who happens to
identify with the interest of the workers.”469 Nevertheless, the difference between the
two, Gripaldo opines, lies in the fact that “Owen retained his bourgeois position and was
interested only in uplifting the social and economic conditions of his workers, while
Constantino was willing to sacrifice his petty bourgeois origins by identifying nationalist
consciousness with that of the people… For Constantino, the interest and welfare of the
people are the interest and welfare of the nation.”470 Thus, considering this limitation of
Constantino, we still consider him an indispensable resource person for our trans-
colonial re-writing/re-righting of Filipino history.
F. Landa Jocano, who is not only an anthropologist but also a historian and
folklorist, assumes a “participant-observer” position in his research work. Although he
finished both his MA and PhD from the University of Chicago, he advocated a different
perspective in understanding Filipino history, especially the pre-Hispanic portion of
history. He is criticized by Talledo, however, that his monograph, which highlighted the
“kinship system” in his study of the Sulod people, “mainly served to reinforce a tendency
in the discourse of Philippine Studies. This tendency gives greater weight to the world
of constructs and constructs of the world. The former is the world of abstraction, while
the latter are abstractions from the World.”471
T. Valentino Sitoy, obviously influenced by his Protestant upbringing, tries to offer
an account of history that is both critical of and independent from the Catholic
perspective, which is commendable because the important parts played by indigenous
people in the history of the Filipino people were highlighted. Because of this, John
Schumacher pointed out the weakness in Sitoy’s contribution to the Dictionary of Asian
468Cf. Renato Constantino, “The Miseducation of Filipinos,” (Originally written in 1959); Weekly Graphic,
1966. Cf. Renato Constantino, “The Miseducation of the Filipino,” in A History of Colonialism,
Neocolonialism, Dictatorship and Resistance, eds. Daniel Schirmer and Stephen Rosskamm Shalom (Boston:
South End, 1987). Renato Constantino, The Filipinos in the Philippines and Other Essays (Philippines:
Malaya, 1966), 39-65. Cf. also as transcribed by Mr. Bert M. Drona, “The Miseducation of the Filipino,” The
Filipino Mind, https://nonlinearhistorynut.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/miseducation-of-a-filipino.pdf
[accessed December 21, 2013]. Renato Constantino, Neocolonial Identity and Counter Consciousness:
Essays on Cultural Decolonization, ed. István Mészáros (London: Merlin, 1978).
469
Rolando M. Gripaldo, “Renato Constantino’s Philosophy of Nationality: A Critique,” in Filipino Philosophy:
Traditional Approach, Part I, Section 1 (Quezon City: C & E, 2013), 1.
470Ibid.
471Tomasito Talledo, “Construction of Identity in Central Panay: A Critical Examination of the Ethnographic
Subject in the Works of Jocano and Magos,” Asian Studies 40, no. 1(2004):117.
90
Christianity that did “not contain a single Catholic item in its bibliography… totally
ignoring the Catholic Church in the twentieth century, as if it had ceased to exist with
the coming of Protestantism.”472 Moreover, in a review on Sitoy’s book done by
Schumacher, it is stated that “[the] book is solidly based on primary, if published,
sources, as bibliography and notes indicate… His analysis of the documentation is
generally careful and sound… Even so one still misses any extended discussions of
methods of evangelization and their effectiveness, or of the position taken by the Synod
of 1582 on Filipino rights and on the respect due to the indigenous social structure.
Both of these arguably influenced conversions and molded the shape of the future
Christian community.”473 Considering the very important point raised by Schumacher,
we ask the question whether it is still worth the hassle or not to include Sitoy’s account
in our project. Evidently, Sitoy’s account is “biased,” but his piece in the convoluted
history of the Philippines makes us aware that Catholicism is not the be-all and end-all
of Filipino religious history, despite the overwhelming influence of Catholicism in the
building of the Filipino nation.
John Schumacher, who is a Jesuit historian and a naturalized Filipino, is highly
respected by his colleagues and students because of the thoroughness of his research
and the credibility of his writings. He is criticized by Quibuyen, however, of “factual
errors” which includes the former’s claim that the major foundation of Rizal’s “concept
of the Filipino nation” is Padre Burgos and that the “Kristong Pilipino” image of Rizal
was only unique to some Tagalogs, which mainly were “colorums.”474 Schumacher, in
one of his replies to Quibuyen, points out the fundamental difference between him and
Quibuyen in this fashion: “I am a historian and am interested in facts, empirically
established. He is a political philosopher, and primarily interested in theories. He sees
me as ‘empiricist’ (while I would say instead that I use the empirical method) while he
uses the method of “critical hermeneutics.”475 In the same article Schumacher points
out that Quibuyen commits some “scholarly demeanor”, which involves “argument from
authority,” inability to consider all writings and contexts of the historical personality he
is interested in, non-acceptance of “fallibility,” and conveniently overlooking some key
words “with intent” in citing the “1948 Genocide Convention definition”.476
Cesar Adib Majul, being a Muslim, endeavors to re-inscribe in the annals of the
Filipino nation the importance of the great Sultanates of the Philippines and the
contributions of the “contemporary Muslim movement in the Philippines.”477 In his
historical writings, he tries to present a balance treatment on both the Muslim and
Christian traditions. Nevertheless, it is inevitable for him to infuse his radical view of
Muslim historiography, which we consider to be a solid reason for us to include him in
our roster of authors.
Samuel K. Tan, being born and raised in Mindanao, endeavors to decentralize
Philippine history by bringing into the table of discussion the perspectives of people
472John N. Schumacher, S.J., “Valuable but Flawed: Review Article; A Dictionary of Asian Christianity,”
Landas 17 (2003): 291.
473John N. Schumacher, S.J., review of A History of Christianity in the Philippines. vol. 1: The Initial
Encounter,” by T. Valentino Sitoy, Jr., http://www.internationalbulletin.org/issues/1986-04/1986-04-

178-bookreviews.pdf [accessed October 4, 2015].
474Floro C. Quibuyen, “How are Critical Text to be Read? My Final Rejoinder to John N. Schumacher, S.J.,”
in Kritika at Kultura 5 (2004): 97.

475John N. Schumacher, “Reply of John N. Schumacher to Floro Quibuyen’s Response to the Review of his,
“A Nation Aborted,” Philippine Studies 50, no. 3 (2002):435.

476Ibid., 435-437.
477Cf. Majul, The Contemporary Muslim Movement.
91
SAMBAYANIHAN
from the Mindanao and Sulu groups of islands, especially that of the Filipino Muslims,
which most of the time neglected by the historians478. He is criticized, however, of having
an inclination towards “historical particularism” in his effort to give importance to
distinct historical experiences that avoids, as long as possible, to come up with universal
theories.479 Kenneth Masong states that
“Although the work may be short, this historical survey of the Philippines is packed with
much research and socio-cultural insights. It is a fruit of scholarship that stood the test of
time. However, there is a strong secularistic ideology that runs through the work to which
any person of religious background can easily detect. Although one can never be totally
objective with regard to history, the secularist tone leans toward partiality. For a country
that is marked by a history of religious influence, initially that of Islam, and then later of
Christianity, to be ‘off-handish’ towards religion in speaking of the History of the Philippines
is to lose much of what defines the character of being a Filipino. Though the Christian
background of the Philippines may not be palatable to all sorts of sensitivities, it is still a
background that merits unbiased historical attention.” 480
He might be seen as standing on the verge of “historical particularism”, but we feel that
his remarkable focus on particular groups allows us to view history not from the big
pictures of “Grand Narratives” but from the lenses of those in the margins, something
that we truly desire to accomplish in this research work.
Certainly, the authors we chose in this portion have their limitations as far as
representation of the muted voices is concerned. All of them, except Teodoro Agoncillo,
have Western academic pedigrees that somehow influence their particular worldviews.
We believe, however, that despite their deficiencies they still try their very best to access
the voices of those silenced by the colonizers. Vicente Rafael suggests that
“Most, however, did not become merely mouthpieces for the empire or apologists for the
ruling class. Rather, they often turned into some of their fiercest critics. Exposed both to
the democratic ambience and socio-economic inequalities of the US, they were influenced
in one form or another by the various waves of radicalism that washed over campuses.
Small wonder, then, that many of them went on to do groundbreaking work, much of which
remains important today.”481
Thus, the contributions of the aforementioned authors are not insignificant all. Their
accounts are definitely valuable in our effort to disabuse Filipino history with its western
embellishments.
Section Two of this chapter tackles in two main parts the complex issue of
globalization (i.e., its pervasiveness and vagueness; its promises and predicaments; its
benefits and dangers) that affects the life of the Filipinos in diaspora as well as their
families/relatives back home: 1) Political, sociological and economic impact of
globalization – its promises and dangers; 2) Theological and ecclesiological impact of
globalization – its predicaments and potentials. This portion, on the one hand, hopes to
expose the continuous colonization taking place in the world as Globalization (i.e., top-
down) continues to extend its arms to ever-widening territories – not leaving any stone
unturned. On the other hand, this particular portion wishes to retrieve the alternative
globalization (i.e., down-up) that diasporic communities have to offer for a possible re-
imaging of the cotemporary Catholic Church in the age of heightened globalization.
478Tan, The Muslim South and Beyond.

479Tan, A History of the Philippines.
480Samuel K. Tan, review of A History of the Philippines, by Kenneth Masong,
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7253884-a-history-of-the-philippines [accessed November 4,
2015].
481Vicente Rafael, “Introduction: Revolutionary Contradictions”, in Luzon at War: Contradictions in Philippine
Societies; 1898-1902, ed. Milagros Camayon Guerero (Metro Manila: Anvil, 2015), 5.
92
Having this objective in mind, both Filipino and non-Filipino theorists are placed in the
discussion table to present a multi-level and critical assessment and revaluation of the
role of the migrants and the Church in a highly and massively globalized world. It is of
utmost importance that a proper assessment of the Filipinos in diaspora is done in this
post-graduate endeavor. Otherwise, justice will be denied of them and this project will
become futile. Hence, we have chosen the following authors as our main protagonists in
the discussion board: Epifanio San Juan, Jr.; Eleazar Fernandez; Daniel Pilario; Andrew
Geddes; and Joerg Rieger.
Epifanio San Juan, Jr. is a Filipino Gramscian-Marxian cultural critic who, in his
professional life, has built a remarkably robust and wide-ranging portfolio of cultural
and sociological scholarship that touches upon a broad spectrum of areas and
disciplines: postcolonial theory, comparative literary scholarship, cultural studies,
racial and ethnic studies, semiotics, and philosophical inquiries in historical
materialism. As a public intellectual and cultural critic, one of his projects “is to envision
the emergence of a new field called ‘world cultural studies’ from a radical ‘Third World
perspective’, which proposes a transition “from Western ‘hegemony’ to the
transformative, oppositional inquiry of ‘Others’.”482 San Juan’s powerful critique of
Eurocentric universalism and the myths of multiculturalism (i.e., contemporary theories
of inclusion) offers a leverage to critically decipher the modes of domination that have
been subtly obfuscated by the whole agenda of globalization. Moreover, his unique optic
tenders a progressive counterattack not only against the orthodoxy of the academy but
also the postmodern program that hides racism and exploitation. In all these, he offers
a “guide to understanding the nuances of Filipino self-identification in the process of
challenging the dominant polity’s claim to pluralist and multicultural heterogeneity.”483
We will engage, therefore, his critical evaluation of Filipino migration that will open a
door for us in this research project to identity both the perils of globalization and the
potentials of resistance and subversion by Filipinos (and other people of colors) in
diaspora.
Our second interlocutor, Daniel Franklin Pilario, is a scholar and a Catholic priest
from the Philippines who has specialized on the works of the French sociologist Pierre
Bourdieu (1930-2002). Pilario, according to Georges De Schrijver SJ, “reads Bourdieu
as appropriating what is most valuable in the [Aristotelian and Marxian] traditions: a)
A fresh reading of Aristotle makes it clear that The Philosopher sets great store by a
practice of cunning in the face of the unpredictable…; b) The notions of cunning and
productive making surface again in Marx, who links them to a concept of history, steered
by a conquering finality…; c) As to contemporary reflections on praxis, they have
definitely left behind Marx’s normative straightjacket: for them theorizing on
praxis/practice must allow itself to be broken by unexpected elements in ordinary life
that pose a challenge to rigorous schemes.”484 Moreover, Pilario attempts to “enable
readers to listen to the voices of the struggling people of the Two-Thirds World” and
challenges the theologians to assume a “certain humility in listening to the people in
their multi-voiced and sometimes muted utterances of the sensus fidelium and to the
482Cf. Epifanio San Juan Jr., commentary on Hegemony and Strategies of Transgression: Essays in Cultural
Studies and Comparative Literature, by James R. Bennet (Albany, New York: State University of New York,
1995).
483Cf. San Juan, commentary on From Exile to Diaspora.
484Cf. Georges De Schrijver SJ., “Preface,” in Back to the Rough Grounds of Praxis: Exploring the Theological
Method with Pierre Bourdieu, Daniel Franklin Pilario (Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University, 2005), vii-xi.
93
SAMBAYANIHAN
God who reveals Himself/Herself in the midst of their struggles and sufferings.” 485 In
other words, he invites (or even persuades) the theologians to anchor their theologizing
in the “rough grounds of praxis.” Apart from this project of Pilario, he also offers a critical
reading of the phenomenon of migration in times of globalization that suggests locating
resistance in this period most suitably in the “rough grounds of praxis or to what
Raymond Williams calls as ‘placeable identities’ – ‘places where we have lived and want
to go on living, where generations not only of economic but also of social effort and
human care have been invested, and which new generations will inherit.’”486
We have particularly chosen Pilario in this project, because we believe that he
serves as a bridge between E. San Juan who mainly deals with the “more mundane”
aspects of globalization and with the other Filipino scholars who focus on the “more
theological” side of the phenomenon of migration in the context of globalization, such
as Eleazar Fernandez, Agnes Brazal, Emmanuel De Guzman, Gemma Tulod-Cruz. We
say this, because Pilario, in his scholarly works, tries to creatively combine sociological,
cultural, philosophical, economic, ethnic and racial, and theological reflections that
make him an interesting “hybrid” of the “more mundane” and the “more theological”
aspects of scholarly life. It is this “hybrid” position of Pilario that will allow us to position
our critical investigation on Filipino migration that will open an avenue (or avenues) for
us to launch our task of finding an appropriate theology (or theologies) for the
experiences of Filipino migration in times of globalization.
The third scholar that we decided to include in the dialogue is Eleazar S. Fernandez
who is a Professor of Constructive Theology at United Theological Seminary of the Twin
Cities, New Brighton, Minnesota. He is an ordained minister in the United Church of
Church in the Philippines and a former Global Ministries/Wider Church Ministries
board member. It is discernible in this work that, as a constructive theologian,
“[he] consider[s] it an important task to enable faith communities to do theology that names
their pains and laments their anguish and celebrates their joys; poetically articulates their
longings for a better tomorrow; orients their transforming actions to the here and now; and
equips them with courage to live as if the future were present in the spirit of the One who
was crucified and resurrected with the people.”487
In fact, in his book Burning Center, Porous Borders, he tries to articulate “what the
church is and is called to be about in the world, a world now globalized to the point that
the local is lived globally and the global is lived locally”488. Besides, according to Pamela
Brubaker, “Fernandez draws on his rich personal, pastoral and academic experiences,
as well as an abundance of scholarship, to insightfully illuminate the connections
between a range of crucial issues [in migration in times of globalization] and to
prophetically revision the church’s mission in transformative and hopeful ways.”489
Precisely these transformative and hopeful ways proposed by Fernandez, which we find
helpful in our search for an appropriate way of theologizing in the context of Filipino
migration in times of globalization, are the reasons why we deem it necessary to include
him in the “hermeneutical circle of dialogue” envisioned in this current project. His
particular response to globalism’s construction of walls of division and exclusion,
485Pilario, Back to the Rough Grounds, vii-xi.

486Ibid., 36. See also, Raymund Williams, “Mining the Meaning: Keywords in the Miners’ Strike,” in
Resources of Hope, ed. Robin Gable (London: Verso, 1989), 124.
487Cf. Eleazar Fernandez, “Personal Reflection,” United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities,
http://www.unitedseminary.edu/faculty/efernandez.asp [accessed November 15, 2015].

488Cf. back cover of Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Borders.
489Cf. in the back cover of Fernandez, commentary on Burning Center, Porous Borders.
94
constrictions of hearts, and shrinking of moral imagination, allows us to critically

appreciate the “alternative ways or images of being a church: burning center and porous
borders, wall-buster and bridge-builder, translocal, mending-healer, radical hospitality,
community of the earth-spirit, household of life abundant, dialogians of life, and
community of hope.”490
Having gathered all the different perspectives and inputs provided by the
aforementioned interlocutors, “inadequate” but certainly “indispensable”,491 we are
confident that we can present a trans-colonial account of the history of the Filipino
people. True, coming up with one coherent narrative of the Philippine national and
migration history is a risky business, because synthesizing a naturally varied and
disparate plethora of data that come from millions of informants, from a myriad of
locations negotiating for communicative spaces in the ongoing struggle for historical
legitimatization is almost an impossible undertaking. Aware of the merits and
deficiencies of the informants/authors that we have chosen to engage in this project,
we claim that they present to the best of their abilities some crucial accounts of Filipino
national and migration histories where divergences and convergences are commonplace.
They may not have the last word, and rightly so, since oppositions and disagreements
are always present in the discourse, but we maintain that they have something very
important to say. Their different versions of history critically examine, in their own
unique ways, the complex colonial legacy embedded in Philippine society and culture
and, at the same time, present a renewed recognition of the pride of the Filipino people
– be it Christians, Muslims, indigenous and the like - and the possibility of a trans-
colonial re-inscription of the Filipinos in the annals of world. Thus, their varied
contributions will help us in our endeavor to re-right history, which is not about undoing
what has transpired in history but simply about finding new meanings in what
happened in the past that can help us re-imagine our future.
With their help, together with a number of narratives from the common people we
have inscribed in this research, we can re-right Filipino national and migration history,
one that hopefully renders justice to the once colonized and silenced voices, one that
asserts that their stories, no matter how particular or small they are, truly matter in
this world. Indeed, the Philippines, according to David Joel Steinberg, is “a singular and
plural place.”492 It is one nation with many layers and versions of history.
One may ask: “Where is the author amidst all this barrage of information?” The
simple answer is: The author is nothing else but the barrage of information trying to tie
everything into one coherent whole. The author is the “un-neutral but impartial” story-
teller who, amidst all logistical and temporal constraints, endeavors to present a history
of the Filipino people who have been colonized multiple of times but continue to assert
their diverse but interrelated identities where religiosity counts as a “permanent”
cultural feature. It is something truly Filipino, something that we can positively share
to the world.
490Fernandez, commentary on Burning Center, Porous Borders.

491Our use of these authors follows the lead of Chakrabarty’s valuation of the “European thought” which
is, for him, “both indispensable and inadequate in helping us think through the various life practices that
constitute the political and the historical.” Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 6. We believe that the
contributions of our authors, albeit limited, cannot be simply dismissed as totally insignificant or
unreliable.
492Cf. David Joel Steinberg, The Philippines: A Singular and Plural Place (Oxford: Westview, 2000).
95
SAMBAYANIHAN
II.1.A.1. Re/membering Philippine History: An Attempt to Re-Right the

“Forgotten” Past
“Historical writing is most true when it is appropriate simultaneously to what

was in the past, to the condition of the present, and to what should be done in the
future.” 493
-Howard Zinn
“While we cannot change the past, the real challenge is not to be discouraged
by history but to take it by the horns – learning from it and using it to make sense
of the present and confront the uncertain future.”494
-Ambeth Ocampo
“History is the story not just of the individuals we have come to know as
leaders and heroes, but especially of the ordinary men, women, and children of
each generation.”495
-Jose S. Arcilla
The introduction of the K-to-12496 curriculum in the Philippines has brought in

some new features in the Philippine educational system, including the primary use of
the “mother tongue” in classroom instructions for the kindergarten until grade three,497
and the priority, in terms of the order of presentation, of local histories over the national
and international ones.498 The novelty of these approaches may be disconcerting for a
lot of people accustomed to the previous academic syllabus. Nevertheless, these
developments may serve as an avenue to counteract the program of top-down
globalization prevalent in our contemporary world, because, in this way, Filipinos are
encouraged to move away from a colonial mentality as they explore the richness of their
indigenous languages, traditions, cultures and values. The new curriculum may not
totally cure what Jocano considers as “cultural amnesia”499 but at least it offers an
opportunity to present alternative views of the world that resist to be coopted completely
by Western modernity.500
As far as inquiring into the prehistoric heritage of Filipino people is concerned, we
are advised by Jocano not to use the “grandeur of other civilization” as our measuring
stick but instead we should see it “in terms of our accomplishments.”501 It is high time
that we gather the evidence from our backyard and reaffirm the value of our cultural
493Steinberg, The Philippines, loc., 620-637.

494Ambeth Ocampo, 101 Stories, 26.
495Jose S. Arcilla, An Introduction to Philippine History, 4th ed. (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University,
1998), x.
496Cf. Department of Education, Republic of the Philippines, Kindergarten, http://www.deped.gov.ph/k-to-
12/curriculum-guides/kindergarten [accessed: May 20, 2015].

497Cf. Delon Porcalla, “K-12 for All, Use of Mother Tongue Now Law,” The Philippine Star, May 16, 2013,
http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/05/16/942653/k-12-all-use-mother-tongue-now-law
[accessed May 20, 2015]. Cf. also Department of Education, Republic of the Philippines, Standards and
Competencies for Five-Year Old Filipino Children,
http://www.deped.gov.ph/sites/default/files/page/2014/Final%20Kindergarten%20CG%20December%2
02013.pdf [accessed May 20, 2015].
498Ambeth R. Ocampo, Looking Back: Prehistoric Philippines (Philippines: Anvil, 2012), 9.
499According to Constantino, “By training, Filipino historians were captives of Spanish and American
historiography, both of which inevitably viewed Philippine history through the prism of their own
prejudices.” Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 1.
500Jocano, Filipino Prehistory, 209.
501Ibid.
96
identity as Filipinos. This approach (i.e., use of mother tongue and priority of local
histories) will help us in re-telling the past that goes beyond academic research and
textbook reading. It is indeed, according to Ocampo, a “political and emotional issue” 502
because it is an opportunity to re-write our own history as a Filipino people.503
The Filipino people, as claimed by Renato Constatino, has “had the misfortune of
being liberated four times”504 only to be occupied by other foreign “benefactors” again
and again. Because of this, Constantino claims that “we habitually analyze Philippine
society in the light of colonial myths and foreign concepts and values and act on the
basis of assumptions and premises that only reveal our lack of understanding of the
rich experiences contained in our history of struggles and freedom.”505
We, assert, however, that there is no reason to despair and abandon our project to
re-claim our own cultural identity, because the long history of oppression suffered by
the Filipinos has not totally annihilated the Filipino spirit. It can be surmised that the
historian’s mission is to tease out and weave together the fabric of history, the pertinent
facts and figures, to present a coherent and meaningful narrative. It must not only
contain a descriptive account of what transpired in the past but, more importantly, a
critical reading of what happened; thereby, providing a focus and a trajectory to the
historical narrative. “A people’s history,” according Constantino, “must rediscover the
past in order to make it reusable.”506 Indeed, Philippine history is not only riddled with
narratives of exploitation, betrayal, cowardice and subservience but it is also
punctuated by stories of resistance and struggle that serve as a manifestation of the
undying Filipino spirit.507 On that note, we recall Zinn who has stated that
“History can…like memory… liberate us when the present seems an irrevocable fact of
nature. Memory can remind us of possibilities that we have forgotten, and history can
suggest to us alternatives that we would never otherwise consider. It can both warn and
inspire. It can warn us that it is possible for a whole nation to be brainwashed, for
‘enlightened’ and ‘educated’ people to commit genocide, for a ‘democratic’ country to
maintain slavery, for oppressed to turn into oppressors, for ‘socialism’ to be tyrannical and
for ‘liberalism’ to be imperialist, for whole peoples to be led to a war like sheep. It can also
show us that apparently powerless underlings can defeat their rulers, that men (for at least
moments of time) can live like brothers, that man can make incredible sacrifices on behalf
of a cause.”508
Against this “memorial” backdrop set by Zinn, we believe that a meaningfully trans-
colonial recounting of Philippine history calls for a radical paradigm shift, because
Teodoro Agoncillo, another respected historian in the Philippines, laments:
“[T]he history of the Philippines was being written, as it has been, by the Spanish
missionaries and government officials. The Filipinos, being ignorant and generally prevented
from being educated until the second half of the nineteenth century, were placed in the
category of preserved specimens in the laboratory with no active participation in the
administration of their affairs, except in some cases of ill-conceived revolts and uprisings.
Reading the books and accounts of adventures in the Philippines, one finds the Filipinos
502Ocampo, Looking Back, 11.

503Ibid.
504Constantino argues that “First came the Spaniards who ‘liberated’ them from the ‘enslavement of the
devil,’ next came the Americans who ‘liberated’ them from Spanish oppression, then the Japanese who
‘liberated’ them from American imperialism, then the Americans again who ‘liberated’ them from the
Japanese fascists. Renato Constantino, The Philippines: A Past Revisited, vol. 1, in collaboration with Letizia
R. Constantino (Quezon City, Philippines: Renato Constantino, 1975), 12. Cf. also Constantino, A History
of the Philippines, 10.
505Ibid.
506Ibid., 7.
507Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Borders, 9.
508Zinn, The Politics of History, 281.
97
SAMBAYANIHAN
submerged under the avalanche of Spanish self-congratulatory verbosity, thus producing

not the history of the Philippines but Spanish history in the Islands.”509
In relation to the disproportionate historical accounts produced by Spanish historians,

Renato Constantino underlines three factors that render the Spanish chroniclers’
account inaccurate and less valuable: “1) their lack of training as social anthropologists,
2) their natural tendency to view and describe the situation in terms which would justify
their missionary presence, and 3) their inability, re-enforced by their conviction of racial
superiority, to evaluate an Asian society on its own terms.” 510 It is obvious that, on the
merit of this account, Constantino bases his assertion on the accounts of Isabelo de los
Reyes, La Religion Antigua de los Filipinos, who faults the chroniclers, especially Father
Pedro Chirino in 1604, with “copying and adding figments of their imagination”
regarding the conversion of the natives in the Islands.511 In the same account, de los
Reyes also accuses Father Colin of attempting to invent a native cosmogony paralleling
that of the Genesis.512
In contrast to the historical narratives drafted by the Spanish historians, according
to Agoncillo,
“The history books written by the Americans for Filipinos, such as those of David P. Burrows
and Prescott Jennigan, are a little better than those written by the Spaniards, with this
difference: that the Americans tried to understand the Filipinos but could not. The Filipino’s
role, then, was written about but not to write about himself.”513
These poignant words of Agoncillo can be seen as a reverberation of what we have been
discussing above about the metanarrative of European/Western history that dissolves
otherness and imposes its self-proclaimed superiority and centrality. Certainly,
Agoncillo’s remarks encourage us to write history/histories from our perspective/s as
Filipinos. Filipino history/histories, as we have already discussed in our part one,
cannot be a total rejection of anything that is western or everything that bears the mark
of western influence. We can never undo what transpired in the past. We can only
change how we see and interpret the facts and figures that we have gathered.
The Filipino people, fortunately and unfortunately, are a creative combination,
perhaps numerous permutations, of all the indigenous and foreign elements brought
about by multiple contacts and dynamic permeations of cultures. We have to admit that
we are a mixed race. But, positively, we can still discern and highlight, although not in
a naïve and nativist stance, what is indigenous and valuable for us in order to
reconfigure our past, liberate our present and re-imagine our future.
This undertaking requires avoidance of western categorizations and criteria like
what Jocano did in studying prehistoric Filipino identity. Of course, we cannot
uncritically engage his methodology in all levels of our historical re-writing, but we can
still use it as a heuristic device.
509Agoncillo, History and Culture, 6.

510Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 24
511Ibid. Cf. Isabelo de los Reyes, La Religion Antigua de los Filipinos (Manila: Imprenta de El Renacimiento,
1909), 12, 31-31. Cf. also Francisco Colin, ed., Labor envangélica, Pablo Pastells,3 vols. (Barcelona: Henrich,
1900-1902), I, 16. The original edition of this work was published in 1663. Colin was a Jesuit missionary
of long residence in the Philippines. Cf. also William Henry Scott, “The Contributions of Jose E. Marco to
Philippine Historiography,” in Prehistoric Source Materials for Study of Philippine History (Manila: University
of Santo Tomas, 1968), 104-136.
512Ibid.
513Agoncillo, History and Culture., 7. My italics.
98
Concerning our effort to rebuild prehistoric Filipino identities, he suggests that we

espouse an eightfold path approach.514 He proposes that those who are reviewing
Filipino pre-history should discard the “waves of migration” as the theory for the Filipino
genealogy which was theorized by Prof. H. Otley who was dubbed as the “Father of
Filipino Anthropology”.515 This theory explains that the origins of the Filipino people can
be traced to the so-called three waves of migration: “First, the fish-eating ‘Negritos’ who
went to the islands by way of land bridges; second, the Indonesians who displaced the
Negritos and drove them away to settle in the fields; and third, the Malays who arrived
in the Philippine shores by boats and drove away the Indonesian who, in turn, pushed
the original settlers in the archipelago to the hinterlands.”516 What Jocano suggests,
instead, is the “Core Population Theory” which surmises that “the present Filipinos are
products of the long process of cultural evolution and movement of people… the people
of the prehistoric islands of Southeast Asia were of the same population as the
combination of human evolution that occurred in the islands of Southeast Asia about
1.9 million years ago.”517 The second proposition of Jocano is to refute the
“Austronesian”518 concept as the only primordial foundation of our cultural
development.519 Jocano opines that it is also possible to move away from Western
categorization, not “always explaining our past achievements in the context of the
foreign cultures,” because we also have the means to dig into our cultural heritage based
on extant archaeological evidence.520 Thirdly, he calls for an abandonment of the
inconclusive idea that the “Negritos”521 are our forebears.522 Apparently, despite the
ethnological studies conducted, there is still no solid reason to believe that the first
people who populated the Philippine archipelago were the negritoes. Jocano even doubts
if there will come a time that this will be “adequately documented.”523 The fourth
recommendation of Jocano is about the demystification of the myth of the “Malayan”
origin. He also advocates a dismissal of the Maragtas as an actual historical data but
simply as an oral or folk history. 524 He contends that “If by history we mean actual
events as recorded by witnesses, then the Maragtas, on the basis of inconsistent internal
documentation, has to be rejected as non-historical. But, if by history we mean ‘a
514Jocano, Filipino Prehistory, 201-202.

515Cf. Otley Beyer, “Memorial Issue on the Prehistory of the Philippines,” Philippine Studies 15, no. 1 (1967).
Cf. Sonia M. Zaide, The Philippines: A Unique Nation, 2nd ed. (Philippines: All-Nations, 1999). Cf.
Liquisearch, “Models of Migration to the Philippines Core Population Theory,” Liquisearch.com,
http://www.liquisearch.com/models_of_migration_to_the_philippines/core_population_theory [accessed
May 23, 2016]. F. Landa Jocano, Questions and Challenges in Philippine Prehistory (Quezon City: University
of the Philippines, 1975), 49.
516Jocano, Questions and Challenges, 49.
517Ibid.
518It is interesting that a cursory review in the internet about the “Austronesians” will reveal to us that this
concept is actually given by the West to the people in the Oceania, South East Asia, Melanesia, and
Micronesia, including Madagascar as these people are being lumped altogether as one particular genus
originating from the island of Taiwan dating back to 6,000 years ago. Of course, in contrast to the
Europeans who are civilized, these people are savages. Cf. Our Pacific Ocean, “Austronesian People,”
Ourpacificocean.com, http://www.ourpacificocean.com/austronesian_people/ [accessed May 20, 2015].
520Ibid.
521David Prescott Barrows describes the negrito in the Philippines as “scattered survivor of the pygmy negro
race’ at one time undoubtedly far more important and numerous; brachycephalic, platyrhinian, woolly
headed, and, when unaffected by the higher culture of the surrounding people, a pure forest-dwelling
savage.” David Prescott Barrows, The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and the Ilongot or Ibilao of
Luzon (Michigan: University of Michigan, 2005), Kindle version, loc., 94- 106.
523Ibid.
524Ibid., 77.
99
SAMBAYANIHAN
branch of learning which deals with written documents about those actions of men
which are also social events or results in general conditions,’ then the Maragtas can be
accepted as part of oral tradition or folk history.”525 The sixth recommendation of Jocano
is about the reduction of the significance of colonization in the inscription of cultural
history. Another suggestion is to look at the concept of barangay as “florescence” and
not so much as “the smallest sociopolitical unit of our pre-colonial society”526 because
there are pieces of evidence that barangays also consisted of large populations with
more sophisticated social stratification. Lastly, he proposes that historians must
appreciate “the past achievements of our ancestors as products of a highly civilized way
of life and harness them to strengthen our sense of identity with our heritage and pride
in ourselves as a people.”527 He offers, in exchange of the things that we need to let go,
a more viable path to retrieving Philippine history in four ways:
“1. Develop a new conceptual framework with which we can describe, in terms of local
contexts, the dynamism of our prehistoric heritage, 2. Adopt new perspectives that can
sharpen our appreciation of the processes involved in the development of the heritage, 3.
Design new models that can reconcile indigenous patterns and exogenous structures as well
as integrate them into one sentiment supportive of our national goal, and 4. Formulate
workable strategies to highlight our indigenous culture.”528
Jocano’s suggestions are of great importance because, according to Constantino,

“A history that serves as a guide to the people in perceiving present reality is itself a liberating
factor, for when the present is illumined by a comprehension of the past, it is that much
easier for the people to grasp the direction of their development and identify the forces that
impede real progress. By projecting the people’s aspirations, a people’s history can give us
the proper perspective that will enable us to formulate the correct policies for the future,
liberated from outmoded concepts based on colonial values and serving only the needs of
foreign powers.529
It is, therefore, our hope that if we follow the lead of Jocano we shall have a better
appraisal of our prehistoric, colonial, and contemporary histories, because in this
manner we will judge things, according to Jocano, based on “adaptation to local
environment” and not on “external stimuli of migration and colonization.” 530 In order to
identify the different phases in the pre-Hispanic Philippines, we are advised by Jocano
not to interpret our prehistoric society and culture based on the “elements of inland
cultures” for these elements best exemplify only the geographical locations of the Middle
East and Europe, which do not quite fit the bill for the Philippines because it is an
archipelago (i.e., surrounded by waters).531 Certainly the geological set-up of the
Philippine archipelago demanded adaptation and cultural development different from
the Middle East or the West.

526Ibid, 154.
527Ibid., 202.
528Ibid., 203.
529Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 7-8.
531Ibid., 88.
100
II.1.A.1.1. An Attempt to Re-member Philippine Pre-Hispanic History
“What the historian should strive mightily to attain is impartiality, which is

not the same as objectivity. To be impartial is to be fair. In objectivity, historian is
supposed to detach himself from any entanglement with what he is writing in order
to avoid intruding himself into the picture. In impartiality, the historian is asked
to look at all possible angles and sides of question…like a judge, he listens to all
arguments and considers all proofs, pro and con, after which he renders his
decision.”532
-Teodoro Agoncillo
Although unknown to most Filipinos, according to Valentino Sitoy, “the first

European with whom some Filipinos came in contact with” were not Spaniards but
“Portuguese who conquered Malacca in 1511…As noted by the Portuguese chronicler
Tome Pires, in his Suma Oriental of 1513, foreign traders whom he called Luςoes
(Luzones) were in the Malay peninsula at that time.”533 It was mentioned in Gemelli
Careri’s account that the “Luςoes are about ten days’ sail beyond Borneo… the Borneans
go to the land of the Luςoes to buy gold and foodstuffs as well, and the gold which they
bring to Malacca is from the Luςoes.”534
Based on the artifacts and the living traditions found in the Philippines, it can be
inferred that centuries before Magellan,535 who was, interestingly enough, together with
Tome Pires in Malacca in 1511 and was the leader of the “first” Spanish expedition to
the Philippines, accidentally stumbled upon some of the islands of the archipelago,
which eventually came to be known as the Philippines536, a dynamic system of trade
and migration was already in place in what is currently considered as Southeast Asia.537
The seas and rivers were considered to be the “highways”, because our ancestors saw
the water as something that connected them to one another (i.e., “source of life and
movement”) unlike the Spaniards who regarded the Philippine islands as separated by
waters.538 The use of names normally associated with water (i.e., “Agusan, Sulu,
Siquijor, Aklan, Albay, Pagsanjan, Mandaluyong, Pampanga, Cagayan, Apayao, etc.”) to
refer to a place in the Philippines is a clear indication that bodies of water were
important in the life of the indigenous Filipinos.539 This had been, according to Ocampo,
the long standing view of the native Filipinos until the usage of wheel and the building
of roads and bridges were introduced by the Spaniards; thereby, creating a paradigm
shift with regards to the “more efficient” ways of travelling. Certainly, a different view of
532Agoncillo, Historical Interpretation, 34.

533Sitoy, A History of Christianity, 34.
534John Francis Gemelli, “A Voyage Round the World,” part 5, in a Collection of Voyages and Travels, ed.
Awnsham Churchill, 6 parts (London: Henry Lintot; and John Osborn, 1704-1732), 414. Gemelli Careri
was in the Philippines in 1697.
535Cf. Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan’s Voyage Around the World by Antonio Pigafetta, vol. 2; trans., ed., and
annotated, James Alexander Robertson, 2 vols. (Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark, 1906), 72-73.
536The official date given to this event in history is March 16, 1521 when Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese
seafarer by Spanish sponsored conquistador, named the island San Lazaro for it was the feast of Saint
Lazarus. It was under the watch of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, a royal official in Mexico, when the archipelago
started to be called as the namesake of Prince Philip of Spain: Las Islas Filipinas (ca. 1559). Cf. Arcilla, An
Introduction, 1-13.
537According to Agoncillo, “precolonial natives had a culture that was impregnated with Chinese, Indian,
and Arabic elements.” Agoncillo, Historical Interpretation, 58. This was facilitated by both naval and fluvial
means of transportation, like the balanghai that ferried between Sulu and China carrying goods and people.
Cf. Ocampo, Looking Back, 2-5; 12-13.
538Ibid., 2-5.
539Ibid., 5.
101
SAMBAYANIHAN
reality is presented by land travel from water voyage. Hence, the Filipinos began to
“unlearn” their special connection with the water.
Contrary to popular opinion, Jocano asserts that several areas in the archipelago
were already civilized long before the advent of Spanish colonization.540 This claim comes
with a caveat, however, that conventional notions of civilization ( i.e., urban phenomena
that entail the presence of big cities, public monuments, strong political center and
functioning bureaucracy, fine arts, religion, writing, big population, etc..) cannot be
used as the norm in this regard.541 Instead, he suggests that we can adapt what he calls
the “core achievements approach” that uses the following criteria of civilization: 1)
“efficient technology;” 2) “predictive sciences;” 3) “writing;” 4) “art and religion;” 5)
“foreign trade;” 6) “big population;” 7) “megalithic structure;” 8) “government;” 9) “laws;”
and 10) “warfare.”542
At face value, the difference between these two approaches are not easily
identifiable. A closer inspection, however, reveals that they differ in terms of how they
construe the notions of government and megalithic structure or public monuments. The
latter’s understanding of ‘government’ is broader than the “conventional” one, because
it does not require western notion of kingdoms to qualify for the so-called “strong
political center and functioning bureaucracy”, as suggested by Jocano, but a barangay-
state like the ones headed by the datus (chief executive) is enough to show that
government was already in place prior to Spanish occupation.543 Regarding the
megalithic structures or monuments, he believes that despite the fact that we do not
have megalithic structures (i.e., pyramids, a Great Wall, a Taj Mahal, an Angkor Wat,
or Borobudur) that critics normally use as a criterion, our forebears nevertheless built
something worth considering, like the rice terraces in Banawe.544 There was no need,
according to Jocano, to build something like megalithic structures because in a
barangay-state there was no “despots and tyrants as leaders.”545
Hence, it can be argued that civilizations, indeed, already existed in the Pre-
Hispanic Philippines, although in a different configuration.546 Indeed, the Philippines
was already civilized prior to colonization, although, they were formed not according to
western criteria but by how they adapted to their immediate environment. They had an
efficient technology547, predictive sciences548, writing549, art and religion550, big
540For a clearer description of the Pre-Hispanic Philippines based on primary sources, please refer to
Horacio de la Costa, Readings in Philippine History (Manila: Bookmark, 1965, 1992), 1-13.
542Ibid., 190-200.
543Ibid., 198.
544Ibid.,197.
545Ibid.
546Cf. also Arcilla, An Introduction, 12-13.
547i.e., stone-tool, ceramic industry, wrought-iron production, beads and bracelets, glassmaking, and boat
building.
548i.e., “systematic ways of gaining knowledge through objective observation and experimentation” as
evidenced by ceramic manufacturing; preservation of cadavers/mummies – amidst continuous rains, low

humidity and absences of tombs; dentistry; metallurgy; and smelting.
549i.e., literacy in syllabic writing.
550i.e., thousands of divinities and spirits believed to live in the world of humans, petroglyphs, sculptures,
vessels with elaborate design, and gold jewelry.
102
population551, foreign trade552, megalithic structure553, government554, laws555, and

warfare556 - all the right ingredients for building a civilization. This certainly tells us that
there is no reason for us to regard, as we have been conditioned by our colonial
mentality, our prehispanic communities as uncivilized, savage or primitive. They had a
culture (cultures) and they had their respective identities, but they were of a different
kind from the western cultures and identities. Theirs was not a civilization of imperial
expansion and conquest, but a civilization of “small” familial communities.
Having said all this, we can now identify some of the earliest557 signs of the
Philippines’ pre-hispanic culture and tradition.558 First, at present, experts who are
dealing with Philippine archaeology are generally agreed that the tools made of quartz
discovered in the valley of Cagayan provide us a hint on the earliest presence of human-
like creatures in the Philippines, which are normally associated with the Awidon
Mesa.559 The Pleistocene Awidon Mesa Formation can be identified, according to Durkee
and Pederson, as composing “of welded tuffs and tuffaceous sediment” which are
“characterized by quartz, hornblende and sodic feldspar”.560 In connection with this,
Agoncillo states that
“Up to the early 1970s, it had been assumed that the Philippines was a part of mainland
China. It was theorized that during the Pleisctocene or Ice Age, the waters surrounding what
is now the Philippines fell about 156 feet below the present levels. As a result, a vast area of
land was exposed and became sort of land bridges to the mainland of Asia. In February 1976,
however, this theory of the ‘land bridges’ to Asia was disputed by Dr. Fritjof Voss, a German
scientist who studied the geology of the Philippines. According to Dr. Voss, the Philippines
was never a part of the mainland of Asia but it rose from the bottom of the sea and ‘continues
to rise as the thin Pacific crust moves below it.”561
Second, we can also ascertain that what is known as the LCI (“Laguna Copper Plate
Inscription”) 562 recovered from the shore of Laguna Bay is so far the only existing proof
551i.e., Cebu, Panay, Leyte, Mindoro, Manila, Laguna, Pasig, Pila, Morong, Bay, and Jolo – although not
cities like those in Europe but like the Egyptians and Aztecs who had trading centers.
552i.e., trade with India, Middle East, China, Siam, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
553i.e., Banawe rice terraces.
554i.e., barangay-state.
555i.e., barangay system of laws.
556i.e., feuding barangays often raided each other’s territory.
557By using this adjective, we do not mean to say, as any sensible person would do, that they point us
actually to where it all started. They are, as far as the knowledge of the experts is concerned, the available
data recoverable based on artifacts.
558For more details about the Pre-Hispanic customs, practices and cultures one may consult Agoncillo,
History of the Filipino People, 20-57. Cf. also Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 24-39. Cf. also John
Schumacher, Readings in Philippine Church History, 2nd ed. (Quezon City: Loyola School of Theology AdMU,
1987), 12-21. Cf. also de la Costa, Readings in Philippine History, 1-13.
559Ocampo, Looking Back, 44. Cf. also Arcilla, An Introduction, 12-13. Agoncillo, Filipino People, 20.
560Cf. Edward F. Durkee and S. L. Pederson, “Geology of Northern Luzon, Philippines,” AAPG Bulletin 45,
no. 2(1961):137-168. Elisabeth Bacus, Ian C. Glover. and Vincent C. Pigott, Uncovering Southeast Asia’s
Past: Selected papers form the 10th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian
Archaeologists (Singapore: National University of Singapore, 2006), 375.
561Agoncillo, Filipino People, 20.
562Cf. Ocampo, Looking Back, 54. This artifact which is dated around 900 A.D. states as translated to
English: “Long Live! In the Year of Saka 822, month of Waisakha, according to the astronomer. The fourth
day of the waning moon, Monday. On this occasion, Lady Angkatan, and her relative whose name is Bukah,
the children of the Honorable Namwaran, were awarded a document of complete pardon from the
Commander-in-Chief of Tundun, represented by the Lord Minister of Pailah, Javedewa. This means that,
through the Honorable Scribe, the Honorable Manwaring is totally cleared of his salary-related debts of 1
Katî and 8 Suwarna, before the Honorable Lord Minister of Puliran, Kasumuran; by the authority of the Lord
Minister of Pailah, represented by Ganasakti. the Honorable and widely-renowned Lord Minister of
Binwagan, represented by Bisruta. And, with his whole family, upon ordered of the Lord Minister of Dewata,
represented by the Chief of Mdang, because of his loyalty as a subject of the Commander-in-Chief.
103
SAMBAYANIHAN
that around the 10th century CE, based on the result of carbon dating, writing was
already a skill utilized by the native Filipinos.563 It is interesting to note that this earliest
evidence of the “lettered past” of the indigenous Filipino people is neither a song nor a
poem, but a receipt for payment of debt.564 Based on the findings of Postma and
Casparis, the main language used in this copper plate is old Malay with a sprinkling of
some identifiably Sanskrit, old Javanese and old Tagalog terminologies.565 In addition
to this information, according to Agoncillo, “The earliest written record is considered to
be older than the baybayin (pre-Spanish script) since it has been dated to the 10th
century. Baybayin, in English, is called syllabary. It consists seventeen symbols, three
of which are vowels and the rest consonants. The Pre-Hispanic Filipinos wrote on large
leaves of plants and trees and sometimes on bark of trees and bamboo tubes.”566 Third,
the Manunggul jar, a secondary burial jar where previously exhumed and painted bones
were laid to rest, that “depicts the pre-Spanish belief in the afterlife and the existence
of the soul.”567 This piece of artifact that was found in one of the limestone caves in
Palawan gives us a glimpse of the development and intersection between art and religion
that goes back all the way to 890-710 B.C.568 One can observe that, based on the details
of the lid of the burial jar, there is an elaborate depiction of the indigenous Filipino
notion of the afterlife wherein a figure of the deceased man is being ferried by a vessel
steered by a person on the rear part which directs the soul of the departed to its destined
“resting” place. It can be surmised that, even in the afterlife, one is never alone in the
journey. The communitarian notion of human existence is portrayed in that piece of
Filipino ingenuity.
On top of these milestones, we can also mention that jade tools were widely used
in the archipelago, as part of the natives’ ingenuity in the pre-colonial time, to cut trees
down, which were then made into rudimentary boats.569 We can also claim, based on
the Bolinao skull found in Balingasay,570 that dentistry, as evidenced by the gold
ornamentation on the teeth, had been practiced in the archipelago before the dawn of
the Spanish colonizing conquest.571 Aside from this, the indigenous warriors of
Therefore, the living descendants of the Honorable Namwaran are cleared of all debts of the Honorable
Namwaran to the Lord Minister of Dewata. This, in any case, whosoever, sometime in the future, who shall
state that the debt is not yet cleared of the Honorable...” Cf. Laguna Copper Plate Inscription,
https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Laguna_Copperpl
ate_Inscription.html [accessed August 15, 2014].
565Cf. Antoon Postma, “The Laguna Copper-Plate Inscription: Text and Commentary,” Philippine Studies 40
no. 2(1992): 187.

566Cf. Agoncillo, An Introduction to Filipino History, 24-25. As far as the Tagalog language is concerned,
Father Pedro Chirino wrote in the 17th century that “I found in this language [Tagalog] four qualities of the
four greatest languages of the world – Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Spanish. It has the mysticism and
difficulties of the Hebrew; the distinctive terms of Greek not only in the common but also in the proper
names; the fullness and elegance of Latin; and the civility and courtesy of the Spanish.” Pedro Chirino,
Relacion de las Islas Filipinas (Rome, 1604, 2nd ed., Manila: Imp. De Esteban Balbas, 1890), 52.
567Ibid., 58-61.
568Cf. Gabriel Casals, Regalado Trota Jose, Jr., Eric S. Casino, George R. Ellis and Wilhelm G. Solheim II,
The People and Art of the Philippines (UCLA: Museum of Cultural History, 1981), 41-42.
570Cf. National Museum Collections, “National Cultural Treasurers of Philippine Archaeology,”
http://goo.gl/6avlj8 [accessed August 15, 2014].
571Ocampo offers that “the gold ornamentations appear like scales on the buccal surfaces of the upper and
lower incisors and canines.” Ocampo, Looking Back, 71-72.
104
Mindanao (i.e, Joloan called Ximbanaos) were found to use sophisticated body shields,
which according to Lach and Key572, as quoted by Ocampo,
“are more ferocious and of greater determination, are armed from top to toe with helmet,
bracelets, coat of mail, greaves with linings of elephant hide armor so proof that nothing can
make a dent on it except firearms, for the best sword or cutlass is turned…From the
shoulders rise two irons to the height of the helmet and morion by which they protect the
head from being cut off. They knot the flaps of their skirts on the breast or coat-of-mail, so
that they can bend the knee to the ground according to their method of fighting, when the
case demands it. They wear a plume of feathers above the forehead, such as seen on mules.
They leave nothing unarmed, even to the eyes that are armed by fierceness – both because
of the terrific appearance of their arms, and the fierceness which they affect.”573
II.1.A.1.2. Of Gods and Goddesses; A Story of Philippine Traditional Religiosity574
Religiosity, as recounted by some historians and discovered by some socio-

anthropological scholars, was not unknown for the native inhabitants of the islands
that were later consolidated as parts of the present Philippine archipelago. It may sound
exaggerated, but we can say that, generally, religion and filipinoness can be considered
as synonymous terms. Hence, religiosity is not something imported from other cultures.
Outward signs of religiosity were already in place in the archipelago even before the
Spaniards reached the Philippines. As a matter of fact, even Islam was already present
in the Philippines prior to the introduction of Christianity.575 As corroborated by Majul,
Islam is said to antedate the advent of Christianity in the Philippine archipelago by more
or less a couple of centuries earlier occasioned by migration and an expansion of trade
conducted by Arab merchants in the region of Asia.576 Around the year 674 A.D., these
merchants had already reached the western sea board of Sumatra.577 It can be inferred,
on the merit of an essay which was published somewhere in the environ of 1375 A.D.
by Sung Lien (1301-1381), a celebrated Chinese court scholar, that the Muslims had
already penetrated and settled in the islands in the southern part of the Philippine
archipelago as early as the 13th century.578
When the Spaniards reached the Philippine shores, they noticed the religiosity of
the indigenous inhabitants as something that was intensely marred, at least from the
eyes of these colonizers and missionaries, by explicit display of paganism owing to its
belief in the many gods and the presence of unchristian rituals. Jocano, as cited by
Elestrio in Essays on Philippine Religious Culture, declares that
“Anyone who reads old accounts about the Philippines during the arrival of the Spaniards
will certainly note that our forefathers believed in many divinities. These deities inhabited
the surrounding world of our ancestors and maintained continued interaction with them.
572Cf. Donald F. Lach and Edwin J. Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe: A Century Advanced, vol. 3
(Chicago: University of Chicago, 1993), 1540-1542. My brackets.
573 Ocampo, Looking Back, 85-86.
574According to Hornedo the traditional Filipino pantheon is seen in the context of compenetration of the
“worlds of the numinous beings and the humans.” In this context, the world is seen to consist “two parallel
realms” that relate to each via different “rituals of negotiations.” Florentino Hornedo, The Favor of Gods.
Essays in Filipino Religious Thought and Behavior (Manila: UST, 2001), 151. Cf. also Sitoy, A History of
Christianity, 4-11. Cf. also Schumacher, Readings in Philippine Church History, 13- 15. Cf. also Agoncillo
Filipino History, 21.
575Cf. Sitoy A History of Christianity, 1-33. Cf. Cesar Adib Majul, Muslims in the Philippines (Quezon City:
University of the Philippines Asian Center, 1973), 40.

576Cf. also Cesar Adib Majul, “The Muslims in the Philippines; An Historical Perspective,” in The Muslim
Filipinos, eds. Peter. G. Gowing and Robert D. McAmis (Manila: Solidaridad, 1974), 219-220.
577Ibid.
578Ibid.
105
SAMBAYANIHAN
Aside from social relationship, these supernatural beings controlled all phenomena basic to
man’s survival – weather, diseases, success of crops, and so forth – such that every phase of
daily activity had to follow the wishes of these controlling powers.”579
Our local anthropologists, however, are cautious in calling it either as paganism or

polytheism. Instead, they suggest using the label henotheism580 to properly categorize
it.581
This is a very important element in understanding Filipino cultures and identities,
because this explains why until the present Filipinos, whether in the Philippines or
abroad, continue to exhibit outwardly their religiosity amidst the different
circumstances we find ourselves in. This section will help us understand why “Bahala
Na” rightly exemplifies Filipino ‘ordinary theology,’ which we are going to discuss in the
second chapter of this research work. Majority of us, Filipinos, belong to the Roman
Catholic Church, but our brand of Catholicism, as manifested in our liturgies and
articulations, is truly Filipino enriched by western religious features. Our Catholicism
is not just a case of “syncretism”, but a genuine example of inculturation. In truth, there
are some components that exist in the “Filipino” brand of Catholicism which will not
conform to what is stereotypically understood as western European Christian values
and norms. They may not be free from error, but we are certain that ours is a Christian
Catholicism that emanates from a genuine encounter with the living Christ.
Going back, therefore, to henotheistic religious culture of the pre-hispanic
Filipinos, which forms the substratum of Filipino Catholicism, we can say that their
deities were categorized into three levels: 1) gods of high heaven such as Bathala 582 or
Captan, Maguayen, and Sidava;583 2) gods of the underworld such as Sisiburanen,
Pandague and Sumpa;584 and 3) gods of earth, such as Lalahon,585 the goddess of
harvest, Varanga, the god of the rainbow, and Ynaguinid & Macanduc, the gods of war
who protected the people when they went to war or on expeditions of plunder.586 The
first category of gods, being associated with the high heavens, are normally believed to
be the origin or creator of everything that exists. Because of this, people generally
assume that they are ultimately the source of their joy and sorrow and of all the
579Fernando Elestrio, Essays on Philippine Religious Culture (Manila: De La Salle University, 1989), 5. Cf.
also F. Landa Jocano, “Philippine Mythology and General Education”, in Robert B. Siliman, Religious Beliefs
and Life at the Beginning of the Spanish Regime in the Philippines (Dumaguete City: College of Theology,
Silliman University, 1964), 92 ff.
580Merriam-Webster dictionary defines this term as “the worship of one god without denying the existence
of other gods. .”Merrian-Webster, Henotheism, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/henotheism

[accessed May 25, 2015]. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling is considered to be the originator of this
word. Cf. Mercia Eliade, ed., “Henotheism,” Encyclopedia of Religion (New York: MacMillan, 1987).
581Elestrio, Essays on Philippine Religious Culture, 92 ff.
582This deity is Diwata to the Subanons in Mindano and Kabunian to the Cordilleras. The term Diwata,
however, is mostly used to refer to lesser deities by other ethnic groups in the Philippines. These lesser
divinities, like the anitos, are believed to be everywhere in the environment. Cf. Virginia Fabella, Peter Lee
and David Suh, eds., Asian Christian Spirituality. Reclaiming Traditions (New York: Orbis, 1992), 98. Cf.
Hornedo, The Favor of Gods, 151.
583According to Francisco Demetrio, S.J., “Myths and Symbol in Philippines,” Philippine Studies 28, no.
2(1980): 228-231. “The Bisayans variously called the creator Bathala, Sidapa, Malaon, Badadum,
Makapatag, Makaobus; the Tagalog, Bathala, Maykapal; the Negritos, Maylupa; and so on. These names
seem to correspond to the terms ‘high gods’ or ‘supreme beings’ which some ethnologists have given to the
creator gods.” Cf. also Siliman, Religious Beliefs and Life, 92 ff.
584Siliman, Religious Beliefs and Life, 93 ff.
585Early documents made mention of this goddess. Ibid., 34 ff.
586Ibid., 8. It was not clear, though, whether the greater gods created the lesser ones, or whether all of them
were in the state of perfect happiness. It was not even clear whether they were pure spirits (beings without
bodies) or not. Aside from that, their functions were not so specialized. In fact, most of the time they
overlapped.
106
phenomena (i.e., human suffering, death, rain, and drought) that naturally occur in the
world. Western categories of good and evil, however, do not apply to these deities. The
natives, in this context, either worshipped these deities directly or approached them
through various intermediaries (i.e., lesser gods) depending on how they were trained to
relate to their gods. Generally, though, the supreme gods are thought to be too lofty and
too great to be approached by the mortals without any form of mediation.587
If the gods of the high heavens are associated with the “genesis,” in contrast, the
second category of divinities are believed to be the administrators of the underworld.
Three names are the most recognizable of all them: Sumpay, who is the receiver of the
souls transported by Maguayen to the underworld. And, Sisiburanen, who is the
supreme god of the underworld.588 Souls were believed to remain in the underworld
indefinitely unless they were liberated by a minor god in the underworld called
Pandague.589 People, in the hope of persuading Pandague to send the souls of their loved
ones to the heavens or high mountain, offer sacrifices to the said deity.
The third category of gods, e.g. Lalahon (a goddess) being the most popular, were
responsible for the scarcity or abundance of harvest, depending on the pleasure they
received from people’s offerings and sacrifices.590 Hence, people were very careful not to
displease them, otherwise they would suffer from their wrath.
II.1.A.1.2.1. Nature: A World Inhabited by Spirits
Apart from the three categories of divinities, there are also some environmental
spirits that the indigenous people of the Philippines considered to be part of their
religious worldview.591 These spirits were believed to virtually share the same
environment with the human beings.592 Hence, they are more personal/accessible
compared to those aforementioned deities. This closeness, therefore, means that these
spirits could immediately reward or punish individual persons depending on the offense
or merits of the latter.
The most common kind of these environmental spirits are the anitos.593 People
from the Tagalog area, when Spanish colonization in the Philippines was still in its
nascent stage, considered the anitos to be agents of Bathala, their supreme god, who
was too lofty to be directly addressed by a simple mortal being.594 The Spanish chronicler
Loarca recounts, as cited by Schumacher in Readings in Philippine Church History, that
587Elestrio, Essays on Philippine Religious Culture, 5.

588Ibid., 6.
589Ibid.
590Ibid.,7.
591Ibid. Hornedo claims that “What we call “spirits” for lack of a felicitous English equivalent are imagined
by traditional Filipinos to be corporeal and to be treated as such, their invisibility notwithstanding. On
occasion, these normally invisible beings can manifest themselves as corporeal apparitions. They also beget
children.” Cf. Hornedo, Favor of Gods, 150. Cf. also Sitoy, A History of Christianity, 10.
592In general, these anitos were thought to be found in the fields, trees, riverbanks, rocks, seas, houses,
battlefields or practically anywhere.

593Elestrio, Essays on Philippine Religious Culture, 7. To the Ivatan tribe, according to Dr. Hornedo, the
anito or is a category of invisibles rather than the name of a kind. To this belong (a) the souls of the dead,
(b) place spirits, and (c) wandering invisibles not identified or tied down to any particular locale or thing.
The aňitu has been the most durable and widely accepted object of belief among the Ivatans. The ancient
Ivatans, according to the accounts by Spanish chroniclers starting with Fray Juan Bel in 1720 down to
Anastacio Idigoras in 1895, appear to have had no clear notion of a Supreme Being, or it they had, they
probably regarded it as remote and with little to do with their workaday world. It was to the aňitu that they
related themselves with fear and meticulous and ritual care. Cf. also Hornedo, Favor of Gods, 80.
594Schumacher, Readings in Philippine Church History, 15.
107
SAMBAYANIHAN
“When the Indios were asked why they did not offer any sacrifices to Bathala, they
answered that Bathala was too great a lord and therefore no one could speak to him.”595
Traditionally, these anitos are believed not only as inhabiting the same world as the
human beings but also as the owners of the resources of nature. Thus, it is necessary
that people, who subscribe to this worldview, believe that they are simply stewards of
the natural resources. Hence, they should humbly show deference to the spirit. Thus,
whenever they get something from nature or they need to traverse a place suspected to
be a dwelling place of the spirits, people politely say “tabi, tabi po!”596 Not observing this
protocol will result in misfortunes for the offender (i.e., either sickness or death in the
family; or nightmare; or accidents; or seeing and hearing strange visions and noises). 597
Moreover, the human beings are expected to always offer a part of their harvest or a
small portion of their food and drink by deliberately spilling them on the ground as a
sign of the former’s debt of gratitude.598
II.1.A.1.2.2. Protocols in the Pre-Hispanic Spiritual World
According to Dr. Florentino Hornedo, the traditional Filipino henotheistic

religiosity reveals two expressions of negotiation as far as the native Filipinos’ relation
with the divine was concerned: 1) “acknowledgement of dominion” (i.e.,“tribute-
giving/sacrifice,” “supplication,” “covenant-making/vow of subordination/obedience,”
“reverential fear/keeping taboos,” “atonement for transgression of covenant, and
appropriation”); and 2) “acknowledgement of indebtedness and gratitude” (i.e., “gift-
giving,” “merry-making,” and “vow fulfillment”).599 The second form of acknowledgement
is normally embodied by the words panata600 and utang na loob.601 Hornedo astutely
points out that in this asymmetrical relationship between the human beings and the
divinities the Filipino psyche has profoundly internalized takot (fear) and hiya
(shame),602 which we believe, have served as a convenient vehicle for colonization. 603
595Schumacher, Readings in Philippine Church History, 15. Cf. also Miguel de Loarca, “Relacion de las Yslas
Filipinas,” vol.6; in The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, 55 vols., eds., Emma Helen Blair and James
Alexander Robertson (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1903-1909), 129ff.
596Literally this means “move aside”. Sitoy, A History of Christianity, 2-3. See also Loarca, “Relacion de las
Yslas Filipinas,” 129ff.

597According to Hornedo, “Moral responsibility is not a matter of willful violation of taboos. The fact of
violation alone is sufficient to bring punishment upon oneself. Thus, when sickness or misfortune strikes
which is believed to be caused by the invisibles, appeasement and atonement must be done by prayer and
sacrificial ritual.” Horneo, Favor of Gods, 183.
598Ibid
599Ibid., 152-161.
600Panata is understood by the Filipinos a way of “bargaining with the Sacred Being” where something is
promised by the moral in exchange of a favor to be granted by the deity.

601Those who drafted the proceedings of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines generally understand
this concept as “debt of inner self” “utang na loob as a debt of inner self or a debt of gratitude born out of
the acceptance proffered help in the time of need.” Cf. Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, Acts
and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (Manila: CBCP, 1992), 295-296. De Mesa
claims, as cited by Enriquez, that “[Utang na loob functions] prior to any reception of favor. It is used as a
plea prior to any favor because utang na loob, the debt owed to another person who shares a common
humanity (loob), exists just because we are fellow human beings.” Cf. Enriquez, From Colonial to Liberation
Psychology, 68-69. “In utang na loob the benefactor,” according to Leonardo Mercado, does not set any
conditions, or ask for the expression of gratitude. All depends on the inventive generosity of the recipient,
s generosity which can last for a lifetime. Cf. Leonardo Mercado, Elements of Filipino Theology (Tacloban
City: Divine Word University, 1975), 117.
602Hornedo, Favor of Gods, 183.
603Both can be positive or negative depending on how they are utilized.
108
II.1.A.2. From Terra Incognita604 To Terra Colonizada: The Coming of Spanish

Colonization; Captured from the Critical Filipino Lens
“To the victors goes that privilege of writing history, the glorification of its
conquest, and the silencing of the conquered.”605
-The Forbidden Book
Before we embark on a recounting of the history of the Philippines that pertains to

the advent of Spanish colonial period in the Philippines, let us first mention at this
juncture that Nick Joaquin, an eminent Filipino historian and journalist, strongly
doubts the possibility of writing of Philippine pre-hispanic history as a nation. He
categorically contends that
“The Philippine condition in the Pre-West Asia can thus be summed up in two words:
unknown and unknowing; while the attitude of our neighbors to us can likewise be summed
up in two words: ignorant and indifferent; and this ignorance and indifference are exemplified
by their supposed maps of us, which are so wildly inaccurate (even as late as the 16 th
century!) as to proclaim that, though the Philippines was not remote nor inaccessible,
nevertheless we were, for our close neighbors, a veritable terra incognita. Only with the maps
of the West do we finally enter geography, so that it can be said that, even for Asia, the
Philippines was ‘discovered’ in 1521.”606
These are very strong words that will certainly hit a sensitive chord to a Filipino obsessed
with the idea of providing a narrative account of the pre-hispanic Philippine history. But
it is also good to consider Joaquin’s point because the indigenous inhabitants of the
Philippine islands, perhaps, did not trouble themselves with the idea of recording history
and demarcating boundaries proper to societies interested in conquest and occupation.
Perhaps, we can surmise that native inhabitants lived in a totally different world view
from its neighbors and from the Western World. Hence, for want of better expression,
the Philippines can, indeed, be considered prior to Spanish occupation as terra
incognita.
As already indicated by the title of this section, this account of history will not be
taken from the lips of the “victors” who have misinformed the Filipinos that the
Philippines was discovered by Magellan, which until now is still widely accepted by
uncritical Filipino minds. Rather, we give our piece of kasaysayan based on our critical
lens as trans-colonial Filipino people. Yes, the Philippine archipelago was unknown to
the western world prior to Magellan’s tragic voyage. We maintain, however, that the
Philippines was not discovered by Magellan. Indigenous inhabitants were already in
place when his fleet arrived in the Philippine shores. What really transpired, as any
educated person rightly understands, was an encounter of two “worlds” and not a
discovery at all. This encounter, therefore, introduced the Philippine archipelago to a
“wider’ world, a world divided by the two imperial powers of the Modern world (Portugal
and Spain) and dragged the islands and their inhabitants to the colonial system of the
Spanish crown.
604Nick Joaquin, Culture and History (Pasig City: Anvil, 2004), 40.
605Abe Ignacio et al., The Forbidden Book: The Philippine-American War in Political Cartoons (San Francisco,
CA: T'Boli, 2004).
606Joaquin, Culture and History, 40. My italics.
109
SAMBAYANIHAN
The Spanish occupation of the Philippine archipelago, according to Constantino,

“occurred eighty years after Spain had entered the modern era.”607 Moreover, he states
that the “voyages conducted by the Spaniards were part of the initial efforts to develop
a world economic system…But despite the fact that Spain commanded a big empire,
she herself became an economic dependency of the more developed capitalist states of
Europe – first Holland, later England and France. Her colonial policies were
implementations of the mercantilist system prevailing at the time.”608 According to
Patricio Abinales and Donna Amoroso,
“The object of the Spaniards, as of the Portuguese before them and the Dutch soon to
follow, was to capture and monopolize the highly profitable spice trade that stretched from
a group of islands called the Moluccas (now Malaku in eastern Indonesia) to European
markets. Europe was rebuilding its population and prosperity after the disastrous, plague-
ridden fourteenth century and experiencing as a rising demand for exotic eastern goods
that sharply spiked from 1550 to 1620… The goal in this navigational race – by this time
the Spanish were involved – was direct access to the primary producers of Maluku.’”609
The encounter between the natives of the Philippine archipelago and the Spaniards
began with the “accidental” landing of Magellan’s fleet in one of the Philippine islands
en route to Moluccas in search of exotic spices and other items of economic value.
Apparently, Fernao de Magalhaes (Ferdinanad Magellan) was the first to study the
Luzones in Suma Oriental (Treaty the East) between 1522-1516.610 It is believed that the
letters of Francisco Serrão (Serrano), a Portuguese close friend of Magellan who served
as a military and foreign trade adviser of Rajah Bayan Sirullah in Banda Islands from
1500 to 1521, were instrumental in persuading Magellan to embark on an expedition
that would reach the Moluccas by a western route under the sponsorship of the Spanish
crown.611 This “unintended visit”, however, developed into an interest, as usually the
case in that era, to claim the territory for the Spanish crown at the same time to convert
the inhabitants to the Catholic faith. The official date given to this event in history was
March 16, 1521 when Ferdinand Magellan named the island San Lazaro for it was the
feast of Saint Lazarus.612
Magellan’s effort to subdue the natives of the islands in 1521, however, was
prematurely aborted in the battle of Mactan where the local chieftain named Lapu-lapu,
as tradition tells us, killed him.613 Lapu-lapu may not be the actual person who killed
Magellan. It is clear in the account of Pigafetta that several people from the camp of the
Mactan chieftain actually killed Magellan. For the sole reason that the death of Magellan
took place in the bloody encounter between their groups, Lapu-lapu has been
traditionally considered to be the killer of Magellan. In the book published by de la Costa
that includes a translation of ancient historical accounts, it was mentioned that
Pigafetta, Magellan’s Italian chronicler during the voyage to find a westward route to the
607Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 14-15. Another interesting version of Spanish colonization of
the Philippines where some factors that rendered conquest and conversion difficult can be gleaned from
Sitoy, A History of Christianity in the Philippines, 34-266.
608Ibid.
609Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, State and Society in the Philippines (Oxford: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2005), 47.

610Cf. Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan’s Voyage Around the World by Antonio Pigafetta, vol. 2; trans., ed., and
annotated, James Alexander Robertson, 2 vols. (Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark, 1906), 72-73.
611Pigafetta, Magellan’s Voyage, 72-73.
612Cf. Arcilla, An Introduction, 1-13.
613de la Costa, Readings in Philippine History, 16.
110
“Isles of Spice”, had these words to describe what happened on the day Magellan was
defeated by Lapu-lapu:
“On Friday, April twenty-six, Zula, a chief of the island of Mactan, sent one of his sons to
present two goats to the captain-general and to say that he would send him all that he had
promised, but that he had not been able to send it to him because of the other chief,
Cilapulapu, who refused to obey the king of Spagnia…Thus did we fight for more than an
hour, refusing to retire further. An Indian hurled a bamboo spear into the captain’s face, but
the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the Indian’s body. Then,
trying to lay a hand on sword, he could draw it but half-way, because he had been wounded
in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that they all hurled themselves upon
him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass which resembles a scimitar
only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they
rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses until they killed our
mirror, our light, our comfort and our true guide.”614
De la Costa, commenting on this account, says that “Magellan’s defeat and death
changed Humabon’s attitude toward the strangers from hospitality to hostility.”615
After that tragic event, several unsuccessful expeditions followed. The series of
unsuccessful ventures came to a halt when in 1565 a fleet led by Miguel Lopez de
Legazpi gained the upper hand and instituted Manila as the capital of the colony. 616 It
was under the watch of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, a royal official in Mexico, when the
archipelago started to be called as the namesake of Prince Philip of Spain: Las Islas
Filipinas (ca. 1559).617 This expedition, according to Arcilla, was originally intended “To
bring to the inhabitants of those places [the] Holy Catholic Faith and to discover return
route to New Spain to the credit and patrimony of the Royal Crown of Castile, through
trade and barter and through other legitimate ways, which with a clear conscience
should be carried on to bring some spices and some of the wealth found in those
places.”618 It was such a risky venture but, definitely, one that would bring tremendous
profits to Spain once successfully carried out. According to Constantino, what propelled
this voyage, like any other expeditions commissioned by Spain at that time, was “hunger
for riches” that flowed from the top to the bottom of Spanish hierarchy – “from the
Spanish monarchs down to the last sailor on the ships.”619
It was mentioned in the historical account narrated by T. Valentino Sitoy that,
although Legazpi had already captured the island of Bohol on April 15, 1565, this leader
of the Spanish fleet did not consider it as a viable candidate for starting a colony in
honor of the Spanish King, Philip II. Instead, he decided to test the waters in Cebu and
made it as a temporary center of the colonial government on 21st of April of that same
year.620 After seven years, he decided to transfer the “central government” to the island
of Panay and, eventually, was relocated and permanently established in Manila in
1574.621 Since then Manila came to be known as the “capital” of the colony.

615Ibid., 17.
616Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, State and Society in the Philippines, 47.
618Ibid. 7.
619Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 41.
621Ibid., 139-186.
111
SAMBAYANIHAN
Prior to the advent of Spanish colonization, however, Manila622 was just one of the
most densely populated barangays in the archipelago. In fact, it only covered the area
within what is now known as Intra-muros. According to Ocampo,
“In May 1570, Legazpi was in Panay and he sent Martin de Goiti to a place called Maynila. A
report was furnished Legazpi that documents what they saw: The town was situated on the
bank of the [Pasig] river, and seemed to be defended by a palisade all along its front. Within
it were many warriors, and the shore outside was crowded with people. Pieces of artillery
stood at the gates, guarded by bombardiers, linstock in hand. A culverin shot from us, and
close to the houses of the natives were four Chinese ships… This is pre-Spanish Manila. It
was inhabited. It had a government of its own. That Chinese ships were anchored there
means there was some trade going on though the document said the Chinese complained to
the Spaniards regarding the conduct of Manilenos. Goiti asked to meet Soliman but was met
by Rajah Matanda with a retinue so large and grand they mistook him for Soliman.” 623
Legazpi, then, decided to take over Manila and built a Spanish civilization over the
older pre-colonial city called may nila, which was subsequently, on June 21, 1574,
declared by Philip II of Spain as “Muy Noble y Siempre Leal” (“the distinguished and ever
loyal city of Manila”).624 Co-terminus with Manila’s title, the entire island of Luzon was
named by the same king as Nuevo Rieno de Castilla (New Castille).625 Two decades later,
on November 19, 1595, Philip II decreed that the Governor, the Audience, and the
Cathedral must be put in place in Manila since it was declared as the cabeza y principal
(the head and the most important city) in the archipelago.626
The subjugation of the Philippine islands by Spain, beginning with the conquest
of Legazpi, could be considered as a relatively “rapid” success. It was mentioned in a
commentary made by Horacio de la Costa in Readings in Philippine History that “The
soldiers and seamen who came to win the Philippines for Spain were accompanied by
missionaries who came to win it for the Christian religion. It was easy enough, in theory,
to reconcile these aims of Spanish colonial policy; in practice, conquest made conversion
difficult… And yet, the fact remains that the Spaniards did convert the Filipinos to
Christianity.”627 This potent combination, certainly, paved the way to this effective
colonization. In fact, it is said that what made the remarkable invasion possible were
the two-pronged approach of the Spanish Crown. One was the “divide and rule”
approach in subduing the local armed resistance. The mission was remarkably
successful despite the fact, according to Renato Constantino, that
“The Spaniards never had a large military contingent in the Philippines, Spanish soldiers
had to be backed up by locally recruited forces. Applying the age-old technique of divide and
622According to Constantino “Manila’s geographic position gave her more prominence in the mercantile
development of the colony. Luzon, therefore, occupied the focus of Spanish attention.” Constantino, A
History of the Philippines, 159-171.
623Ocampo, Looking Back, 25-26.
624This name was originally given by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. Ocampo, Looking Back, 24. T. Valentino Sitoy
narrates that “on April 15, 1565, Legazpi had taken possession of the island of Bohol on behalf of King
Philip II, of Spain. But it was clearly not the place to start the colony…it was decided on April 21 to settle
in Cebu.” Sitoy, A History of Christianity, 103. From Cebu Legazpi transferred the “central government” to
Panay in 1572. Eventually in 1574, Legazpi decided to fix the ‘’capital” of the colony on Manila. Ibid., 139-
186.
626Ibid., 21.
627de la Costa, Readings in Philippine History, 24. T. Valentino Sitoy claims that “While it is true, as has
often been said, that Spanish missionaries in the Philippines encountered less opposition than their
counterparts elsewhere in Asia – and this is given as evidence of the Filipino’s readiness to submit to
Christianity, the fact was that this ‘peaceful evangelization’ took place in districts after the local inhabitants
had been given a demonstration of the superiority and destructive capability of Spanish arms.” Sitoy, A
History of Christianity, 32.
112
rule, the Spaniards were able to avail themselves of the services of local mercenaries.
Recruitment was facilitated by the lack of a national consciousness. Each locality regarded
itself as separate and apart from the others so that invariably the Spaniards were able to use
native troops from one region to put down revolts in other regions. It would take centuries of
common grievances to develop a consciousness of national solidarity.” 628
The second weapon was the widespread religious campaigns to convert the natives to
the Catholic faith.629 During that period, according to Constantino, the Spanish clergy
wielded more power than those who were entrusted by the King with official
administrative functions in the colony because the clergy outnumbered the latter and
were in close contact with the indigenous inhabitants. So the missionaries were a
powerful tool for the “pacification campaign”.630 Based on the accounts of the first
Spanish missionaries in the Philippines, John Schumacher inferred that the Spanish
missionaries who were inserted in the “more settled towns” became successful in
training the native inhabitants in the “imported faith” by not only providing them with
some lessons regarding Christian faith, especially with the establishment of primary
schools, but also by “fashioning” the lives of people in the towns according to their
monastic life.631 By so doing, the “acceptance of subjugation” became easier for the
natives.
T. Valentino Sitoy paints a different picture of what transpired, however, by saying
that
“contrary to certain claims which apparently have no historical basis, the Filipinos did not
immediately come in droves to be baptized by the friars…the Augustinians themselves, for
want of assurance that King Philip II would want them permanently based in the Philippines,
were hesitant to proceed with the task of evangelization…These triumphalist assumptions,
however, were more based on missionary hopes and expectations rather than on the actual
disposition of the people who were the subjects of missionary endeavors.”632
He, nonetheless, claims that
“at the beginning of the 1590s, a new governor and a new policy enhanced the possibilities
for a more systematic and a more rapid pace of evangelization. Succeeding decades, and even
centuries, were to show that the missionary progress in the Philippines would neither be
easy nor painless, but the events that marked the last decade of the sixteenth century gave
promise that the spiritual goal would gain more lasting achievement than the temporal
objectives. In the end, the real victory was that of the friar and not of the conquistador, of
him came with a missiological purpose rather than him who sought after mercenary motives,
of faith rather than force.”633
Sitoy surmises that what prepared the ground for the so-called “rapid” conversion of the
native inhabitants of the Philippine islands to the Christian faith introduced by the
Spanish missionaries was the influx of Islam religion which took place long before the
Spaniards had settled in the Philippine shores. Islam introduced, according to him, the
radical concept of monotheism” that was, in some ways, in accordance with the
“monotheistic faith of Christianity”. What made Christianity more “palatable” for the
“original” inhabitants of the Philippines, compared to Islam’s strict prohibition of “idols”
which was alien to the traditional religious practices of the people in the archipelago,
was the use of religious images which was deemed as a better alternative to their former
religious outlook.634
628Constantino, A History of the Philippines 1, 51.

632Sitoy, A History of Christianity, 132-133.
633Ibid., 270.
634Ibid., 33.
113
SAMBAYANIHAN
The new colonial acquisition of the Spanish Crown, however, was considered to be
illegitimate because the Philippine archipelago fell within the Portuguese area as decided
in the Treaty of Torsedillas-Arevalo in 1494 that divided the globe between Spain (west)
and Portugal (east), according to Ambassador Joao Brito Camara. 635 T. Valentino Sitoy
states that Spain tried to justify its conquest of the Philippines by using one of the four
possible legitimizing ways in order to acquire a territory: “voluntary acceptance of
vassalage on the part of the inhabitants.”636 He claims that the Filipinos and the
Spaniards were not on the same page as they “sealed” their alliances via blood compacts,
because the Filipinos “were only mindful of the immediate intention of their assent,
namely, cessation of hostilities and peace” and not as an acceptance of the sovereignty
of the Spanish Crown.637 Nevertheless, Spain disregarded the treaty and went on with
its effort to colonize the islands in pursuit of the dream of an “Oriental Empire.” 638 This
utter and blatant disregard for Portugal’s right, according to Tan, was precipitated by
the proposal of King Philip to “ignore all provisions of the treaty regarding islands other
than the Moluccas where expeditions were prohibited from going. But to islands like
Philippines, the ventures must go because of the spices.”639 This problem was eventually
resolved in the Treaty of Zaragoza on April 22, 1529, eight years after Magellan’s death.
According to Agoncillo,
“In 1529, King Charles V ceded his alleged rights to Maluku to John III of Portugal for
350,000 ducats, not knowing that they rightfully belonged to the Portuguese area of
responsibility as provided for in the Treaty of Torsedillas, truly an evidence of the lack of
proper geographical knowledge on both parties. A line of demarcation was drawn from pole
to pole, this time at 297 ½ leagues east of Maluku, which was agreed upon as the western
limit of Spain’s colonial ownership. In view of the treaty, the Spanish goal in the ‘West’ was
limited only to the Philippines.” 640
The Spanish Crown, then, proceeded with colonization of what came to be known
as the Philippines. Armed with the Patronato Real wherein, according to Constantino,
“religious zeal disguised the economic content of the voyages of discovery and
colonization”,641 the Spaniards exhausted all possible means, most of the time
employing an iron-hand, to ensure that the Crown’s economic prominence will be
maintained, despite the obvious signs of deterioration.642 Constantino contends that
this was motivated by mercantilism where it was believed that the “power of a country
depended on the spices that it could accumulated.”643 Spain was forced to continuously
expand their conquest beyond the limits of their former domain because of the mounting
debts it had incurred from Italy, Germany, and England. According to Constantino,
635Ambassador Joao Brito Camara, “Historical Relations between Philippines and Portugal,” in Centennial
Commemorative Lectures (Philippines: Department of Foreign Affairs, 1998), 105.
636
Sitoy, A History of Christianity,187.
637Ibid.
638Tan, A History of the Philippines, loc., 945.
639Ibid.
641According to Constantino “The patronato real in effect gave the king vast powers which he shrewdly used
to serve his ends… Spain became the Church, not the Church of Rome but the Church of rising commercial
interests. We must therefore remember that when we speak of the Church in the Philippines during the
Spanish regime, we mean a peculiarly Spanish Church serving the ends of Spanish regime.” Constantino,
A History of the Philippines, 19. Cf. Tan, A History of the Philippines, loc., 917.
642Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 16. Cf. also William Atkinson, A History of Spain and Portugal
(Middlesex: Penguin, 1960), 136. Cf. also Harold Livermore, A History of Spain (New York: Minerva, 1968),
280-281.
114
unfortunately, “The search for gold became a preoccupation that led to the
underdevelopment of Spain vis-à-vis the developing economy of England.”644
They executed this mission in the Philippines as if it belonged to them by
birthright. The conquistadores instituted some infrastructures in the new colony to
ensure a steady income to the Crown. One of them was the creation of encomiendas
which was an administrative right granted by Philip II to certain people to collect tribute
and draft labor from among the inhabitants of a geographical area, along with the
responsibility to protect them and provide religious instruction.645 The encomienda was
considered as an integral part of the early Spanish administrative machinery because,
“besides being rewards for supposedly deserving individuals, the encomiendas were
established as a means of hastening the pacification of the Philippines and to give some
measure of local government and control.”646 Constantino states that
“each encomendero in whose care a native settlement was entrusted had a threefold
responsibility: 1) to protect the natives by maintaining peace and order within the
encomienda, 2) to support the missionaries in their work of converting the people to
Catholicism, and 3) to help in the defense of the colony. As agent of Spanish power and for
their own personal gain, the encomenderos, like the various government officials who would
later take over their functions, made so many cruel exactions from the population that they
reduced the natives to a state of degradation such as these had never experienced before. As
far as the colonized areas were concerned, instances of actual slavery in the classic sense
were a Spanish transplantation.”647
Another “financial infrastructure” used by Spain in the Philippines was the

haciendas. Establishment of haciendas, according to Constantino, was a form of
exploitation wherein the landlord, or haciendero, was entitled unquestioned ownership,
free disposition and inheritance of vast tracts of land on which the tenants derived their
meager livelihood.648
Taxation was also introduced in the colony which included both direct (i.e., income
tax and personal tribute) and indirect (i.e., customs duties and the like) forms.649
Monopoly was also imposed in the Philippines.650 The scheme to monopolize trade
in the Philippines was made possible by an introduction of the galleon trade. The only
regular fleet running in the huge stretch between the Philippines and Mexico was the
Manila-Acapulco trade that went on for 250 years and was known as the galleon de
Manila or nao de China with two vessels making the journey yearly (inbound and
outbound). According to Agoncillo “The galleon trade benefitted only a very small coterie
of privileged Spaniards – the Spanish governor, members of the consulado (merchants
with consular duties and rights) usually insulares (Spaniards born in Spain), and

645Cf. Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society in the Philippines, 55.
646Constantino A History of the Philippines, 46. Constantino states that “Although the Spanish monarchs
allowed encomiendas in the New World, they were careful to preserve the rights of the Crown. They did not
want the encomienda system to give rise to a feudal aristocracy…Encomiendas were not hereditary beyond
the third or at most the fourth generation and when they fell vacant, most of them were supposed to revert
to the Crown, thus insuring the eventual demise of the institution.” Ibid., 43. Cf. also John H. Elliot, Imperial
Spain: 1469-1716 (New York: Mentor, 1966), 43-44. Cf. also Agoncillo, Filipino People, 83- 85.
647Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 44-45. Fray Domingo de Salazar described to the king in 1583
the brutalities inflicted by the encomendors. Cf. Domingo de Salazar, “Affairs in the Philippine Islands,” vol.
5, in Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands, 223-234.
650There were monopolies (rentas estancadas) of special crops and items as spirituous liquors (1712-1864),
betel nut (1764), tobacco (1782-1882), explosives (1805-1864), and opium (1847). The buwis (tribute) may
be paid in cash or kind, partly or wholly.” Ibid.
115
SAMBAYANIHAN
Spanish residents of Manila. The few Spaniards who relied heavily on the trade became
affluent, but when the trade declined in the eighteenth century, an economic depression
resulted which arrested the normal population growth.”651
They also institutionalized, in addition to the ‘tributes, polos y servicios, according
to Constantino, wherein “men between the ages of sixteen and sixty, except chieftains
and their eldest sons, were required for forty days each year in the labor pool or polo”
which was introduced in 1580 and, eventually, reduced in 1884 to an annual service of
fifteen days.652 On top of all these, there was also the establishment of forced labor.653
Jose Arcilla states that “Tagalog alipin or Visayan oripun … were not slaves, but
members of the lower level of local society,”654 because some of them lived in their
houses and have the right to some piece of land and to plant their own crops (alipin
namamahay) and some of them lived in their master’s house but could also buy their
freedom. Constantino claims that ‘slavery’, as we know it now, was exported by Spain
to the Philippines which he has deduced from Victor S. Clark’s study of the Pre-Hispanic
Philippine practices: “Our ideas of slavery are derived from this period of moral revolt
against it and do not apply very aptly to the kind of slavery that exists among the
Moros…They do not regard slaves as wealth producers so much as insignia of honor.” 655
With these “standard operating procedures” in place, the native inhabitants
suffered inconceivable exploitations from the encomenderos (i.e., the elite and the
religious orders, such as the Augustinians, Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits) who
capitalized on the ignorance and weakness of the indigenous people.656 The arrogance
that was flamboyantly displayed by the religious encomenderos is perfectly captured in
this remark: “If the king sends troops here, the Indians will return to the mountains
and the forests. But if I shut down the church doors, I shall have them all at my feet in
twenty-four hours.”657 According to Constantino, “Friction between the two colonial
authorities existed almost from the very outset. It was naturally exacerbated by the
growing importance and consequent arrogance and abuses of the religious
authorities.”658 The difference between the political elite and the religious orders as
encomenderos lay in the fact that the latter, according to Constantino, “lived with their
flock and thus had better opportunities to acquire landholdings, whether within the
area of encomiendas or outside them, from the royal domain as well as from the
natives.”659
What used to be a widespread and free trade among the different communities in
Asia and the Middle East, wherein the original inhabitants of the archipelago actively
participated, was changed to a monopolistic operation through the establishment of
Manila-Acapulco trade.660 Limiting the flow of trade exclusively between Manila and

652Constantino A History of the Philippines, 49.
655Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 32-33. Cf. Victor S. Clark, “Labor Conditions in the Philippines,”
Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor (1905): 783. Cf. also Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 32-33.
657Cited by Constantino. Ibid., 5. Cf. Henry Piddington, “Remarks on the Philippine Islands and on their
Capital, Manila: 1819-1822,” vol. 51, in Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands,113. Cf. Constantino A
History of the Philippines, 74-75.
658Ibid.
659Ibid.
116
Acapulco barred the natives from directly participating in the trade because the right to
do so was given only to the Spaniards.661
This is contradicted, however, by Nick Joaquin who does not believe that the pre-
hispanic trade was widespread and well-established, because he contends that prior to
the encounter with the Western conquistadores the inhabitants of the archipelago had
remained “in the dark”, practically unaffected by the remarkable socio-politico-religio-
technico-economic advances experienced by the neighboring Asian societies.662
Going back to the economic system created by the Spaniards in the Philippines
during the colonial regime, Tan points out:
“Very little went into improving native conditions. The system allowed the participation of
the local chieftains but only as collectors, not as users of the revenues collected. This was
therefore a radical departure from the pre-Spanish setup in which the chieftains enjoyed
the right and privilege of using the revenues collected from their subjects. Thus, colonial
taxation destroyed the economic integrity of native leadership.”663
Deprived of the privileges they used to enjoy in pre-colonial Philippines, the local
chieftains who were given the titles of gobernadorcillos664 or cabezas665 “lost their moral
base” and resorted to corruption.666
The restructuring of the “Philippine society” under the Spanish colonial rule
dismantled the traditional configuration of the native communities which, according to
Tan, destroyed the communal system of governance and defense.”667 This new structure
prevented upward political mobility of the local inhabitants668 and established the so-
called frailocracia669 because the friars became the absolute authorities instead of the
gobernadorcillos (formerly native chieftains) who were supposedly the head of the
municipal units.670 This arrangement propagated the “superior-inferior and civilized-
primitive” stereotypes concerning the relation between the Spaniards and the local
inhabitants of the Philippines.671
The conflictual relationship between religious and civil authorities, coupled with
the abuses committed by both parties in this era, was instrumental in the awakening of
Filipino consciousness and solidifying a national struggle for justice. We must state at
this juncture, however, that the term ‘Filipino’ was originally applied, with some sort of
racial slur of course, to those belonging to a select group of people in the Philippines
who, in contrast to the peninsulares or those born in the Iberian Peninsula, were born
in the archipelago or the creoles.672 Thus, the Filipino word was originally used to refer
to the second-class citizens of the archipelago who were certainly of Spanish descent
but already tainted by being born outside the Iberian Peninsula. The first-class citizens
were those born in Spain who could boast of “pure” Spanish pedigree owing to the fact

662Cf. Joaquin, Culture and History, 32-41.
663Tan, A History of the Philippines, loc., 992-1007.
664It literally means petty governor, which is roughly equivalent to the present- day town mayor (responsible
for peace and order) but had the same functioned as that of the cabezas who collect the tributes within
their jurisdictions. Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 60.
665This group of people were usually “charged with the duty of collecting the tribute and forwarding it to
the encomendero who lived in the pueblo or even in the capital.” Ibid., 44.
667Ibid.
668Ibid., loc., 1053.
669Cf. Agoncillo, Filipino People, 78.
670Tan, A History of the Philippines, loc., 1053- 1069.
671Ibid., loc., 1085.
672Cf. Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 10.
117
SAMBAYANIHAN
that they had a hundred percent Spanish blood and an unquestionably Spanish birth.
The indigenous population of the islands were called indios, which certainly carried a
derogatory tone. In addition, Constantino explains that the term Filipino
“did not originally apply to all the natives, but grew as a concept and was applied to a greater
number of individuals first according to the race, later according to property qualifications,
and still later, to social prestige. Only very much later did it become a term of national
identification that broke through racial, economic, and social barriers.”673
He further contends that
“For a time, the term Filipino was both a backward and a progressive concept. As far as it
represented the Hispanized ilustrados, it had a class connotation, but as later by the people
as the term signifying their racial oneness, it became a truly nationalist concept.” 674
The present connotation of the term came into being when the uprising and revolts
against the Spaniards in the Philippines started to brew within the Philippine shores.
In this regard, Teodoro Agoncillo summarizes what led to the “rebellion” successively
mounted by the people who had a renewed understanding of their identity as Filipino:
“1) the injustice, brutality, and greed of many Spanish officials and employees; 2) the
unreasonable increase of the land rents, especially the rents of friar lands; 3) the desire
to be free from Spanish tyranny; and 4) the intolerance of the friars who refused to
recognize any other religion by the Catholic religion.”675 The Church played an
undeniably important role unifying the geographically and culturally divided people of
the Philippine archipelago; thus, igniting the people’s clamor for freedom. 676 Steven
Shirley relates that one of the main factors that precipitated the revolt was the “rejection
of native Filipinos” in the religious clerical state. The Filipino clergy fought against the
friars, and, thus, the government. He argues that
“The catalysts that set the revolution in motion were a series of political affronts to Filipino
national pride, starting first in 1826 when all Filipino priests were removed from Philippine
parishes and replaced by monastic friars from Spain. This religious expulsion was followed
a few years later in 1837 by the political expulsion of Philippine representation to the
Spanish Cortes. As these insults to the Philippine people mounted, the common bonds of
nationalism were fostered both in underground networks and through the communications
of the Filipino priests.”677
In the years between 1872 and 1892, the colony had witnessed, according to Tan, an
unprecedented transformation of what used to be a struggle limited only within the
confines of religious spheres to a full-scale “national struggle for justice” which resulted
in an “enlargement of Filipino consciousness.”678 It is interesting to point out, however,

674Ibid.
675Agoncillo, Introduction, 71.
676Constantino claims that “The economic ascendancy of the friars not only gave rise to a new form of
awakening; it also became an additional factor in unifying the people.” Constantino, A History of the
Philippines, 79. Tan states that “The period from 1872 to 1892 witnessed the transformation of a narrow
religious struggle to a national struggle for justice and the consequent enlargement of the Filipino
consciousness, important later to the making of a Filipino nation before the close of Spanish rule.” Tan, A
History of the Philippines, loc., 1117-1133.
677Steven Shirley, Guided by God: The Legacy of the Catholic Church in Philippine Politics (Singapore:
Marshall Cavendish International, 2004), 24-25. Sitoy (A History of Christianity) discusses the varied
responses of the Filipinos to evangelization in pages (positive) 135-37, 203-05, 208-09, 211, 213-14, 224,
233, 241, 243-45; (negative) 171, 177, 210-11, 214-15, 219-20, 222, 227, 240, 242-43, 248f.
678Tan, A History of the Philippines, loc., 1117-1133.
118
that the revolution was anti-friar but was never anti-Catholic.679 This assertion is based
on the fact that people only wanted to be liberated from what they perceived to be, as
described by Shriley, “a corrupt political institution operating under the guise of faith”
but, being religious even before the arrival of Spaniards, they did not wish to sever their
tie from religion.680 Shirley argues that “Even the most ardent of revolutionaries who
wanted to see the Spanish friars disappear did not want the parishes closed or the
Catholic faith to be replaced with something else. Instead, they wanted the corrupt
Spanish friars to be replaced with Filipinos, thus giving a boost to Catholic faith and
the revolution at the same time.”681
The revolt, however, was not limited to the Christianized population of the islands
but extended also to the Muslim inhabitants who were tricked by the Spaniards to enter
into a blood compact with them only to plunder, ravage and take over the Muslim
settlements. Blood compact was considered by the Muslims, like the other indigenous
communities in the Southeast Asia at that time, as something that was sacred and a
way of forging political alliances. 682 The coalitions formed under an overlord on the merit
of the said ceremony did not entail an absolute subjugation of the vassals.683 The
“subjects” were afforded “large degree of independence and autonomy.”684 Therefore,
when the Spaniards suppressed the relative freedom enjoyed by their vassals according
to the “terms of modern European Renaissance monarchy,” the native Filipinos,
especially the Muslims who were duped, vehemently withdrew from the concordance
and violently rebelled against the foreign power.685 Their deceitful blood compacts gave
way to the establishment of Spanish communities and government, especially in Manila
(1570). These Islamic people retaliated, according to Tan, by raiding “the Christian
communities in the Visayas and Luzon, especially the Bicol Peninsula.”686 According to
Majul, “The long series of wars between the Spaniards and the Muslims have been called
the ‘Moro Wars,’687 and they had continued up to the twilight of Spanish rule in the
Philippines. Their effect cannot be overemphasized: they contributed to the tensions and
conflicts that exist today between Christian Filipinos and Muslim Filipinos.” 688
Those who were neither Islamized nor Christianized, however, moved away from
the threats of colonization by migrating to the hinterlands. According to Tan,
“Only in instances where Spanish missions and troops succeeded in penetrating the
communities that the response was one of either indifference or outward conformity to
colonial presence, which was nominal in character. The revolts or armed struggle of the
Igorot at different times in history were efforts to destabilize the colonial extension into
areas that were important to them – those where, for instance, gold mines were found.”689
679Shirley, Guided by God, 26.

680Ibid.
681Ibid.
683Ibid.
684Ibid.
685Ibid.
687Agoncillo provides different accounts of Muslim resistance and struggle in pages 251- 260 in History of
the Filipino People. Agoncillo, Filipino People.
688Majul, The Contemporary Muslim Movement, 17-18. “In the last quarter of the nineteenth century,
Spanish official policy no longer focused on converting the Muslims; instead, it aimed at merely
transforming them into peaceable and submissive subjects of the Spanish monarchy.” Ibid., 19.
119
SAMBAYANIHAN
II.1A.2.1. Identity Crisis: Hispanic or Not?
It is curious that despite the fact that Spanish colonization lasted for almost four
hundred years, compared to the fifty years of American occupation, the Filipinos have
not been radically Hispanicized. This could be attributed, according to Arcilla, to the
fact that most Filipinos at that time resided in the areas that were not easily accessible
to the missionaries, such as in the farms located in the mountains and forests, despite
the bajo a la campana program of the Spanish colonial government that organized the
town around the community’s parish church or, literally, an earshot from the church’s
bells.690 As a consequence, most of them only received a remarkably “meager serving”
of Christian catechism. Their children, because of the geographical distance, were also
prevented from taking part in the formal primary education provided by the friars at the
time.691 Moreover, they only had very limited access to the sacraments which were
ordinarily celebrated in the town church.692 It is not inconceivable, therefore that, most
Filipinos preserved their pagan practices and superstitious beliefs while remaining
“devoted” to the Catholic faith.693
We cannot deny the fact that Filipino traditional values, beliefs and practices have
remained relatively intact despite the multiple colonization the country had to deal with.
Jocano claims that “it is safe to argue that, although the scope of Hispanization covered
much territory, it actually touched little of the traditional culture.” 694 This is the case
because “most Spaniards stayed in big towns and cities;” hence, the barangays were
left practically untouched by Spanish presence, except, perhaps, when the guardia
civiles (civil guards) visited them to check the peace and order situation in the barangays
or during the celebrations of annual fiestas that required the presence of the priests.695
The rural people had all the leeway, in the privacy of their homes and in the confines of
their villages, to observe and preserve their traditional values and norms. What made
hispanization even more difficult was the segregationist mentality of the Spaniards that
prevented the interface between two cultures.696
In contrast to the picture painted by other authors of history that the conversion
of the Philippine islands was remarkably swift and massive, Sitoy offers a different
version which claims that the “evangelization in the Philippines had a rather sluggish
start.”697 According to him, the rather optimistic account offered by other historians,
apparently, has no basis at all. He contends that “the Filipinos did not immediately
come in droves to be baptized by the friars… the Augustinians themselves…were
hesitant to proceed with the task to evangelize.”698 The basis for this claim of Sitoy is
the Cronica de la orden which was written by Fr. Isacio Rodriguez.699 In this document
Fr. Rodriguez provides some examples of the triumphalist claims by some authors which
painted glowing colors of the works the early missionaries in the Philippines. Sitoy
outlined in his book at least three hindrances to evangelization in the 1570s: 1) scarcity
690Arcilla, An Introduction, 48.

691Ibid.
692Ibid.
693Ibid.
695Ibid., 29.
696Ibid.
697Sitoy, A History of Christianity, 132-133.
698Ibid.
699Fr.Isacio Rodriguez, Cronica de la Orden de N.P.S. Agustin en las Provincia de la Nueva Espana (Mexico,
1624), 124.
120
of missionaries, 2) language barrier, and 3) the conquistadores’ religious laxity and

abuses.700 Bishop Salazar, the first bishop of Manila, claims that the reason for the poor
result of missionary work in the Philippines was the excessive requirement for Filipinos
to render personal service for they
“have no opportunity to attend to religious instruction. It sometimes happened that while

these miserable creatures are being instructed for baptism the Spaniards force them to go
to the tasks that I have mentioned; and when they return they have forgotten what they
know; for this reason, there are today many Indians to be baptized. In some cases when I
have gone to a village to administer confirmation, I have returned without confirming anyone,
because the Indians were not in the place but were occupied in labors ordered by the alcalde-
mayor, and I could not collect them together.”701
Edward Gaylord Bourne contradicts Sitoy’s contention, however, convinced that

the conversion in the Philippines was an achievement that was truly remarkable.
Compared to the Spanish conquest in the Americas, he believes that “In the light, then,
of impartial history raised above race prejudice and religious prepossessions…the
conversion and civilization of the Philippines in the forty years following Legaspi’s arrival
must be pronounced an achievement without parallel in history.”702 In contrast to what
happened in the Philippines, Gebara and Bingemer explain that, in the first wave of
European conquest of the Americas, violence was the most common approach espoused
by the Christian conquistadores. Indigenous religious culture, therefore, was uprooted
by force in the name of Christianity, which viewed the gods of the Indians as evil. People
who believed in these gods were either forcefully led to accept the new religion or were
massacred in the most grotesque way rather than “losing them to hell.”703
There is certainly more to this issue than meets that eye. Based on the accounts
of the historians that we have engaged in this research, there are at least three key
ingredients that led to the relatively fast conversion of the native inhabitants of the
Philippines. First, there was a “more enlightened and gentler approach.”704 To
substantiate this claim, we can cite what Pigafetta noted in his recollection of Magellan’s
conquest of the archipelago which was recounted by Schumacher:
“[Magellan] told the [Cebuanos] that ‘they should not become Christians for fear or to please
[the Spaniards], but of their own free wills: and that he would not cause any displeasure
to those who wished to live according to their own law, but that the Christians would be
better regarded and treated than the others.’ [Upon hearing these gentle words from the
head of the Spanish conquistadors], ‘All cried out with one voice that they were not
becoming Christians through fear or to please the [Spaniards], but of their own free will.’”705
Should we take this description as a faithful account of an actual eyewitness of the

encounter between Magellan and the inhabitants of Cebu, we can understand the quick
and deliberate acceptance of Christianity in the Philippines. Although, we should not
forget, as we have already discussed above, that the relationship between the Spanish
colonizers and the Filipinos had not always been amicable. We recall that Ferdinand
700Sitoy,A History of Christianity, 222-227.

701Bishop Domingo de Salazar, “Relacion de las cosas de las Filipinas” [1583], in Wenceslao E. Retana,
Archivo del Bibliofilo Filipino: Recopilacion de docuentos historicos, cientificos, literarios, y studios
bibilograficos, 5 vols. (Madrid: Impr. De la viuda d M. Minuesa de los Rios, 1895-1905), III: 13, 5-6.
702Edward Gaylord Bourne, “Historical Introduction” vol 1, in Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands,
37.
703Ivone Gebara and Maria Clara Bingemer, Mary Mother of God, Mother of the Poor, trans., Phillip Berryman
(New York: Orbis, 1989), 129.

705Ibid.
121
SAMBAYANIHAN
Magellan was killed eventually (April 27, 1521) in Mactan. It must be noted as well that
Legazpi’s fleet was not readily welcomed by the native inhabitants of Cebu when they
reached the island in 1565. They were certainly met with resistance, which made
Legazpi to order the sack of Cebu.706
The second factor that brought about the relatively “smooth” process of imparting
the faith and, eventually, winning the souls of the indigenous Filipinos to the Christian
faith was the “use of indigenous language/dialects as medium for evangelization and
communication.”707 Bishop Salazar saw that language barrier significantly hindered
evangelization of the Philippines. As a consequence of this realization, the Spanish
missionaries took it upon themselves to institute a more systematic study of the native
languages and dialects, which eventually appeared in the several works on some Filipino
languages in the last decades of the 16th century.708 In the Synod of Manila of 1852,
which was convoked by Archbishop Salazar, this policy was ratified. According to the
program set by the said synod, “the Filipinos were to be evangelized in their own
languages, which the missionaries should set themselves to learn, if they had not done
so already.”709 This policy was in stark contrast to a decree issued by the King in 1555
concerning the conquest of the Americas. As a consequence, King Philip II ordered in
1603 that those who were assigned as curates must be required to have a good grasp of
the local language where they were commissioned to ensure effective evangelization
among the natives.710 This policy, however, could also be interpreted as a strategy to
keep the natives disunited so as not to organize a revolt against Spain because there
was no common language that would be used as an instrument for communication and
unity. We have no solid proof, however, to prove this point. Besides, the argument of
having a common language was never a factor in the unification of the inhabitants into
one nation. Take for example the case of Belgium. Belgium remains linguistically divided
but it is probably one of the more important and successful nations in the world.
Although, some would also argue otherwise.
The third factor that facilitated conversion of the Filipinos to Christianity was the
“deep sense of religiosity of the local inhabitants” which was capitalized by the Spanish
conquistadores.711 It was cited in Schumacher’s book that Pigafetta noted in his
chronicle that
“the captain [Magellan] told them [Cebuanos] that ‘the one and only God made the sky, the
earth, the sea, and everything else, and that he commanded us to honor our fathers and
mothers, and that whoever did otherwise was condemned to eternal fire: that we are all
descended from Adam and Eve, our first parents; that we have an immortal spirit; and many
other things pertaining to faith.’ He uttered the following words, according to the account of
Pigafetta, when he was negotiating with the Cebuanos.”712
706Cf. de la Costa, Readings in Philippine History, 16-19.

707Cf. John Schumacher, Growth and Decline: Essays on Philippine Church History (Quezon City: Ateneo de
Manila University, 2009), 18.
708Ibid.
709Ibid.
710Ibid. Cf. King Philip III to Archbishop Miguel de Benavidez, O.P., dated 1603, vol. 21, in Blair and
Robertson, The Philippines Islands, 5. See also the king’s letter to the Royal Audiencia in Madrid, dated
November 14, 1603, vol. 21, in Blair and Robertson The Philippines Islands, 52n. See also Melba P. Maggay,
Filipino Religious Consciousness– Some Implications to Missions (Philippines: Institute for Studies in Asian
Church and Culture, 1999), 16.
712Ibid. Cf. also Antonio Pigafetta, “Primo viaggio intorno al mondo”, text and tr, vol., 33, in Blair and
Robertson, The Philippines Islands, 142-45.
122
It cannot be denied that the conversion of the natives by the Spanish missionaries
was phenomenal because, in a relatively short period of time, although Sitoy argues
otherwise, a significantly large number of its inhabitants had embraced the faith
introduced by the Spanish missionaries. Given the religious predisposition 713 of the
Filipino natives, minimal psychological hindrances came into play in their conversion
to Catholicism. The “transition” was relatively smooth compared to what happened in
the Americas where many of the indigenous people were massacred and traumatized
before Catholicism was finally accepted. Indeed, it can be argued that the spread of
Catholic faith in the Philippines was significant because 10 years after Legazpi’s
conquest of the Philippines, nine Augustinian mission centers were already established
in the archipelago (i.e., Cebu, Oton, Baco, Manila, Tondo, Ba-I, Bombon, Pasig and
Lubao).714
Carlos Gaspar, a Redemptorist brother who dealt with issue of popular religiosity
in the Philippines, is convinced that it was, indeed, almost effortless for the natives to
assimilate Catholic beliefs and rituals because there are, in fact, many similarities
between the indigenous religious worldview and Catholicism.715 The “marriage” of these
two religious traditions was, indeed, highly feasible.716
Both the indigenous Filipino religious worldview and the Spanish Catholicism
believe in the existence of a Supreme Deity; however, they differ in the fact that the
former is henotheistic while the latter is monotheistic (i.e, Bathala, Maykapal,
Kabunian, Magbabaya, Apo Sandawa, Laon, Manama are the names of the indigenous
Filipino deities who can either be male or female and are generally regarded as remote;
Dios, Diyos, Panginoon, Blessed Trinity, Jesus Christ are the names used to refer to the
monotheistic God of Catholicism, which can be considered as heavily patriarchal).
The native inhabitants of the Philippine islands believed in goddesses, like Lalahon
who is the mother of Kabunian, while Catholicism venerates Mary as the mother of God,
which replaces Lalahon in the religious worldview of the Filipinos. The ancestors of the
Filipinos believed in the existence of the spirits (i.e., anitos, diwatas, nature spirits and
spirits of ancestral heroes), while Catholic faith has angels and saints. The indigenous
Filipino distinguishes different kinds of souls, which can be thought of as beyond the
question of good and evil. The Ivatans, according to Dr. Hornedo, generally call a soul
as pahad. But, when they want to refer to the souls of the departed they use the word
pahadpahad. When they are referring to those souls that can be seen by the mortal
beings, they call them aňitu. This anitu is further differentiated between those of the
dead (aňitu nu nadiman) and those who are associated with things of nature and places
(apuwapu).717 Belief in the spirits included the spirit of the winds, the deity of the rice
fields, and the like. In this worldview, some ancestors who embodied exemplary qualities
were idealized in the memory of their descendants; they become larger than life hero-
spirits and stories of their greatness (i.e., having miraculous powers) were preserved
and celebrated in epics that recount the tremendous hardships and difficulties they
went through before they became victorious. Although distinguished by Catholicism
from the angels and the saints, Jesus Christ could easily fit the bill in the framework of
713Both the indigenous and Muslim roots.

715Karl Gaspar, C.Ss.R., Popular Religiosity in the Philippines. A Historical-Anthropological Overview
(Baclaran, Philippines: Our Mother of Perpetual Help Shrine, 1998), 13-16.

716This enumeration is heavily based on Hornedo’s “Indigenous Aspects of Worship in the Church in the
Philippines,” in The Favor of the Gods, 181-196.

717Ibid., 79-182.
123
SAMBAYANIHAN
the ancestors’ epic hero-spirit. His paschal mystery is seen as dynamic equivalent for
the heroic conquests of the Filipino ancestors preserved in the epics. The archangels
took over the control of the winds. San Isidro took the place of the deity of the rice fields.
People have more than one souls and animals also have soul.
Both the indigenous Filipinos and the Catholics believe in the existence of
malevolent spirits; however, they differ in their perception of what moral evil is.
Both believe in the existence of the “worlds” after death (i.e., sky world and
underworld for the indigenous Filipinos, while heaven, hell and purgatory for the
Catholics). The underworld, however, is not exactly the same as hell as we have already
discussed above when we talked about the three gods of the underworld.
Both have stories about the first parents (i.e., Malakas (strong) and Maganda
(beautiful) for the Filipinos and Adam and Eve for the Catholics). There are many
variations, however, of the story of Malakas and Maganda who are considered to have
come to the world at the same time and are perceived to be not only complementary but
equal to each other.
If Catholicism has priests as intermediaries, the native inhabitants of the
Philippines also had babaylans or catalonans as the intermediaries between the gods
and the mortals. The babaylans or catalonans, however, are usually female and non-
hierarchical. They do not only perform rituals but they also function as healers. While,
on the other hand, the ordained priests of the Catholic church are considered to be
clerical and hierarchical.
The traditional rituals for birth, death, courtship, wedding, planting and
harvesting of the indigenous Filipinos were replaced by the celebrations of the holy mass
and other sacraments of the Catholic Church. The temporary shrines (simbahan) in the
fields and houses of the native inhabitants of the Philippines were replaced by the
Catholic churches, chapels, and altars at homes where statues and icons are venerated.
Simbahan means gathering place. Iglesia has become the dynamic equivalent of
simbahan. The representations of anitos and ancestors were placed in the shrines in the
fields and house were replaced by the images of the cross, the saints, and the holy infant
Jesus. It was mentioned in the account of Pigafetta, as cited by Schumacher, that “in
memory of their ancestors they have little idols, some of stone, others of straw, others
of bone or of ivory or of a crocodile’s tooth, others of gold, which they call larawan, which
means idol, image, or statue. To these they had recourse in their necessities and offered
to them their barbaric sacrifices.”718 Amulets and good luck charms were replaced by
Catholic medals and scapulars.
A Filipino theologian, Fr. Daniel Huang, S.J., contends that the introduction of the
image of the Santo Niño (Child Jesus) symbolized the beginning of the Christianity in
the Philippines. Originally the statue was given by Magellan to the Queen of Cebu as a
token in 1521. It disappeared and resurfaced when Legaspi ordered a pillage of Cebu in
1565 when the natives tried to resist the Spanish invasion.719
In the light of this, Maggay notes that

719Daniel P. Huang, “Mission Spirituality: The Paschal Mystery” in Telling God’s Story. National Mission
Congress 2000 Resources and Documents, ed. James H. Kroeger (Quezon City, Philippines: Claretian, 2001),
91-96, 92. The account regarding the re-discovery of the image of the Child Jesus is mentioned in the
remarks given by a Jesuit historian named Horacio de la Costa. Cf. de la Costa, Readings in Philippine
History, 18-19.
124
“The strength of the indigenous imagination was such that what was labeled as conversion
could perhaps be more accurately described as a transaction that involved the mere
exchange of statues: dark wooden anitos were exchanged for saints with Caucasian features.”
Moreover, she states that the “pattern has remained unaltered even as Christian figures were
substituted, as with ready accommodation of the figure of the Virgin Mary and the saints at
the center of what in the past had been ancient fertility rites and festivals.”720
Everything that we have tackled above brings us to an inference as to why it is not

uncommon for contemporary visitors to the country to notice that, despite the
conspicuous legacies of the centuries-long Spanish occupation of the Philippine
archipelago (i.e., the plethora of Spanish Sounding names, the myriads of Catholic
churches and religious images/symbols; and the preponderance of the Catholic
Christians), they feel more the American vibe than the Iberian flair. We shall discuss
this in a more detailed manner later but, for now, suffice it to say that the introduction
of American system of education harshly affected the preservation of Spanish legacies
in the Philippines, except for what is perceived as a “syncretic” presence of Filipino-
Roman Catholicism. The massive campaign for the use of English language facilitated
the absorption of American culture that led to the obscurity of the Spanish norms and
tradition, except for the practice of religion which was more akin to the indigenous
Filipino religious norms. We may also add here what Schumacher has said about the
Americanization of the Philippines vis-à-vis the preservation of Catholicism:
“while the nation became Americanized, the Church largely looked back to its Hispanic
past… The religious orders that ran their seminaries and their schools remained Spanish.
Not only were practically all their existing Filipino diocesan priests Spanish-trained in
language and culture, but all the seminaries out of which the new priests would come were
directed and taught by Spaniards and in Spanish…The seminaries then were the second and
the most crucial point at which the Hispanic character of the Philippine Church was
maintained.”721
II.1.A.2.2. When the Mother of Jesus Becomes the Mother of the Filipinos
One very interesting aspect of Filipino religiosity is the importance given to the role
of Mary in the lives of the Filipino people. In fact, Archbishop Socrates Villegas, in a talk
he delivered at San Carlos Seminary, declared that “[b]efore we understood the mystery
of Christ, we first soaked in the mystery of Mary.”722 Pedro Zafe concluded the
dissertation he submitted to the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas in Rome with an
affirmation of the important role of Mary in the context of Filipino Catholicism. He claims
that
“History points out the fact that Marian devotion has a special role in the rapid conversion
of the Philippines to the Catholic faith. As a reward for filial devotion manifested towards our
Lady… Marian devotion contributed to the preservation of Faith of the Filipino people and
this was seen, in a spectacular way, in the famous battle of La Naval…. In short, the
Philippines would not be what it is now- the only Catholic nation in the Orient – were it not,
720Maggay, Filipino Religious Consciousness, 13, 15.

722The entire paragraph says: “Our centuries old Filipino Mariology has brought us to our Filipino
Christology. Before we understood the mystery of Christ, we were first soaked in the mystery of Mary. We
became a Christian country through Mary. It is our being Marian as a nation that has kept us Christian
through the centuries. Through Mary’s eyes, through Mary’s heart, we see and know Jesus. We behold
Jesus with the eyes of Mary. We have kept Jesus in our hearts because we have treasured Mary in our
souls. And Mary will not allow us to be separated from her Son.” Cf. Socrates Villegas, “’Caritas in Veritate’
from a Mariological Perspective,” Marian Conferences, San Carlos Seminary, Guadalupe, May 15, 2010.
125
SAMBAYANIHAN
as history testifies, [due] to the many interventions of Mary in answer to the tender and filial
devotion which the Filipino people professed towards her.”723
In the same vein, Fr. Catalino Arevalo, a renowned Filipino Jesuit theologian, argues
that “it is perhaps not as well-known [as the unmatched story of Christianization of the
Philippines] that the Mother of the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, played an
extraordinary role in this remarkably rapid process of Christianization.”724 To the delight
of the missionaries, this theologian recounts, “the natives everywhere ‘took’ very readily
the devotion to the Mother of God.”725 It is interesting to note that, unlike in the Americas
where devotion to Mary took a long time before people finally accepted it, Mary’s cult
was rapidly accepted in the Philippines devotion. Gebara and Bingemer explains that
“the integration of the devotion to Mary in Mexico did not take place immediately or easily.
Those evangelizing at that time were always preoccupied with replacing the deity of the
mother-goddess with Our Lady in order to prevent, as they saw it, the continuation of
idolatry. Judgment of what constituted idolatry was, of course made on the basis of the
criteria of the Christianity of the conquerors, especially the missionaries. Due to their own
limitations in language, culture, and education, and because they thought they were the
unique possessors of the truth, they were unable to grasp the depth of the Indians’
spirituality. Nevertheless, one can say that after a time there was a syncretist integration of
the great deities of the Indians into Christianity. A typical example of this integration is the
shrine on Mount Tepeyac in Mexico, which was the destination of pilgrimages to the goddess
Tonantzin-Cihuacóatl and the later to Our Lady of Guadalupe.”726
In no time, Arevalo declares, the Filipinos started praying the rosary, venerated Marian
images and became active members of associations related to the cult of Mary,727 while
those who could read started familiarizing themselves with devotional treatises and
perusing books on the Blessed Virgin Mary.728 We cannot fail to note as well that shrines
and devotions to Mary had proliferated extensively in the islands in a relatively fast pace.
Based on the aforementioned phenomena, we can rightly say that devotions to
Mary became an indispensable part of the daily life of the native Filipinos. 729 Each day
could not begin, according to Arevalo, without the Angelus and the recitation of the
rosary.730 Masses in honor of Mary, especially participated by various Marian
organizations, were celebrated on Saturdays and some important days accompanied by
reception of the Holy Communion and Marian processions.731 All these religious
723Pedro Vasquez Zafe, Marian Devotion: Its Role in the Evangelization of the Philippines (unpublished
doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Sacred Theology, Pontifical University of Saint Thomas, Rome, 1968), 153-
54. This is quoted by Catalino Arevalo in his article published in Landas in 2000. Catalino Arevalo, S.J.,
“Mary in Philippine Catholic Life,” Landas Journal of Loyola School of Theology 14, no. 1 (2000):109.
724Arevalo, Philippine Mary, 107. Brackets are mine.
725Gebara and Bingemer, Mary Mother of God, 131-132.
726Ibid. Cf. also Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcóalt y Guadalupe: La formación de la conciencia nacional de Mẻxico
(Madrid: Fondo de la Cultura Economica, 1977), 299-300.

727Zafe claims, as cited by Arevalo, that “each image ‘had its own story to tell’: stories of faith and its
rewards, stories of devotion and love and its blessings, stories of prayers offered and wonders wrought –
miracles duly recorded, investigated and given credence by church authorities, all received through the
intercession of the Blessed Mother, revered in so many of her images, invoked under her different names.”
Arevalo, Philippine Mary,108. Cf. Zafe, Marian Devotion, 105-117.
728Arevalo, Philippine Mary, 108.
730See Juan Francisco de San Antonio’s very detailed account of daily recitation of the rosary and the
Angelus in Schumacher, Readings in Philippine Church History, 47-48. Cf. Juan Francisco de San Antonio,
OFM., Chrόnicas de la apostolica provincial de S. Gregorio de religiosos descalzos de n.sp. San Francisco in
las Islas Philipinas, China, Japόn etc. (Sampaloc: Franciscans Provincia de San Gregorio, 1738-1744), 2:14-
15.
731Arevalo, Philippine Mary, 110. Cf. preceding footnote for the accounts of Fray Juan Francisco de San
Antonio regarding the daily activities in the churches and schools of the Franciscan mission. Cf. de la Costa,
Readings in Philippine History, 26.
126
activities required the people to wake up very early in the morning to go to church. It
was equally imperative for them to conclude their days, once again, with the praying of
the Angelus.732
II.1.A.2.3. The Beauty of Spanish Legacy: Beyond Church and Politics
Nick Joaquin, a famous Filipino short story writer in English who also puts his
creative hands and metaphysical mind in writing poetry and history, proposes that,
instead of focusing too much on the political and ecclesiastical legacies of the Spanish
colonization of the Philippines, we can also direct our attention to other more interesting
breakthrough events that transpired during the said regime, which he considers to be
of greater importance than politics and religion. The following are:
“1)The Introduction of the Wheel; 2) The Introduction of the Plow; 3) The Introduction of the
Road and Bridge; 4) The Introduction of New Crops like Corn, Tobacco, Camote, Coffee, Tea,
Cocoa, Beans, Achuete, Onion, Potato, Guava, Papaya, Pineapple, Avocado, Squash, Lettuce,
Cucumber, Cabbage, Sincamas, Sigadillas, Mani, etc.; 5) The Introduction of New Livestock
like the Horse, the Cow, the Sheep, the Turkey, the Goose, etc., and the Carabao as Draft
Animal; 6) The Introduction of the Fabrica, or Factory; 7) The Introduction of Paper ad
Printing; 8) The Introduction of Roman Alphabet; 9) The Introduction of Calendar and Clock;
10) The Introduction the Map and the Charting of the Philippine Shape; 11) The Introduction
of the Arts of Painting and Architecture; and 12) The Introduction of the Guisado.733
These events, although most of the time are taken for granted, certainly changed the
whole landscape of Philippine history, more than what politics and religion did to the
nation. It cannot be denied, of course, that when Spain decided to colonize the
archipelago it also brought some good things (i.e., the abovementioned 12 items) to what
we presently know as the Philippine nation. Hence, not all is bane in Philippine colonial
history.
What is more interesting in this “out of the box” proposition of Joaquin is the fact
that when history is seen away from politics, be it politics of society or of ecclesiology,
another revelation is being discovered. This means that there is so much that history
can offer other than dates, names, events, places and records associated with conquests
and wars, which we normally encounter in history books. If we approach history from
the viewpoints of agriculture, technology, arts, gastronomy and the likes, we learn so
much more about our rich identity as Filipinos and we open ourselves to the possibility
not only of opposition and rectification but also of appreciation and reconciliation.
Indeed, Philippine history is not only a history of colonization but also of becoming a
“unique” nation – where uniqueness is germinated by chaotic but fascinating
conglomeration.734
II.1.A.2.4. A Glimpse of What Transpired in the Bicol Region During Spanish Colonial
Regime: A Different Path?
This portion is meant to provide a different picture of what transpired during the
Spanish occupation of the Philippines which may be overlooked by people interested in
the history of the Filipino people. There are many other accounts of this kind that

733Joaquin, Culture and History, 405-406.
734This bears semblance to “mestizaje” which we shall be exploring later in the second chapter.
127
SAMBAYANIHAN
proliferate in the historical archives of the Philippines,735but most of them are either
regarded as too minor to be factored in the development of Filipino historical narrative
or as too relativistic that the veracity of the claim is highly doubtful. Nevertheless, to be
faithful to our trans-colonial advocacy, we would like to provide you with a glimpse of a
piece of Filipino history that occurred in the Southern region of the main island of Luzon
simply to broaden our perspective on the events that took place within the Philippine
shores when present-day sovereign country was still under the powerful control of the
Spanish Crown.
It is interesting to note that the revolution that sparked in the Tagalog region did
not have an immediate impact on the other provinces in the southern Luzon, Visayas
and Mindanao. A lot of them were clueless, except for the intelligentsia perhaps, of what
had been transpiring in the capital of the colony and in the surrounding provinces. As
a matter of fact, according to Elias Ataviado, “before the Pact of Biyak-na-Bato the
revolution did not win universal approval in the entire Philippines, but only in the eight
provinces which initiated it, and later, owing to their proximity thereto, in the provinces
of Bataan and Zambales, and in the districts of Morong, Infanta, and Principe.”736
Indeed, nothing was uniform in terms of participation, reception and perception. The
people of Albay province, for one, had a relatively peaceful experience of Spanish
colonization and of the transfer of power from the Spanish authorities to their Filipino
successors, owing to the relatively cordial relationships of the Spanish and the Filipino
people. According to the Elias Ataviado
“The adherence of the Albayanos to the Philippine Revolution was the effect produced upon
their understanding by the sequence of events starting in 1896 and by the battle of rumor
and propaganda, Tagalog and Spanish, that engulfed them. It is true that when the Tagalogs
started the revolution, the Albayanos, enjoying a material prosperity unequalled since then
and protected from outside opinions by effective censorship, were enthusiastically pro-
Spanish.”737
Hence, it took a while for the Albayanos to finally see the real cause of the so-called
Tagalog insurrection. In fact, brainwashed by the Spanish authorities that the Tagalogs’
only reason for the uprising is the thought of dominating the archipelago, for a while
the people of Albay “remained loyal to Spain and was indifferent, if not hostile to the
insurrection. At that time, nothing was done by the Albayanos to support the revolution.
When the government announced that 500 Albayanos were needed to reinforce the Army
in the coming operations, the response to serve Spain was an enthusiastic one, and the
quota was filled in very much less time than expected.”738 It was only after the signing
of the Pact of Biyak-na-Bato, realizing that the Tagalog’s cause is not as self-serving as
they were originally made to believe by the Spanish colonial authorities, did they start
waking up from their “colonial lethargy” and begin being sympathetic to the Tagalog
revolutionary movements.739 They realized that the true ideals of the so-called Tagalog
insurrection were not really fighting for domination but “for liberation and dignification
735See also Michael Cullinane, Arenas of Conspiracy and Rebellion in the Late Nineteenth-Century
Philippines: The Case of April 1898 Uprising in Cebu (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 2014).
736Elias Ataviado, The Philippine Revolution in the Bicol Region, trans. Juan Ataviado (Vasra, Quezon City:
New Day, 1953, 1999), 9-10.

737Ibid., 191.
738Ibid., 44-45.
739Ibid., 63.
128
of the Filipinos”.740 Eventually, they began supporting the cause of Philippine

revolution.
The Albayanos’ support, however, did not translate to actual bloody fights against
the Spanish colonial power, because apart from some incidents that caused anxieties
to the people in that province,
“the evacuation of Albay by the Spanish authorities was as orderly as could be desired,
although the Filipinos had armed themselves to repel supposed aggression…By the
praiseworthy and happy attitude of both the Spaniards and Filipinos, the transfer of the
province of Albay from its ancient condition as a colony of Spain to that of a part of the new
Philippine State was accomplished peacefully, without the shedding of blood.”741
Considering the variety of history that we have endeavored to employ in this

historical re-writing/re-righting, it can be surmised that the experience of colonialism
cannot be the same for all Filipinos. The historical drama that transpired mainly in the
Tagalog region cannot be seen as a universalized experience for the entire archipelago;
neither can it be considered as an overarching narrative of the Philippine revolution,
despite its important part in the colonial saga of the Filipino people. We may conjecture
that probably the reason why we encounter Filipinos who do not harbor ill feelings
towards our former colonial masters is because their perception of what transpired in
history is not exceedingly appalling or hopeless. Not everyone experienced the same level
of aggression or hostility. Or perhaps, it is just a supposition, that some have been
successfully brainwashed to accept that the asymmetrical relationship is natural so
they do not see anything anomalous about the treatment of their colonizers or it is
because those antagonisms were very minimal or peripheral for them to notice. It can
be inferred that many Filipinos do not regret being colonized but, in fact, are grateful
that the Philippines was “civilized” by the colonial regimes because they have a relatively
positive experience or recollection of their colonial history. Take for example the account
on the colonial past of the Bicol region which we have just discussed in the preceding
paragraph. We can also cite here the generally positive estimation of the people from the
Northern part of the Philippines, especially the Ilocano regions, who consider Ferdinand
Marcos as a hero which is diametrically opposed to the dictatorial and villainous picture
painted by other people in the Philippines who have grim and painful memories of the
martial-law regime.
II.1.A.3. American Imperialism:742 Seen from the Eyes of the Filipino
When the Treaty of Paris was concluded on December 10, 1898, wherein Filipino
participation was completely ignored, another chapter of colonization was unfolded in
the history of the Philippines. Agoncillo offers that
740Ataviado, The Philippine Revolution, 191.

741Ibid.,113.
742It is said in an introduction to the chapter 1 of The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism,
Neocolonialism, Dictatorship and Resistance that “Integral to the history of the Philippines in the 20th
century has been its relation to the United States. From its very beginning in the closing years of the 19 th
century this relationship has been marked by contention between those Filipinos who desired their
country’s full independence and sovereignty and those in the United States who favored a policy of
intervention in Philippine affairs to further U.S. interests.” Daniel Schirmer and Stephen Rosskamm
Shalom, eds., The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship and Resistance
(Boston: South End, 1987), 5.
129
SAMBAYANIHAN
“In accordance with the Protocol of Peace signed on August 12, 1898, five American and five
Spanish commissioners were appointed to meet in Paris to discuss the final peace terms
between Spain and the United States…The Peace Commission met in Paris from October to
December, 1898…The Treaty of Paris did not go into effect until after American Senate had
ratified it…The unfortunate rupture of Filipino-American hostilities on February 4, 1899 led
many opponents of ratification to vote affirmatively. The vote was taken on February 6 and
the treaty was ratified by two-thirds majority.”743
Part of the deal that was discussed in the Treaty was the “transfer of ownership” from
Spain to the United States of America of the Philippine islands and some other former
colonies of Spain in exchange of twenty million dollars payment.744 Those who have
declared independence from Spain, however, did not recognize the legitimacy of the
agreement, because by then, according to Constantino, Spain had radically lost its
foothold in the archipelago and the people had already organized their own independent
government. According to Constantino, by the time the Treaty of Paris was signed on
Dec 10, 1898, the Filipinos had practically liberated themselves because that time only
a few isolated outposts in the colony were controlled by Spain. They were able to subdue
the Spanish colonial forces without any foreign aid – a real victory for the Filipino people.
In the words of Constantino, “It was really a people’s victory, not only because it was
the people who supplied manpower and contributed to casualties in the actual battles,
but also because the soldiers of the Revolution found spontaneous and overwhelming
support among the masses almost everywhere.”745 This adamant refusal of the Filipino
people to honor the agreement resulted in a war that claimed the lives of approximately
216,000 Filipinos (200,000 of which were civilians) and 10,000 Americans in a span of
three years only.746 Although the U.S. came out as the victor in this bloodshed, it lost
$600 million dollars in just 3 years.747 According to Patricio Abinales and Donna
Amoroso “The Philippine-American War has been described as the United States’ first
Vietnam War because of its brutality and severity.”748 On this note, Schott recounts that
Brigradier Jacob H. Smith “ordered that every Filipino should be treated as an enemy
unless he actively collaborated with the Americans…I want no prisoners. I wish you to
kill and burn: the more you kill and burn the better you will please me.”749 The defeat
of the Filipinos, unfortunately, ushered in a new imperialistic occupation.
It is easy to overlook, however, the horrifying details of the war and the extent of
moral and cultural damage caused by the new imperial power, because the U.S.
employed some pacifying strategies750 like the “Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation”
promulgated by President William McKinley on Dec 21, 1898. 751 The terminology was
used to downplay or cover-up the “evil” intent, of course. It was presented as a program
to “civilize” and “Christianize” the “primitive” and “barbaric” Filipinos. This subtle
subjugating scheme was followed by the “Philippine Bill” (1902) that promised to grant
the Philippines opportunity for “self-governance.”752 What was not stipulated in this bill,
743Agoncillo, Filipino People, 211-212.

744Tan, A History of the Philippines, loc., 1177. Cf. also Agoncillo, Filipino People, 211-212, 214, 310, and
437. Cf also Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 213, 218, 239, 296, 320.
745 Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 213. Cf. also Agoncillo, Introduction.
746Ibid. For a more detailed discussion please refer to Stuart Creighton Miller, “Benevolent Assimilation”:
The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899 – 1903 (New Haven and London: Yale University, 1982).
747Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society in the Philippines, 117.
748Ibid.
749Cited in Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 243. Cf. Joseph L. Schott, The Ordeal of Samar (New
York and Indianapolis: Solar, 1964).

751Ibid..
752Ibid., loc., 1190.
130
unbeknownst to many however, was the actual date of autonomy. It took 16 years before
the Jones Law753 (1918) clarified754 what was promised in 1902: that only after a ‘stable
government’ was established in the Philippines would independence be fully granted to
the Philippines. According to Constantino, “During the term of Governor Francis Burton
Harrison, the cabinet was Filipinized in accordance with a provision of the Jones Law.
Section 23 of this law, however, specifically provided that the “Department of Public
Instruction should continue to be headed by the Vice-governor and it remained under
American direction until 1935.”755 Finally, only in 1934, under the Tydings-McDuffie
Act, which was nothing but a verbatim copy of what was known as Hare-Hawes-Cutting
Bill that was not approved by the Philippine Legislature on 17 October 1933, did the
United States of America explicitly state that the transition would definitely take place
in ten years.756 According to Constantino,“In fulfillment of a provision of the Tydings-
McDuffie Law, elections were held in July 1934 to choose delegates to the constitutional
convention.”757
The Benevolent Assimilation, however, only remained simply as a slogan because
the period of 1899 to 1913 witnessed a carnage that defies any human estimate.
Schirmer and Rosskamm Shalom poignantly recounted what transpired during this
period by saying that
“A million deaths? One does not happily contemplate such carnage of innocent people who
fought with extraordinary bravery in a cause which was just but is now all but forgotten.
Such an estimate, however, might conceivably err on the side of understatement. To again
quote the anonymous [U.S.] Congressman, “They never rebel in Luzon anymore because
there isn’t anybody left to rebel.”758
It was, indeed, the best illustration of American imperialistic approach. Obviously, there
was no sign of “assimilation” in sight because in 1907, with the passing of “Sedition
Law,” any display of nationalistic fervor in the forms of art and literature was met with
an iron hand.759 To ensure that the U.S. imperial policies were in place, a “divide-and-
rule tactic” was adapted by the new imperial regime where the Christian Filipinos and
the Filipino Muslims were pitted against each other.760 According to Majul, “Unlike the
Spaniards, the Americans did not openly encourage Christian-Muslim animosity. By
sending thousands of Christian settlers to Muslim lands, however, they sowed seeds of
tensions and conflict between the two communities.”761
Like the Spanish colonizers, the United States of America implemented oppressive
economic policies in the Philippines such as the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909762 that
imposed quotas on Philippine exports while U.S. goods would enter the Philippine
shores without limitation at all.763 Clearly, this was devised in order to control the
753Otherwise known as the “Organic Act of the Philippines.”

754This is italicized because there is still no exact date given; hence, another vague provision.
757Constantino, A History of the Philippines, 339-340.
758Schirmer and Shalom, The Philippines Reader, 19.
760Ibid., loc., 1225.
761Majul, Contemporary Muslim, 21.
762This law opened the markets of the U.S. to the wealthy Philippine landowners so that henceforth they
prospered from the sale of the raw products of their plantations (sugar, hemp. Tobacco, coconut oil) in
tariff-free U.S. markets. Schirmer and Shalom, The Philippines Reader, 36.
763Tan, A History of the Philippines., loc., 1225.
131
SAMBAYANIHAN
Philippine economy and to leave the Philippines with no other choice than to be
dependent on U.S. economic assistance.
The political, as well as economic, clout of the United States in the Philippines was
made even stronger by a less conspicuous but highly effective way of reorienting the
sociocultural framework of the Filipinos via schools, sports, literature, language, art,
music, religion, health and sanitation. On this note, Reynaldo Ileto, as cited by Ambeth
Ocampo in 101 Stories on the Philippine Revolution, has written an essay entitled
“Cholera and the Origins of the American Sanitary Order in the Philippines”. This piece
of literature tried to expose the malevolent colonial intention hidden behind the veneer
of medical intervention:
“’Medicine…is the sole excuse for colonialism.’ If colonial rule had its harsh and negative
side, the work of the doctor ennobled and justified it. Historians, even nationalist writers,
have echoed this view. The white man’s medicine at least was always welcome. But was it as
rational and humanitarian as it is commonly supposed, one of imperialism’s ‘undeniable
benefits’? Might it not in fact have been another weapon in the armoury of alien rule?”764
It is obvious here that Ileto is trying to illustrate how sanitation was used as a disguise
for military pacification (i.e., hamletting, re-concentration or zones of protection/peace
- quarantines) that paved the way to the harassment and death of Filipinos. This is,
indeed, reminiscent of Frantz Fanon’s claim that medicine was used as a justification
for the colonization of Algeria.765
With these aforementioned “weapons”, it was practically effortless to infiltrate the
Filipino minds and convince them of the “necessary” dependence on the United States
of America that even the ilustrados of the nineteenth century, the “enlightened ones”
who had the means to higher education offered by the Spanish colonial regime which
could be obtained abroad and who had benefited from the “newest” trend in arts and
sciences in the West, expressed their willingness to be assimilated in the name of
“material progress.” This brings to mind Schirmer and Shalom who have recounted that
“Those in the United States who sponsored and organized the colonization of the Philippines
realized two achievements with far-reaching impact: they helped form a Filipino elite that
was for years to come a reliable social and political base for the exercise of U.S. influence,
and they helped to create a neocolonial psychology that affected both the Filipino elite and
the mass of the Filipino people, bringing with it enduring attitudes of subservience to the
United States. So, the weight of U.S. dominance would be preserved even after independence
was declared and the formal trappings of colonial rule removed.”766
It must be noted that language became the most potent weapon of the U.S. in
colonizing the Philippines, because, when English was formally used as a compulsory
medium of instruction and communication, infusion of American value system in the
worldview of the Filipinos became a “walk in the park”. In this regard, Jocano astutely
observes,
“What differentiated American strategy of colonial rule from Spanish was its emphasis on
education rather than religion. The Americans concentrated on changing Filipino values by
making them accept the American lifeways through education…While the Spaniards
constructed impressive buildings of worship in every town, the Americans built schools even
in remote municipalities…Through education and training, reinforced by an aggressive
media, American thoughts, values, and practices were introduced as standards of excellence
764Ocampo, 101 Stories, 54.

765Cf.Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism (New York: Grove, 1965), 121-145.
766Schirmer and Shalom, The Philippines Reader, 37.
132
– as models for the desirable, the modern, and the civilized. American experiences in all
aspects of social life – from government to economics to social graces – were emphasized.”767
The educational system during the American regime, in a subtle way, galvanized
the superiority of everything that was American and the inferiority of everything that
was Filipino. In an article entitled The Miseducation of the Filipino by Constantino claims
that, right from the very beginning, the educational system which was introduced by
the Americans in the Philippines was intended at “pacifying a people who were defending
their newly-won freedom from an invader”.768 Through education, the U.S. had posed
itself as wolf in sheepskin, a benevolent ally but behind the façade its real objective was
to instill effectively in the minds of the Filipino people colonial mentality wherein the
“[young] minds had to be shaped to conform to American ideas”; thereby, subtly
obliterating the last residue of “[indigenous] Filipino ideals” that could stimulate the
Filipinos to struggle against the new “colonial master”.769 He contends that “Education
served to attract the people to the new masters and at the same time to dilute their
nationalism which had just succeeded in overthrowing a foreign power.”770
As part of this subtle colonial scheme employed by the American colonialists
through education, Jocano rightly points out that lessons during the American regime
emphasized the superiority of the Americans over the Filipino subjects:
“In contrast, the peasantness of Filipino life was stressed. Local lullabies were used for this
purpose. For example, children were taught, even American-trained Filipino teachers, to sing
until they loved to sing ‘my nipa hut is very small,’ ‘planting rice is never fun,’ ‘clean little
hands are good to see,’ ‘I was poorly born on the top of the mountains,’ among others…There
were many ways of imparting American values to children. The story of George Washington
who chopped the cherry tree and told his father about it was used as the example to
emphasize the virtue of honestly. For hard work, the story of Abraham Lincoln studying in
the cold room of the log cabin was the model. The story of Horatio Algiers – who rose from
rags to riches – was used to highlight the virtue of perseverance. The kindness of the friendly
Santa Claus distributing gifts to well-behaved boys and girls was one of the most popular
tales that brightened classroom hours.”771
Jocano, therefore laments that, in contrast to the industriousness, perseverance,

honesty, and the generosity of the Americans, the Filipino was portrayed as the Juan
Tamad (Lazy Juan)772 whose indolence has been met with hilarious mishaps.773 Lessons
about Filipino heroes and virtues were kept marginal compared to American heroes and
virtues. Whether it was systematically programmed or not, Jocano opines that it
certainly gave the Filipino children reason to “glorify an alien tradition and discredit
their own… alienating the Filipinos from their cultural roots.”774 The Filipinos, hence,
were stripped of their pride as Filipino people. Taught to be ashamed of their Filipino
identity, they became worshippers of the “American Dream and Democracy”, which they

768Renato Constantino, “The Miseducation of the Filipino,” in A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism,
Dictatorship and Resistance, eds. Daniel Schirmer and Stephen Rosskamm Shalom (Boston: South End,
1987), 45.
769Ibid.
770Ibid.
772For a more detailed discussion on the indolence of the Filipinos please see Syed Hussein Alatas, The
Myth of the Lazy Native: A study of the Image of the Malays, Filipino and Javanese from the 16 th to the 20th
Century and its function in the Ideology of Colonial Capitalism (London: Frank Cass, 1977), Kindle edition,
loc., 2137-2429.
774Ibid.
133
SAMBAYANIHAN
also wittingly or unwittingly passed on to their descendants.775 The system of education

introduced by the U.S. regime, therefore, helped the Americans accomplish something
that Spain had not in more than three hundred years – an unquestionable subservience
to the American economic dominance and priority of the modern civilized values and
attitudes of the United States of America. If the presence of Spanish colonization evoked
resistance from the Filipino people, American imperialism put the Filipinos under a
spell, leaving the Filipino people with ambivalent sentiment regarding U.S. occupation
and continued intervention in the Philippine society.
II.1.A.3.1. In the Name of the Bible and Democracy: The Coming of Protestantism
Prior to the annexation of the archipelago to the U.S., Filipinos were utterly
clueless about Protestantism, “regardless,” according to Clymer, “of what judgments are
made about the quality and character of Catholicism in the islands.776 When the
Philippines was surrendered by Spain to the United States in the Treaty of Paris,777
therefore, the Americans introduced to the country their own brand of Christianity,
American Protestantism, with the conviction that it was the will of God that America
must do everything that it could in order to properly form the Filipinos as civilized and
Christian individuals. According to Clymer,
“Throughout these exciting months most Protestant churches encouraged an expansionist
outlook. They supported the war against Spain, then lobbied for the acquisition of the
Philippine Islands. The Protestants wanted the United States to rescue the Cubans and the
Filipinos from what they perceived as Spanish misrule. But they also realized that American
control of the Spanish islands would open the way for Protestant message to be preached in
areas from which it had hitherto been excluded.” 778
Thus, after the forcible subjugation of the Filipinos by the Americans, the latter wasted
no time in fulfilling their “God-ordained” mission of spreading the “new” religion in the
islands, just as the Spanish missionaries had done in the previous regime. According to
General Rusling, President McKinley became an excellent mouthpiece of what the
American Protestants had in mind in a speech he delivered to a group of Methodist
bishops: “there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the
Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very
best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.”779 This certainly
drummed up the campaign for the annexation of the archipelago that he claimed to be
ordained by God.
The approach of the Spanish and the American missionaries were as different from
each other as day and night, because the former were converting the natives to one
church, while the protestant Americans wanted the Filipinos to choose among various
Protestant churches (i.e., Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Baptist, United

776Kenton Clymer, Protestant Missionaries in the Philippines, 1898-1916: An Inquiry into the American
Colonial Mentality (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois, 1986), 4.
777Cf. University of Colorado, The U.S. Occupation (1898-1946),
http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/usoccupy.htm [accessed August 1, 2013].
778Clymer, Protestant Missionaries, 3.
779James F. Rusling, “Interview with President McKinley,” The Christian Advocate 78, January 27,1903,
http://www.ksassessments.org/sites/default/files/HGSS_Preview_Texts/Grade_11/Interview%20with%2
0President%20William%20McKinley.pdf [accessed May 19, 2015]. Cf. also Mariano Apilado, Revolutionary
Spirituality: A Study of the Protestant Role in the American Colonial Rule of the Philippines, 1898-1928
(Quezon City, Philippines: New Day, 1999), x. Cf. also Melba P. Maggay, “Early Protestant Missionary Efforts
in the Philippines: Some Intercultural Problems,” Journal of Asian Mission 5, no. 1(2003): 119-131.
134
Brethren, Seventh-Day Adventist, etc.).780 Maggay opines that catechism was “Unlike the
Spanish missionaries who mostly taught their catechism in the vernacular, American
missionaries tended to educate first the natives, especially those in the lowlands, into the
English language.”781 Together with the teaching of the gospel, the American missionaries
tried to instill in the minds of the Filipino, according to Maggay, “the rigors and Spartan
simplicity of the early Puritan communities of New England.”782 This perspective is
supported by Schumacher who claims that, indeed, English was used from the very onset
of American colonization as a powerful device to make the colonial subjects swallow hook-
line-and-sinker everything that is American as “modern” and worth emulating.783
Thus, it is expected that the American missionaries would ardently impart to the
Filipino people the values of sacrifice, suffering, and service. This was even intensified by
the Thomasites, a group of American educators who were transmitting not only religious
ideologies but also the American way of life and value system.784 With this powerful
infrastructure in place, it did not take long enough before the American imperial power
was able to plant its economic and political policies that took root deeply in the
Philippines wherein wealth was considered as a sign of God’s favor.
Despite the obvious economic, political and educational successes that the
American colonizers were reaping, their proselytizing efforts, nevertheless, were met with
less enthusiasm compared to Spanish Catholicism. Unlike Catholicism that meshed
well with and was inculturated in the indigenous tradition in a relatively short period of
time, American Protestantism was theologically and liturgically incongruent with the
indigenous ethos or ways of thinking and feeling of the Filipinos. 785 American
Protestantism, on the one hand, focused on more abstract things such as scientific
rationalism and elaborate arguments, which Maggay labels as “cultural
circumcision.”786 Filipino religious tradition, on the other hand, is filled with concrete
representations such as religious artifacts and rituals.787 American Protestant
spirituality, which was highly dualistic and also individualistic, stood directly in
contrast to the indigenous worldview and spirituality of the Filipinos, which was holistic
and communal. The accommodative attitude of the Filipinos did not mesh well with the
American missionaries’ strict observance of boundaries. Complaints about the profusion
of very stringent rules courtesy of Protestantism (i.e., exclusion and inclusion) were not
unheard of, which made it all the more difficult for the American form of Protestantism
to penetrate the Filipino religious worldview. Hence, Protestantism, obviously
incompatible with the Filipino religious worldview, has remained a minor religion in the
Philippines.788
Clymer contends, however, that “There is no clear consensus among scholars
concerning how substantial the American impact was on the Philippine society and
culture.”789 Nevertheless, he claims that
780Clymer, Protestant Missionaries, 5-7.

781Maggay, Filipino Religious Consciousness, 16.
782Ibid.
783John Schumacher, Growth and Decline, 248.
784Fabella, Lee and Suh Asian Christian Spirituality, 97. Schumacher, Growth and Decline, 257. Cf.
Schumacher, Readings in Philippine Church History, 356.
785Maggay, Filipino Religious Consciousness, 15.
786Ibid., 16.
787Ibid., 15.
788James Montgomery and Donald. McGavran, The Disciplining of a Nation (Manila: Global Growth Bulletin,
1980), 45.
135
SAMBAYANIHAN
“The influence of the missionaries may, in the long run, have reinforced the larger American
effort to make Philippine society more democratic, politically and socially…To be sure, the
missionaries were paternalistic and resisted calls for Filipino control of government and other
institutions, including their own missions. Nevertheless, they quickly trained Filipino pastors
and church workers, who, in turn, increasingly insisted on being included in policy-making
bodies… In sum, the efforts of the missionaries tended toward breaking down social
stratification and the development of individual potential.”790
II.1.A.3.2. Filipino-American Relations during the Japanese Occupation
To begin our narration of what transpired during the Japanese regime, it is good
to recall what Renato Constantino has said about the political and social atmosphere in
the Philippines prior to the invasion of the Japanese: “On the eve of the Japanese
invasion, the Philippines was a country securely incorporated into the American colonial
framework…Four decades of American occupation had shaped Philippine society in the
American image and had instilled in most Filipinos, a colonial mentality which
effectively eroded the revolutionary consciousness that had been attained at the turn of
the century.”791 At that time, Japan could still be considered as a “new kid” in the realm
of capitalist imperialism which was dominated by the Western powers, especially the
U.S.792 According to Constantino,
“The years that preceded the Pacific war saw Japan desperately trying to attain parity with
the West. Japan joined Germany and Italy in the war against the Allied Powers because her
expansionist ambitions in Asia were being thwarted by the United States and Great Britain,
with her own strategic interest in Asia, was holding on to Singapore and Hong Kong and was
to a great extent responsible for instituting a crippling economic blockade. But it was
ultimately the succession of economic restrictions on trade with Japan imposed by the
United States which convinced Japanese leaders that all-out war was the only solution.”793
Indeed, Japan had no other choice but to plunge itself into a sort of kamikaze (i.e.,
suicide mission) or an all-out war with the Allied powers, especially the U.S., but the
Japanese leaders knew very well, at that time, that they were no match with the military
might of the U.S. Therefore, they believed that the best that they could do was to “put
up a good fight for only two years at the most”, according to the Japanese chief of staff.794
Three years before the scheduled recognition of Philippine independence, as
stipulated in the Tydings-McDuffie Act (May 1, 1934,) U.S. military facilities in the
Philippine archipelago were attacked by the Japanese military forces on December 8,
1941, which immediately succeeded the air raid of Pearl Harbor. According to Jose
Arcilla “the story of Japanese invasion of the Philippines was short and swift.”795 Barely
a month after the offensive attack of the Japanese to the Philippines, on January 2,
1942, the Japanese forces invaded Manila and eventually, on January 3, 1942, a martial
law marking the “end” of American occupation was announced by the Japanese

791Renato Constantino and Letizia Constantino, The Philippines: The Continuing Past (Quezon City: The
Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1978), 1.
792Ibid., 31.
793Ibid., 34.
794Ibid., 35.
795He claims that it is short and swift because on the “8 December, the Japanese bombed American planes
in Manila and the other bases in Luzon; 11 December, Japanese soldiers landed in Aparri, Cagayan; 12
December, more planes destroyed Nichols Field and the Cavite Navy Yard; 13 December, Japanese troops
occupied Legazpi, Albay; 14 December, they were in Damortis, La Union; 20 December, Davao fell; 22
December, Lt. Gen. Masaharu Homma landed with a major force at Lingayen, Pangasinan. To effect a
junction with them, another large contingent landed in Atimonan, Tayabas (now Quezon). And so, Japanese
troops advancing unopposed towards Manila doomed the city.” Arcilla, An Introduction, 119.
136
commander-in-chief.796 This declaration of Martial Law was nothing but a “bitter pill”
forced into the mouths of the Filipino people who, for several decades, have relatively
enjoyed “freedom” under the American regime.797 American colonization was so subtle
that most Filipinos could only uncritically admire American sponsored democracy. They
were so mesmerized by the so-called “American altruism” that they could
unquestioningly overlook the lopsided economic policies of the U.S. and the dangerous
attitude of dependence being instilled in the minds of the Filipino people.798 Thus,
Constantino laments that “What is worse is that to a great extent, Filipinos today while
condemning Spanish colonialism and the Japanese military occupation continue to be
blind to the evils of American imperialism.”799
Arcilla, on his part, contends that despite the efforts of the Japanese imperial
power to win over the Filipinos over by presenting some positive alternatives to what the
American regime had brought into the “colony”, it continued to be futile, perhaps,
because of the curtailment of what the Filipinos had enjoyed as part of the democracy
introduced by the Americans, such as censorship in whatever was included in the news
and in the academic curriculum. Japan tried, but without much success, to extinguish
whatever fondness the Filipinos had for British and, most especially, American culture.
What made the matter worse was the fact that people suffered terrible abuse from the
Japanese soldiers for apparently no ground or basis at all.800
In 1943, as recounted by Abinales and Amoroso, the Philippines received its
independence from the Japanese invaders with the institution of the ‘Second
Republic.’801 These authors declare that
“[they] share the observation of many scholars that this ‘puppet regime’ represented
continuity with Quezon’s Commonwealth, but note that the interregnum also served to turn
the kaleidoscope, altering perspectives on collaboration and resistance and allowing
suppressed nationalist visions reemerged. Regionally, the Japanese invasion of Southeast
Asia marked the beginning of the end of Western rule and emboldened anticolonial
nationalist movements to push for independence. The Philippines defied this trend.”802
The U.S. military, headed by Gen. Douglas McArthur, recaptured the archipelago
in October of 1944, which is theatrically epitomized by what is now known as the “Leyte
landing”.803 This iconic event would not have taken place without the clearing efforts
done by the various Filipino resistance groups prior to the arrival of the American
mission to “liberate” the Philippines. This re-invasion, despite the overwhelming success
achieved in one month, had its downside; it killed thousands of foot soldiers (i.e., a
thousand Americans, 16,000 Japanese, and 10,000 Filipinos) and flattened almost the
entire city of Manila (i.e., 80% of the city was destroyed), gaining for it the most damaged
city in the war, second only to Warsaw.804
796Constantino and Constantino, The Philippines, 52.

797Ibid., 55.
798Ibid.
799Ibid.
800Arcilla, An Introduction, 121.
801Abinales and Amoroso, Philippines, 160.
802Ibid.
803Thisfamous event in 1944 is immortalized by the monument built in a beach in Leyte showing Gen.
Douglas McArthur with his entourage that included the Philippine President-in-exile, Sergio Osmeña,
wading through the waters of Leyte gulf ready to take the Philippines again with a flamboyant display of
might.
137
SAMBAYANIHAN
Despite the contribution of the Filipino people that rendered the American efforts
to re-claim the country less costly, unfortunately, their participation has been
drastically muted.805 One only has to do a cursory search on google and he/she will be
surprised that, considering the amount of detailed accounts provided in the internet
about the re-capturing of the Philippines, the recognition of Filipino participation is
quite marginal to the point of invisibility. Equally disheartening, or more disturbing
perhaps, are the economic, political and sociocultural quandaries that the Filipino
people had to deal with due to the untimely recognition of the Philippine independence
on July 4, 1946 when the Philippines was barely recovering from the rubbles of the
cataclysmic war in the Pacific.806 We are of the opinion that it was not only “wrong-
timing” but also viciously carried out, despite the fact that it was delayed for two years
based on what was stipulated in the Tydings-McDuffy Act, because the grant was meant
to relieve the U.S. of its moral responsibility on the Philippines that was simply but
devastatingly dragged into the war between the U.S. and Japan.
Tan, in fact, considers this as a blatant display of ‘neocolonialism’ in the highest
order807 because this certainly guaranteed the perpetuation of U.S. control over the
Philippines who was left with no other choice but to be grateful and subservient to the
U.S. for all the aid that this superpower has benevolently extended to the country.808 We
deliberately italicized the word “benevolently” because it is not really the case. Aid is
always given with strings attached. The more aid the Philippines receive from the U.S.,
or from any foreign institution, the more the country becomes indebted. Perhaps it is
not even a mistake to say that in this set-up the U.S. always has the upper hand and
the benefit.
It was not long until the real motivation behind the so-called U.S. generosity was
revealed: on March 14, 1947 the U.S government entered into an obviously lopsided
agreement with the Philippines called the Military Bases Agreement. In this pact, the
U.S. demanded that twenty-three locations in the Philippines will be given to the former,
“free of rent” for the period of ninety-nine years and “subject to extension thereafter”, to
serve as military bases for this neocolonial power. In exchange of the favor that the
Philippines was giving to the U.S., another pact dubbed as Military Assistance Pact
followed just a few days after (i.e., March 21, 1947) wherein the Philippine government,
as an ally and a loyal servant, will be accorded international military protection and
some form of economic aid.809 We intentionally italicized the words “protection” and “aid”
because Tan and other Filipino historians are agreed that what the U.S. is protecting is
not actually the interest of the Philippines but the political and economic gains of the
U.S. as far as the region is concerned. Tan and other self-confessed critics of the
Philippine-American relation claims that the “aid” given to the Philippines are actually
the surplus or “worn out and ready to be discarded” equipment. According to Tan, “The
military surplus turned over to the Philippines under the agreement did not include
ownership. Its mere use, therefore, served as a psychological, if not real, factor in
influencing military affairs.”810 What is more upsetting, according to the account of
Abinales and Amoroso, is the fact that aside from the almost perpetual use of the

806Ambassador Paul V. McNutt legally and formally declared the Philippine independence on July 4, 1946,
which was 2 years behind the schedule stipulated by the Tydings-McDuffie Act.
807Tan, A History of the Philippines, loc.,1442-1456.
808Ibid., loc.,1456.
809Ibid., loc., 1522.
810Ibid., loc.,1442-1456.
138
military bases (i.e., 99 years and subject to extension), the American officials were given
“major role in the development of the Philippine military.”811
This agreement also contained some stipulations that prohibited the Philippines
to acquire advanced state-of-the-art military equipment or aircraft and limited its
purchases to what the United States was willing to sell, while on the other hand the
U.S. military personnel commissioned in the archipelago had to be provided by the
Philippines with “necessary material and physical conveniences” according to
“American standards.”812 These policies, then, ensured the perpetuation of U.S. imperial
control over the archipelago.
II.1.A.4. A. Islamic Filipinos: A Case in Point
This may not be the main focus of our current project, nonetheless, a brief
discussion on the Muslims in the Philippines is in order, because it is undoubtedly the
second largest religious community in the country.813 Recently, we have been noticing
the bourgeoning of Muslim communities in the traditionally heavily Christian cities of
the Philippines. However, it is still correct to say that the vast majority of them are still
found in Mindanao. Majul opines that, although their major source of identity is Islam,
they cannot be seen in a “cookie cutter” fashion, because they have varying degrees of
participation in their Islamic religion just like their Filipino Catholic counterparts.814
As we have already mentioned above, the Muslims came to the Philippines long
before the Spanish Catholic missionaries started converting the natives to the Catholic
faith. When the Spanish colonial power settled in the Philippines, however, the spread
of Islam northward was arrested due to the fact that the native inhabitants in the central
and northern parts of the archipelago were readily converted to Catholicism en masse;
thereby, radically pushing Muslims back to the Sulu group of islands and western
Mindanao.815
The relationship between the Christians (both Spanish and Filipinos) and the
Muslims was nowhere near congenial. They were both involved, according to Majul, in
the long-standing conflict referred to as “Moro Wars”,816 which involved not only
bloodshed but mutual psychological vilification. Muslims were seen, Majul supplies, as
“inveterate enemies of their new religion” who were detestably “ugly, slovenly,
treacherous, untrustworthy, and fanatical.”817 The Muslim equally loathed the
Christians: The Spanish colonizers were regarded as “licentious pork eaters and greedy
marauders who are doomed to eternal perdition” while their Filipino subordinates as
“puppets” of the Spanish colonizers.818
When the Americans took over the colony from the Spaniards they tagged the
Muslim inhabitants of the archipelago as “savages” who needed to be pacified.819 It is

814Ibid., 14.
815Ibid., 17.
816Ibid.
817Ibid., 18.
818For almost five hundred years since colonialism intruded into the Philippines in 1521 and unilaterally
stamped on its landscape of over 7,000 islands the name it has preserved through the centuries, Mindanao
has only known a few brief periods of peace. Samuel K. Tan, The Muslim South and Beyond, 76.
819Majul, Contemporary Muslim, 20. Majul claims that “Unlike the Spaniards, the Americans did not
encourage Christian-Muslim animosity.” Ibid., 21.
139
SAMBAYANIHAN
interesting to note that despite the denigrating treatment of the Americans towards the
Filipino Muslims, the latter, curiously, opposed the proposed unification of all the
islands of the archipelago under an independent Philippine state. Hence, as a collective
act, they openly expressed to President Roosevelt in March 1925 their wish to be
excluded from the union and insisted that they be put under the “protection and
tutelage of the United States until they would be able to form their own independent
state.”820 More than one hundred Maranao datus lobbied for this because, according to
Cesar Adib Majul,
“Most Muslims did not share [the] sense of national identity, for many reasons… First,
Muslims found it difficult to appreciate the national laws, especially those pertaining to
personal or family relations, for they were clearly derived from Western or Catholic values.
Muslims could not understand why national law did not provide for polygyny and divorce,
which Islamic Holy Law allowed the faithful…Second, the public-school system under the
Republic did not differ much from that which the Americans had introduced…Third, their
deep resentment of- and later violent reaction to- the steady influx of settlers to parts of
Mindanao.”821
This request, unfortunately however, fell on deaf ears because the Muslims were still
unilaterally incorporated in the Philippine commonwealth government established in
1935, disregarding the Muslim’s “own cherished code of ethics and system of laws that
governed virtually every aspect of their lives.”822
As if the injury was not yet enough, the Philippine government enacted new policies
that ordered and motivated people from Luzon and Visayas to take over vast track of
lands in Mindanao that resulted in the displacement of Muslims in Mindanao in the
first decades of the 20th century.823 Majul believes that this was not done without the
influence of the Americans. To reiterate what we have quoted earlier, “By sending
thousands of Christian settlers to Muslim lands… [the American colonizers] sowed the
seeds of tensions and conflict between the two communities.”824 In connection with this
issue, Gutierrez and Borras claim that
“Poor people from Luzon and the Visayas were organized and encouraged to conquer the
Mindanao land frontier – generally under the rule of homestead policy… B. R. Bodil has listed
a number of these government resettlement initiatives: 1) The Interisland Migration Division
of the Bureau of Labor in the 1920s; 2) The Quirino-Recto Colonization Act (Act 4197) in
February 1935; 3) The National Land Settlement Administration in 1939; 4) The Rice and
Corn Production Administration in 1949; 5) The National Resettlement and Rehabilitation
Administration in 1954; 6) The Economic Development Corps in the early 1950s; 7) The Land
Reform Code in 1963; and 8) The Bureau of Resettlement in 1971 of the Department of
Agrarian Reform.”825
This scheme, therefore, rendered the farm lands inaccessible for the Muslim
communities who held traditional economic life in common. It was the poorest sector of
the Muslim society, according to Eric Gutierrez and Saturnino Borres, which has
suffered the most.826 This experience of “minoritization” along with a host of
predicaments, Gutierrez and Borres surmise, became the catalyst for the ferocious
resistance and bloody offensives launched by the Muslims “to correct a historical

821Ibid., 29-30.
822Ibid., 25.
823Ibid., 21.
824Ibid. My brackets.
825Eric Gutierrez and Saturnino Borras, Jr., “The Moro Conflict: Landlessness and Misdirected Policies,”
Policy Studies 8 (2004):7-8.

826Ibid., 7-8.
140
injustice” in the Philippines.827 The skirmish between the Muslims and Christians in the
Philippines has affected all aspects of life in (i.e., economic, military, political, cultural
and religious) and has persisted until the present that, we believe, cannot be solved by
a simple ratification of law that recognizes the independence of a Muslim state, like the
Bangsamoro.828
Certainly, the issue about the Muslims in the Philippines is not the main concern
in the historical retrieval that we are undertaking as of the moment. Nonetheless, we
deem it necessary to provide even a short discussion on this particular issue if we want
to be true to our mission of listening to the muted voices in Philippine historiography.
We cannot simply ignore this piece of information, because we believe that the animosity
between the two religious communities in the Philippines (i.e., Christians and Muslims)
has affected the outlook of the Filipino people in the local and international
communities.
827Gutierrez and Borras, “The Moro Conflict,” 7-8.

828The proposed Bangsamoro Basic law states the following as its “key principles and policies”: “1. The
Bangsamoro is empowered to exercise self-governance and self-determination to pursue its economic, social
and cultural development (Article IV, Sec. 1). It exercises self-governance under a democratic system where
people freely participate in the political processes (Sec. 2) cognizant of the Philippine constitution and the
universally accepted principles of human rights, liberty, justice, democracy and standards of international
law… It has the highest form of fiscal autonomy to enhance the economic, self-sufficiency and genuine
development in the Bangsamoro as distinguished from the other region in the Philippines. (Art. XII, Sec. 1)
2. The Bangsamoro territory is part of the Philippines (Art. III, Sec. 1). The Bangsamoro Government shall
promote unity, peace, justice and good will among all peoples as well as encourage a just and peaceful
settlement of disputes (Art. IV, Sec. 5). It shall establish a government that ensures that every citizen in the
Bangsamoro is provided the basic necessities and equal opportunities in life. Social Justice shall be
promoted in all phases of development and facets of life within the Bangsamoro (Art. IV, Sec. 7). 3. In its
relations with the Central Government, the Bangsamoro government shall be under the general supervision
of the President to ensure that laws are faithfully executed consistent with the principle of autonomy and
the asymmetric relations of the Central and Bangsamoro Governments (Art. VI, Sec. 1).” This is taken from
Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, “Primer on the Proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law,”
http://www.hdcentre.org/uploads/tx_news/Primer-on-the-proposed-Bangsamoro-Basic-Law.pdf
141
CHAPTER 1. B
TOWARDS A TRANS-COLONIAL READING OF FILIPINO DIASPORA829
Introduction
O
ne might wonder why this section is entitled luksong-tinik (i.e., jumping over
thorns) which is a traditional Filipino street game that is slowly slipping away
from present Filipino cultural consciousness. The reason is simple: We see that
this game captures the adventurous, if not perilous, saga of the majority of Filipino
migrants who opted, perhaps with very limited or no choice at all, to journey from their
country of birth to “unknown” territories mainly to find a greener pasture. What follows is
a critical cartographic sketch of Filipino migration story, which can be traced back to the
Spanish colonization of the Philippines, especially in the context of Manila-Acapulco
galleon trade that transported goods and manual labor between the Philippine islands and
Mexico. What started as an intermittent drizzle of Filipino migration, however, has become
a regular downpour during the annexation of the Philippine islands to the then emerging
superpower, the United States of America. From then on, Filipinos have become global
travelers, mainly for employment purposes. Their presence has become ubiquitous as they
have penetrated almost all the nooks and crannies of the so-called global village.
In spite of the extraordinary presence of the Filipino people all over the world and an
important role in recent history, however, a Filipino author laments what she calls the
“erasure” of Philippine history from both American and the world historiography. 830
Similarly, Ambassador Victoria Bataclan, former Philippine Ambassador to Belgium and
Luxembourg, infers something similar when she notes in her preface to the book, In de
Olde Worlde: Views of Filipino Migrants in Europe831 its role in remediating an apparent
“disinterest” in the role of Filipinos in today’s Europe. This disinterest and “erasure” is all
the more ironic since the Philippines had been a constant companion of both Spain and
the United States from the fifteenth to the twentieth century.832 Hence, despite the
widespread presence of the Filipinos in the world and their contribution to world history,
arguably they have remained invisible.
829This section, albeit slightly revised, appeared the Advanced Master’s thesis that we submitted to the Faculty
of Theology and Religious Studies of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 2012 entitled “’Ordinary’ Bahala
Na Theology: A Critical Preliminary Exploration on a Theology for Filipino Diaspora.” Cf. Ibid., 11-25.
830Emily Noelle Ignacio, Building Diaspora: Filipino Community Formation on the Internet (New Brunswick, New
Jersey and London: Rutgers University, 2005), 49.

831Filomenita Mongaya Hoegsholm, ed., In de Olde World: Views of Filipino Migrants in Europe (Quezon City:
Philippine Social Science Council, 2007), 6-7.

832Ignacio, Building Diaspora, 49.
SAMBAYANIHAN
II.1.B.1. When the Filipinos have Gone Global:833 An Anthology of Migration and
Marginalization834
Let us now try to put Filipino migration in its proper context and re-inscribe it in the
annals of world history.
As we have already mentioned above, generally Filipino migrants have journeyed to
different destinations in search of the proverbial greener pasture. Most of them have
braved the dangerous crosscurrents of economic migration for the reason that they
perceive the country of their birth as unable to supply sufficient employment opportunities
that would assure them of ample economic leverage, if not prosperity. Seldom do we hear
people in the Philippines who do not dream of working abroad. In fact, college or university
level curricula, not even counting the proliferation of skills trainings, show that most of
the Filipino students are preparing for overseas employment, which in their mind will help
better the lives of their respective families.
What is interesting in this story is the fact that this elusive financial security that
drives the Filipinos away from the country, strangely enough, saves the Philippine
economy from drastic economic downward spiral. Why? Because these economic migrants
inject billions of dollars into the economy of the Philippines via their foreign exchange
remittances. Indeed, their contribution, which amounted to $23 billion in 2011, keeps the
country’s struggling economy afloat.835 No wonder the overseas Filipino workers are
heralded by the Philippine government as the bagong bayani (i.e., the new heroes). Their
sacrifices for the sake of their families’ welfare are also seen as heroic acts to avert looming
economic meltdown.
Despite the remarkably massive exodus of Filipino economic migrants due to their
perceived employment scarcity in the country, however, the National Economic and
Development Authority as of January 2015 declared that the employment rate in the
country is still impressively high. It is estimated at 93.4% compared to the 92.5% in 2014,
which means that there is only 6.6% unemployment rate in the country.836 One must not
be deceived by the staggering figures, however, because careful analysis reveals that the
number of unemployed people in the country amounts to 4,149,420 out of the 62.87
million people who are eligible to work. There is more to these statistics than meets the
eye, however, because the underemployment rate is still placed at 17.5%,837 which means
that approximately 11,002,250 Filipinos are working way below their competencies and
833Amora explains that “After India, Mexico and China, the Philippines is the fourth largest exporter of warm-
bodied labor in the world. One out of eight Filipinos is an overseas contract worker, working in some 194
countries and territories and a good number of them plying the high seas of the globe.” Manuel “Bong” Amora,
The Filipino Diaspora (a closer look), http://ofwempowerment.com/2007/12/11/the-filipino-diaspora-part-
3/ [accessed May 30, 2012].
834This is an updated version of some of the sections in the chapter 1 of my Advanced Master’s Thesis
submitted to the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the KU Leuven. Thus, a lot of items in the main
body and in the footnotes, are either derived or lifted verbatim from the said research work. Cf. Rebustillo,
“’Ordinary’ Bahala Na Theology,” 11-25.
835For a more generous serving of this report, please refer to Dr. Bernardo Villegas, “OFWs Did It Again,”
Inquirer.net, June 8, 2012, http://business.inquirer.net/63859/ofws-did-it-again [accessed June 30, 2012].

It is quite obvious that the motivation behind the emigration of the Filipinos is the search for the proverbial
“greener pasture.” This search is seen as an answer to the undeniable “unemployment/underemployment”
experienced in the country caused by the ‘faltering’ Philippine economy. Paradoxically, as we shall discuss in
more detail later, the OFW’s who are “victims” of the weak economy are the ones salvaging the country’s
downward spiral, thanks to the dollar remittances. Ibid.
836Cf. National Economic and Development Authority, “January 2015 Employment Figures Show Stronger Ph
Jobs Marker,” http://www.neda.gov.ph/?p=5201 [accessed May 29, 2015].

837Ibid.
144
earning way below their real worth. Certainly, these telling figures are not detailed in the
most recent report, perhaps knowingly or unknowingly. Perhaps, it is a case of sweeping
under the rug the reality that millions of Filipinos are still not given the right jobs. Perhaps,
it is meant to simply bedazzle the people of the impressive figures concerning employment.
We really do not know. We can only surmise. But we cannot also simply rest on this
“laurel” and dismiss the fact that more than 15 million Filipinos still belong either to the
underemployed or unemployed sectors in the country – approximately five million more
than the entire population of Belgium that cannot be simply swept under the rug.
Considering this appalling reality, no one will be surprised why Filipinos still opt to leave
the country despite the claim of the government that employment in the Philippines is
stable.838
Professor Belinda Aquino, as cited by Manuel Amora, is particularly instructive at
this point because she explains that, although there are other factors attributed to
migrations, the “push & pull” of the economy839 is the major cause for the emigration of
the Filipino workers. According to her, the inadequacy of jobs that can sustain the
financial needs of the typical Filipino family “pushes” the citizens of the country to take
advantage of the employment opportunities abroad. Moreover, they are forced to leave the
country because they want to escape the unacceptable and grave economic and material
inequalities experienced at home that allow only a handful few of the Filipino families to
enjoy “world-class wealth” and disproportionately relegate the great majority to the fringes
of economic boon.840
II.1.B.2. In Pursuit of the American Dream: The Nightmare in Disguise
Filipino diaspora is arguably a product of U.S. imperialism,841 which is evidenced by

the remarkably high quantity of Americans who classify themselves as Filipino, either as
mixed or pure. According to the 11 October 2016 report from Reuters via CNBC, there are
at least 6 million Filipinos now residing in the United States of America.842 This recent
account displays a notable contrast to what Nimfa Rueda reported as the official census
in 2012 that placed the number of Filipinos in the U.S. within the 3.4 million range,
838Cf. Michael Lim Ubac, “Philippines as Next Asia Tiger Economy,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 8, 2012,
http://www.asianewsnet.net/home/news.php?id=34545&sec=2 [accessed June 30, 2012].
839According to Vergara, “The Filipino Diaspora. Professor Belinda Aquino works in the University of Hawaii
as the Director of the Center for Philippines Studies. Thus, we consider her as a credible resource person in
the area of migration. Vergara claims, however, that “Many scholars have used the push-pull model of
migration, but it has been criticized for its neo-functionalism and assumption of discrete, autonomous
receiving and sending states.” Benito Vergara, Jr., Pinoy Capital: The Filipino National in Daly City
(Philadelphia: Temple University, 2009), 134. Cf also Roger Rouse, “Making Sense of Settlement: Class
Transformation, Cultural Struggle and Transnationalism among Mexican Migrants in the United States,”
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 645 (1992):25. Rouse contends that “the emphasis on a bipolar
framework has obscured the ways in which many settlers have managed to maintain active involvements with
the people and places they have left behind and have often helped create new kinds of communities that span
the international border”. Ibid. These passages are quoted in Vergara, Pinoy Capital, 134.
840Ibid.
841Cf. Keith Mac Namara and Jeanne Batalova, “Filipino Immigrants in the United States”, Migration Policy
Institute 21 (2015), http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/filipino-immigrants-united-states [accessed May

23, 2016].
842Cf. Reuters, “FACTBOX-Philippines’ Ties with China and the United States?” CNBC, October 11, 2016,
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/11/reuters-america-factbox-philippines-ties-with-china-and-the-united-
states.html [accessed October 22, 2012].
145
SAMBAYANIHAN
making them the second largest minority in this North American country.843 She claims,
however, that the actual number, including the undocumented sectors of the Filipino
migrants, can be estimated to a whopping 4.4 (or even higher) million Filipino
residents/citizens in the U.S.844 Whatever is the actual figure of Filipinos in the U.S., it is
undeniable that this north American country still hosts the main bulk of Filipino migrant
communities.
The reason for this massive exodus to the U.S. is poignantly captured in a confession
of Eleazar Fernandez, which states:
“I came lured by the American Dream (particularly by the ‘bigs’ of the American Dream—big
bucks and big houses). In my boyhood years on the island of Leyte, I grew up associating
hugeness with Americanness. The largest frog that I came to know was what the barrio
inhabitants called ‘the American frog,’ and the largest bread that I dreamed of eating until I
drop was the ‘American bread’ (rectangular loaf bread). When something is huge, it must be
American.”845
This “American Dream” expresses the unflagging aspiration that is generally shared
by the Filipinos. It is so powerful that it has conquered not only the hearts of the Filipinos
in the country who hope for an economically brighter future in this North American nation
but, curiously, also those who have already found employments in the countries of
Europe, Asia, and Middle East. Most of them dream to finally set foot on what is considered
as the “Gold Mountain”846 or, as the famous line from the American anthem goes, “the
land of the free and the home of the brave.” Certainly, as already hinted in Fernandez’s
rhetoric, the reason for this desire is not solely about financial solvency, which is the most
obvious motivation, but also about the “brainwashing” that the U.S. has successfully
inculcated in the minds of the Filipino people.847 People in the Philippines are so
conditioned by the unflagging bombardment by the media about the “American Dream”
that even before they arrive in the U.S. they already feel at home. San Juan points out
that every day the Filipinos experience the constant barrage of information promoting the
American culture: “from the American English of commercial music to consumer goods,
from US weaponry in military bases to sumptuary rituals at Mc Donald’s to Avon
cosmetics to condoms to celluloid dreams of the good life.”848 Certainly, there is no
escaping from this unfortunate reality and, worse, an overwhelming majority of the
Filipinos believe that the U.S.A. alone embodies the full realization of financial, cultural,
political, social, and even religious, well-being of every Filipino person.
Belinda Aquino, as quoted by Amora, argues, however, that U.S.’s “fame” has
significantly diminished because of the economic crisis that has struck the country in the
recent years.849 Indeed, “The United States,” Aquino claims, “attracts most of the greener
843Nimfa U. Rueda, “Filipinos 2nd Largest Asian Group in US, Census Shows,” Inquirer Net, March 25, 2012,
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/30477/filipinos-2nd-largest-asian-group-in-us-census-shows [accessed
May 13, 2015].
844Rueda, “Filipinos 2nd Largest Asian Group.”
845Eleazar Fernandez, “Journeying Together Toward an Empowering and Transforming Ministry,” paper
presented at PANA API Clergy Consultation, October 8, 2008.

846It is the legendary image of the United States from the perspective of the Chinese people. Cf. Maxine Hong
Kingston, Chinamen (New York: Vintage, 1989).

847San Juan explains that “Long before Filipinos –as immigrants, tourists, or visitors – set foot on the U.S.
continent, they – in body and sensibility – have been prepared by the thoroughly Americanized culture of the
homeland. This is true in particular for the second and third waves of immigrants, from 1946 to the present.”
San Juan, From Exile to Diaspora, 58.
848Ibid., 57. My brackets. The author, wittingly or unwittingly, omitted the Mc from the name of this popular
American food chain.

849Amora, Filipino Diaspora.
146
pasture seeking Filipinos but the Middle Eastern states and our South East Asian
neighbors are fast catching up.”850 Nevertheless, we still maintain that, despite the
financial meltdown suffered by the United States of America, millions of Filipinos, given
the chance, will still choose to board the plane to the U.S. rather than to Europe, Middle
East and Asia as evidenced by 700-1000 visa applications received by the U.S. Embassy
in the Philippines on a daily basis.851 For this adventurous pack, getting this most sought
after travel document means winning a ticket to the “Promised Land” and an end to
poverty.
Filipinos have become rabid chasers of the American dream that a lot of them have
taken and are still willing to take the risk just to get into the U.S. Indeed, the imperialistic
spell that the U.S. has cast on the Philippines has become so compelling that the U.S. has
been idealized to the point of being worshipped as the only economic and political liberator
of the Filipinos.852 This intoxication has run so deep that despite the perils that Filipinos
encounter in the U.S., they continue to hang on to their dream and opt to stay in the
country.
This attitude of the Filipino migrants, according to Benito Vergara, “is of course
rooted in the American colonization of the Philippines, though its early history is rarely
discussed as part of current immigrant experience.”853 According to him, the Filipinos
have been put under such a powerful spell that they developed a schizophrenic attitude
towards the U.S: while the Filipinos fight against any form of occupation, including that
of the American’s, paradoxically, they also embrace the ideals of the American nation. 854
Without a doubt, the U.S. has capitalized on the Filipinos’ altered state of consciousness
in perpetuating the unequal power relations between the two countries855 - something that
Filipinos have been suffering since the first waves of Filipino migrants arrived in the shores
of the almighty United States of America as laborers in the canneries in Alaska and the
plantations in Hawaii and California. 856
II.1.B.3. A Profile of Filipino Migrants in Other Parts of the Globe: A Growing

Number, A Growing Concern
Compared to the entry of Filipino migrants to the U.S., Canada’s share of Filipino
migrants can be considered a relatively more recent phenomenon, since they only started

851Cf. Jerry Esplanasa, “How Hard is it to Get a US Visa,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 18, 2011,
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/12833/how-hard-is-it-to-get-a-us-visa [accessed January 15, 2013]. Pres.
Duterte of the Philippines, during his state visit to China, questioned the non-reciprocal relationship between
the U.S. and the Philippines regarding visa requirement considering the fact that the two countries have
always been celebrating their so-called alliance. Cf, Doris Dumlao-Abadilla, “Duterte Assails U.S. for Strict
Visa Policy,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 21, 2016, http://globalnation.inquirer.net/12833/how-hard-
is-it-to-get-a-us-visa [accessed October 24, 2016].
852In this light, San Juan offers us an enlightening insight: “we cannot understand the situation of Asian
Americans in the United States today or in the past without a thorough comprehension of the global relations
of power, the capitalist world system, that “pushed” populations from the colonies and dependencies and
“pulled” them to terrain where a supply of cheap labor was needed.” San Juan, Exile to Diaspora, 42.
853Vergara, Pinoy Capital, 9. For a detailed discussion on the connection between employment of nurses in
the U.S. and American colonialist strategy, please refer to Catherine Ceniza Choy, Empire of Care: Nursing and
Migration in Filipino American History (Durham and London: Duke University, 2006), 4-7.
854Vergara, Pinoy Capital, 42.
855San Juan, Exile to Diaspora, 22.
856A more thorough discussion of this issue can be found in Rebustillo, Ordinary Bahala Na Theology, 14-16.
See also San Juan, Exile to Diaspora, 22-25. Cf. also Yen Le Espiritu, Filipino American Lives (Philadelphia:
Temple University, 1995), 21. Cf. also Occeña, The Filipino Nationality, 29-41.
147
SAMBAYANIHAN
pouring in in substantial numbers in the latter part of the twentieth century. Mary Grace
T. Betsayda’s account is particularly instructive at this point:
“In a November 2000 study, the Philippine Women’s Centre of B.C. (PWC) outlines roughly three
periods, or “waves,” of Filipino migration. The PWC considers the first wave as that from the
1960s to the early 1970s when Filipino doctors, nurses, teachers and other professions came
to Canada as landed immigrants. The second wave of Filipinos came in the latter part of the
1970s when a mix of professionals and skilled workers arrived in the country. The third and
the most recent wave, which covers the period from the 1980s to the present, is composed
predominantly of domestic workers who have come on work contracts to Canada. The PWC
study classifies the Filipino community into two broad groups: immigrants (permanent
residents and citizens) and migrants (migrant workers, the undocumented, students,
professionals or bureaucrats sent to study or train abroad and government officials).”857
Because the phenomenon of Filipino migration has become so widespread, it is not

surprising to note that their diasporic existence goes beyond the realms of the
abovementioned North American countries. Filipinos’ presence is conspicuously felt in
Europe and in the East and Southeast Asia as well. They may not be close, as far as
number is concerned, to those who are in the North America but their remarkable quantity
cannot be simply ignored. In this regard, Gerardo Sicat of the Philippine Star – a daily
newspaper in the Philippines, is particularly informative here for he supplies us with the
pertinent statistics:
“In Asia, Japan’s Filipino migrant population amounts to 146,000. The rest of the migrants are
settled in Singapore (42,000), Malaysia (26,000) and Hong Kong (23,000). Migration to Europe
is of recent origin. The total number of Filipino migrants in Europe (312,400), however, exceeds
those who have gone to Australia. They are dispersed among several countries, the largest
group being in the United Kingdom (91,900) and Italy (29,000). The migration to Europe is
about 56 percent of the volume of migration to Canada.”858
This report is corroborated by the contributing authors of a one of a kind publication

on Filipino migration in Europe entitled In de Olde Worlde: Views of Filipino Migrants in
Europe. According to this book, the formal migration to the continent of Europe began in
the 1960’s, prompted by Europe’s need to recover from the war years and for the
expansion of health sector and tourist industry.859As of 2005, according to the
Commission on Filipino Migrant Workers (CFMW), an Amsterdam-based NGO,
approximately 824,419860 Filipinos are widely distributed in Europe but the bigger chunk
are found in Italy, Spain and Britain.861 Countries like Germany, Greece, France, Austria,
Switzerland, The Netherlands, and Belgium serve as hosts for a considerably large number
857Mary Grace T. Betsayda, “Bahala Na Ang Dios” (“Leave it to God”): The Church’s Role in the Socialization of
Filipinos in the Greater Toronto Area (Saarbrücken, Deutschland: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft,
2010), 4. Betsayda is quick to note “that statistics made available about the Filipino community do not include
those who have temporary workers status (for example, participants in the Live-in Caregiver program). Yet, in
2000, such temporary workers made up about one third of the Filipino community in Canada.” Ibid.
858Gerardo P. Sicat, “Filipino Labor Migration,” The Philippine Star; September 12, 2012,
http://www.philstar.com/business/2012-09-12/847951/filipino-labor-migration [accessed January 1,
2014].
859Hacbang and Jusay, “Filipino Migrant Workers in Europe,” 110.
860Cf. Filomenita Mongaya Høgsholm, review of In de Olde Worlde: Views of Filipino Migrants in Europe, by
Filomenita Mongaya Høgsholm, “Babaylan-Denmark: The Philippine Women Network in Europe,”

http://www.babaylan.dk/index.php/in-de-olde-worlde-views-of-filipino-migrants-in-europe/ [accessed:
September 24, 2014].
861According to Andrew Geddes, author of several books on European Migration, “in Europe where the influx
of immigrants from the so-called ‘developing’ countries (including the Philippines) has increased dramatically
beginning 1980.” Christina Boswell and Andrew Geddes, Migration and Mobility in the European Union (Great
Britain: Palgrave Mcmillan, 2011), 4.
148
of Filipino migrants.862 It must be noted that, in addition to the countries aforementioned,

smaller pockets of Filipinos are living in other countries of the European Union and in
Scandinavia.
It is interesting, according to Bagasao, that majority of these Filipino migrants is
composed of an impressively young workforce whose age range from 21 to 45 years old
and of an unusually feminine population, because 80 percent of them are women. 863
Equally worth mentioning is the fact that most of them have college degrees and/or highly
skilled but they are taking up jobs that are not commensurate to their educational
attainment or way below their aptitude just to escape the financial insecurity they
experience in the Philippines.864
II.1.B.4. A Schizophrenic Response to the American Dream
That Filipinos abroad experience various forms and degrees of oppression since the
influx of the first waves of Filipino migrants in the U.S. is not a surprising discovery. 865
They continue to suffer the harsh effects of the asymmetrical power relation between the
Filipinos and the white Americans that, like a curse, created a certain kind schizophrenia
to the Filipino migrants: On the one hand, we have the likes of Maria Olfasa, who, despite
the resentment they harbor, opted to be submissive to the order of things.866 Filipinos are
forced to pretend that everything is alright, otherwise they run the risk of losing their jobs
and starving their families back home. In this volatile situation, San Juan asserts, the
Filipinos “even before their initiation into modernity… seem to have already
metamorphosed into postmodern hybrids.”867 This does not discount the fact, however,
that there are some Filipinos, like Jessica Hagedorn, who have not remained silent and
fought for their rights in their own varied ways, owing to what Covi refers to as “Gramscian
version of nationalism” espoused by them.868 San Juan states that “Hagedorn’s fiction
cannot be co-opted by an omnivorous U.S. multiculturalism because it is a cyborg’s
manifesto.”869 Generally, however, we can still surmise that a great number of the Filipinos
in the U.S. steadfastly cling on to their “American Dream” despite the oppressive
structures, subtle or not, that they have to deal with every single day of their life in the
foreign world.
862Ildefonso F. Bagasao, “Filipinos in Europe: An Economic Profile,” in Høgsholm; In de Olde Worlde, 29-30.
863Ibid., 30.
864Ibid. “Many of them,” Bagasao supplies, “are employed in the service sector in hospitals, hotels, restaurants,
and in private households.”

865A more detailed discussion on this can be found in page 16 of my Advanced Master’s thesis. Cf. Rebustillo,
Ordinary Bahala See also the following: Epifanio San Juan Jr., After Postcolonialism: Remapping Philippines-
United States Confrontations (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), 27; Carey McWilliams, Brothers
Under the Skin (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964), 241-242; John Burma, Spanish-Speaking Groups in the United
States (Durham, NC: Duke University, 1954); Benicio T. Catapusan, “Filipino Repatriates in the Philippines,”
Sociology and Social Research 21(1936): 72–77; and Vergara, Pinoy Capital, 10.
866She is quoted by Johnson saying: “When you come here to the U.S. remember this is not our country, so
you try to be nice and don’t lose your temper and try to be friendly and don’t put on a sour face.” Lawrence
Johnson, “Filipinos,” Rice Magazine, July 1988. Cited in San Juan, Exile to Diaspora, 28.
868For more details about this, please see Giovanna Covi, “The Slow Process of Decolonizing Language: The
Politics of Sexual Differences in Postmodern Fiction,” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Binghamton, State
University of New York, 1995), 65-66. Cited in San Juan, Exile to Diaspora, 88.
869Ibid.
149
SAMBAYANIHAN
II.1.B.5. The Predicaments of Filipino-American Hybridity870: A Narrative of

Oppression and Marginalization
People of Filipino descent in the U.S., either pure or mixed blood, are often referred
to as either Filipino or Filipino-American. San Juan warns us, however, that the
hybridized label hides a serious predicament in a country like the U.S. “The use of the
rubric of ‘Filipino American,” he argues, “can be sectarian and thus susceptible to
hegemonic disarticulation.”871 Moreover, he claims that using the more general term
“Asian American”872 in place of “Filipino American” poses a more serious problem because,
for him, it is “an artificial hypostasis of unstable elements, [which] would preemptively
vitiate any unilateral program of systematization.”873 Hence, whatever terminology we use
cannot guarantee to overcome the scourge brought about by imperialistic globalization
that render the migrant people as second-class citizens. It is mind-boggling that most
often when Caucasians in the U.S. refer to themselves as Americans they do not bother to
predicate it with their racial or ethnic identifiers. They simply say they are Americans.
When it comes the people with color (as if the Caucasians are color neutral), more often
than not they are labeled with the hyphenated rubric. Thus, what seems to be a harmless
categorization, at a closer inspection, reveals an unjust racial profiling or discrimination.
This lopsided racial cataloging is also manifested in the seemingly benign or
auspicious brand-name attached to Americans with Asian origins: the “model minority”.
Being lumped all-together as such like a monolith, San Juan argues, “does more disservice
than otherwise to the different ethnicities who are conveniently shoved into a cacophonous
whole.”874 This, for him, in reality makes marginality even more acute, because this
insensitive taxonomy is gravely oblivious “of their complex internal differences in projects
of hybrid and syncretic genealogy”,875 and forcing everyone to fit in the “procrustean bed”
of model minority.
As long as the inequality exists, using the rubric only means adding insult to injury
to the already subaltern state of the Filipinos. Unless a substantive parity is achieved, the
title “Filipino American” is more oppressive than liberative because, San Juan opines, it
reinforces “the lopsided distribution of power and wealth in a racially stratified society.”876
This label can become, San Juan adds, “virtually disabling ruses of complicity, self-
incriminating games of co-optation.”877
Thus, whether to use the name or not remains an unconquerable question not only
for Filipinos in America but also to other ethnicities originating from Asia. Sang Hyun Lee,
a Korean-born theologian, corroborates this insurmountable quandary and describes the
870For a detailed discussion on this topic, please consult Bill Aschcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies, 108.
871For him it carries the weight of “deterritorializing circuits of exchange between the fertilizing margin and
parasitic center”. San Juan, Exile to Diaspora , 24.
872Yen Le Espiritu who introduces herself “[as] a Vietnamese American who is married to a Filipino American”
grapples with the issue of “pan-Asian American ethnicity” believes that it is a “complex and changing topic,
often defying sociological interpretations and generalizations…because Asian Americans are a complex and
changing population: far from homogeneous, we are multicultural, multilingual people who hold different
worldviews and divergent modes of interpretation.” Yen Le Espiritu, Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging
Institutions and Identities (Philadelphia: Temple University, 1992), xi.
874Ibid., 38.
875Ibid. See Stephan Thernstrom, “Ethic Pluralism: The U.S. Model,” Minorities: Community and Identity, ed.,
C Fried (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1983), 247-54. See also Thea Lee, “Trapped in a Pedestal,” Dollars and Sense
154(1991): 12-15.
877Ibid.
150
precarious situation of the Asian Americans who “have only one foot in the heart of
America. At best [they] are still dangling at the doorstep of their newly adopted country.
Many Asian American individuals have positions deep in the American structure, but only
occupationally and not socio-politically.”878 This dilemma is more critical, Lee asserts, for
those who are born in the United States, because they feel alienated in the only home that
they know.879 We can say that Americans of Asian origins continue to negotiate their
identity amidst the different challenges posed by the multicultural world of the United
States.
II.1.B.6. Invisibility: The Unfortunate Consequence of Being a Model Minority
The insensitivity of putting Filipinos in America as a piece in a fascinating, albeit

superficial, mosaic of model minority in the context of multiculturality perpetuates,
according to Wesley Woo, “the racist status quo” that obscures the multi-level and multi-
form discrimination that Asian-Americans suffer from white Americans.880 Although a lot
of Filipinos brag about their ability to blend in the ordinary way of life of their host
countries, like in the United States of America, they forget about the danger that comes
with this remarkable skill: the possibility of simply being lost in the picture or the threat
of total invisibility. Certainly, there are instances when the camouflaging is overdone that
some Filipinos become “more white than the white Americans”; thereby making
themselves ridiculously stand-out and fail to exhibit the graceful transformation of a real
chameleon.
Speaking about the perils of blending in, San Juan expresses his unhappiness that
“although Filipinos are now the largest component of the ‘Asian American’ population in
the United States – close to 3 million… [they] are still practically an erased, invisible, or
silenced minority.”881 As an unfortunate consequence of this invisibility, the Filipinos (and
other Asian-Americans) are considered “hypertensive” when they complain against
racism.882 Sang Hyun Lee shares the same view with San Juan in this regard, because he
also believes that when Asian Americans raise their voice against racism they “are often
trivialized and dismissed.”883
Although in reality anti-Asian-American racism exists in the U.S., it is not considered
to be as serious as the racism accorded to the black people. One can only notice the
reports about crimes linked to racism on CNN and other American news outfits that are
mainly focused on the black people, especially on the issues brought up by
878Lee, A Liminal Place, 6. My brackets.

879Itis lamentable, according to Lee, that these ‘natural born’ Asian American “have only this country as their
home. But at some point, in their early youth they discover that white Americans do not consider them as
‘one of us’. They find themselves strangers in their own homeland. They are at the edge of American, and also
between American and Asia. They are liminal in more ways than one.” Lee, A Liminal Place, 7.
880Wesley Woo, “Asians in America: Challenges to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)” (an unpublished paper,
May 1987), 13. He is cited by Lee in his book. Cf. Lee, A Liminal Place, 15.
882Lee is of the opinion that “This predicament has led Elaine H. Kim of the University of California, Berkeley,
to call for the creation of a “third space” – the space where Asian Americans can have their experiences
recognized for what they are without being dismissed via the white/black dichotomy.” Lee, A Liminal Place,
15.
883Lee, A Liminal Place, 15. He points out that until the present time the “Black and White” discourse still
dominates the landscape of racism. People hardly notice the “middle minority” who are neither black nor white
but “yellow” and “brown” from Asia.
151
SAMBAYANIHAN
“BlackLivesMatter”884. All eyes and ears were given by the prominent American and
international media outfits on racially-linked violence that erupted in Missouri,885
Maryland886 and other states) and rarely on the Asians in the U.S. as if they do not exist
or as if crimes directed at them are non-existent.
There are times, and this does not mean seldom only, when racism, according to Lee,
“stems from the Asian Americans themselves.”887 This is the case because it is not
uncommon that Asian Americans accept without a tinge of skepticism that the white
Americans are the standard and they, as Asian Americans, must mold themselves
according to the image of the more superior and more sophisticated white Americans. On
the other side of the spectrum we also find some Asian Americans who defiantly oppose
the trend of assimilation. Most commonly this stubborn attitude is found among the
Chinese and Vietnamese communities who insist on the preservation of their respective
tradition amidst all odds and confine themselves in their “ethnic enclaves”, remarks Lee.888
We believe that both extremes signify the existence of hidden and self-inflicted racism.
Fernandez, in the issue concerning covert racism, asserts that the propensity of the
Filipino Americans to adapt to everything that is white American can result to a “pretended
ignorance” of racism.889 Apparently, most of the hidden racism suffered by the Filipinos
are in the form of “microaggression” that are easily dismissed as trivial. Lee contends,
however, that constant and prolonged exposures to these microaggressive acts of racism
can be equally toxic and long-lasting that may cause certain serious or fatal health issues
on the target person.890 Some of them are led to believe that racism is just normal and
part of the price they need to pay to fulfill their American Dream.891 It is understandable,
according to Fernandez, that
“There will be no Filipino towns, because Filipino Americans are proud of their effort to blend,
not with other people of color in America but with dominant white America, though another
factor may be at work here as well, namely, the strong regionalism among Filipino Americans.
Filipino Americans have, in general, no aversion to ‘Americanization,’’ because that is precisely
what many aim for…Yet, even as they try hard to be Americanized, many have come to see, as
Euro-Americans keep reminding them, the futility of such efforts.”892
It is difficult for the most of them to realize this injustice, because Filipinos have been mis-
educated with an “extreme assimilationist” or “colonial” mentality they received from the
tutelage of American imperialism.
884For details regarding this movement, please consult Black Lives Matter, “Network Advocates for Dignity,
Justice and Respect,” http://blacklivesmatter.com/ [accessed May 20, 2016].
885A website declares Missouri as the most racist state in the US. Cf. The Top Tens, “Missouri,”
http://www.thetoptens.com/most-racists-states-us/missouri-459217.asp [accessed: May 26, 2015]. The

most recent protests on racism that took place in Missouri took place after the death of Michael Brown. Cf.
Josh Levs, “One Challenge for Ferguson Grand Jury: Some Witnesses’ Credibility,” CNN, December 14, 2014,
http://edition.cnn.com/specials/us/ferguson-shooting-protests/index.html?hpt=hp_c2 [accessed May 26,
2016].
886The killing of Freddie Gray has spawned violent protests of the people in Maryland against racism. Cf.
Jeremy Diamond, “Loreta Lynch Calls Violent Baltimore Protests ‘Counterproductive’,” CNN, April 19, 2015,
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/29/politics/barck-obama-baltimore-riots-interview/ [accessed May 26,
2015].
887Lee, A Liminal Place, 15.
888Ibid.
889Fernandez, “Exodus-Towards-Egypt, 297.
890Lee, A Liminal Place, 16-17.
891Ibid., 16.
892Fernandez, “Exodus-Towards-Egypt, 297.
152
II.1.B.7. The Saga of the ‘Bagong Bayani’: A Story of Heroism and Slavery?
There is no denying that a big chunk of the Gross Domestic Product of the Philippines
comes from the remittances of the overseas Filipino workers, which, according to the most
recent report, registered an all-time high of 24.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2014.893 Because
of the consistent and remarkable contribution of the OFWs to the GDP of the country for
more than forty years now that undoubtedly has kept the struggling economy of the
Philippines afloat, they have been honored as the bagong bayani894 from the presidency of
Corazon Aquino up to the present national leadership. We recall that, on this note, Susan
Brigham has once said that
“Overseas workers continue to work and dispatch their salaries home from all parts of the
world. For example, the Philippine government firmly asserted that ‘the State does not promote
overseas employment as a means to sustain economic growth and achieve national
development’ (Republic Act 8042, sec. 1c, 1995), yet it is clear that the export policy, which was
created in the 1970s during Marcos’ term, continues as a long-term strategy to do just that.
Each Ang Pangulo (president) has branded overseas migrant workers in praise worthy terms.
Corazon Aquino, for example, pronounced Filipino migrants as Ang Bagong Bayani (the new
national heroes). Fidel Ramos referred to them as internationally shared human resources,
while Joseph Estrada declared them economic lifesavers. Not to be outdone by the previous
president’s references to migrant’s heroism, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo proclaimed the migrant
workers dakilang manggagawa (the great Filipino worker).”895
Indeed, they are the new breed of national heroes because their sacrifices benefit not only
their respective families but also the entire country. However, there is more to their stories
than meets the eye. Their heroism reveals an important aspect of the Philippine society
(i.e., economy) that the Philippine government has consistently denied: the inability to
provide decent paying jobs comparable to those offered abroad. Nevertheless, despite the
adamant denial of the government, people in the know insist that the trend will continue
indefinitely because unemployment and underemployment will persist as a problem in a
country plagued by political and economic turmoil. Thus, the government cannot help but
encourage their able citizens to try their luck abroad and send remittances to the country
as bagong bayani. If ever they lose their jobs abroad the government is not ready to take
them back again and definitely the economy of the country will plummet to its lowest level.
An internet blog cited in one of the issues of Philippine Daily Inquirer/Global Nation on
December 12, 2007 confirms such skepticism:
“Send them home, and the number of unemployed & under-employed Filipino workforce would
balloon to some 19.7 million. Not only that! Bring the OFW’s home and the yearly US$ 22 billion
remittances will be lost. It could mean the Philippine peso to be plummeting to probably PhP
80 to a US Dollar. I could not imagine anymore how much a liter of gasoline would be… and
the domino effects thereafter!” 896
Certainly, the government has the right to refute the skepticism of some critics,
nonetheless, the staggering figures are quite telling that people cannot but suspect, or
perhaps clearly perceive, that the government has an active role to play in the appalling
brain-drain that has afflicted the country for several decades now. President Macapagal-
893Teresa Kersting, “Remittances Hit All-Time High in 2014,” Focus Economics, February 16, 2015,
http://www.focus-economics.com/news/philippines/remittances/remittances-hit-all-time-high-2014
894Literally this means “new hero”.
895Cited in Susan M. Brigham, “Filipino Domestic Workers: Contradictions, Resistances, and Implications for
Change,” in Migration, Globalization, and the State, ed. Rachel Brickner (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2003),
103.
153
SAMBAYANIHAN
Arroyo, herself, is said to have confessed that: “The Philippine economy will [in] the
foreseeable future continue to be heavily dependent on overseas worker remittances.”897
Anna Romina Guevarra is particularly instructive in the issue we are presently
dealing with because, in her book, she asserts: “The Philippines is a country on the move,
but it is so as a result of a transnationally coordinated phenomenon involving both labor-
sending-and-receiving countries and global economic restructuring processes that have
heightened the division of labor between the global North and South, putting the
Philippines in this particular trajectory.”898 Thus, the recent claim that the Philippines
should not be considered as the “sick man of Asia”899 but must be referred to as a “rising
tiger” 900 cannot be simply accepted without any questions. Without a doubt, the bagong
bayani, who are shared by the country as exported warm-bodied resources, are a
significant part of what fuels this rising tiger economy.
II.1.B.8. Mass Production of Bagong Bayani: The Brokering Business of the

Philippine Government
Guevarra does not simply take the issue of overseas Filipino workers sitting down.
She tries to analyze the complexity of this phenomenon and identify where the stimulus
is coming from. After conducting a thorough examination on the case of Filipino overseas
workers, she claims that the Philippines has “the most institutionalized labor-export
process, enabling it to supply a range of workers.”901 In the year 1982, Ferdinand E.
Marcos, by issuing the Executive Order no. 797, made possible the establishment of
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration which was meant to monitor, regulate
and facilitate overseas employment of the Filipino citizens.902 A year after the overthrowing
of 21-years presidency of Marcos, President Corazon Aquino tried to overhaul the policies
and services of the said government agency via Executive Order no. 247 in order to provide
more protection to the Filipino overseas workers. Commenting on this unique mechanism
created by the Philippine government concerning the employment of Filipino citizens
abroad, Guevarra has stated:
“Unlike other labor-exporting economies, which tend to focus on a particular workforce
deployment— Indonesia and Sri Lanka have a large share of the market in domestic work; India
dominates the information technology sector—the Philippines does not focus on one skill
category. Filipinos work as teachers, nurses, engineers, cooks, janitors, factory workers,
dancers, hotel personnel, and seafarers, to name just a few. With its labor-exporting economy,
it responds quickly to address emerging labor shortages and creatively brokers Filipinos to fill
897Cf. Anna Romina Guevarra, Marketing Dreams Manufacturing Heroes: The Transnational Labor Brokering of
Filipinos (New Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers University, 2010), 3. Anna Romina Guevarra works for the
University of Illinois and holds the position of assistant professor of sociology and Asian American studies and
an affiliate faculty member in gender and women’s studies.
898Ibid.
899This is based on the remark of Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balicasan regarding the overall
performance of Philippine economy between the years 2010-2014. Cf. Ben O. De Vera and Amy R. Remo,
“Philippines, No Longer ‘Sick Man’ of Asia,” http://www.asianewsnet.net/Philippines-no-longer-sick-man-of-
Asia-71170.html [accessed June 1, 2015].
900It was reported in Singapore News Asia that the “Visiting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper sees the
Philippines as ‘an emerging Asian tiger,’ agreeing with the bullish outlook on the country of political and
organization leaders from a lot of other parts of the planet.” Michael Lim Ubac, “Philippines as an Emerging
Asian Tiger,” Inquirer Net, November 11, 2012, http://business.inquirer.net/92374/ph-is-rising-asian-tiger
901Guevarra, Marketing Dream, 3.
902Republic of the Philippines, “Reorganizing the Ministry of Labor and Employment, Creating the Philippine
Overseas Employment Administration, and for other Purposes,” POEA,

http://www.poea.gov.ph/mandates/files/eo797.pdf [accessed May 27, 2015].
154
them…The work and reputation of the overseas Filipino workers confirm to the world that,
indeed, the Philippines is the home of the Great Filipino Worker.”903
Thus, this is a glaring proof that the Philippine does not only allow Filipinos to work
abroad but, in fact, persuades them to do so as “ideal global labor commodities” that was
clearly expressed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who was reported to have said,
according to Rodriguez, that “she is not merely president but also the ‘CEO’ of a profitable
‘global enterprise’ that generates revenues by successfully assembling together and
exporting a much sought-after commodity worldwide: ‘highly skilled, well-educated,
English-speaking’ as well as ‘productive’ and ‘efficient’ workers.”904 Certainly, there is no
question about the qualification of the Filipinos for, in fact, they have competencies
beyond what is required for their jobs. The question, rather, lies in the active participation
of the Philippine government in the fate of the overseas Filipino workers, 905 which
according to her can be categorized into two elements: 1) an “ethos of labor migration,”906
and 2) a “gendered and racialized moral economy of the Filipino migrant.”907
What Guevarra is saying about the abovementioned elements reinforces San Juan’s
claim that the identity of “The Filipinos has been produced by Others (Spaniards,
Japanese, the Amerikanos), not mainly by his or her own will to be recognized: his or her
utterance and deeds.” 908 This is the case because, Guevarra argues, “the labor-brokering
process reflects a neoliberal mode of governing from a distance, where the goal is to
regulate workers’ conduct and produce disciplined labor commodities that are useful to
transnational capital, the Philippine state, and workers’ individual families.” 909 Thus, the
World Market dictates, according to Robyn Rodriguez, to the “labor brokerage state” what
kind of Filipinos should be exported as human resources. 910 This explains, according to
Guevarra, why the Philippines “seeks to maximize the economic returns from overseas
employment as it takes the stance of simply ‘managing’ this process.”911 Without a doubt,
the OFWs who were forced to find jobs abroad due to the appalling shortage of available
and reasonably fair paying jobs in the country are now hailed and marketed as bagong
bayani. The “celebrated failure” of the Philippine economy, nevertheless, becomes the
breeding ground for “ideal overseas laborers” who rescue the country from definite
“economic damnation” through the steady flow of U.S. dollars remitted to the country
annually.912
903Guevarra, Marketing Dream, 3.

904Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World
(Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota, 2010), x.
905Guevarra, Marketing Dream, 4. Rodriguez concludes that “Evidence from migrants undergoing bureaucratic
processing illustrates the crucial importance of the state’s bureaucratic work in facilitating migration.”
Rodriquez, Migrants for Export, 49.
906For an explanation regarding this, please refer to Guevarra Marketing Dream,4-5.
907According to Guevara this is linked to the “notions of family, religion, and nationalism with neoliberal
capitalist ideals of economic competitiveness.” Ibid., 5.

909Guevarra, Marketing Dreams, 5-6.
910Guevarra provides the quotation from Rodriguez, Ibid., 6. See also, Robyn Rodriguez, “Migrant Heroes:
Nationalism, Citizenship, and the Politics of Filipino Migrant Labor,” Citizenship Studies 6(2002): 341–356.
Robyn Rodriguez, The Labor Brokering State: The Philippine State and the Globalization of Philippine Citizen-
Workers (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California Berkeley, 2005).
911Guevarra, Marketing Dreams, 6.
912Ibid., 8.
155
SAMBAYANIHAN
We cannot overlook, however, that these new national heroes, according to Daniel
Pilario, take on jobs “which the First World population does not actually like doing.” 913
They have no choice but to be, Pilario asserts,
“The ‘vagabond’[who] still scrambles and is always grateful for the ‘crumbs that fell off the
master’s table.’ For the real garbage of the infernal global machine is back home – a country
whose social, cultural and economic fibers are wrecked by 350 years of Spanish oppression, 50
years of American rule, two decades of dictatorship, successive corrupt governments and the
unbearable imposition of the present global economy.”914
Certainly, we cannot put all the blame on the Philippine government, because there
are many factors at play in this issue, like neocolonialism and global capitalism. We simply
claim that the “brokering enterprise” performed by the state promotes the diaspora of
millions of Filipinos who want to better their otherwise hopeless lives in the Philippines.
The bagong bayani willingly suffers all sorts of oppressive structures just to achieve some
sort of upward economic mobility and, at the same time, to express their protest to the
government that is unable to give them jobs because of the dirty politics and widespread
corruption in the country.
We believe that the trend is not going to change in the near future. We even suspect
that it will become worse, despite the government’s claim that the Philippines is second to
“China as fastest growing economy in the world today,”915 because the majority of the
Filipinos, as inspired by the accolades given to the bagong bayani, still believe that the
greener pasture is not found in the country but somewhere else out there.
II.1.B.9. Feminization of Filipino Migration
We cannot fail to mention at this point that Filipino migration is also changing its
face. Beginning the 1980’s, following the worldwide trend of migration, the participation
of Filipino women in this global phenomenon has become increasingly felt, which was
originally dominated by Filipino men who started off as laborers in the Hawaiian pineapple
plantations and canneries in Alaska.916 In the U.S. alone, as of 2011, female Filipino
immigrants (60%) outnumbered their male counterparts (40%).917 This ratio is
corroborated by the Country Migration Report: The Philippines 2013, which stated that,
regardless of the countries of destination, Filipino “[w]omen outnumber men in the annual
outflow, at an average ranging from 55–60 per cent, and they tend to be younger. OFWs
who are over 40 are mostly men.”918 It is interesting to note that, although Caritas
Internationalis affirms approximately similar statistical data that 65% of the overseas
Filipino workers who emigrated in 2005 were female, it also indicated in the footnote that
913Pilario,“Back to the Rough Grounds, 23.

914Ibid.My brackets.
915Cf. Bloomberg, “The 20 Fastest-Growing Economies this Year,”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-25/the-20-fastest-growing-economies-this-year
916Cf. Caritas Internationalis, “The Female Face of Migration,”
http://www.caritas.org/includes/pdf/backgroundmigration.pdf/ [accessed February 23, 2015].
917Cf. Sierra Stoney and Jeanne Batalova, “Filipino Immigrants in the United States,” Migration Policy Institute,
June 5, 2013, http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/filipino-immigrants-united-states-0#10 [accessed

February 14, 2015].
918International Organization for Migration, Country Migration Report: The Philippines 2013, June 27, 2013,
Makati, Philippines, p. 5, https://www.iom.int/files/live/sites/iom/files/Country/docs/CMReport-

Philipines-2013.pdf [accessed February 13, 2015].
156
there is a “reverse-feminization” of Filipino migration taking place, curiously, because of

the diminished interest of Filipino women to take on domestic work.919
Whether there is heightened feminization or “reverse-feminization” of Filipino
migration, however, it still remains as an undeniable fact that the Filipino women have
changed the landscape of Filipino migration. In our personal experience alone, having
travelled extensively in several European countries, Filipino female migrants are more
visible than their male counterparts. For a considerable number of times, we noticed that
Filipino migrant women are more than delighted to see a kabayan (i.e., compatriot) who
belongs to the other side of the gender spectrum. It seems to us that they do not see them
quite often. In almost all of the Filipino migrants’ gatherings we have been to, civic and
religious, the women clearly outnumber the men. Apart from that, increasingly, they have
been assuming prominent leadership roles in their migrant communities, both in the civic
and religious sectors. And it is not unheard of that, because of the preponderance of
Filipinas who work abroad, regardless of what statistical data tell us, more and more men
are assuming the roles traditionally associated with the Filipino women, like being the one
left in the house to take care of their children, while the women have progressively become
the breadwinners of contemporary Filipino families.920
Nevertheless, we cannot simply overlook, amidst this seemingly rosy image and
influential role that Filipinas have mustered in the contemporary global landscape of
migration, the lamentable stories of violence and discriminations suffered by them. 921 A
good number of them still fall prey to the undesirable elements of globalization. Not a few
of them have become cheap and dispensable commodities. Malu Padilla, in her article
about Filipinas and European migration, stated that “Like other migrant women in
Europe, we experience racism, social exclusion and sexual discrimination. Most Filipinas
are employed in low paid ‘reproductive work,’ receive low salaries, suffer de-skilling,
intellectual stagnation, unrecognized educational level, and often have language
difficulties.”922 Their basic rights have been trampled upon by their perverted and greedy
employers and domestic partners. Leny Mendoza Strobel, in this regard, poignantly
stresses that “Dissonance was produced by white folks’ looks and malicious questions:
Are you married to a GI? (read: Are you a prostitute?) Are you a mail-order bride? (Are you
for sale?) Do you know of a maid? (Are you a domestic worker?) And when I was not
mistaken for a Filipina, I was glad – Chinese, French Vietnamese, Japanese, or Korean
but not Filipino, thank God!” These questions simply reveal to us how Filipinas are
919For more information regarding this, we recommend our readers to look into the proceedings of the
International Conference on Gender, Migration and Development in Manila in 2008.” Gloria Moreno
Chammartin, “Migration, Gender Equality and Development,” International Conference on Gender Migration,
Ration and Development: Seizing Opportunities, Upholding Rights, Manila, Philippines, 25-26 September 2008.
Cf. Caritas Internationalis, The Female Face of Migration.
920Anthony Advincula, “Profile of the New Filipino Family: House-Husbands Watch the Home Front While
Women Fill U.S. Demand for Nurses,” New America Media, September 25, 2009,
http://www.alternet.org/story/142860/profile_of_the_new_filipino_family%3A_house-
husbands_watch_the_home_front_while_women_fill_u.s._demand_for_nurses [accessed February 23, 2016].
921Cf. Cleonicki Saroca, “Filipino Women, Migration, and Violence in Australia: Lived Reality and Media Image,”
Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies 21, no. 1(2006): 75-110. See also Nasra M. Shah and
Indu Menon, “Violence Against Women Migrant Workers: Issues, Data and Partial Solutions,” Asian and Pacific
Migration Journal 6, no. 1(1997): 5-30. See also the report of Rothna Begum, “’I was sold:’ Abuse and
Exploitation of Migrant Domestic Workers in Oman,” Human Rights Watch, July 13, 2106,
https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/13/i-was-sold/abuse-and-exploitation-migrant-domestic-workers-
oman [accessed October 10, 2016].
922Cf. Malou Padilla, “Women Changing our Lives, Making HER story: Migration Experiences of Babaylan
Philippine Women’s Network in Europe,” in Hoegsholm, De Olde Worlde, 83, 84.
157
SAMBAYANIHAN
perceived, of course not by everyone, by the white folks. That is, unfortunately, the
appalling part of “feminized migration”. They are recognized but they are not regarded as
equals.
The fortunate thing happening in our contemporary world, though, is that more and
more Filipinas are asserting their rights and are coming out of their oppressive cloisters
to tell their stories. We see drizzles of, as compared to the U.S. based Filipinas who have
produced a sizeable amount of critical literature, published written works by Filipinas in
Europe regarding their situations, comprehensions, contributions and aspirations, which
we hope to become more abundantly available in our globalized society so that people,
both Filipinos and non-Filipinos who are still imprisoned by their superiority complex and
colonial mentalities, will start looking at the world with fresh eyes – beginning the see the
‘real’ worth of Filipinas.923 What is needed now is a bigger platform and a louder voice so
they will have the leverage to truly participate in the global political, cultural, economic
and religious discourse. Their stories do matter. Their intelligence, their skills and their
aptitudes are worthy of our respectful appreciation. They are equal partners in building
an intercultural and interdependent world where diversity is valued and cooperation is
treasured. They are not simply a plaything of their misogynist, rich and powerful colonial
masters. They deserve a rightful place in this world, which, according to our reading of
the Philippine pre-colonial eras, they had enjoyed but, unfortunately, was purposely
tossed aside or shrewdly downplayed. It is high time that they re-claim the pride and
dignity denied of them by multiple histories of colonization as they ascend, despite being
an uphill battle, to prominent leading roles not only within the Filipino migrant
communities, civic and religious, but only in the multi-cultural societies they belong.
Because generally they are perceived as loving, nurturing, caring, dependable, smart,
resourceful and family-oriented individuals (generally speaking because there are
certainly some outliers or Filipinas who do not fit the bill and because they are not saints
or perfect), they can provide an alternative to the market driven globalization that has
ruled our contemporary world and occasion a needed change towards a more just and
peaceful intercultural world.
II.1.B.10. Filipino Diaspora: Beyond Economic Migration – A Case of Soft Power

Influence, A Viable Form of Foreign Diplomacy
Filipino migrant workers, as we have already discussed above, are hailed as the new
heroes by the Philippine government because of the dollar remittances they have been
pumping into the pipeline of Philippine economy. However, they can also be heroes on a
different level. According to Joaquin Jay Gonzales III, an associate professor at the
University of San Francisco, Filipino migrants can be considered as a more powerful, yet
unthreatening, face of Filipino diplomacy – diaspora diplomacy.924 He sees Filipino
923Padilla, “Women Changing our Lives, 83;84. Charito Basa and Rosalud Jing de La Rosa, “Me, Us and Them:
Realities and Illusions of Filipina Domestic Workers in Italy.” Diana Oosterbeck-Latoza, “The Filipina Au Pairs
in The Netherlands.” Malu Padilla, “’In the Service of our Kababayans’ - Bayanihan Philippine Women’s
Centre.” Mary Lou U. Hardillo-Werning, “The Filipino Women Migrants in Germany.” Maria Thelma Noval-
Jezewski, “A Simplified Map of French-Philippines: A Bird’s Eye -Worm’s Eye – view.” Filomenita Mongaya
Hoegsholm, “Maria Claras in Viking Country.” All these pieces of literature are included in the book entitled
De Olde Worlde: Views of Filipino Migrants in Europe, ed. Filomenita Mongaya Hoegsholm. See also Luisa
Igloria, ed. NOT Home BUT Here: Writings from the Filipino Diaspora (Manila: Anvil, 2003).
924Gonzales states that “What I am exposing and consequently espousing, is diaspora diplomacy, a more
aggressive international relations path for developing states, which supersedes the dominant and America-
158
migration as valuable agents of international relations, as unwitting ambassadors who

promote Philippine culture, values and traditions as they ‘almost naturally’ endeavor to
establish “inter-faith harmony, occupational stability, and civic-minded associations in
destination countries through sustained non-combative, consensual, and peaceful
ways.”925 As opposed to “hard power”926 approach best exemplified by Reagan and
Thatcher and to the so-called “American soft power” strongly typified by
“McDonaldization” and “Hollywoodization”927, Filipino diasporism provides a powerful
alternative diplomatic approach wherein the Filipino migrants, after surviving the
challenging and perilous transnational expeditions incumbent to their being proprietors
of “weak passport,”928 “become conduits of the ethnic influence and diplomatic relations
for their country of origin – soft power in action.”929
Unlike the official Philippine diplomats who are generally perceived to be associating
almost exclusively to the snobbish, elite, wealthy and powerful expats and local politicians
– they whose limited contact to the main bulk of Filipino diasporic communities transpire
only during passport renewals, legal or criminal proceedings, and requests for repatriation
– the Filipino migrants, without being haughty and hegemonic, create a lasting impact on
the political, cultural, religious and economic life of their host countries. According to
Gonzales, “The force of Philippine diaspora diplomacy comes from its capacity to influence,
charm, persuade, and assert, in order to solidify ties. It is not meant to dominate, but is
instead creating two-way, open, consensual, and respectful relations.”930
What propels this diaspora diplomacy, Gonzales opines, “is home and family.”931
Having these two as the driving force, they spread Filipino values, traditions and cultures,
which we can conveniently refer to as “Filipinization”932, in three interrelated levels:
religious, occupational, and associational.933 It is interesting to note that “religious
involvement in their respective host countries”, as validated by our experience, is the most
visible or tangible diplomatic gesture that Filipino migrants have been exercising. The
most common space utilized by these “unofficial and accidental diplomats” is the church,
be it Catholic, Independent Churches, Evangelical or Protestant. Church, for most of
them, is an extension of their family. When they are in the Church, both the edifice and
the community, they feel ‘at home’. Generally, of course with the exception of some, they
are perceived by people in their host countries as outwardly religious given their regular
centered focused ideas that eminent Harvard professor Joseph S. Nye, Jr. promotes in his influential work,
Soft Power: The Means to Success in the World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004). Professor Nye and
many other western scholars already provide excellent policy guidance for President Barack Obama, Secretary
of State Hilary Clinton, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on how America currently utilizes soft power
and the continuing relevance of multiculturalism. … They focus too much on how a hegemon – its leaders and
state apparatus -- should reinvent and soften themselves.” Joaquin Jay Gonzales III, Diaspora Diplomacy:
Philippine Migration and its Soft Power Influence (Minneapolis: Mill City, 2012), 4-5.
925Ibid., 6.
926Ibid.
927Ibid., 12-13.
928Gonzales argues that “In the real world, there is hierarchy of passports just like there were the ‘haves and
have nots’ in my old Manila neighborhood. As a citizen of a ‘small fish’ country, getting a foreign visa meant
having to show foreign consuls substantial bank deposits as proof that I had no plans to stay illegally…
Besides passports, nobody outside the country accepted my Philippine pesos.” Ibid., 7.
929Ibid., 13.
930Ibid., 24.
931Ibid., 20.
932Filipinization is understood by Gonzales “as the process by which temporary and permanent Philippine
migrants’ worship, get together, and earn money in their adopted country (kasamahan) and how they help
each other, contribute to their new communities and assist their families and hometowns in the Philippines
(bayanihan). Gonzales, Diaspora Diplomacy, 24.
933Ibid., 25.
159
SAMBAYANIHAN
attendance in Church liturgies and services, and their active participation as lay
ministers, choir members, lectors and the like. With this involvement, Gonzales points
out,
“Philippine migrants unconsciously become part of a global religious crusade, from Global
South to Global North and from Christian states to non-Christian countries. Heralded by Popes
as the “new apostles for the church,” they are helping spreading the word of God through their
participation in Catholic, Protestant, and independent services and festivities in their host
countries. They weave their own Filipino spiritual practices into these local faith communities
through such strategies as the introduction of familiar iconography to Tagalog language
services. This approach is a peaceful way to integrate Philippine culture into mainstream
communities.”934
In other words, they become active participants in their own little and unimposing way in
changing the religious/spiritual landscapes of their countries of destination through their
unmistakable presence – they are noticeably filling in the empty spaces in the church
pews abandoned by the local congregations – and also by introducing “Filipino” religious
signs, symbols, songs, customs and practices like the Simbang Gabi, Santa Cruzan,
Pabasa and the likes. They are considered as modern-day missionaries in their countries
of destination. Their Church involvement, however, extends even outside the realm of
typical religious activities, because their Church also becomes a venue for occupational
and associational filipinization. As we have concretely observed, the Church being the
“extended family” that they have in their host countries also provides a platform for them
to reach out to other through prayers and civic action – a space for social justice
advocacies and service to the underprivileged, a venue for bayanihan (i.e., helping each
other rise above unfortunate situations) and, interestingly, job-hunting. Moreover,
Gonzales offers, “their Filipinized churches have also become safe spaces for negotiating
and challenging identity, ethnicity, and nationalism.”935
In the area of “occupational filipinization”, which we believe is intimately intertwined
with the religious realm, Filipino migrant workers create a remarkably strong impact on
their host countries whose “high performing economies” generally require both parents to
work fulltime jobs by tending their houses and taking care of their children and
elderlies.936 Certainly, without them the entire economy of these countries will be
adversely affected.937 In a way, they provide a backbone not only to the households of their
so-called employers and masters but also, indirectly, to the nations’ economies. For most
of them, as we have come to know during our encounters with them, the families who
employ them are treated by them as their extended families. For most of them, they do
not render professional services to their employers but they are, in fact, offering genuine
care to kindred spirits. In these households they transmit Filipino values, cultures and
traditions as global workers who commonly possess meritorious characteristics, such as
acceptable English proficiency, cheerfulness, resourcefulness, dependability,
trustworthiness, industriousness, resourcefulness/creativity, docility,
family/community-orientedness, and optimism. With their religion-reinforced Filipino
work ethics,938 which they must openly but unimposingly espouse and expose, they can
934Gonzales, Diaspora Diplomacy, 28-29.

935Ibid., 29.
936Ibid., 30.
937Gonzales rightly points out that “Global economic growth will be at a standstill if they all take a vacation at
the same time.” Ibid., 243.

938Filipino traits and practices are generally underpinned by religious elements, which according to Gonzales
are the following: “samba (worship), dasal (prayer), panata (vow), bahala na (leave it up to God), utang the
loob (debt of gratitude), pasasalamat (gratitude), damay (sympathy), paggalang (showing respect), maawain
160
help transform, even in small steps, the cultures of the countries they are now residing
from being impersonal and utilitarian (as the Filipino migrants usually complain about)
to becoming communities of care and societies of warmhearted people who are not allergic
to diversity and are open to mutual cooperation and equitable interdependence.
Varied Filipino cultures and traditions are also being introduced to the global village,
although in a laboriously gradual way, as some Filipino migrants are able to break through
the glass ceilings of performing arts, sports, medical fields, business areas and academic
disciplines. They are slowly moving out of their shells and courageously sharing to the
world the God-given talents that they have.
As we expose these positive avenues for diaspora diplomacy we cannot, however,
overlook the negative cultural traits brought along with them by Filipino migrants that
may obscure or even destroy the possible affirmative influences that they can contribute
to their host countries. These are the following: “crab mentality” (which is about clawing
other people down because of envy and jealously instead of lifting each other up),
“regionalism, over sensitivity, division,” gossip, standoffish attitude and “colonial
mentality.”939 Hence, we recommend that these negative cultural traits must not be
cultivated by Filipino migrants and instead allow the positive ones to shine more brightly
in order for them to create favorable cultural ripples that will not only rock the global
intercultural boat but truly effect positive change in the global village.
When energies are concentrated on positive cultural traits Filipino migrant workers,
despite the very tight working schedule that most Filipino migrants have, can still find
time to gather and celebrate. They can stretch out whatever little break or downtime they
have to squeeze in some endeavor for organizing clubs and associations, which are
obviously even more ubiquitous than Philippine embassies and consular offices. These
associations generally serve as “gathering spaces” for different cultural and cause-oriented
groups. At the same time they work as ambassadors of the Filipino people as they
showcase the different cultural heritages of the Philippine islands whenever they celebrate
their fiesta and important national and regional historical “landmarks” before the local
residents of their host countries. Their activities as Filipino associations and their
personal contacts with the locals, in fact, promote tourism. Because of them people
become interested in the culture and pack their bags to see the island nation of the
Philippines for themselves. Thus, it is true that they, perhaps unknowingly, become
important diplomats and influential faces of the Filipino nation.
Towards a Trans-colonial Reading of Filipino History and Globality: A Partial

Conclusion
Lapetra Rochelle Bowman states in her dissertation that by predicating her project
with trans-colonial embodied re/membrace she aims to cite possible avenues to
“transform [women’s] bodies as sites of oppression and repression into active sites of
revolution through remembrance.”940 She does this by undertaking a critical examination
of literature where, she argues, “Third Space women are engaging in a Trans-colonial
(being merciful), mapagpatawad (forgiving), sakripisyo (sacrifice), matulungin (helpful), lingcod (serve),
pagmamahal (love), pagbibigay (giving), maintindihin (understanding) and hiya (shyness).” Ibid., 27.
939Cf. Ferndinand Llenado, “Developing a Contextual Theology of Postcolonial Filipino American Diasporic
Identity,” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky,
2008), 176.
940Bowman, Transcolonial Historiographic, VI.
161
SAMBAYANIHAN
historiographic cartographic remapping of their subjectivity as they re-inscribe and

reclaim their individual histories and lived experiences through embodied textuality and
embodied re/membrance.”941 Moreover, she asserts that “Ultimately, my dissertation is
about looking back in order to move forward, as I examine how…women of color have
actively engaged in a methodology of corporeal re-visioning, using their bodies as bridges
of healing and knowing, and as stepping-stones towards Othered cultural shifts in
consciousness.”942
Appropriating Bowman’s approach, we endeavored to present a history that is mainly
told by Filipino historians, who are either brushed aside or are regarded with a tinge of
skepticism. Instead of an examination of what we consider as trans-colonial Filipino
literature, we tackled our version of trans-colonial re/membrance by listening to the voices
of Filipino authors who dealt with varied disciplines in order to re-imagine Filipino history
that is not only critical of the colonial legacies that have intoxicated the Filipino
consciousness but also restores the lost self-esteem of the Filipino people. There is no
denying that most of our authors are heavily nationalistic. We argue, however, that in this
particular venture, which is about re-membering or putting together the broken pieces of
Philippine history, they are precisely the kind of people we need. We are aware of the
impossibility of retrieving history pure and simple and we do not strive to ever achieve
that. What we want to do is to recover the sense of pride that have been denied to the
Filipino people by their colonizers and by their compatriots who have been coopted by
western-centrism. Call it hypertensive or exaggerated, but we need to push the envelope
to the point where it is most uncomfortable simply to unsettle the status quo and to make
sure that people will really listen. We raise our voice by highlighting not only the
contributions of the Filipino people in nation-building but also the horrors that haunted
these people for centuries now, in the country and outside the country, because of the
unequal power relations that have ruled the day. Certainly, this present trans-colonial
project hopes that after exposing both the promises and the predicaments, the good and
the bad things about the Filipinos and the Filipino nation, we can open an avenue for
healing and reconciliation by making use and making the most of the facts and figures of
our re-imagined history. We re-write history in order to re-right what has been wronged.
We re-imagine so that we can move forward by re-imaging the present, by transforming
the unfortunate situation of the present in order to pave a way to a promising future, just
like a piece of rock that from being a stumbling block can be transformed by using it as a
corner stone. On this note, we find the words of Joaquin particularly instructive:
“Challenges, when met with superior response that may have been a handicap or a doom
becomes a heroic step forward.”943 In terms of transforming our worldview, he inquires:
“why should we feel shame or guilt over our uniqueness instead of emphasizing with
bravado the destiny of our special identity? Why want to be East or West or North or South
when we can be our singular self as culture and history have shaped us?”944
Our exploration of history brought us a two-fold discussion: 1) A trans-colonial re-
narration of what transpired before the advent of Spanish colonization of the Philippines
up to the events and issues concerning the American occupation in the Philippines; and
2) A trans-colonial discussion on how Filipinos have come to be one of the major
“exporters” of human labor to the international market in the contemporary period,
941Bowman, Transcolonial Historiographic, VI.

942Ibid.
943Joaquin, Culture and History, 57.
944Ibid., 50.
162
together with China and India. Regarding the first part, we have endeavored to exhibit
that, despite the denigrating accounts about the indigenous inhabitants as primitive and
barbaric, the archipelago and its “original” inhabitants had a culture that they could be
proud of. Theirs may not be at par with the cultural standards set by the Western powers
at that time, but they had a peculiar culture that worked for them, something that was
fitting to the parameters set by their tropical and archipelagic condition. Most interesting,
as far as their culture is concerned, was their remarkable religiosity that became a way
for them to “easily” absorb the new religious culture introduced to them by the Spaniards.
Along with this religiosity was the importance that they accorded to the women, both
human and divine, which could be seen as the reason for their fondness for and intimacy
with Mary. We have also discovered in our historical re-righting that cultural, social and
political perspectives in the Philippines had never been as monolithic as one would like to
believe. Even their perception of the Spanish colonization was not unanimous at all as
revealed to us by the various accounts that we have revisited in this doctoral dissertation,
especially the brief discussions we had presented concerning the Muslims and the people
from the Bicol region. In this trans-colonial review of the Filipino history, which was
gravely punctuated by stories of colonization (i.e., Spanish, American, Japanese and,
again, American), we have seen how Filipinos have survived and become the people that
they are now – people with so much love for their families and passion for religiosity that
motivate them to take risks in order to rise above their unfortunate situation.
Certainly, whatever transpired in the history of the Filipino people that was replete
with moments of multiple colonization provides a meaningful backdrop to what Filipinos
are doing and experiencing at the moment, which we have explored in the second portion
of this chapter. We tackled in this part, entitled luksong-tinik, how Filipinos, specifically
the migrant sectors, have navigated the treacherous waters of contemporary globalized
migration. They, like the other migrant communities, have suffered multiple
marginalization and oppression in their host countries, but they have remained
remarkably faithful to their commitment to families back home that they would endure
the harsh conditions of their migrant status just to provide a relatively good life for their
families. Hence, they are considered to be bagong bayani (new heroes) which is both
positive and negative. It is positive because their effort to take care of their families,
especially financially, and, by extension, to help stabilize the Philippine economy is
profoundly appreciated. It is negative, because it is also an excuse to perpetuate the abuse.
Aside from their role as heroes, our discussion has also brought to the fore the important
role that they play as “ambassadors” who are armed with soft-power diplomacy and as
spiritual people who have the great potential to become present-day evangelizers.
The facts and figures of history cannot be undone but we can challenge ourselves to
see them not as a hindrance but a threshold that we necessarily go through and ultimately
go beyond. We may not be able to change the world totally, but we believe that by
undertaking this daunting task in our profoundly unequal world we are able to open a
window where the otherness of the Filipino people that resists imperialism can be glanced
at, reminding people in the contemporary world that diversity is real and must not only
be respected but also be taken seriously.
In re-righting our history as Filipino people who, according to Renato Constantino,
“had the misfortune of being liberated four times” only to be occupied by other foreign
“benefactors” again and again and who have also enormously contributed to the global
phenomenon of migration we are able to see that the Filipino is a complex interlocking
mesh of different cultural, sociological, political, economic, religious and anthropological
163
SAMBAYANIHAN
elements expressed in different layers of embodiments internationally, nationally,

regionally, provincially, municipally and locally owing to the fact the no culture is static
and univocal but rather dynamic and plurivocal.
Aware of the merits and deficiencies of the informants/authors (based on the trans-
colonial and ecclesiological lens we are operating on) that we engage in this scholarly
endeavor, we assert that their contributions, to use the expression of Dipesh Chakrabarty,
are “indispensable but inadequate”.
With our version of trans-colonial re-membering or re-righting, we discover that the
Filipinos have remarkable sense of religiosity and have strongly gravitated to inculturated
Catholicism, which we believe worked both for and against them. We understand that the
reason why the Filipino spirit has not been totally obliterated despite the multiple
colonization they have experienced, both literally and figuratively, is due to the fact that
they have harbored strong sense of religiosity. Yes, it is true that their religious
consciousness was used by their colonizers to ensure their continued subjugation.
Nevertheless, interestingly, it is the same religious consciousness that inspired and
sustained them in their fight for liberation.
One very interesting aspect of Filipino religiosity is the importance given to the role
of Mary in the lives of the Filipino people. We recall that both Archbishop Socrates Villegas
and Fr. Catalino Arevalo have affirmed the major role that Mary plays in the lives of both
indigenous and contemporary Filipinos.
Moreover, we have found out that the Filipino people, perhaps because of their
religiosity or because colonial mentality has been deeply ingrained in the minds of the
Filipino people, despite the marginalization they have endured in their history as a people,
they have forgotten or put aside the injustices they suffered and have remained friendly
with their supposed-to-be enemies. Filipinos have become rabid chasers of the American
dream that a lot of them have taken and are still willing to take the risk just to get into
the U.S. This intoxication has run so deep that despite the perils that Filipinos encounter
in the U.S., they continue to hang on to their dream and opt to stay in the country.
Fernandez, in the issue concerning hidden racism,945 asserts that the propensity of
the Filipino Americans to adapt to everything that is white American can result to a
“pretended ignorance” of racism.946 Some of them are led to believe that racism is just
normal and part of the price they need to pay to fulfill their American Dream.
Filipinos have the remarkable ability to adapt, which like a two-edged sword that can
either work for and against their advantage. They can be used either for their salvation or
damnation. Their chameleon-like skill to adapt/assimilate could help them lessen the
anxiety in having to adjust to different situations and circumstances. But, at the same
time, this can cause their unwarranted invisibility.
Their strong sense of family is another interesting feature of their Filipinoness, which
can be a source of inspiration to strive for a more viable future not only for themselves
but also for their families. This distinct element can provide them the will power to
continue hoping and believing. Nonetheless, this link can also be the reason for the
ghettoish attitude and the corrupt practices of the Filipino people. They will do everything
for the family, even when it means doing what is illegal and immoral.
It is worth mentioning that in this historical retrieval we discover that if we approach
history from the viewpoints of agriculture, technology, arts, gastronomy and the like, we
945Lee, A Liminal Place, 16-17.

946Fernandez, “Exodus-Towards-Egypt,” 297.
164
learn so much more about our rich identity as Filipinos and we open ourselves to the
possibility not only of opposition and rectification but also of appreciation and
reconciliation. Indeed, Philippine history is not only a history of colonization but also of
becoming a “unique” nation – where uniqueness is borne out by chaotic but fascinating
conglomeration.
Having said all this, we believe that Filipinos deserve proper recognition as active
writers not only of Philippine history but also of world history (histories). The
contemporary histories of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Oceana, Europe and the United
States of America will not be what they are now without the contribution of the Filipinos,
whether big or small, who are defined by their particular history (histories) and are
practically found in all corners of the globe. They matter and they have a significant role
in shaping the world. Indeed, they are a force to reckon with, if they put their acts together.
Surely, they can rock the boat and we hope that by doing so they can be conduits of
“down-up” globalization that restores mutual respect and solidarity.
But, of course, this “down-up” globalization cannot be successfully carried out
unless a renewal or transformation in the outlook of the Filipino people takes place. Yes,
Filipino history is undeniably a history of multi-layered colonialism/imperialism; however,
despite all the negative experiences that transpired in the unfolding of events, there are
valuable things that can be harnessed and used for the betterment of the Filipinos, for
healing wounds brought about by colonization, and for building bridges of more fruitful
interactions with other cultures, including those that have oppressed and marginalized
the Filipino people. Instead of forever wallowing in the unfortunate legacy of colonialism,
Filipinos can use their painful experiences in order to “toughen up themselves” and work
for a realistic appreciation of themselves that looks both at the negative and the positive
heritage of history. In view of this project, Joaquin reminds us that “Spain was 800 years
under the Moors, but what should have been thoroughly crushed nation got up and
conquered new worlds instead. The Norman conquest of England was followed by a
subjugation of the natives very similar to our experience, but what issued from the
subjugation were the will to empire and the verve of a new language.” 947 Certainly,
something good also came out of the Spanish, American, and Japanese regimes in the
Philippines. Joaquin rightly points out that “An honest reading of our history should
rather force us to admit that it was the colonial years that pushed us toward the larger
effort.” 948 We should not forget as well that not everything that is native or Filipino is good.
That is the irrefutable hard fact of life.
To help us in our trans-colonial re-righting of history, Nick Joaquin offers us some
pieces of advice: 1) transforming our worldview from a “heritage of smallness” to a
“heritage of greatness”; and 2) recognizing other milestones in history that veer from a
politics and economics. He claims that “the depressing fact in Philippine history is what
seems to be our native aversion to the large venture, the big risk, the bold extensive
enterprise.”949

948Ibid.,
363.
949He contends that “First: that the Filipino works best on a small scale – tiny figurines, small pots, filigree
work in gold or silver, decorative arabesques. The deduction here is that we feel adequate to the challenge of
the small, but are cowed by the challenge of the big. … Second, that the Filipino chooses to work in soft, easy
materials – clay, molten metal, tree bark and vine pulp and the softer woods and stones… The deduction here
is that we feel equal to materials that yield but evade the challenge of materials that resist. …Third, that
having mastered a material, craft or product we tend to rut in it and don’t move on to the next phase, a larger
development, based on what we have. Learned.Cf. Joaquin, Culture and History, 57. “Our cultural history,
165
SAMBAYANIHAN
Certainly, there is value in smallness, but according to Joaquin, “It wouldn’t be so

bad if our aversion to bigness and our clinging to the small denoted a preference for quality
over bulk; but the little things we take all forever to do too often turn out to be worse than
the mass-produced article.”950 In other words, smallness is not a problem itself, if it is
meant more attention to quality.951 But, a lot of times smallness is coupled, unfortunately,
with mediocrity and sloppiness. Hence, Joaquin asks the painful but necessary question:
“Are we not confusing timidity for humility and making a virtue of what may be the worst
of our vices? Is not our timorous clinging to smallness the bondage we must break if we
are ever to inherit the earth and be free, independent and progressive?”952 We have to
change our attitude and constantly fight the temptation to think small, because, indeed,
there is “a clear and present danger” of falling into the bottomless pit of minuteness that
is tantamount to the unhealthy sense of self-inflicted inadequateness, which can crush
our spirits more than what colonialism is capable of. Should we continue allowing
ourselves to be subjugated by this “toxic sense of smallness”, we will simply be reduced
to nothingness – i.e., incapable even of doing the smallest and the most insignificant of
things.
Nonetheless, greatness can, indeed, be had amidst keen attention to smallness when
quality is never compromised. Indeed, there is a saying: “less is more.”953 Maybe, we can
take our lessons from the ants whose minuteness does not mean weakness, and whose
togetherness defies seemingly insurmountable challenges. Instead of continuously
bifurcating like amoebas,954 on the grounds of petty personal differences, we can put our
acts together, amidst our diversity, in the spirit of bayanihan. According to Claro R.
Ceniza,
“Bayanihan for the Filipino is the genuine concern for every member of the family, as well as
the community in which we live. It is many hands and minds working together, each one
contributing his share, doing his best for the attainment of a common goal. It is sharing together
the fruits of our own common toil and sacrifice. It is working together to get the job done; it is
to share together in the harvest in good and bad weather.”955
In that way, we can have a major impact despite our “minority” status in the global world.
This impact, we argue, does not necessarily mean counter-colonization but a “bottom-up”
globalization that Rieger believes to be a characteristic of the “global impact” of Jesus
Christ.
In one of the sections of this chapter we have argued that approaching history from
the perspectives of agriculture, arts, gastronomy, and technology make us realize that
history is not all about conquests and wars but a lot more. By doing so, we become more
rather than a cumulative development seems mostly a series of dead ends.” Joaquin, Culture and History,
358-359.
950Ibid., 361.
951Joaquin contends that “Our proud apologia is that mass production would ruin the ‘quality’ of our products.
But Philippine crafts might be roused from the doldrums if forced to come up to mass-production standards.”
Ibid.
953This expression comes from the poem “Andrea del Sarto”, which is part of Robert Browning’s anthology
published in 1885. This phrase is now linked to the notion of “minimalism”, which had become very popular
in the 1960’s through the designs of the renowned architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In this project,
however, we take this adage to mean as the possibility of making small things to stand out and few things to
have massive effects.
954Joaquin contends that Filipino communities have “the tendency to petrify in isolation instead of
consolidating, or to split smaller instead of growing… We don’t grow like a seed, we split like an amoeba.”
Joaquin, Culture and History, 356.
955Claro R. Ceniza, Filipino Cultural Traits: Claro R. Ceniza Lectures, ed. Rolando M. Gripaldo (Washington,
D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2005), 173.
166
realistic in our appraisal of what transpired in unfolding of history and less over-reactive
in correcting the legacy of colonization. Certainly, the repercussions of colonialism are
lamentable; hence, we must not waste time to overcome them. Nevertheless, this project
of overcoming does not entail assuming a nativist956 stance, which is undoubtedly an
untenable position. We have to accept the fact, as well, that not everything that happened
in the colonial regimes is evil. Part of what we are now, positive and negative, is surely a
token of our colonial past.
Undoubtedly, our historical retrieval has made us aware of the ambivalences not
only in the saysay (meaning) of Filipino history but also in Filipino consciousness and
values. We argue, however, that these ambivalences can be a fertile ground, bearing strong
potential, for a transformation that we aim at in this research project. Joaquin, at this
point, is pertinently instructive. He argues that “Identity is not what we were but what we
have become, what we are at this moment. And what we are at this moment is the result
of how we responded to certain challenges from the outside.”957 Hence, our effort to look
back in this historical retrieval must not mean a fixation on the past but a renewal of the
present image of ourselves. This effort, therefore, provides us the possibility to turn what
is negative to something that is positive and create a more viable future for the Filipino
people, especially those who are in diaspora. Everything that we went through and
everything that we have is part and parcel of our Filipino identity. But, we must not also
forget, that “Filipinoness” is and will continue to be an unfinished business. Nick Joaquin
fittingly captures this reality in these words: “Our culture and history maybe said to be a
process converting a mix of cabbages and kings into something different. And the novelty
is this nation-in-the-making called the Philippines, this identity-in-progress called the
Filipino.”958
Having said all this, perhaps as a way of pushing the envelope a little further, we can
suggest the formulation of the word ‘Filipi-no’. For us, this new way of writing conveys the
message of our trans-colonial retrieval of the Filipino identity/identities, because the word
‘filipi’ is an acknowledgment of our “thrownness” into the identity that they have courtesy
of colonial history and contact with others. At the same time, the word ‘no’ conveys the
protest, the resistance to be permanently defined by the colonial “pedigree”, because the
Filipino is a project in a liminal place. It continues to transform and transcend the current
cultural or historical configuration.
Therefore, we believe that our trans-colonial effort to re-inscribe the Filipinos in the
annals of history and ecclesiology never comes to an end. It is on-going and it continues
to evolve and continues to venture into other realms. Our next stop, the chapter two, will
continue our exploration on the historical fate of the Filipino people in the globalized world
by employing a trans-colonial lens to see the perils and the promises of their diasporic
existence. In doing so, we hope to locate the liminal959 place where Filipinos in diaspora
956This is defined to be “A term for the desire to return to indigenous practices and cultural forms as they
existed in pre-colonial society.” Aschcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies, 143.
957Aschcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies, 403.
958Ibid., 411.
959“Liminality” is described as deriving “from the word ‘limen,’ meaning threshold, a word used to indicate the
threshold between the sensate and the subliminal, the limit below which a certain sensation ceases to be
perceptible. The importance of the liminal for post-colonial theory is precisely its usefulness for describing an
‘in-between’ space in which cultural change may occur...” Aschcroft et al., Post-Colonial Studies, 117.
167
SAMBAYANIHAN
can re-inscribe and transform themselves to become catalyst of change, healing and
reconciliation.960
960Bowman, quoting Anzaldúa, argues that “The work of Trans-colonial [subjects] ‘is to break down the
subject/object duality that [keep them] ... prisoner[s] and to show in the flesh and through the images in
[their] work how duality is transcended. The answer to the problem between the white race and the colored,
between males and females, lies in healing the split that originates in the very foundation of our lives, our
cultures, our language, our thought’ (102). Trans-Colonialism is that selfsame methodology Anzaldúa alludes
to, which heals the splits and the binaries which are embodied in Third-space subjectivity.” Bowman,
Transcolonial Historiographic, 51-52. Cf. Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands /La Frontera, 2nd ed. (San Francisco:
Aunt Lute Books, 1999), 92. Cf. also Gloria Anzaldúa and Ana Louise Keating, eds., This Bridge We Call Home
(New York: Routledge, 2002), 541.
168
CHAPTER 2
TOWARDS A TRANS-COLONIAL ORDINARY THEOLOGY FOR FILIPINOS IN DIASPORA;

AN ELOQUENT EXPRESSION OF LOOB AND KAPWA RELATIONSHIP
Introduction: Pakikiramdam and Pakikipagkapwa-Tao: A Story of Loob-Kapwa in

the Context of Filipino Diaspora: Bahala Na
P
erhaps our readers are wondering why we titled this introductory part of the second
chapter as such? The simple reason for doing this is the fact that in order for us to
access what we consider as the theology that emanates from and circulates among
the ‘ordinary articulators’ we need to go through the less intimidating or intruding way of
gathering data, which we have identified earlier as the first level of our chosen inculturated
research methodology, pakikiramdam. Pakikiramdam, is, according to Raj Mansukhani,
mostly defined as
“a social skill highly valued among Filipinos who are known for expressing themselves as much
nonverbally as verbally. Pakikiramdam is the skill which enables us to sense what another
person feels… this ‘sensing’ may actually come about by being attentive to one’s own inner
cues. It this sense, pakikiramdam can be viewed as a skill associated with high emotional
intelligence. It is a skill associated with empathy or, to use a term popularized by Dilthey, with
verstehen or ‘sympathetic understanding.’”961
Mataragnon contends, however, as quoted by Mansukhani, that pakikiramdam is not

simply an aspect of emotional intelligence because it
“requires care and deliberation as opposed to impetuous or impulsive action. This care and
deliberation is usually reflected in some hesitation to react, in attention to subtle cues and non-
verbal behavior, in mental role-playing (If I were the other, how would I feel?) One could very
spontaneously use pakikiramdam but the words and actions in pakikiramdam are never
careless. A person high in pakikiramdam is often described as thoughtful and caring while a
person low in pakikiramdam could be accused of being thoughtless and uncaring.”962
This portion uses the term because the anecdote which we shall share later speaks of the
“inner shared perception” of the author as he discovers the common religio-cultural
attitude of Filipinos abroad, him included, that is revealed through his encounters with
different Filipino families and communities in Europe and in the U.S. This pakikiramdam
allows the author to practice pakikipagkapwa (i.e., to empathize, to share, to be in
solidarity, and to trust) together with Filipinos in Diaspora who feel that they are
providentially brought together by God to be a Filipino family amidst their diasporic
existence – providing one another a home away from home.
Raul Pertierra understands pakikipagkapwa-tao as “the strong feeling of empathy
for others which Filipinos readily concedes that range from bayanihan (cooperation),
pakikiramay (to console others from their misfortune) to pagtitiwala (trust). These values
are related to the notions of sensitivity (not necessarily expressed or articulated
explicitly),” which we believe is what pakikiramdam is really about, “which relate
individuals to their reference group. While the family and extended kin group is the main
referent, this may be extended to associations and other secondary groups. Many of these
961Raj Mansukhani, “Pakikiramdam [Sensitivity to Feelings]: A Critical Analysis,” in Filipino Cultural Traits:
Claro R. Ceniza Lectures, ed. Rolando M. Gripaldo (Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values
and Philosophy, 2005), 187.
962Ibid.,189.
SAMBAYANIHAN
values are related to religio-moral obligations in the context where supernatural events
are often seen as aspects of everyday life.”963 According to Jaime Guevara,
“Levinas’s ideas relate well to the discussion of the nature of pakikipagkapuwa in dissociating
the meaning of ‘shared identity’ from the ‘unity of similarities’… what Levinas and Buber tell
us about the terms of pakikipagkapuwa is that the other with whom the self stands in ‘shared
identity’ and, as ‘an equal’, is not to be understood as being like the self. Both the self and the
other are infinitely different in essence. And it is within the context of essential difference that
we come to understand ‘shared identity’ as sharing in the same universal experiences of
commitment, love, suffering, sacrifices, to name a few. In other words, the self and the other
understand each other because they have similar universal experiences; and also because such
concrete experience of love, suffering, and the like, cannot be grasped in their entirety on the
grounds that both the self and the other encounter them in their own different ways.”964
Thus, for Guevara,
“shared identity does not entail the dissolution of the individuality of the two parties involved
in the pakikipagkapwa…Pakikipagkapuwa overcomes egocentrism and reaches to the other in
his otherness…. .requires the self to let go of his egotism and to be touched by the otherness
of the other…What is understood is the universal experience that all human share. What
cannot be grasped is the concrete expression of the universal experience that the other goes
through. Because the other is not the self and the self is not the other, the concrete expression
of the universal experience of the other cannot wholly be understood by the self.”965
We must make it clear at this juncture that what was initially employed as
pakikiramdam, the initial step in our chosen methodology, eventually flowed into a more
organized way of pagtatanong-tanong, another stage that we identified earlier as part of
what is touted as contextual trans-disciplinary approach, in order for us to have a firmer
and wider grasp of the content and the manner of theologizing or talking about God which
emanates from and circulates among what we shall refer to later on as ‘articulators of
ordinary theology.’ This phase goes beyond casual conversation by proceeding to a more
focused inquiry that resembles what Borszomenyi-Nagy calls as “multi-directional
partiality” in “Contextual Family Therapy.” This approach was propagated by a Hungarian
psychologist based in the United States, Ivan Bozzormenyi-Nagy (“From Family Therapy”),
promotes empathy of the therapist towards every member of the family, recognizing and
honoring their participation in the issue at stake that requires “a remedial distribution of
justice” which will make each member of the family feel his/her personal worth.966 It is
multi-directional partiality precisely because it is based on an approach that is dialectical
“whereby every judgment about a relational position will be offset, sooner or later, by a
963Raul Pertierra, “’The Market’ in Asian Values,” in Asian Values: Encounter with Diversity, eds. Josiane
Cauquelin, Paul Lim and Birgit Mayer-König (Surrey: Curzon, 1998), 133.
964Jaime P. Guevara, “Pakikipagkapwa [Sharing/Merging Oneself with Other]”, in Filipino Cultural Traits: Claro
R. Ceniza Lectures, ed. Rolando M. Gripaldo (Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and
Philosophy, 2005), 12, 14 and 19.
965Guevara, “Pakikipagkapwa, 12, 14 and 19.
966This definition is extracted from Simon Fritz et al., The Language of Family Therapy: A Systemic Vocabulary
and Source Book (New York: Family Process, 1985). Cf. also BehaveNet, Multidirectional Partiality,
http://behavenet.com/multidirectional-partiality [accessed September 3, 2016]. Cf. Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy,
“From Family Therapy to a Psychology of Relationships: Fictions of the Individual and Fictions of the Family,”
Comprehensive Psychiatry 7(1966): 406-423; Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, Foundations of Contextual Therapy (New
York: Brunner/Mazel, 1987); Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy and Barbara Krasner, eds. Between Give and Take: A
Clinical Guide to Contextual Therapy (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1986); Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy and Geraldine
Spark, Invisible Loyalties: Reciprocity in Intergenerational Family Therapy (New York: Harper & Row, 1973);
Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy and David Ulrich, “Contextual Family Therapy,” in Handbook of Family Therapy, eds.
A. S. Gurman, P. Kniskern (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1981), 159-186; Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy et al.
“Contextual Therapy,” in Handbook of Family Therapy, vol. 2, eds. A. Gurman and D. Kniskern (New York:
Brunner/Mazel, 1991), 200-238.
170
respective judgment about the position of the relational partner.”967 Thus, in this research
we tried to talk to as many respondents as possible represented by different levels of age,
gender, educational attainment, profession, and church involvement while we endeavor to
focus on the best interest of everyone in the spirit of relational fairness. 968 This “treatment”
that allows us to empathize to different people in the Church setting is conducted in group
sessions inspired by Gilbert Ostdiek’s notion of “liturgical catechesis”, “a process which
helps us name and deepen that awareness of being god’s people” conducted in an
“assembly which includes members from every stage of growth and development.”969 This
process, according to Thomas Groome in the introduction he gave in the book published
by Ostdiek, “requires only worshippers who are willing to talk about their experience of
liturgy and a leader or resource person who can listen to them, draw them out, and help
them set their experience in fruitful dialogue with the larger experience of the Christian
community.”970 In this set-up we have allowed every participant to share his/her insights
not only on the readings but on the entire celebration of the sacraments as well. In that
way, they were able to articulate how they understand God and their relationship with the
Divine and with their fellow human beings in the context of the Church’s liturgies and in
their daily life as well. These sessions provided us with a wealth of information and a
glimpse into the religious worldviews of the ordinary church-goers which sometimes
coincide and at times differ with the theological views we have explored in the academe.
Having said all this, we are now ready to tell you a story – a personal anecdote that
tells about a journey fueled by bahala na mentality, or a theology, should we say, which
we believe is anchored in the relationship of the loob and kapwa. And it all happened in
2001, as a young adventurous and academically driven seminarian from a small diocese
in the Philippines, I971 embarked on a major journey that changed my life forever. With
only 300 US dollars in my pocket and an assurance that, at least, my tuition, board and
lodging will be covered by a scholarship grant awarded by the American College of the
Immaculate Conception Seminary, Louvain, Belgium; nonetheless, uncertain of how I
would really survive academically, spiritually, financially, emotionally, psychologically,
physically and culturally in the country where I would be spending at least four years of
my seminary life. I boarded the British Airways flight from Manila to Brussels via Hong
Kong and Heathrow comforted only by the Filipino mantra I learned from my childhood:
“Bahala na.” Repeatedly, I uttered this mantra as I pushed my airport cart and approached
the check-in counter. Bahala na, I prayed while going through a non-stop rosary recitation
as I tried to allay my fears amidst the more than twenty- hour turbulent flight from
Philippines to Belgium. Bahala na, I said to myself as I had my layover in Heathrow for an
hour astonished by how huge and technologically advanced the airport was and afraid
that I would not be able to find my gate in time for the last leg of my flight to Brussels as
I navigated through the circuitous maze between disembarkation and embarkation gates.
Bahala na, I had to comfort myself as I thought of the idea of living in Belgium for the
967Simon Fritz et al., The Language of Family. Cf. also BehaveNet, Multidirectional Partiality.
968According to a student of Borszomenyi-Nagy and a founder of Contextual Family Services, Jean Banti,
‘Multi-directional partiality’ is a concept developed by her mentor which is aimed at zeroing on “the best
interests of each individual, even those not in the room, and relational fairness. For example, treatment cannot
take a focus that would be genuinely harmful to any one family member. A woman should not make a decision
or take action that would seem to be good for her but would be harmful to her mother or her children.” Jean
Banti, “Contextual Therapy,” Contextual Family Services,
http://www.contextualfamilyservices.org/contextualtherapy.asp [accessed September 3, 2016].
969Gilbert Ostdiek, Catechesis for Liturgy: A Program for Parish Involvement (Washington DC: Pastoral, 1986).
970Thomas Groome, “Introduction,” in Catechesis for Liturgy: A Program for Parish Involvement (Washington
DC: Pastoral, 1986).

971The first-person pronoun is being used at this point, because it is a personal anecdote of the author. This
a narration of what transpired during my studies and seminary formation in Europe.
171
SAMBAYANIHAN
entire duration of my theological-level seminary formation, which was totally an unknown

territory to me. Bahala na, I whispered to myself as I knocked on the door of the seminary
along Naamsestraat in Leuven, Belgium, unsure of how the American seminary formators
and seminarians would treat me knowing that I was the only seminarian coming from
outside the territory of United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Bahala na,
I tried to cheer myself up as I peered through the window of my little room in the attic of
that venerable American seminary while tears flowed down my cheeks intimidated by the
new world laid down before my eyes and terribly missing my family back home. Bahala
na. Bahala na. Bahala na.
Indeed, that mantra kept me sane and safe as I faced the new chapter in my life. I
believe that the mantra worked, because as soon as I boarded my flight in Manila, I found
myself seated beside a Filipina who was flying out of the country for the first time to join
her Dutch husband who was based in Rotterdam. We kept ourselves entertained by the
exchanges of personal stories, along with our fears and apprehensions. That way, we
consoled ourselves and we felt that, indeed, we are never alone in our journeys. That
mantra is, indeed, a powerful prayer, because when I realized that nobody came to fetch
me from the airport in Brussels and started to panic, a kind-hearted Filipino couple I
chanced upon in the arrival area generously loaned me their mobile phone to contact the
rector of the seminary who, surprisingly, was in the U.S. at that time. They did not leave
the airport until I found a transportation that will bring me right in front of the main gate
of the American College in Leuven. That mantra truly proved its power, amidst my fears
of beginning my academic and seminary program two months behind the rest of the
seminarians in my level (I was two months delayed because of the September 11 terrorist
attack in the U.S. that changed the entire worldwide aviation system and visa application
processes), when a Filipino priest who was pursuing his doctorate in theology in the same
university I was enrolled in approached me while attending a conference to offer me some
of his winter coats to relieve me from shivering under the bitter cold November weather
because, obviously clueless of what autumn in that part of the world really was, I came
unprepared for the season. Apart from that, he introduced me to other Filipino students
in Leuven and to some Filipino migrant communities who welcomed me and provided me
a home away from home. Indeed, my simple and short prayer bahala na assured me that
“even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your
rod and your staff – they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). As days unfolded in my newfound
home, I got to know more and more Filipinos in Belgium and in other western European
countries who, amazingly, share with me the same “faith” in the Filipino expression
Bahala na. Their life stories were filled with utterances of how bahala na allowed them to
survive and succeed as Filipinos trying to find their future outside their country of birth.
That year, indeed, initiated me to the Filipino migrant world, not only in Europe but
also in North America and in Asia, where I have been in close contact with until the present
day. That year opened several doors of opportunity for me to be in touch with the reality
of Filipino migration in its best and ugliest forms and everything in between as I visited
their homes during various family and cultural celebrations and, especially, during
masses in the different Filipino Catholic communities in Belgium, Italy, Netherlands and
France, which eventually extended to the U.S., Spain, Germany, and recently Greece. On
several occasions I also accompanied them in cleaning the houses and offices of their
employers and experienced for myself the sacrifices they needed to do as migrant workers
who had to swallow their pride and forget about their real professions back home in
exchange of the mighty euros and dollars that they send as remittances to the Philippines
to support their respective families. It became gradually clear to me how much “bahala
na” had become not only their favorite expression but, in fact, their philosophy in life or
theological grounding that had encouraged them to strive and survive amidst all the
172
challenges and uncertainties they have been through. Some had to literally go through
the perilous journey of illegally crossing borders and some had to battle through terribly
lonely days away from home on cold winter days in the attics or the basements hiding
from authorities who might deport them once discovered on the basis of their irregular
alien status. Some, though living a relatively comfortable life, try to navigate through
irreconcilable cultural and religious gaps.
That year made me realize how, despite the hardships that they had to grapple with
as migrant people, Filipinos have been sustained by their faith as they utter under their
breath: bahala na. That year opened my eyes to a new dimension of theology, a theology
that I do not encounter in the halls of the academe but one that springs from the margins
– a theology of the migrant Filipino people: bahala na. It is an expression of simple faith
that is almost impossible not to be uttered by Filipinos, both in the country and abroad,
who never give up amidst the trials that come their way. It is a theological expression
embodied by the ubiquitous presence of shrines filled with religious images and devotional
materials in almost every Filipino migrant home, just like in the Philippines. It is a
theological utterance that is made manifest by how the church buildings in the countries
of destinations of Filipinos have become their major meeting places not only for religious
activities but also for socialization purposes. The intertwining of the cultural, political,
financial, social, and spiritual aspects of Filipino migrant life has become a testimony of
the simple faith and profound trust in the Divine Providence of the Filipinos – bahala na.
That being said, we shall try to explore in this current chapter the intersections
between the Filipino cultural expression bahala na and Jeff Astley’s notion of Ordinary
theology, which we would like to promote as a valid theological articulation and, hence,
must be taken seriously by theologians and church leaders. We believe that once ordinary
theologies are given due theological credence we, and everyone else involved in the
“business” of theology, will learn more about God and about our relationship with God.
We are proposing bahala na as a inculturated theology in the global context knowing
that in spite of the extraordinary presence of the Filipino people all over the world and an
important role in recent history, a Filipino author laments what she called the “erasure”
of Filipino contribution to the contemporary landscape of the global world,972 which,
similarly, Ambassador Victoria Bataclan (former Ambassador to Belgium and
Luxembourg), refers to when she notes in her preface to the book, In de Olde Worlde:
Views of Filipino Migrants in Europe973 the important role it plays in remediating an
apparent “disinterest” in the role of Filipinos in today’s Europe.974 This apathy towards
the Filipino contribution to society and history is also evident in the realm of theology;
internationally recognized Filipino theologians are rare. Filipino theology is still practically
“unknown” to the rest of the world. Therefore, we hope that this current project will
advance the cause of Filipino theology and lobby for a viable place in the contemporary
landscape of theology.
In this portion, therefore, we shall also try to critically examine bahala na as an
ordinary theology from the lenses of sensus fidelium and from Pope Francis’ understanding
of the theology of the people in the hope of making it as a viable contribution of the Filipino
migrants to the ongoing theological enterprise. It is hoped that through this chapter we
will be able to revive and recontextualize the Filipino input in the area of theology – not
only as a localized theology but something that is also significant to the international
community. This ‘ordinary’ bahala na theology, we argue, is best understood in the context
972Ignacio, Building Diaspora, 49.

973Hoegsholm, In de Olde World, 6-7.
974This disinterest and “erasure” is all the more ironic since the Philippines has been a constant companion
of both Spain and the United States from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. Ignacio, Building Diaspora,
49.
173
SAMBAYANIHAN
of the Filipino value of loob-kapwa that accounts for the natural interpenetration of the I
and the other, which does not share the same problem with Modernity’s subject-object
relationship because it is perceived in the framework of common-unity. It is our hope that
presenting bahala na as an ordinary theology anchored in the relationship of loob-kapwa
will help in our search for an appropriate trans-colonial theological articulation of liturgy
and ecclesiology in the context of the diasporic lives of the Filipinos.
To accomplish this task, we shall employ the expertise of the following authors: 1)
Leonardo Mercado who is an anthropologist that makes use of “metalinguistic analyses”
in exploring some aspects of what can be generally considered as belonging to the
constellation/s of Filipino cultural worldviews. His scholarly attempt to systematically
extract the philosophical underpinnings of what belongs to the complex network of Filipino
worldviews suggests that a great deal of what belongs to the intricate web of Filipino
worldviews are basically non-dualisitic in orientation (“the Filipino wants to harmonize
the object and the subject, while at the same time, holding both as distinct”) which
explains the centrality of the concept of kapwa in the Filipino psyche. 2) Rolando Gripaldo,
who used to teach as full professor at the Mindanao State University (retired in 1992) and
at the De La Salle University of Manila (retired in 2007), was the Executive Governor of
the Philippine National Philosophical Research Society. At the same time, he offered his
professional service as author, editor and co-editors of several books and journal
publications, including the Philosophia (Philippines): International Journal of Philosophy
and Filipino Cultural Traits: Rolando R. Ceniza Lectures. In the literature that he published,
he endeavored to explore several Filipino cultural traits and values, such as Bahala na,
Pakikipagkapwa and the like. 3) Virgilio Enriquez who is regarded by most Filipino
scholars in the area of cultural studies as the “Father of Filipino Psychology” being the
main promoter of indigenous method and concepts in psychology, especially the notion of
kapwa. In 1975, he founded the national association of Filipino psychologists which is
popularly known as Pambasang Samahan sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino. 4) Katrin de Guia who
is a German-born scholar who married a well-known Filipino artist after finishing her
doctoral studies at the University of the Philippines under the tutelage of Virgilio Enriquez.
She is the author of Kapwa: The Self in the Other. 5.) Gabriel Marcel who explored the
theme of inter-subjectivity within what we call as Christian Socratic philosophy. 6.) Joeri
Schrijvers who holds a dual doctoral degree in Theology (2006) and Philosophy (2014)
from the KU Leuven. He published two books entitled Ontotheological Turnings? (SUNY
2011) and Between Faith and Belief (SUNY 2016), which explored the area of metaphysics
of love that includes the works of Ludwig Binswanger in the hope of finding a viable place
for religion in the contemporary secularized society. 7) Jeremiah Reyes who obtained his
PhD in Philosophy at the KU Leuven in 2015 with a doctoral dissertation that explored
the intersection between Aquinas and the Filipino notion of loob. 8) Daniel Franklin Pilario,
a member of the Congregation of the Mission and of the Concilium, who has been very
busy promoting theology from the rough ground of praxis which deals mainly with the
present debate on theological method that makes use of contemporary philosophical and
sociological theories. His research covers the areas of fundamental theology, cultures,
inculturation, theologies of migration, theological anthropology, theological method and
sociological theory. 9) Mary Grace T. Betsayda who published a book entitled Bahala Na
Ang Dios” (“Leave it to God”): The Church’s Role in the Socialization of Filipinos in the Greater
Toronto Area. 10) Jose M. de Mesa who is a lay theologian and a professor of Applied
Systematic Theology at the De La Salle University. He sits as a member of the Louvain
Theological and Pastoral Monographs based in Leuven, Belgium and of the Concilium
Advisory Board for Liturgy and Sacraments based in Nijgmegen, Holland. He authored the
book, And God Said “Bahala Na!” The Theme of Providence in the Lowland Filipino Context,
where he tried to use the famous Filipino expression as a particular articulation of
174
theology and spirituality in the Filipino worldvie. 11) Elsa Tamez who is a Methodist and
Liberation Theologian. She is best known for her contributions in contextual biblical
hermeneutics, liberation theology, and feminist theology. 12) Victorino Cueto who is a
lecturer and assistant professor in Spirituality. His doctoral dissertation focused on the
theology of everyday life. He also published an article on migration under the title of “’Out
of Place’: Exilic Existence in a Hyper Globalized World”.975 13) Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz who
is one of best-known Hispanic theologians and a professor of theology and ethics. 14) Pilar
Aquino who is “internationally renowned for her pioneering work in Latin American and
U.S. Latina feminist theologies of liberation. Her body of works deals with liberation
theologies, social ethics and feminist theologies, with special interests in intercultural
approaches, conflict transformation, and religious peace-building studies.976 15) Joaquin
Jay Gonzales III who is presently holding a Mayor George Christopher Professorship in
Government and Society and at the same time, a professorial chair in Business under the
name Russell T. Sharpe. His publications include 30 journal articles, 20 book chapters
and 13 books with titles like Filipino American Faith in Action: Immigration, Religion, and
Civic Engagement and Diaspora Diplomacy: Philippine Migration and Its Soft Power
Influences. 16) Pope Francis who is giving due recognition to the Theology of the People
and prioritizing in his Pontificate the option for the poor wherein he categorically mentioned
after his election the he wants “a church of the poor for the poor.
II.2.1. A Note of Ordinary Theology
II.2.1.1. A Look into the Filipino Soul: Grasping the Inseparability of Religion and Culture
As we have already discussed in the previous chapter, it is not an exaggeration to

say that Roman Catholicism (or Christianity in general), since its introduction to the
Philippine shores, has been part and parcel of both the religious and cultural life of the
Filipinos.977 Just like Mexico and other former Spanish colonies, the Philippines has
maintained strong adherence, though greatly indigenized, to the religion injected into its
people by the Spanish colonizers, notwithstanding their bid for political independence.978
The localized versions of Spanish Catholic rituals were, wittingly or unwittingly, developed
as a form of resistance to “full Hispanization.” We say “wittingly or unwittingly”, because
we take seriously Pilario’s point that “most of these practices of resistance are not ill-
intentioned or consciously planned to topple the dominant power. They are the result of,
975Cf. Victorino Cueto, “’Out of Place’: Exilic Existence in a Hyper Globalized World, in Faith on the Move.
Toward a Theology of Migration in Asia, eds. Fabio Baggio and Agnes Brazal (Quezon City & Manila: Ateneo de
Manila University, 2008),1-19.
976University of San Diego, “Department of Theology and Religious Studies,”
http://www.sandiego.edu/cas/theology/faculty-and-staff/biography.php?profile_id=173 [accessed June 29,
2015].
977Fred R. Von der Menden, an author and traveler, observed that “the Philippines were under Spanish control
for four centuries (during which time the vast majority of the population was converted to Roman Catholicism)
and then became an American colony. The islands rebelled against Spain but enjoyed a peaceful development
toward freedom under the United States. Against this varied background, religion played a vital role in the
evolution of nationalism.” Cf. Fred R. Von der Menden, Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia: Burma,
Indonesia, The Philippines (Madison, Milwaukee and London: The University of Wisconsin, 1968), viii. Cf. also
Betsayda, “Bahala Na Ang Dios,” 1. Although what Von der Menden said about the “peaceful development
towards freedom” enjoyed by the Filipino people under the American regime is not quite accurate, as evidenced
by the millions of lives claimed in the Filipino resistance against U.S., dubbed by the colonizers as Filipino
insurrection, he definitely captured the real influence of religion in the life and culture of Filipinos.
978Betsayda observes that “this ‘indigenous’ form of Roman Catholicism provided a large majority of Filipinos
with a liturgy, albeit rooted in the religious practices of their colonizers, through which to express themselves
spiritually and culturally.” Betsayda,“Bahala Na Ang Dios;” 2.
175
SAMBAYANIHAN
in all honesty, the only available means to survive.”979 Pilario underlines in his doctoral
dissertation two significant manifestations of resistance by the Filipinos couched in the
narrative of resilience (Bahala na) in facing the oppressive power of the Hispanic colonial
missionaries: “1) The practice of confession was used as a venue for an ‘oblique resistance’
to the colonial powers that endeavored to control the bodies and minds of the natives,
because this ‘sacrament’ became an “act of bargaining with the authority” to escape from
the “totalizing grip of a dominant power;” and 2) The practice of the Pasyon, which is one
of the earliest attempts to inculturate Christianity, “[as] a religious text and cultural
practice,” which Pilario declares as inherently carrying with it a double-truth which, to
the surprise of the colonizers, “was ingenuously and dexterously utilized by popular
leaders to foster solidarity among the oppressed, and to propel these groups towards some
liberative social goals.”980 It should be noted here that the Pasyon, as discussed by Pilario,
“is a popularized translation of the bible, filled with local idioms, images and metaphors,
chanted in local popular tunes by neighborhood groups in individual houses during the
Holy week.”981
Betsayda, on her part, suggests that this strong adherence to
Catholicism/Christianity owes its existence to the collective trauma of Filipinos created
by the social climate in which the people remain dependent on Catholicism for emotional
support, generations after the end of colonization. Filipino Catholicism has changed from
being a tool of resistance against Hispanization, to something crucial to the survival of
Filipinos.”982 It has become so ingrained, however, that it has grown beyond Filipinos’
reaction to colonization – something they intimately carry with them beyond the Philippine
shores as attested by the centrality of the church/religion in social life of the migrant
Filipinos.983 This reality, then, is manifested in several ways: 1) how the Filipino
newspapers in Canada (i.e., Balita and Peryodiko Radikal) intermingle prayers and photos
of Jesus with the news of the day. 2) Churches, are creatively “transformed” from being
venues for worshipping, according to Betsayda, to being spaces, “for cultivation of civic
engagement and sites for political recruitment, incorporation, co-optation, and
empowerment.”984 3) Generally, Filipinos are well-versed with the practices of the Roman
Catholic Church, regardless of their age, employment or residential status and conditions
of immigration. 4) “Filipinos create and strengthen their social networks through the
church” that provide a safe haven and aid to their fellow Filipinos, especially the
newcomers.985 They feel “at home” in the Church. The Church becomes a realm where
boundaries of space and time are dismantled and where “gaps in culture and psyche are
bridged”.986 The church or religion, furthermore, establishes connection not only among
979Cf. Pilario, “Back to the Rough Grounds,” 44.Cf also Evelyn I. Rodriguez, “Primerang Bituin: Philippines-
Mexico Relations at the Dawn of the Pacific Rim Century,” Asia Pacific: Perspectives 6, no. 1 (2006), [journal
online], http://www.pacificrim.usfca.edu/research/perspectives/app_v6n1.pdf [accessed November 28,
2013]. Cf. also Betsayda, “Bahala Na Ang Dios,” 2.
980Betsayda, “Bahala Na Ang Dios,” 558.
981Cf also Evelyn I. Rodriguez, “Primerang Bituin: Philippines-Mexico Relations at the Dawn of the Pacific Rim
Century,” Asia Pacific: Perspectives 6, no. 1 (2006), [journal online],

http://www.pacificrim.usfca.edu/research/perspectives/app_v6n1.pdf [accessed November 28, 2013]. Cf.
also Betsayda, “Bahala Na Ang Dios,” 2.
982Ibid., 3.
983Aprodicio Laquian, “The Planning and Governance of Asia’s Mega-Urban Regions,” Paper presented at the
United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Population Distribution, Urbanization, Internal Migration and
Development, January 21-23, 2008, New York,
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/events/pdf/expert/13/P04_Laquian.pdf [accessed
January 12, 2014]. Religious holidays are celebrated with traditional rites, featuring native songs and dances,
special foods and decorations.
984
Betsayda, “Bahala Na Ang Dios,” 19-21.
985Ibid.
986Ibid., 23.
176
Filipinos but also connection to the Philippines.987 Betsayda notes that “ironically, the place
that should be a reminder of the colonization that occurred in the Philippines becomes a
place where Filipino immigrants improve their lives.”988 What makes it doubly ironic is the
fact that the “medium” (i.e., the church) which was “used to contain Filipinos and make
them conform to the will” of the Spanish crown, inventively, becomes an avenue for paying
homage to their beloved homeland.989
There is, however, a downside to this “bridge” that cannot be ignored. Although most
Filipinos consider the Church as a great help for them in terms of social networks and in
connecting with one’s own norms and customs, it becomes also a breeding ground for
gossip and platforms for the “standoffish” attitude of Filipino migrants, which demonize
and turn-off churchgoers. On this note, Betsayda opines, “on one hand, Filipinos are seen
oriented, affable, religious and helpful, forming a cohesive unit and making space within
the Canadian landscape with their social connections. Contrary to this, Filipinos are said
to be divided, selfish, self-serving, and not showing kindness to their fellow Filipinos…
One’s unwillingness to unite with others and help one another [crab mentality] will result
in the inability to prosper socially or financially.”990
II.2.1.2. Unpacking ‘Ordinary Theology’: A Road, Less Travelled?991
The phrase “ordinary theology” has been used by Jeff Astley to refer to the
“unofficial”992 theology and theologizing of Christians located outside the niche of the
academy that validly expresses the “fundamental theological dimension of every
Christian’s vocation.”993 He derives this usage from the 1996 edition of the New Shorter
Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of an “ordinary person” - someone “without
exceptional experience or expert knowledge.”994 Hence, ordinary theology is “the
theological beliefs and process of believing that find expression in the God-talk of those
believers who have received no scholarly theological education.”995
Despite all the suspicions996 surrounding “ordinary theology”, its nagging presence
and invaluable contribution to the doctrines of the Church cannot be simply ignored. John
Hull997, in this regard, humbly admits that, “if theology is what goes on in people’s lives,
987Betsayda, “Bahala Na Ang Dios,” 48. It is interesting to note here that most of the Filipino communities in
the U.S., Canada, Europe and in other countries, missalettes (i.e., Sambuhay and Euchalette) and religious
songs (i.e., songs produced by Jesuit Communications and other Filipino composers) from the Philippines,
are widely used.
988Ibid., 49.
989Ibid., 50.
990Ibid., 53.
991This portion, although slightly paraphrased, appeared as a section in an advanced master’s thesis
submitted by the author to the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of KU Leuven in 2005. Cf. Rebustillo,
“Ordinary’, Bahala Na.” Cf. also Jeff Astley, “Ordinary Theology as Lay Theology: Listening and Learning from
Lay Perspectives,” in Marriage, Families & Spirituality 20 no. 2(2014):182-190.
992He claims that this kind of theology is “routinely ignored by academic Christian theology.” Cf. Astley,
Ordinary Theology.
993Ibid., 55-56.
994Ibid., 56.
995Ibid., 1. Interestingly, this “brand” of theology is implied in Geoffrey Wainwright’s understanding of theology
which gives premium to the “reflective enterprise that both feeds on and intends to serve the primary
manifestations and deliverances of Christian faith that occur as revelation, narration, proclamation and
worship.” Cf. Geoffrey Wainwright, “Method in Theology,” in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian
Thought, ed. Alister E. McGrath (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 369. Cited in Astley, Ordinary Theology, 52.
996In fact, it is considered by some as: 1) confused/self-contradictory; 2) unsystematic; 3) too contextual and
Anthropomorphic; 4) too biographical; 5) too personal, subjective, relative; 6) too superstitious; and 7) too
uncritical.
997He holds an Honorary Professor of Practical Theology in the Queen's Foundation for Ecumenical Theological
Education, Birmingham, England. He is also an Emeritus Professor of Religious Education at the University
of Birmingham.
177
SAMBAYANIHAN
we know amazingly little about Christian theology.”998 Simply said, one-sided academics
miss out on something precious and pertinent here. Definitely, “valid” theologies are not
only “conjured” in the confines of the university or within the walls of some canonically
sanctioned theological institutions, but also in the context of normal everyday life. Daniel
Pilario’s theology from “rough grounds of praxis”999, for us, traverses the same stream with
that of ordinary theology’s, because it identifies ordinary life and living of people as the
locus theologicus as it veers away from the straightjacket imposed by “crystalline purity of
logic”1000.
Astley insists, however, that the alternative route provided by ordinary theology is
not necessarily diametrically opposed to what is touted as “official theology”, because it
simply presents an openness to the wider scope of theology and to the “real”1001 ground of
theologizing. Ordinary theology is characterized by the following notions: learned and
learning; tentative and significant; meaningful; subterranean; religious; kneeling and
celebratory; irregular dogmatics; mother-tongue; and onlook. Surrounded by all these
features, ordinary theology only differs from the normative/official academic theology in
terms of degrees. Thus, it still belongs to the theology of the Church whose membership
is dominated by people who have received little or no scholarly theological education. Prof.
Jacques Haers, pushing the envelope farther, claims that Astley is still too cautious
because Haers argues that if theology has no connection to the experiences and thoughts
of the ordinary, then, it is not genuine theology.1002
Let us now discuss in detail the characteristics of ordinary theology identified by Jeff
Astley. First and foremost, Astley surmises that it is learned, because it is never a product
of “creatio-ex-nihilo” as it also arises from the crumbs that fall from the table of Academic
theology. In the same manner, according to Astley, “Academic theology flourishes from
“humble (seedy?) origins, in the rank, dark, moist environment” of ordinary life and living
of ordinary people. Furthermore, it is a learning theology, because it continues to evolve
as religious meanings are thought through within the complex ambit of human
experience.1003 The learning which is proper to ordinary theology certainly does not stop
ordinary theologians from showing us ‘a theology-in-construction,’ a belief system that is
‘on the way.’ Indeed, it is a learning theology, because it “is part of people’s religious
performance, and it does engage in a personal form of theological reflection aimed at
thinking through the meaning of God.”1004
This notion of theology-in-construction coincides with what Victorino Cueto suggests
in his appropriation of lo cotidiano in his unpublished dissertation where he claims that
“every ordinary man/woman who lives an everyday ordinary life is also able to contribute
998Cf. Professor John Hull, “North England Institute for Christian Education (NEICE) Symposium,” July 1996.
999Daniel Franklin Pilario’s doctoral dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Theology in the Katholieke
Universiteit Leuven was published as a monograph by Peeters in Leuven in 2005. The title of this work, where
he explores the notion of praxis and aims at engaging in critical dialogue of liberationist struggle and
contemporary postmodern situation while it endeavors to correct the weaknesses and preserve the merits of
both, is Back to the Rough Ground of Praxis: Exploring Theological Method with Pierre Bourdieu.
1000Wittgenstein: “We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the
conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so, we need
friction. Back to the rough ground!” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1958), § 107.
1001I am using the word real in open and closed quotation in contrast to the “artificial” and “detached” world
created in the Academe.

1002This does not deny the fact that “ordinary theology” is still and must be subjected to constant scrutiny,
criticism, and revision to ensure its survival.

1003Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 107.
1004Ibid.
178
in the creation/production of Divine meaning.”1005 He affirms that, indeed, “theology will

always be enriched by the surprises of everyday life.”1006
The fact that it continues to develop means that it is always partial. Thus, it never
claims to be universally valid; it is always tentative. Likewise, because of its proximity to
people’s actual life, regardless of its hesitant and inarticulate character, it cannot be
denied that ‘ordinary theology’ is certainly significant to its ‘speakers’ notwithstanding the
rejection or authentication of ‘official theologians.’ 1007
Regarding its characteristic as tentative theology, Astley claims that this theology
arises out of humility in its “attempt to articulate about a mystery that it can never
embody, it can only ever be partial understanding,” which is “a virtue that is essential to
every form of theology.”1008 He goes on to say that “faith will always be cautious of its
assertions – and the more detailed, the more cautions. We can be sure about God; but we
must be tentative in theology.”’1009 It is also significant theology according to Astley,
because, despite the hesitant and inarticulate character of it, it is important to the
ordinary people; hence, it is significant. It is significant to the ordinary believers who
profess it.1010 Regardless of what expert theologians say about the “poor” articulations of
the ordinary theologians, what these ordinary theologians express always speaks to and
about their context. Since it is significant or relevant to the experience of the ordinary
theologians, they see themselves in the whole picture of God-talk; hence, ultimately it is
meaningful for them. In contrast to academic theology, which can also be profound or
superficial (positive or despairing), Astley claims that ordinary theology brings meaning to
its ‘practitioners’ because it is more directly concerned with the perceived meaningfulness
of the speaker’s own life than that of the theology in the academy.”1011
It is referred to as subterranean1012 because it is not readily apparent in the
mainstream, especially in the academic or clerical circles, but it is freely “fermented” in
the humble regions of ordinary life (i.e., pubs, market-places, bingo halls, or bus
queues),1013 ‘hidden’ to those who seek theology in libraries or by listening to clergy.”1014
Another reason for calling it as such is because it “is also underground in the sense that
it lies ‘closer to the theological formulations that are taught and defended in the university
or the church.”1015 Astley, however, explains that he prefers to use the term ‘ordinary’
rather than ‘subterranean’ because it “speaks of what is normal, usual and commonplace
(and, therefore, widespread) as opposed to the notion of an out-of-the-ordinary nature of
the academic theology.”1016 He hesitates to name the kind of theology that he is advocating
as ‘subterranean’ for the very reason that it may be interpreted as subversive, or
something that defies convention and is experimental as in the phrase ‘the underground
press’.”1017 It was also suggested by Prof. Haers that, perhaps, the subterraneity of
ordinary theology can be also construed as a theological enterprise wherein “‘ordinary’
1005Victorino A. Cueto, “Tactics of the Weak: Exploring Everyday Practice with Michel de Certeau: Towards a
Theology of Everyday Life” (unpublished dissertation, Faculty of Theology, KU Leuven, 2011), 251.
1006Ibid.
1007Astley, Ordinary Theology, 70.
1008Ibid., 61.
1009Ibid. Cf. Ian Ramsey, Christian Discourse: Some Logical Explorations (Oxford: Oxford University, 1965), 61.
See also, Ian Ramsey, On Being Sure in Religion (London: Athlone, 1963), 89-90.
1011Ibid.
1012Ibid., 71.
1013Ibid.
1014Ibid.
1015Robert Towler, Conventional Religion and Common Religion in Great Britain (Leeds: Department of Sociology,
University of Leeds, n.d.), 5.

1017Ibid.
179
SAMBAYANIHAN
theology feeds the soil on which academic theology is constructed and elaborated. That
means that both are mutually critical and that a process of discernment results out of
their inevitable encounter.”1018
Thus, it is justifiable that we retain the term ‘subterranean’ as an essential element
of ordinary theology. It has its good reason because, in our humble opinion, it expresses
the resistance of ordinary theology to simply be co-opted in the narratives of academic
theology. In this regard, we recall Pilario who contends that “[e]ven as these regular
practices of daily life are in constant danger of being co-opted by capitalism, they can also
serve as foundations to structural transformation.”1019 He then substantiated this claim
by stating that “according to Marc Bloch, great rebellions are mere ‘flashes in the pan’
compared to the stubborn persistence and regularity of everyday resistance.”1020
In the same vein, de Certeau indicates the strength of “the collective swell of muffled
voices” in the lives of the mystics of the early modern period: “marked by various
signs…that resist the speculation of theologians and professionals…[but are sites of] the
new awareness of a different reality…Beneath the multitude of doctrines and experiences,
this collective swell of countless muffled voices lends it strength – sometimes seductive,
sometimes frightening – to an otherness within the life of the spirit.”1021 Along this line,
Pilario claims that “[i]t is from these areas that ‘emergent voices’ – both alternative and
oppositional – emerge in order to exert pressure on the hegemonic.”1022
Ordinary theology for Astley is religious in character because it “[shares] in the
salvific nature of religious and spiritual life from which it springs.” 1023 This does not rule
out, however, the ‘salvific’ element found in Academic Theology as well. What he simply
wants to express here is that “academic theology frequently appears to be too distanced
from their religious lives and too ‘second-hand’; academic theology requires too much
‘bracketing out’ of the personal, or too much critical testing of beliefs, for it to serve them
as a medium for their healing.”1024 For him, “ordinary theology is, in many ways, more
deeply earthed in certain religious phenomenon (such as spirituality and values) than is
the majority of academic theology.”1025 As such, it sits well with the language of liberation
theology employed by Pilar Aquino in lo cotidiano. She suggests that life shows “us how to
understand liberation and therefore becomes an analytic category for understanding
social practices and the processes of oppression-liberation. A theology that tries to
accompany and make explicit the liberating aspirations of the poor and oppressed must
look here.”1026
In contrast to “sitting theology” or “theology at the desk”, ordinary theology is being
likened by Astley, perhaps in a loose manner, to what a famous Swiss theologian, Hans
Urs von Balthasar, refers to as “kneeling theology” or “theology at prayer.”1027 von
Balthasar’s concept of “kneeling theology” may have been originally meant to refer to
“monastic theologies” but Astley takes the concept, perhaps stretching it to a little bit too
1018Comment given by Prof. Dr. Jacques Haers on July 17, 2017.

1019Pilario, “Back to the Rough Grounds,” 45.
1020Ibid. Cf. Marc Bloch, French Rural History (Berkeley: University of California, 1970), 170.
1021Michel de Certeau, The Mystic Fable. The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, trans. Michael B. Smith,
vol. 1, Religion and Postmodern Series (Chicago & London: University of Chicago, 1992), 105. Originally
published as La Fable Mystique. XVIe –XVIIe Siecle (n.p.: Gallimard, 1982). Cited in Cueto, “Tactics of the
Weak,” 244.
1024Ibid.
1025Ibid.
1026Ibid.
1027Astley, Ordinary Theology, 74. Cf. also Hans Urs von Balthasar, Verbum Caro, I (Einsiedeln, Switzerland:
Johannesverlag,1960), 224; in English as The Word Made Flesh, trans. A. V. Littledale with Alexander Due
(San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989), 208.
180
far, as one of the characteristics of ordinary theology, which is admittedly arising neither
from the monasteries nor from the academic context, not even in the socio-pastoral
centers, but in the context of the “regular daily life” where ordinary people struggle to
make sense of their experiences amidst the challenges they face. Using the notion of
“kneeling” in a broader sense, Astley tries to incorporate “the, more or less, immediate
cognitive articulation of living piety” of ordinary because he argues that “for ordinary
theologians, their kneeling God-talk also incorporates the deepest value conviction on
which they rest their lives and their deaths.”1028 For this reason, it is, indeed, both
prayerful and celebratory which, on our analysis, resonates to what Elsa Tamez points
out in the following statement: “There is a truth here that we cannot overlook and that we
who seek a new order of life must embrace: the foretastes of utopia are experienced in
everyday life, and it is in everyday life that we begin to build this utopia… There is no
place else. And everyday life in the private sphere is the focal point for re-establishing a
new relationship that will have its effect in the public sphere.”1029
Based on Astley’s understanding of the concept, it is considered as irregular
dogmatics because it is constituted within the realm of personal biography of its authors
who are not “academically critical and meticulous” in forming or articulating theological
insights, which are at times deemed to be volatile.1030 The term ‘irregular’ here can also be
construed as ‘free’ is the Barthian’s sense of ‘free dogmatics’ that is thought to exist prior
to any academic theological articulations but continues to exist alongside the more
academic mode of theology, which has “always had its origin in irregular dogmatics and
could never have existed without its stimulus and co-operation.”1031
In Astley’s opinion, ordinary theology is articulated in the context of mother-tongue
in contrast to the father-tongue, which is normally used by academic theologians. For him,
academic theology is like “[m]en, [who] tend to be more distanced in their God-talk: more
analytic, speculative, ‘cool’ and detached;” while ordinary theology, is like women,[who]
“employs more concrete narrative and personal ways of thinking.”1032 Although the use of
gender based qualifiers in contrasting academic and ordinary theology may not sound
appealing to some, it should be considered valid, because it is articulated in “concrete
narrative and personal ways of thinking” normally associated with women.
In the words of Astley, ordinary theology “is replete with expressions of ‘onlooks’ and
‘experiencing-as’, directed to events, individuals and situations that are viewed as
freighted with religious meaning.” Astley, in using these expressions, acknowledges his
proximity to Donald Evans’s notion of onlook. He says, “an onlook is more than intellectual
‘opinion’, ‘conception’ or ‘view’, and implies more commitment than an ‘outlook’ or
‘perspective.1033 As such, we see that ordinary theology is expressing also what Maria Pilar
1028Astley, Ordinary Theology,74.

1029Cf. Elsa Tamez, Against Machismo (Oak Park, IL.: Meyer Stone Books, 1987), 135. Cited in Cueto, “Tactics
of the Weak,” 256-257.
1031Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. I/1, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), 3.
1032Astley, Ordinary Theology, 81-82. It should be noted here that Astley qualifies his use of the mother-tongue
in this discussion: “I have come to expect differences between the sexes in my own pastoral conversations,
interviews and reading of interview scripts. But the evidence, such as it is, may be misleading. The putative
gender difference that seems to be implied by these differences in language and reasoning styles may be better
characterized as a difference between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ outlooks, attitudes, orientations or
viewpoints, rather than a difference between the sexes… Not surprisingly, males are more likely to show
(stereotypical) ‘masculine’ ways of thinking and of being religious, and women are more likely to show the
more ‘feminine’ styles, but the difference is not in fact a difference of sex or gender, but of psychological type.”
1033Cf. Donald Evans, The Logic of Self-Involvement: A Theological Study of Everyday Language with Special
Reference to the Christian Use of Language about God as Creator (London: SCM, 1963), 125. For Astley
(Ordinary Theology, 83) “onlooks express our feelings and our behavioral intentions towards it.”
181
SAMBAYANIHAN
Aquino is trying to drive at when she says “[in] the daily life of the people reside the values
and categories on which social consensus is based.”1034
With this cartographic sketch, therefore, we argue that, indeed, ordinary theology is
not diametrically opposed to or necessarily rejecting academic theology. For, as noted by
Astley, it is “not necessarily a deviation from the norm of official or academic theology
since it is defined, quite neutrally, as the theology held by those who have little or no
academic theological training.”1035 Moreover, he admits that “I certainly accept the claim
about priority. But I would argue that ordinary theology is still theology.” 1036 Thus, the
difference between ordinary and academic theology is not in the level of truth but,
according to him, is only a matter of “degree”. Prof. Haers is of the opinion that despite
the difference between ‘ordinary’ and ‘academic’ theologies, which Astley believes to be a
matter of degree, there is an interaction between these two theologies, which is certainly
affirmed by Astley who argues that academic theology also arises from ordinary theology
in the same manner that ordinary theology feeds on what comes out of academic
theology.1037 Having said that, Astley does not rule out that “criticism may also be directed
to his own cartographic accounts of the messiness that is ordinary theology”1038 since the
two theologies that we are referring to in this section can interactively critic and improve
each other as hinted at by some liberation theologians, such as the Boff’s brothers.1039
II.2.1.3. Criticisms on Ordinary Theology and Astley’s Corresponding Reply
Jeff Astley is well aware that some people do not see his proposal as something that
will hold water. A number of criticisms are hurled unto ‘ordinary theology’ which include
the following: 1) confused/self-contradictory; 2) unsystematic; 3) too contextual and
anthropomorphic; 4) too biographical; 5) too personal, subjective, relative; 6) too
superstitious; and 7) too uncritical. All these negative observations are admittedly the
same complaints that Astley had in the past. Nonetheless, he confesses that “it is only
now that I repent in dust and ashes, having come to appreciate, that even though only
relatively few are true experts in academic theology, each person is an expert in his or her
own theology at least in a sense that is almost certain that one knows more of their own
theology than they do themselves.”1040
As a response to these criticisms, he contends that ordinary theology cannot be
faulted as confused/self-contradictory because even Wittgenstein once pointed out that
“sophisticated reasoning itself can lead to a particular sort of confusion than can only be
resolved by tracking back its home in more ordinary language.” 1041 Thus, clarity and
coherence does not come naturally even to academic theology. Astley maintains that “[a]t
the root of much of the confusion in everyday speech lies the fact that people do not always
recognize or spell out the actual implications of their language. Because of this, God-talk
often contains unacknowledged inconsistencies and contradictions.”1042 Moreover, he
1034Maria Pilar Aquino, “The Collective Dis-covery of our Own Power,” in Hispanic/Latino Theology: Challenge
and Promise, eds. Ada Maria Asasi-Diaz and Fernando Segovia (Minneapolis; Fortress, 1996), 257.
1036Ibid.
1037Comment made by Prof. Dr. Jacques Haers on July 17, 2017.
1039Cf. Clodovis Boff and Leonardo Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology, trans. Paul Burns (Maryknoll: Orbis,
1986, 1987).
1041Ibid., 126. Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1968), §§ 38, 123.

182
contends that this is “not just the sole prerogative of the unscholarly, academics often
miss these implications as well.”1043
As far as the “unsystematic” nature of ordinary theology is concerned, Astley uses
Paul Holmer’s insight on theological vocabularies wherein Homer states that “[the] truth
is that the language of faith is not an artificial and contrived tongue.” 1044 Moreover, Homer
argues that “[the] difficulty with the technical and artificial theologies is that they all
sooner or later propose a special vocabulary.”1045 The end result is that these special
vocabularies become so incomprehensible for ordinary people who are mostly the
“speakers” of the language of faith. On this note, Pilario rightly points out that “intellectual
activity appears to be a serious enterprise yet, in fact, it is also a game – a ‘playworld’
where people can tune in to the ‘as if’ or ‘let’s pretend’ mode without real life-and-death
stakes that beset the rough grounds of praxis – as epitomized by the ancient philosopher
Thales who fell into a pit because he was always looking up, engrossed with the stars.”1046
In order to argue for the validity of the concrete and anthropomorphic tendency of
ordinary theology which may be similar to how children articulate and apprehend reality,
Astley points out that just “because children cannot understand everything, we must not
conclude that they can understand nothing.”1047 He contends that “[where] ordinary
theology utilizes a primary religious language that is replete with metaphorical talk, it
reveals how close it lies to the literary forms of scripture, prayer and the poetry of
hymns.”1048 Furthermore, he believes that “[theology] does not have to be very
sophisticated in order to communicate religious truth.”1049 This brings to mind Ahern who
argues that “the image is more capacious than the concept.”1050 Therefore, according to
Astley, “Christian thinking is irreducibly metaphorical and narrative. Metaphorical
thinking constitutes the basis of human thought and language.”1051 With that statement
we can, therefore, argue the necessity of metaphors or even of some anthropomorphic
articulations expressing whatever reality we want to affirm meaningfully in our God-talk.
We believe that this contention of Astley resonates with Cueto’s understanding of the
lo cotidiano, because the latter instructs us that
“[as] an epistemological framework, lo cotidiano signifies Latinas’ ‘capacity to know’ and
explicates ‘the features of their knowing’ which in turn indicates their attempts at
understanding and expressing ‘how and why their lives are the way they are [and] how and why
they function as they do. As a way of knowing, lo cotidiano is then rescued from the sphere of
the inconsequential and, subsequently, given its place as a legitimate source of knowledge. In
a certain sense, lo cotidiano ‘rescues the intellectual enterprise from being merely academic’ for
it provides ‘concrete and particular experiences’ in the elaboration of theoretical paradigms and
principles. It forces academicians to leave their ivory towers and bring them back to the life’s
rough ground.”1052
While some people think that ordinary theology is undesirable because it is too
biographical, Astley believes that this is, in fact, the weightier reason to espouse this kind
of theologizing because he contends that “Christianity comes to us largely in story form
and thus appears to some extent isomorphic with our own lives”1053. Indeed, as affirmed
by Astley, “ordinary believers suffer no disadvantage when reading the Christian

1044Paul Holmer, The Grammar of Faith (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978), 199.
1045Ibid.
1048Ibid., 130.
1049Ibid.
1050Geoffrey Ahern, The Triune God in Hackney and Enfield: 30 Trinitarian Christians and Secularisation
(London: Center for Ecumenical Studies, 1984), 24.

1052Cueto, “Tactics of the Weak,” 268.
183
SAMBAYANIHAN
narratives, for Christian identity, theology and Christology are only best expressed in
story, but also most effectively encountered and appropriated when that story (or rather,
those stories) is heard from within the story of a ‘lived life.’” 1054 On top of this, he claims
that “[for] most ordinary theologians, theology is to be found within life, rather than
books.”1055
Replying on the criticism that ordinary theology comes out as being too personal to
be objective, Astley defends its validity by pointing out that “[t]he personal and ‘subjective’
tone of much ordinary theology indicates that people are here doing theology first-hand,
thinking through and thinking with their own beliefs, expressing their own feelings and
reflections in their own language. Far too much academic theology, by contrast, remains
in a second-hand mode.”1056 This argument somehow reminds us of the distinction
between primary and secondary reflections that Marcel had made which was, of course,
presented in the light of the distinction between a ‘problem, and a ‘mystery’.1057 In view of
the difference between the two modes of theologizing, Astley argues that
“In theology, as in many other areas of life, one size will simply not ‘fit all’ – nor one style, colour
or type material. The manufacturer, retailer and advertiser will always try to persuade us that
their single product will do; but they are not as concerned with our (subjective, personal)
comfort, happiness or well-being as we are and we should not be as concerned with their
(objective) impersonal sales figures, profit margins and market penetration data as they are. In
religion we are allowed to be rather suspicious customers; and our suspicion should
particularly be aroused when someone tells us that our theology is ‘too personal.’”1058
In the mind of Astley, ordinary theology’s ‘too personal’ character is not something
to be loathed because it testifies to the personal involvement and commitment of the
person doing theology. It fuels the passion that allows the theologian to be productive in
his/her endeavor. He, then, offers some criticisms on those who find ordinary theology as
too personal by noting that those who “have a sense of their own lack or loss of the
personal passion that they instinctively feel could give them an identity and a value world
to embrace.”1059 Practitioners of ordinary theology, according to Astley, feel that their
experience “is too personal not to talk about, because in talking about it they are talking
about their identity, their value world and themselves.”1060 On the basis of this argument,
we recall Isasi-Diaz who promotes the standpoint of the lo cotidiano “where one sees and
comprehends the ‘stuff’ (la tela, literally cloth) of reality recognizing in the process that to
understand always means to understand from a particular and given perspective. One
sees the world never with pristine eyes.”1061 This contention of Diaz reminds us of the
particular vantage point that we have assumed in our own way of recounting the history
of the Filipino people in chapter one. Definitely, this is the same position that we shall
espouse all throughout this doctoral dissertation. We cannot deny, and we should not try
to sweep it under the rug, the fact that we are always influenced by our own bias or by
our own cultural, political, social and theological upbringing.
As already mentioned above, some people are bothered by ordinary theology’s
tendency to be too superstitious. Astley refutes this position by engaging Wittgenstein who
claims that “someone [who is] shattered from love will be little helped by an explanatory
hypothesis – it will not calm him.1062’” On this note, Astley argues that, indeed, “[r]ituals
1054Astley, Ordinary Theology, 133-34.

1055Ibid.,134.
1056Ibid. Cf. also Holmer, The Grammar of Faith.
1057Cf. Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being, (Chicago: Regnery, 1960). Cf. also Gabriel Marcel, The Philosophy
of Existentialism, trans. Manya Harari (New York: Citadel, 1961), 25-26.

1059Ibid.
1060Ibid. Cf. also Holmer, The Grammar of Faith, 136.
1061Cueto, “Tactics of the Weak,” 267-68.
1062Cyril Barrett, Wittgenstein on Ethics and Religious Belief (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 213.
184
have effects on those who perform them; they do not aim beyond this, or at all events they
do not do so by aiming at any scientific, casual effects. Where superstition is to be
distinguished from religion it is on these grounds that one is trust and the other ‘results
from fear and is a sort of false science.’”1063 This reminds us of Philips who asserts that
“[a] man does not smash the portrait of his beloved in order to express his anger. This is
the form his anger takes.”1064
Apart from being criticized as too superstitious, ordinary theology is also looked
down upon as too uncritical to which Astley responds by saying that
“I accept that religious beliefs should not be called ‘theology’ unless they are to some extent
articulated and reflected upon. But most believers engage in some measure of articulation and
reflection; they do think about and ‘think through’ their faith, in their own way. And most people
do see the problems, especially the ‘intellectual’ problems, in their faith, and they also care
about having consistent beliefs and being able to justify them to themselves.”1065
Certainly, for Astley, reflexivity is not a monopoly of academic theologians, which in

practice are guilty of being ignorant of what really transpires on the ground, but is also
possessed by ordinary theologians, although they conduct their God-talk in a less logically
coherent way than the systematic treatises produced by professional theologians. The
argument of Pilario regarding the relation between reflexivity and theology is particularly
instructive here. In his talk during the celebration of the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas
organized by the Faculty of Theology of KU Leuven, he underlined the importance of
listening to the articulation of the ordinary church-goers or the people in the grassroots,
like those who live in the mountains of garbage in Payatas, for they do also have important
observations and essential points to share, although non-academically articulated or non-
systematically presented.1066 Ordinary theologians are, indeed, reflective and critical
because they do not simply accept everything as Gospel-truth. They only assent to what
they find plausible based on their humble standard. The way they evaluate the validity of
their faith or theological truth-claim is not through “sitting on the chair” as the academic
theologians are known to do but by way of kneeling in prayer as they grapple with their
existential questions.1067 Indeed, as Astley rightly points out, “most discussions about
theology pay little more than lip service to the more affective, volitional and imaginative
aspects of being in faith. It is as tragic as it is tempting to forget that receiving the gospel
is not a matter of having brains but of free personal response where imagination, thought
and emotion are integrated.”1068 In the words of Astley, “[o]rdinary theology is an
expression of a holistic, embodied faith.”1069
This theological position seems to align with lo cotidiano as construed by Cueto who
surmises that
“[as] the source of theology, lo cotidiano entails three different tasks: descriptive, hermeneutical
and epistemological. Embodying its descriptive role, lo cotidiano does not find comfort in the
abstract and more so, the metaphysical. It is the very concrete terrain where Latinas labour
through the daily grinds of living and believing. It also refers to Latina ‘patterns of action,
1063Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, ed. G.H. von Wright, trans. Peter Winch (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980),
72.
1064Dewi Z. Philips, Wittgenstein and Religion (Basingtoke: Macmillan,1993), 94.; See also Dewi Z. Phillips,
Faith and Philosophical Enquiry (London: Routledge & Keagan Paul, 1988), ch. 22.
1066Please see the video posted on youtube on 8 March 2017 of Daniel Franklin Pilario’s keynote address on
“Theology and Reflexivity” at the Promotion Hall of KU Leuven. Daniel Franklin Pilario, “Theology and
Reflexivity,” YouTube, May 8, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQVki3G61vo&t=20s [accessed
March 12, 2017].
1067Ibid., 145.
1069Ibid.
185
SAMBAYANIHAN
discourse, norms and established social roles’ promoted by social institutions like the church,
state, schools or economic groups.”1070
Using this line of reasoning as our basis, therefore, we can argue that ordinary theology
does not dwell in the abstract level but in what is embodied or holistic.
People may offer denigrating criticisms on ordinary theology, but Astley still
maintains that this way of theologizing has both pragmatic and theological merits. He,
therefore, recommends that professional theologians, which we believe is also resonated
in Pilario’s call to go back to the “rough grounds of praxis” and in Pope Francis’
exhortation to listen to the “theology of the people”, should also take seriously ordinary
theology because by doing so we become more aware of how we can properly conceive and
perform “pastoral care, worship, Christian education, apologetics, preaching and
evangelism, and indeed every other form of Christian conversation, leadership, concern
and relationship.”1071 He underscores that “experience needs to be taken seriously as a
(admittedly, special form of) theological educational experience, and in particular it needs
to be structured and commented on with an eye to elucidating and making explicit the
ordinary theology that they will see and hear along the way: listening and respecting.
Listening tells people they matter. Listening is a mark of respect. [Hence, it is a genuine]
Dialogue.”1072 With this, he contends that while “[theologians] sometimes claim that all
theology arises, at least partly, from our experience, albeit in conversation with Christian
tradition. Others claim that is ultimately to be tested against our experience. For most
theological systems, experience has some part to play in the framing or assessing of
Christian belief.”1073
II.2.1.4. Contextuality, Reflexivity and Ordinary Theology
On the premise of what we have discussed so far, we can link ordinary theology with
contextual theology,1074precisely because particular ways of theologizing that properly
belong to the ordinary population of the Church who do not have university training can
be considered as belonging to it. It is contextual, because the God-talk which we are
referring to transpires in the ordinary context of daily-life. Here, we bring to the fore the
theological expressions of the common people who are not academically trained to
comprehend and articulate sophisticated theological discourses and jargons. Ordinary
theology takes seriously the context of the ordinary people and how their relationship with
God and neighbor makes sense. By elevating their God-talk to the level of the academe,
we try to bridge the gap between professional theology and ordinary theology, something
that Robert Schreiter is trying to propose in his two books The New Catholicity and
Constructing Local Theologies, a proposal on how to strike a meaningful balance between
globality and locality, one that eschews absolute homogeneity and relativism.1075 We need
to mention at this point that our discussion of ordinary theology in this doctoral project,
especially because we are engaging academic theologians in the table of discussion, is
already moving towards academic theology.
1070Cueto, “Tactics of the Weak,” 267.

1071Astley, Ordinary Theology, 146. Cf. Pilario, Back to the Rough Grounds of Praxis. Cf. Rafael Luciani, Pope
Francis and the Theology of the People (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2017).
1073Ibid., 148.
1074Cf. Stephen Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology, rev. and expanded version (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1992,
2008).
1075Cf. Robert Schreiter, The New Catholicity: Theology Between the Global and the Local (Maryknoll, New York:
Orbis,1997, 2004). Cf. also Robert Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1985,1999).
186
Leonardo Mercado, in Elements of Filipino Theology, claims that Filipino Christians

“have the same right as the Westerners to incarnate Christ into their culture.”1076 To
incarnate Christ is not to be conceived only as an adaptation because, in the words of
Mercado, it “is not just external; it is internal, that is, ‘killing’ the foreign Christ and
making him native in order that he will grow and bear fruit in the nation.” 1077 It is not
simply an infusion but “primarily a commitment to Christ as person,”1078 the Christ who
“by his incarnation committed himself to the particular social and cultural circumstances
of the people among whom he lived” (Ad gentes 10). It is about, to use the analogy of St.
Paul, grafting wild olives (Rom. 11, 16 ff). In the same vein, Anscar Chupungco, a well-
respected Filipino liturgist, infers that “As Christ became a Jew in all things save sin, so
the Church should become not merely a Church in, but the Church of a particular
locality.”1079
Anscar Chupungco, astutely observes that “Filipino Catholics have not known any
form of official worship other than the Roman liturgy. Yet it continues to be a foreign
element in the body of religious practices kept by the vast majority of the faithful. The
reason for this was the inability of the liturgy, before Vatican II, to absorb indigenous
traditions.”1080
Against this background, Mercado suggests that a Filipino theologian must use the
life-and-faith experiences of the Filipino people as starting point, which is certainly
affirmed by most contemporary theologians, Western or otherwise. In the same manner,
Chupungco points out, “’Incarnation’ implies that liturgical forms develop from the
experience of the local Church.”1081 Although it is true that not everything in the culture
and tradition of the Philippines is good, they are definitely as ambivalent as a knife that
can be used either for good or for evil purpose. Mercado opines that it is still much better
to have a knife than having no knife at all.1082 In the same manner, it is better to use
Filipino values, culture, and tradition than not using them at all. Otherwise, the Filipino
people will continue to be marginalized and alienated.
To inculturate or indigenize the Catholic faith requires a re-valuing of some aspects
Filipino religious worldviews, such as: 1) the non-linear notion of time; 2) the holistic way
of thinking or looking at reality, 3) the internal and concrete notion of law, and 4) the
“lavish” hospitality and love for fiestas of the Filipino people.
As far as our contextual theology on Filipino diaspora in the globalized world is
concerned, we are reminded by Astley, together with Pope Francis and Pilario, of the
“need…. to listen to people for their sake…. [and our] need to listen to them for our sake
as well,”1083 because they have precious stories to tell that are worth our attention, which
they usually “hesitantly whisper” in their ordinary activities and interactions in life.
According to him, “just as children teach adults about themselves, so ordinary theology
can help us understand some of the more hidden dimensions, motivations and
connections of our own, more academic theology.”1084 They are the usual articulators of
God-talk that is shared and found meaningful by the majority of believers in the world,
which transpires in the “huge living experiment of people struggling to find and make
1076Mercado, Elements of Filipino Theology, 8.

1077Ibid., 8-9.
1078Ibid., 9.
1079Chupungco, Liturgical Inculturation, 17.
1080Ibid., 15.
1081Ibid., 19.
1084Ibid.
187
SAMBAYANIHAN
meaning in their lives, from a vast variety of different standpoints, personality types, social
and cultural perspectives, and across an enormous range of different contexts.”1085
One should not be so worried about the validity of ordinary theology, because it does
its own self-correction. Astley claims that “like a ‘preferred and selected’ shoe our theology
is repeatedly tested against the slush, rain and forced-walks-on-account-of-missed-buses
of our human life experience.”1086 Besides, invoking the notions of sensus fidei and
consensus fidelium, Astley argues that “[i]f an element of checkability against experience
is expected of their religious discourse, it must be the case that people find reality reliable
and trustworthy after all – or salvific, or meaningful in some other way. Their religious
perspective must somehow ‘fit’ their experience, or they would not be willing or able to
sustain it.”1087 Ramsey agrees with Astley by saying the “in all such cases, ‘the test of
whether [the claim] is or is not reasonable, will be … whether the resulting loyalty and
pro-attitude can remain when confronted with a larger and larger picture, and when the
empirical canvas broadens.”1088
This argument of Ramsey brings to mind the notion of “conspiracy” which is explored
by Fernandez in his respective theological endeavor in order to ensure the tensive balance
between the burning center and porous borders that is necessary in the advancement of
a contextual theological discourse. It is not only the particular group of people involved in
the articulation of ordinary theology that corrects their “grammar of faith”, but also those
who come in contact with them. In the case of the diasporized Filipinos, their articulations
of their particular God-talk are checked and tested by them as they continue to narrate
them, but at the same time, they are affirmed, put into question or challenged by the
people who share in their liminal place and even those who do not but unavoidably come
in contact with them.
Astley is aware that some ordinary theologies are obviously not well-ordered which
he elucidates by using the metaphor of the shoes: “Shoes are certainly put to the test and
often rejected too… This suggests a rather different sense in which ordinary theology can
count as a form of ‘empirical theology’: that is, as an empirically tried-and-tested
theology.”1089 Hence, advocating ordinary theology is not a naïve promotion of vox populi,
vox dei. Despite the un-academic nature of ordinary theology, it is not lacking in critical
assessment. Ordinary theology, as presented by Astley, fits in to the definition of John
Rawls of deliberative democracy, because it also allows the ordinary people to deliberate,
exchange views and debate their supporting reasons, although not as systematic as
academic theology does it.1090
Since ordinary theology is, indeed, a contextual theology, Astley admits that “one
size does not ‘fit all’ in religious matters.”1091 Corollary to this, he declares that, in the case
of ordinary theology, “[a] compromise between fashion/image-fit and fitness-to-the-
elements/terrain may be negotiable; but the personal appraisal will never be wholly
trumped by impersonal meteorological data…. [because] …there can be no such thing as
neutral and in that sense purely ‘objective’ and ‘impersonal’ account of what falsifies
religious belief.1092 Ultimately, a particular articulation of God-talk is accepted or rejected
by the person who professes faith in God. Practically and honestly speaking, we say that
any theological doctrine’s (whether contextual or universal) applicability or acceptability

1086Ibid.,149. See also, Ian Ramsey, Models and Mystery (Oxford: Oxford University, 1964),17. Ian Ramsey,
Christian Discourse: Some Logical Explorations (Oxford: Oxford University, 1965), 58.
1087Ramsey, Christian Discourse, 58. Cf. Astley, Ordinary Theology, 149.
1088Ramsey, Models and Mystery, 214.
1089Astley, Ordinary Theology, 149-150.
1090Cf. John Rawls, Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University, 1973).
1092Ibid.
188
is always filtered through the particular condition of the believer who holds these beliefs
personally. On this note, Astley asserts that “[r]eligious beliefs are also held by believers,
and that they are the people who decide what in fact will count as falsifying evidence for
their own beliefs.”1093
The fact that ultimately in the “rough ground of praxis” the people at the grassroots
themselves decide what will count or not count as acceptable must not be frowned upon
but must be taken seriously as part of objective reality. That is why any theological claim
must retain the tensive balance of burning center and porous borders where encounter
with various worldviews takes place that allows check and balance in propagation of a
particular theological articulation. After all, according to Astley, “the great variety of
ordinary theology can provide us all with a rich database of forms of theology available,
and how they perform are viewed when lived out and tested out in this personal manner
by other people.”1094
At this juncture, we can say that we, as academic theologians, may have a far more
sophisticated way of framing our existential questions and formulating our theological
concepts, but it does not mean that ours is more true than those articulated by the
ordinary theologians. It does not mean that the practitioners of ordinary theology are less
keen in their perception of how the Divine plays a role in their lives, that they are less
responsive to their experience of the Divine, and less committed in their relationship with
God and others. Sometimes, if not most of the time, what they express in their God-talk
is more real than what we contemplate on or fight over with each other in the confines our
universities and academies because we can unfortunately become stuck in the level of
theories.
Thus, our proposal for ordinary bahala na theology does not pretend to be universally
accepted even by those counted among the particular but complex phenomenon of Filipino
Diaspora in the context of globalization. It is expected that some theologians may see it
differently. Astley states that the “personal dimension continues to function even when
the selected shoes are tested in more ‘objective’ conditions. As a matter of empirical fact,
some shoes will never ‘do’ for some people in some situations, however watertight they
may prove to be, because they do not fit their other needs.”1095 Hence, ordinary bahala na
theology needs to be complemented or even replaced by other more appropriate contextual
theologies whenever necessary, because it simply represents a drop in the river of
contextual theologies that hopes to arrive at the great ocean of God’s revelation.
II.2.1.5. Ordinary Theology and Vernacular Hermeneutics
At this juncture, we would like to note that ‘ordinary theology’ resembles in some
respect to what is known as vernacular hermeneutics in the area of biblical scholarship.1096
Agnes Brazal explains, in an article she wrote for Asian Horizons, “[vernacular]
interpretation makes use of the reader’s cultural resources and social experiences to
understand the biblical narratives and the broader Christian tradition. This can draw on
three dimensions of the culture: ideational (worldviews, values and rules); performantial
(rituals and roles); and material (symbols, food, clothing, etc.). Vernacular hermeneutics
prioritizes the indigenous in order to recover a people’s tradition and self-esteem.”1097

1094Ibid.
1095Ibid.
1096R.S.Sugirtharajah, The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2001), 175-202.
1097Agnes Brazal, “Redeeming the Vernacular: Doing Post-colonial and Intercultural Theological Ethics,” Asian
Horizons, 3, no. 2 (2009): 46.
189
SAMBAYANIHAN
Ordinary theology, as we elaborated earlier, comes very close to this way of interpreting
the Scriptures because it also tries to access the “cultural resources and social
experiences” of those who articulate theology outside the confines of the academe where
sophisticated theological treatises are formulated, scrutinized and propagated. Ordinary
theology concerns itself on what is ordinarily expressed by ordinary people in their
ordinary or natural habitat. Thus, it is subterranean and tentative, as we have already
noted earlier, which can be also be considered as what characterizes vernacular
hermeneutics, that is, according to Brazal, “relative and moveable depending on who is
using what and against whom”.1098 Ordinary theology, we believe, can be accessed through
different channels, which are also true to vernacular hermeneutics, such as “ideational”,
“performantial” and “material”. This means that, on the part of the one gathering the
input, an attitude of reflexivity or attentive listening to the way of life of the ordinary people
– their values, the way they organize things and ideas, the way they perform their roles
and express ritual worship, and the way they use symbols, etc – is a necessity. This
endeavor, however, as we have already underlined in the preceding pages that ‘ordinary
theology’ is not meant to replace ‘academic theology’, will serve as a “litmus test” or a “yard
stick” of how official theological treatises matter to the ordinary life of the ordinary
practitioners of faith.
On the part of vernacular hermeneutics, it is important to note that Sugirtharajah
argues that this approach advocates a retrieval of culture which is considered to be an
indispensable site for hermeneutics.1099 This, as revealed to us by Sugirtharajah’s
postconial biblical scholarship, provides a fertile ground for inculturation of Chrisitian
faith by the indigenous people who are given a chance to appreciate the richness of
indigenous culture/s and wisdom and put them into a more creative and fruitful use
which were traditionally silenced, suppressed or denigrated by the missionaries of old.
This, in effect, provided alternative readings of the Bible by employing indigenous
perspectives and “nonrationalist modes of interpretation.”1100 By doing so, according to
Brazal, “vernacular hermeneutics is not just addressing the academe but more
importantly the local Christian communities.”1101 The downside of this “key for
interpretation” lies in the fact that it places a premium on what Brazal names as
“hermeneutics of appreciation” that is bent to turn a blind eye towards the “death-dealing
ways in which a cultural text/artefact is used.”1102 Another negative element that is
attendant to vernacular hermeneutics is the tendencies to be “closed-minded” because too
much emphasis on the “insider’s view”, that is over valorization of the specific indigenous
perspective, naturally paves the way to a blanket rejection to whatever is from the other
or outside. This then becomes blatant relativism and it definitely blocks any possibility for
“mutual enrichment”. On top of these two counter-productive tendencies of vernacular
hermeneutics, we may add the proclivity of this approach to be ‘essentialist’ which is an
exaggerated reaction to past suppression of indigenous reason and way of life brought
about by colonization. This gives an illusion that a particular perspective is hailed to be
pure and original or has never been adulterated by any foreign elements. The truth is,
culture is never monolithic which we shall discuss in more details in the succeeding
chapter. In a pluralistic world, homogeneity is an untenable position to be in. As we are
reminded by the Filipino anthropologist, Fernando Zialcita, “we are all mestizos.” 1103
1098Brazal, (footnote) Redeeming the Vernacular, 46. Cf. also Sugirtharajah, The Bible and the Third World,
178-81.
1099Sugirtharajah, The Bible and the Third World, 182.
1100Ibid. Cf. Brazal, Redeeming the Vernacular, 47.
1101Ibid.
1102Ibid.
1103Fernando Zialcita, “Culturally We are All Mestizos,” Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture 2, no. 1(1998):
137-158. Cited in Brazal, Redeeming the Vernacular, 47.
190
Indeed, according to Brazal, “the divide between the local and the global, the vernacular
and the metropolitan is no longer that clear.”1104 But of course, we cannot simply dismiss
vernacular hermeneutics as “inutile” for it certainly has its own merits. What we need to
do is to salvage whatever is worthwhile and build on that in view of our project. Surely
vernacular hermeneutics enriches our knowledge of the Bible and expands our
understanding of the implications of the Scriptures in our daily human life.
All that we have said so far, we believe, cannot be levied against ‘ordinary theology’,
because this kind of theology does not arrogate itself to be the new universal or the norm.
It is not meant to replace the “academic or official theology” and it is simply presenting
other sides of theological articulations that are considered to be, as we have already
pointed out above, learned and learning, subterranean tentative, ‘onlook’.
II.2.2. Locating the Filipino Notion of Bahala Na within the Ambit of Ordinary
Theology Grounded in the Intersubjective Relationship of Loob-Kapwa
II.2.2.1. Intersubjectivity as Expressed by Gabriel Marcel and Ludwig Binswanger
This portion shall endeavor to retrieve the intersubjective insights of both Gabriel
Marcel and Ludwig Binswanger, among other western thinkers, and place them in
dialogue with the Filipino notion of the relationship between loob and kapwa as articulated
by a number of Filipino scholars from different disciplines which we believe provides a
fertile ground for the cultivation of bahala na as an ordinary theology expressed by both
the Filipinos residing in the country and those who are in diaspora, which can then be
considered as a unique contribution of the Filipino people to the ongoing theological
discourses. This attempt has never been done before because, although Marcel and
Binswanger are contemporaries both in terms of historical period and intellectual pursuit,
there is no literature that points us to the fact that they are ever discussed together.
Hence, this portion will attempt to explore some areas of convergences and divergences
between these two intersubjective thinkers whom we consider to be indispensable
interlocutors in the area of the I-thou discourse that is pertinent to our concept of bahala
na ordinary theology that is constituted in the milieu of loob-kapwa. In our view, the
concept of the loob-kapwa provides not only a home for the intersubjective relation that
Marcel and Binswanger are proposing, but also a stable and solid anchor for presenting
bahala na as a viable theological option for the Filipinos in diaspora. We, therefore, assert
that the loob-kapwa tandem, without turning a blind eye towards its negative tendencies,
more than just being a fertile ground to promoting the validity of bahala na as an ordinary
theology, is also a tenable answer to the problem of bridging the existential gap between
the subject and the object that remained to be a philosophical baggage for both Marcel
and Binswanger courtesy of their Modern upbringing, because the insurmountable chasm
that has troubled the philosophical community after Descartes’ discovery of the “Je suis,
J’existe” (alternatively, je pense, donc je suis)1105 is absent, at least conceptually, in the
Filipino notion of the loob-kapwa intersubjective bond.
1104Brazal,
Redeeming the Vernacular, 47.
1105Thecomplete sentence in French is De sorte qu'après y avoir bien pensé, et avoir soigneusement examiné
toutes choses, enfin il faut conclure, et tenir pour constant que cette proposition Je suis, j'existe, est
nécessairement vraie, toutes les fois que je la prononce ou que je la conçois en mon esprit,” René Descartes,
191
SAMBAYANIHAN
II.2.2.1.2. Binswanger and Intersubjectivity: Retrieving the Centrality of Love in Authentic

Human Existence1106
When the author was introduced by Joeri Schrijvers to the phenomenology of love of
Ludwig Binswanger, an existential psychologist, our immediate reaction was to recall the
philosophical insights of Gabriel Marcel because, in our assessment, they both developed
their respective intellectual careers around the notion of intersubjectivity. To our surprise,
however, no amount of research work could provide any solid proof that they ever crossed
paths. We can only surmise that Gabriel Marcel, when he penned and published his
Metaphysical Journal, was probably not familiar with the works of Martin Buber who could
have been his possible link to Ludwig Binswanger considering the semblance between
their ideas. Perhaps, Marcel was raised in an intellectual tradition that could be
considered, “at that time, far removed from the German academic atmosphere” that
Binswanger was familiar with.1107 Both of them, however, were deeply impacted by the
world war that erupted during their youth. The tragic repercussions of the war provided
Marcel a painful but fertile ground for the development of his most essential philosophical
themes. As a matter of fact, the very first book that he published Metaphysical Journal
(1927) was heavily based on the journal that he had kept when the war was in progress.1108
On the part of Binswanger, Schrijvers has mentioned that Binswanger’s monumental
Grundformen und Erkenntnis menschlichen Daseins was written in a time of war.1109
In contrast to Marcel, Ludwig Binswanger’s “phenomenology of love”” is heavily
“influenced by Martin Buber”1110. In fact, it is also well known that Binswanger “entered
into a lifelong friendship with Buber who considered the issue of intersubjectivity as
central to his entire philosophy”.1111 Ludwig Binswanger, a psychiatrist by profession,
shied away from the reductionistic approach in psychiatry popular during his time. On
this note, Emmy van Deurzen, a philosopher and existential psychotherapist, states that
“Perhaps the most significant contribution of Binswanger was to systematically emphasize the
importance of finding out what a patient means by a symptom, or any other aspect of their
expression of themselves. The psychotherapist is never allowed to interpret anything in
accordance with a pre-established system of meaning that is of the therapist’s invention. In
good phenomenological tradition it is the underlying specific meaning that is explored and never
guessed at or imposed. This aspect of Binswanger’s contribution remains most relevant
today.”1112
This approach of Binswanger led him to dissociate himself from the tradition of Freudian
psychoanalysis despite their “harmonious” professional relationship.1113 Likewise,
Méditations métaphysiques (1641), Méditation seconde. The more popular phrase is the “Je pense, donc Je
suis” which is from Discours de la Methode.
1106Our limited knowledge on Binswanger is considerably dependent on Schrijvers’ texts used in a doctoral
seminar at the Faculty of Theology of KU Leuven – Belgium, especially chapters 9 and 10. Thus, the citations
in this article will follow its original format instead of the one published by SUNY in 2016. Originally, the title
of what was then a forthcoming book was From Love to Life?: Toward a Contemporary Phenomenology of
Religious Life but when it was finally published it was changed to Between Faith and Belief: Toward a
Contemporary Phenomenology of Life. Cf. Joeri Schrijvers, Between Faith and Belief: Toward a Contemporary
Phenomenology of Life (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 2016).
1107Cf. Emmanuel Levinas, Outside the Subject (Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 1993), 20. Cf. Fieser and
Dowden, “Gabriel Marcel.”

1108Ibid.
1109Cf. Schrijvers, Between Faith and Belief.
1110Ibid.
1111Ibid.
1112Emmy van Deurzen-Smith, Everyday Mysteries: Existential Dimensions of Psychotherapy (London:
Routledge, 1997), 149.

1113For a concise information about the contrast between Freudian psychoanalysis and Binswanger’s
Existential Analysis, we refer our readers to Simon Taylor, “Applied Philosophy, Applied Psychiatry: Ludwig
Binswanger and the Birth of Existential Analysis,” in New Practices of Philosophy (New York: Columbia
192
notwithstanding his great “admiration” of Martin Heidegger, he tried to steer away from
some of the “problematic” elements found in Heidegger’s philosophy whose Dasein was
still undoubtedly Cartesian in essence and obsessed with death.1114 What he tried to
develop and promote, instead, was the non-reductionistic approach that obviously bears
the mark of Martin Buber’s intersubjective I and thou.1115 According to Keith Hoeller, “an
adjunct professor of philosophy at Green River Community College” who edited Foucault’s
and Binswanger’s Dream and Existence, “Binswanger himself admitted later that his
interpretation and use of Heidegger’s enterprise for a new anthropology was based on a
misunderstanding but, in fact, a ‘productive’ misunderstanding… of Heidegger’s
Daseinsanalytik.”1116 For him, Heidegger’s Dasein was suffering from “schizophrenia” (if
we may use this term) which had torn the Dasein between “inauthentic being with others”
and the “authentic being alone.”1117 In contrast to Heidegger’s “schizophrenic” dealing with
the Dasein, Binswanger proposes Daseinsanalyse or “Existential analysis,” which is
according to him, “is an empirical science, with its own method and particular idea of
exactness, namely with method and ideal of exactness of the phenomenological empirical
sciences.”1118 In this way, Binswanger tried to rescue the Dasein from its tragic solipsism
by placing it in the context of what he considered to be a true encounter between the self
and the others. Within this horizon, Roger Frie, a practicing clinical psychologist who has
explored Binswanger’s approach in psychotherapy, rightly points out that “[for]
Binswanger, the human Dasein is an irreducible duality. Dasein in its original form is a
‘we-hood,’ against which the expanse of existence, selfhood and individuality appear as
secondary. Binswanger entered into a lifelong friendship with Martin Buber. For Buber,
the subject of intersubjectivity is central to his entire philosophy.”1119 Moreover, according
to Frie
University, 2011), 3. Cf. also Frank Sulloway, Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend
(New York: Harvard University, 1979). Cf. also Ludwig Binswanger, “The Existential Analysis School of
Thought”, in Existence, trans. Ernest Angel, eds. May Rollo, Ernest Angel, & Henri Ellenberger (New York:
Basic Books, 1958), 191. Ludwig Binswanger, “Heidegger’s Analytic of Existence and Its Meaning for
Psychiatry”, in Being-in-the-World: Selected Papers of Ludwig Binswanger, trans. Jacob Needleman (New York:
Basic Books, 1963), 211.
1114Brian Koehler states that “For Heidegger (Being and Time), human existence (Dasein) comprehends the
authentic sense of its Being when it anticipates the inevitable possibility of its own non-relational death. Death
cannot be represented by the other, hence, authentically existing dasein for Heidegger, is essentially alone.
Binswanger disagreed with Heidegger’s claim that authentic existence as being-towards-death is the condition
for authentic being-with-others. Binswanger stated: “Heidegger stresses again and again that existence, world,
being-with, and dasein-with, are equiprimordial constituents of being-in-the-world. For him, however, the
existential emphasis is throughout on being-self as one’s own most potentiality-for-Being-whole, out of which
the authentic being-with-others first becomes possible.” Roger Frie, Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity in Modern
Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: A Study of Sartre, Binswanger, Lacan, and Habermas (Maryland: Rowman &
Littlefield, 1997), 79. Brian Koehler, “Ludwig Binswanger: Contributions to an Intersubjective Approach to
Psychosis”, International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis, December 25, 2004,
United States Chapter, http://www.isps-us.org/koehler/binswanger.htm [accessed December 22, 2014].
Schrijvers explains that “Death, for Binswanger, undergoes a displacement: it no longer occupies the prime
place as it does in Heidegger’s existential analytic receives its meaning as an ‘erotic phenomenon.’” Schrijvers,
From Love to Life?, 374.
1115Cf. Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971).
1116Keith Hoeller, “Introduction,” in Michel Foucault & Ludwig Binswanger, Dream and Existence (Seattle:
Repp, 1986), 13.

1117Schrijvers explains that Binswanger did not just criticize Heidegger’s Dasein but he also attempted “to
extend Heideggers’s insights in Dasein’s relation with the world to the domain of sick subjectivities or what
he calls ‘misgűckten’, failed or false Dasein.” Schrijvers, From Love to Life?, 318.
1118Binswanger, “The Existential Analysis,” 192.
1119Frie, Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity, 89, Frie noted that “[according] to Buber, the character of a relation
is determined by which of the basic words is spoken: when I-Thou is said, the I is different from the I that
speaks the primary word I-It.” He adds, “Binswanger follows Buber in arguing that human relations are by
their essential nature dialogical (not simply referring to a linguistic mode, rather to a basic structure of human
existence - currently, this is being mapped in infant research by such theorists as Trevarthen in Scotland.”
193
SAMBAYANIHAN
Binswanger insists that intersubjective reciprocity must always be predicated upon

acknowledgment of the other’s alterity. Without affirmation of difference, the other will become
dominated and dependent, or be reduced to a mere third person, one who stands over and
against me. By elucidating the interrelation of separateness and togetherness, Binswanger
provides a framework within which to understand the structure and importance of reciprocity
in a love relation.1120
Binswanger was convinced that this “loving mode of being” must be the real objective of
any therapist’s relationship with the patient. Thus, he contended that
“It is our task to discover the new principle by which this disorder may be understood. This
principle, however, is no longer to be found [solely] within the verbal disclosure, the meaningful
expression, or even thought itself, but only in the entire form of life, in the pervasively up-in-
the-air, leaping, skipping lifestyle of these patients, as you certainly have noticed. Where we
speak of form of life and life style, we are speaking of the characteristic way in which a human
being [is] in the world. And it is according to the how of their being in the world that the how
of their selves, or as we mistakenly say, their I shapes itself. Self and world are not to be
separated here, but are merely polar delimiting concepts within the one being-in-the-world.”1121
Indeed, his theory of intersubjectivity, which locates “meaning within the person’s
relations to self and others,” provided an alternative to Freudian/Lacanian
psychopathology, Jasperian incomprehensibility (“theoretical exclusion of psychotic
patients from psychological understanding”)1122 and Heideggerian/Cartesian/Sartrian
individualism via a relational dialogue between the I and the thou or the importance of
interpersonal love, which Heidegger neglected or eschewed in his theory of authenticity.
Self-realization, for Binswanger, can only be attained within the ambit of reciprocal
relationship or within the dialogue between the I and thou.1123 For this, he asserted that
“Man is as much a communal as he is an individual being; he navigates his life back and
forth between them.”1124 In an earlier work, he stated that “Being-in-the-world implies
always beings in the world with beings such as I, with co-existents.”1125 In an article
written by Simon Taylor which compared and contrasted Heidegger and Binswanger, the
author stated that, indeed, for Binswanger,
“Love and anxiety are… intimately connected. States of acute anxiety, for example, are
characterized by an absence of love so severe that relationships of any kind are rendered
impossible. Binswanger described one patient, a schizophrenic young woman dubbed Lola
Voss, as inhabiting ‘a world-design that is no longer carried by, nor bears any traces of, love
and trust, or of the closeness to humans and things that results from these feelings.’ Rebuilding
the patient’s capacity to experience love is the first step toward staving off anxiety and re-
establishing meaningful interpersonal relationships. Indeed, it is the therapeutic relationship
itself – characterized by Binswanger as ‘being-together with one another [in] relatedness and
love’ – that first (re-)opens the patient to the possibility of love. Love is thus both the means
through which anxiety is overcome, and the guiding light in the search for authenticity. If
Cf. Colwyn Trevarthen “The Self Born in Intersubjectivity: The Psychology of an Infant Communicating” in The
Perceived Self: Ecological and Interpersonal Sources of self-Knowledge, ed. Ulric Neisser (Cambridge:
Cambridge University, 1993).
1120Frie, Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity, 106.
1121Ludwig Binswanger, “On the Manic Mode of Being-in-the-World,” in Phenomenology: Pure and Applied, ed.
Erwin W. Straus (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University,1964), 134.

1122According to Giovanni Stranghellini, “Jasper’s incomprehensibility is the effect of de-personalized
understanding.” Cf. Giovanni Stranghellini, Disembodied Spirits and Deanimated Bodies: The Psychopathology
of Common Sense (England: Oxford University, 2004), 29.
1123The I and thou relationship is not similar but a contrast to the subject-object relationship. For Binswanger,
the mutual relationship of love, the dual mode of love, constitutes the most original and ‘highest’ form of
human existence.
1124Binswanger, Being-in-the-World, 177.
1125Binswanger, “The Existential Analysis,” 193-94. Binswanger further states: “the much-discussed gap that
separates our ‘world’ from the ‘world’ of the mentally ill and makes communication between the two so difficult
is not only scientifically explained but also scientifically bridged by existential analysis.” Ibid., 213.
194
anxiety represents the ‘loss of world and self,’ love transcends anxiety by grounding human
existence in what Binswanger terms ‘being-beyond-the-world.’”1126
Thus, for Binswanger, “the split of being into subject (man, person) and object (thing,
environment) is now replaced by the unity of existence and ‘world’ secure by
transcendence.”1127
II.2.2.1.1. Marcel and Intersubjectivity: A Homo Viator’s Journey of Love and Hope
My1128 interest on Gabriel Marcel was ignited when I took an elective course on ‘The
Mystery of Being’ under the revered Filipino Jesuit professor, Roque Ferriols at the Ateneo
de Manila University. In his book entitled Pambungad sa Metapisika (An Introduction to
Metaphysics), Ferriols explains the philosophical way of questioning that he employs,
which I perceive as something similar to that of Gabriel Marcel’s “Socratic” approach.
When he enquires about Being, he states:
“Ano ang meron? Magturo ka nga at magpahiwatig; nguni’t ibang uring pagturo at
pagpahiwatig. Sapagka’t walang makapagbubukas ng landas nang makapasok ako sa abot
tanaw ng meron dahil nasa loob na, pinapaligiran na ako at tinatablan, binubuhay at inaakit
ng meron. Walang labas ang abot tanaw ng meron; o, kung gusto mo, walang tunay na labas
ang meron. Ang maaari lamang mangyari ay baka matauhan na nasa meron na nga pala ako.
At magtataka ako na lalo pala itong mahiwaga kaysa inaakala ko.”1129
What captured my attention, which I believe has lingered all throughout my

philosophical and theological quests, was Marcel’s argument that to exist existentially
means to exist not simply as a body (i.e., to exist problematically) but to exist as a thinking,
emotive being dependent upon human creative impulse. He asserts, “As soon as there is
creation, we are in the realm of being,” and also that, “There is no sense using the word
‘being’ except where creation is in view”.1130 Employing Marcel as an interlocutor is not an
easy thing, however, because Marcel’s way of philosophizing is not so straightforward
since he writes in a circuitous1131 manner that one stumbles upon layers and layers of
confusing but important digressions. As far as our knowledge is concerned, this approach
is what Roque Ferriols precisely recommends for those who would like to pursue
philosophy. In Tagalog, Ferriols states that a metaphysical quest is “sabay na paglalatag
ng sarili sa kalawakan, pero lalo na, pagpasok sa kalaliman ng mga nilalang at sa
kalaliman ng sarili. Kaya nga ang metapisika ay hindi paghahanap ng isang pambihirang
impormasyon. Sinasabi lamang sa iyo, pumasok ka sa iyong sarili, at tingnan mo ang iyong
1126Taylor, “Applied Philosophy, Applied Psychiatry,” 7. Cf also Ludwig Binswanger, Grundformen und
Erkenntnis menschlichen Daseins (Heidelberg: Roland Asanger, 2004) 69, 134. Binswanger, Being-in-the-
World, 337-338. Binswanger, “Existential Analysis “, 82.
1127Binswanger, “The Existential Analysis,” 194.
1128The use of the first personal possessive pronoun indicates the personal experience of the author this
doctoral dissertation.
1129This can be roughly translated as “What is being? Try to teach and demonstrate, but it is a different kind
of teaching and demonstrating. Because nobody will able to open the way for me to enter the horizon of being
because I am already inside it, it surrounds me and impinges on me, being is what keeps me alive and it
‘seduces’ me. Nothing is outside the horizon of being, or if you want, nothing genuinely is outside being. What
can only happen is one will come to his senses that he/she is already inside the horizon of being. And I will
wonder all the more that it is more mysterious that I have thought.” Ferriols, Pambungad sa Metapisika, 15.
1130Gabriel Marcel, “Les Menace de Guerre,” in Gabriel Marcel Et les injustices de ce Temps: La Responsabilite
du Philosophe, eds. Joël Bouëssée and Anne Marcel, Presence de Gabriel Marcel, cahier 4 (Paris: Aubier, 1983),
xiii. Cf also James Fieser and Bradley Dowden, eds., “Gabriel Marcel (1889—1973),” Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/marcel/ [accessed December 22, 2014]. Cf. also Gabriel Marcel, Creative
Fidelity, trans. and intro. Robert Rosthal (New York: Fordham University, 2002), 136.
1131He is a decidedly unsystematic thinker.
195
SAMBAYANIHAN
dinamismo para sa lahat ng meron.”1132 This approach, which Ferriols has beautifully
captured in the aforementioned Tagalog quotation, afforded Marcel the categorization of
an “existential philosopher.” He, however, prefers to be identified as a “believing” Catholic,
a “neo-Socratic” or a “Christian Socratic” philosopher to set him apart from other
existentialist philosophers,1133 especially Jean Paul Sartre, who have the predilection to
characterize the ‘self’ as an isolated ego, to “preach” about the death of God, and to project
lived experience as having ‘no exit’.1134 Sartre’s notion of self as isolated can be inferred
from his concept of commitment that is heavily relying upon, according to Nigel Warburton,
“the strength of the solitary decisions made by individuals who have committed
themselves fully to personal independence”.1135 Regarding Sartre’s involvement in the
propagation of the “doctrine of the death of God”, Nigel Warburton explains that
“For Sartre ‘abandonment’ means specifically abandonment by God. This does not imply that
God as a metaphysical entity actually existed at some point, and went away: Sartre is echoing
Nietzsche’s famous pronouncement: ‘God is dead’. Nietzsche did not mean that God had once
been alive, but rather that the belief in God was no longer a tenable position in the late
nineteenth century. By using the word ‘abandonment’ in a metaphorical way Sartre emphasizes
the sense of loss caused by the realization that there is no God to warrant our moral choices,
no divinity to give us guidelines as to how to achieve salvation. The choice of word stresses the
solitary position of human beings alone in the universe with no external source of objective
value.”1136
The bleak picture of “lived experience” that Sartre painted is intimated in his play entitled
No Exit.1137 Warburton is particularly instructive in this regard as he explains that
“Despair, like abandonment and anguish, is an emotive term. Sartre means by it simply the
existentialist’s attitude to the recalcitrance or obstinacy of the aspects of the world that are
beyond our control (and in particular other people: in his play No Exit one of the characters
declares ‘Hell is other people’). Whatever I desire to do, other people or external events may
thwart. The attitude of despair is one of stoic indifference to the way things turn out: When
Descartes said ‘Conquer yourself rather than the world’, what he meant was, at bottom, the
same – that we should act without hope.”1138
As far as Sartre is concerned, Warburton surmises that “everyone is wholly defined by

what they actually do rather than by what they might have done had circumstances been
different. For Sartre there are no ‘mute inglorious Miltons.’”1139 In addition to this,
Warburton argues that for Sartre, “We cannot rely on anything which is outside our
control, but this does not mean we should abandon ourselves to inaction: on the contrary,
Sartre argues that it should lead us to commit ourselves to a course of action since there
1132Roughly, we can translate this statement by these words: [it is] a simultaneous laying down of oneself in
“universe of being”, but most especially, it is entering the depths of created beings and the depths of one’s
self/being. Metaphysics is, indeed, not about discovering some rare/classified information. It is telling
therefore metaphysics is not about finding a rare information. It is telling you to go into yourself and see your
dynamism for everything that is Being. Roque J. Ferriols, “Fr. Norris Clarke, S.J.: Heswitang Metapisiko,” in
Pagdiriwang sa Meron: A Festival of Thought Celebrating Roque J. Ferriols, S.J., eds. Nemesio Que, S.J. and
Agustin Martin G. Rodriguez (Quezon City: Office of Research and Publications, Ateneo de Manila University,
1977), 270.
1133According to Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “The philosophical approach known as existentialism is
commonly recognized for its view that life’s experiences and interactions are meaningless. Many existentialist
thinkers are led to conclude that life is only something to be tolerated, and that close or intimate relationships
with others should be avoided.” Fieser and Dowden, “Gabriel Marcel”.
1134Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit (New York: Samuel French, 1945).
1135Nigel Warburton, “A Student’s Guide to Jean-Paul Sartre’s, Existentialism and Humanism,” Philosophy
Now 15(1996): 27-31, https://philosophynow.org/issues/15/A_students_guide_to_Jean-

Paul_Sartres_Existentialism_and_Humanism [accessed December 23, 2014].
1136Ibid.
1137Ibid. Cf. Sartre, No Exit.
1138Sartre, No Exit. Cf. also Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism (London: Methuen 1973), 39.
1139Ibid.
196
is no reality except in action. This, we believe, is essentially hubris or stoicism. As Sartre

puts it: ‘The genius of Proust is the totality of the works of Proust.’”1140
Marcel, in contrast to Sartre, spends his philosophical energy by reflecting on themes
that have to do with intersubjectivity, the ‘Absolute Thou,’ grace, humility, courage, and
hope. This is precisely the reason why Kenneth Gallagher, an expert on Marcel’s
philosophy, has asserted that, for Marcel, “authentic human existence is existence-in-
communion; it is the thou who gives me to myself.”1141 For Marcel, the intersubjective
“area” is located in the horizon of love.1142
Marcel prefers to dwell in the concrete and lived world rather that in the ‘rational
life’, because the latter, for him, is a catalyst for human despair, which we can also use to
argue for the necessity of listening to the ordinary theology of the people on the grassroots
that are non-academic or non-systematic. Philosophy is, in the estimation of Gabriel
Marcel, basically “an aid to discovery rather than a matter of strict demonstration.”1143
We find this stance of Marcel as similar to what Roque Ferriols has said about the
journey of the philosopher. In Tagalog, he contends: “Kaya’t ang importante ay dumanas,
magmasid, kumilatis: isang mapagdamang pag-aapuhap sa talagang meron. Hindi na
ngayon kagandahan ng sariling isip, kundi kabagsikan ng hindi ko ginawa ang umiiral sa
kalooban ko, at pumapaligid at tumatalab sa akin. Iyan ang unang yugto sa pagbigkas sa
meron.”1144 It is difficult to translate these words to English, but essentially what Ferriols
would like to say is that in order for one to properly philosophize, he or she must immerse
oneself in the concrete realities of life to experience, observe and asses what being is.
Groping for what being is involves all the senses of the human being. It is not about the
brilliance of one’s mind, but about the fierceness of what exists, surrounds and impinges
on me that does not originate from me. Furthermore, Ferriols claims that “[sa] pag-
aapuhap na ganito, ginagamit ang mga konsepto; ngunit, sapagkat ang paghihilig sa meron
ang nagpapairal sa pagdanas, pagmasid at pangingilatis, hindi konsepto ang hari, kundi
meron…Ang konsepto ay kailangang maging angkop: angkop sa meron. At kung hindi
angkop ay kailangang itaboy at palitan ng angkop sa meron.”1145
Marcel pictures himself as a philosopher in search of a concrete philosophy
characterized by mystery, being, love, faith incarnation, communion, transcendence,
availability and hope whose philosophical journey/pilgrimage has no end but only a
beginning. Concrete Philosophy, for Marcel, is more of a voyage of discovery rather than a
series of logical, epistemological, and metaphysical arguments. Marcel argues that “the
threats that today weigh upon our species … can only appear to be the materialized
expression of an infinitely more essential degradation. This has to do with the way in
which man … has cut himself more and more from what should be called his ontological
roots.”1146 In lieu of the ‘rational’, he proposes a ‘reflective’ and intersubjective journey of
1140Sartre, Existentialism, 41-2.

1141Kenneth Gallagher, The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (New York: Fordham University, 1975), 8.
1142Cf. Joe McCown, Availability: Gabriel Marcel and the Phenomenology of Human Openness: AAR Studies in
Religion (Montana: Scholars, 1978), 44.

1143Gabriel Marcel, Le Mystere de l’ Etre, vol. 1, Reflexion et Myster (Paris: Editions Montaigne, 1951), 2. (In
this quest one makes use of concepts; however, because one’s “inclination’ to being is what gives dynamism
to experiencing, observing and assessing, concepts are not kings, but being… A concept must conform to what
is being. And when it does not, it simply must be discarded and be replaced by a new one.)
1144Ferriols, Pambungad sa Metapisika, 112.
1145We can attempt to translate these ruminations of Ferriols roughly in these words: “In this quest one makes
use of concepts; however, because one’s “inclination’ to being is what gives dynamism to experiencing,
observing and assessing, concepts are not kings, but being… A concept must conform to what is being. And
when it does not, it simply must be discarded and be replaced by a new one.)” Ferriols, Pambungad sa
Metapisika, 112.
1146Gabriel Marcel, Awakenings, trans. Peter Rogers (Milwaukee: Marquette University, 2002), 131.
197
SAMBAYANIHAN
the homo viator1147 that tries to overcome ‘objectification’ or the attitude of ‘having’ through
‘proper reflection’, performing creative acts and fostering relationships that are committed
to defeating injustice in the world and the ‘logic of death’. For Marcel, it is through
relationships in the context of ‘being’ (not in the context of ‘having’) that the love of the I-
thou overcomes death and meaninglessness. A conscious effort to overcome ‘death and
meaninglessness” is genuinely needed because, according to Marcel, the human person
has the propensity towards materialism and self-destruction.1148 This belief, then, leads
Marcel to profess “to love a being is to say you, you in particular, will never die.”1149
Marcel claims that “all spiritual life is essentially a dialogue,” which according to him
means, “the relationship that can be said to be spiritual is that of being with being…What
really matters is spiritual commerce between beings, and that involves not respect but
love.”1150 In this logic, Marcel perceives love to be the ‘essential intellectual datum’ that is
the ground of hope and immortality.1151 Ultimately, for Marcel, this intersubjective love is
anchored in the fidelity of the Absolute Thou (i.e., Marcel’s way of naming God) and neither
on the I nor on the thou whose limitations are an undeniable existential fact, which, we
believe, is beautifully captured in these words: “[the human person experiences] a tension
[i.e., the exigence of Being] which could only… be resolved in an illumination [that] comes
from some point much higher than man”.1152 The foundation of all communions is the
Absolute Thou. In the words of Hocking, “it is God from the beginning who shares all of
our objects and so is the real medium of communication between one person and
another.”1153 Hence, Marcel asserts that the best formulation of hope in the context of
creative fidelity1154 is expressed in the appeal, “I hope in thee for us.”1155
II.2.2.1.3. Marcel and Binswanger in Dialogue on Intersubjectivity: The Loving ‘We’ as an

Irreducible Fact of Human Existence
Based on the foregoing discussion, there is indeed a semblance between Marcel’s

Christian Socratic philosophy of existence and Binswanger’s existentialist psychology
despite the fact that they were unfamiliar with each other’s intellectual legacy. Both Marcel
and Binswanger take into serious account the centrality of Love in concrete human life.
Marcel, as already mentioned above, believes that love overcomes death1156 while
Binswanger, in the words of Schrijvers, “considers the experience of love to be timeless: it
can even stand the test of death.”1157 Moreover, Binswanger claims that “life without love
1147Cf. Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope, trans. Emma Craufurd (Chicago:
Harper & Row, 1965).
1148Cf. Gabriel Marcel, Man Against Mass Society, trans. G.S. Fraser (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1962).
1149Marcel, Homo Viator, 140.
1150Gabriel Marcel, Metaphysical Journal, trans. Bernard Wall (Chicago, IL: Regnery, 1952; London: Rockliff,
1952), 137 and 211.

1151Cf. Gabriel Marcel, Problematic Man, trans. Brian Thompson (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967).
1152Marcel, Awakenings, 109. Marcel will refer to this tension as “the exigence of Being.”
1153From a letter written by Hocking in 1920. Cited in Leroy J. Rouner, Within Human Experience: The
Philosophy of William Ernest Hocking (New York: Harvard University, 1969), 41.
1154Marcel states: “It must therefore be well understood that the faithful soul is destined to experience
darkness…Fidelity is not a preliminary datum, it is revealed and established as fidelity by this very crossing
of darkness, by this trial combined with everyday life.” Marcel, Homo Viator, 140.
1155Ibid., 60.
1156In Marcel’s understanding, “love does not deny death, but is it affirmation of the fact that death is not the
end, because death does not close of the other and the end of one’s love to the departed one. Marcel believes
that “the only dead are those whom we no longer love”. Gabriel Marcel, Presence and Immortality, trans. M.A.
Machado (Pittsburg, PA: Duquesne University, 1967), 277.
1157Schrijvers, From Love to Life?, 337. According to Schrijvers, “The horror of death…differs in a remarkable
way from other interruptions of love, such as infidelity, for if in such suspensions the love of lovers comes,
more often than not, to a halt, the death of one of the lovers does not mean the end of the loving ‘we’.”
198
is ‘blind,’ and love without life ‘empty’.”1158 For Binswanger, as well as for Marcel, love
overcomes death and meaninglessness. Binswanger, based on the analysis of Schrijvers,
gives importance to
“The fullness of being, revealed through us in love, intimates a ‘being-beyond-the-world-in-the-
world’ (‘über die Welt hinaus sein’) which overpowers and empowers the existential structures
of care and concern. It does so, moreover, by showing ‘being’ as fundamentally relational or
intersubjective, for even if one, in a way, always dies alone, one never loves alone as well: it
takes two to love – at least.1159
Both Marcel and Binswanger struggle against the Cartesian ego that inhabits the
Heideggerian Dasein by focusing on the messy concrete real-life situation of the human
beings. In view of this, Marcel has these powerful words to say:
“What does understanding a question mean? First, putting it to oneself, placing oneself in the
mental situation of the questioner. I can only give a full and proper answer to my own question.
The consciousness of the answerer is the meeting place of the question and the answer…. [T]his
interpretation depends upon the idea of the dynamism of the situation, which transcends
individual destinies though in one sense it is only the material for them. This living
contradictory dualism lies at the very core of the real; all spiritual life is essentially a
dialogue.”1160
In another book published by Marcel he expresses the same thoughts that we have quoted
above by saying that
“[T]o reflect on a relationship of the kind that the word with suggests is to recognize how poor
and inadequate our logic is. Apart from juxtapositions pure and simple it is in fact incapable of
expressing relationships of increasing intimacy…. I might add that the English noun
togetherness … has no possible equivalent in French. It is as if the French language refused to
make a substantive of – that is, to conceptualize – a certain quality of being which is concerned
with the ‘entre-nous,’ the ‘between you and me.’”1161
Marcel, therefore, adopts what he calls the philosophy of existence that involves
“working… up from life to thought and then down from thought to life again, so that [one]
may try to throw more light upon life.”1162 In view of this, Marcel expresses a refreshing
preference for philosophizing in ordinary language. He maintains that “we should employ
current forms of ordinary language which distort our experiences far less than the
elaborate expressions in which philosophical language is crystallized”.1163 This argument
brings to mind Pilario who, in his theological agenda, follows the call of Wittgenstein to go
back to the “rough ground” where there is friction or traction on which to ground one’s
feet, unlike on a sheet of ice where people just unintentionally slides through a state of
instability and danger where language becomes too technical or devoid of practical
meaning, too lofty to be grasped and ultimately unrelatable.1164
For Marcel, “a philosophy that begins with the cogito … runs the risk of never getting
back to being.”1165 He, indeed, rejects the notion of the Cartesian ego or the cogito by
asserting that as a philosopher, “I am not a spectator who is looking for a world of
1158Schrijvers, From Love to Life?, 317. See also Ludwig Binswanger, ‘Brief von Binswanger and Richard
Hönigswald, 6 February 1947,” in Vorträge und Aufsätze: Ausgwählte Werke, ed. M. Herzog (Heidelberg:
Asanger, 1994), 316.
1159Schrijvers, From Love to Life?, 318. For an extended discussion on Binswanger phenomenology of love,
please refer to pp. 328- 338.

1160Marcel, Metaphysical Journal, 139, 137.
1161Gabriel Marcel, The Existential Background of Human Dignity (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1963), 41.
1162This philosophy is a sort of “description bearing upon the structures which reflection elucidates starting
from experience. Marcel, Le Mystere de l’ Etre, 41.

1163Marcel, Man Against Mass Society, 180. Marcel, Homo Viator, 158.
1164Cf. Pilario, Back to the Rough Ground of Praxis. Cf. also Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, § 107.
1165Marcel, Creative Fidelity, 65.
199
SAMBAYANIHAN
structures susceptible to being viewed clearly and distinctly, but rather I listen to voices
and appeals comprising that symphony of Being—which is for me, in the final analysis, a
supra-rational unity beyond images, words, and concepts.”1166 For, indeed, Marcel
contends that “existence precisely cannot be reduced to objectivity.”1167
We are of the opinion that, despite the fact that he does not label his brand of
philosophy as a phenomenology, which Binswanger openly endorses, Marcel’s approach
traverses the same intellectual stream as Binswanger, because his preference for the
concrete philosophy that speaks in ordinary language allows him to begin many of his
philosophical essays with an observation about life and experience.
Binswanger’s approach is referred to as “Daseinanalysis”1168 which is “neither
ontology nor philosophy proper” but a phenomenological anthropological route that asks
the question “what is it, for human being, to be.”1169 In relation to this, Schrijver explains
that “Binswanger… is much more aware of the back and forth of the ontic and the
ontological, and considers the former as the only legitimate passage-way to the latter
without one being able to dismiss the former completely.”1170 The itinerary proposed by
Binswanger involves an understanding of the real life situation of the human being
wherein, according to May and Yalom
“The human world is the structure of meaningful relationships in which a person exists in the
design of which, generally without realizing it, he or she participates…From the point of view
of existential psychotherapy, there are three modes of world. The first is Umwelt, meaning
world-around, the biological world, what is generally called the environment. The second is
Mitwelt, literally the with-world, the world of one’s fellow human beings, one’s community. The
third is Eigenwelt, the own-world, the relationship to one’s self.”1171
Binswanger, as righty noted by van Deurzen, “considers mutuality, or being-with to be

fundamental to human existence. Instead of having to choose between Heidegger’s
inauthentic being with others or authentic being alone, we can redeem ourselves and
others through true encounter in Buberian style. This encounter, which is a loving mode
of being, is what the therapist should aim for with the patient.”1172
Both Marcel and Binswanger take seriously the imperfect situation of the human
being. Marcel, on his part, calls it the “broken world,”1173 while Binswanger deals with
what he calls ‘misglűckten’ (i.e., failed or false Dasein). Both the “broken world” and the
‘misglűckten’, when seen from the perspective of or placed in the region of love, reveal the
space of the ‘WE’ that cannot simply be kept under wraps or denied. Marcel claims that a
1166Marcel, The Existential Background, 82-83.

1167Ibid.,26.
1168By Daseinsanalyse, according to Richard Rowe, “[the] experience which Binswanger wanted to introduce
into psychiatry (and which Freud said must not be included) is the experience of transcendence, that is, the
feeling of spirit, or love.” Richard Rowe, “The Daseinsanalyse of Ludwig Binswanger and the Biblical Concept
of Agape: A Treatise on the Creative Power of Love in Psychotherapy” (unpublished thesis, Faculty of Episcopal
Theological School, Cambridge, MA, 1966), IV-V.
1169Schrijvers, From Love to Life?, 339.
1170Ibid.
1171Rollo May and Irvin Yalom, “Existential Psychology,” in Current Psychotherapies, eds. Raymond Corsini
and Danny Wedding (Itasca, IL: Peacock 1989), 366.

1172Deurzen-Smith, Everyday Mysteries, 147. Deurzen-Smith is an existential psychotherapist at Regent’s
College in London and someone who is responsible for the contemporary resurgence of this approach in the
London school of existential analysis.
1173“I should like to start,” Marcel says, “with a sort of global and intuitive characterization of the man in
whom the sense of the ontological—the sense of being, is lacking, or, to speak more correctly, the man who
has lost awareness of this sense.” A world in which “ontological exigence”—if it is acknowledged at all—is
silenced by an unconscious relativism or by a monism that discounts the personal, “ignores the tragic and
denies the transcendent.” Gabriel Marcel, The Philosophy of Existentialism, trans. Manya Harari (New York:
Carol, 1995), 9, 15.
200
philosopher who dwells in the concrete reality of life cannot escape the moral
consequences of personal involvement that is grounded in compassion and responsibility.
The philosopher, aware of the ‘broken world’, has a moral responsibility vis-à-vis the
absurdities and the captivities which menace our planet, to reject cynicism and discover
those depths of our shared humanness and of reality which are the sources of faith, love,
presence and hope. To fulfill such an important task, the homo viator must constantly
return to the “creative tension between the I and those depths of our being in and by which
we are.”1174 Binswanger, on his part, claims that the “Dasein glimpses itself as
Mitdasein.”1175 In his critical analysis of Binswanger, Schrijvers reads this statement of
Binswanger as an expression of thought that “there is no one that does not want to be
loved as much as there is no love for one alone.”1176 Furthermore, Schrijvers surmises that
“Love… for Binswanger unites identity and difference, it is the unio as communio: ‘our’ love
is the meeting of you and I with one another, and, through this, a glimpse of the meeting
of all with all.”1177 Hence, we assume that for both Marcel and Binswanger, the ‘loving we’
is an irreducible existential fact.
Another converging point between Marcel and Binswanger is their effort to escape
the danger of solitude á deux. Marcel tackles this issue by claiming that to love is to
experience the presence not only of the beloved but also of eternity, of God. Marcel boldly
and poignantly declares that “Love is faith itself, an invincible assurance based on Being
itself. It is here and her alone that we reach not only an unconditioned fact but a rational
unconditional as well; namely that of the Absolute Thou, that which is expressed in the
Fiat voluntas tua of the Lord’s Prayer.”1178 Moreover, he claims that the fidelity of the I and
the Thou is anchored in the virtue of Hope, wherein the I professes its dependence on the
Absolute Thou. He states: “Hope… is not only a protestation inspired by love, but a sort
of a call too, a desperate appeal to an ally who is Himself also love.” 1179 Marcel stresses
that the real bond that links the I and the Thou is based on “something which
transcends1180 them and comprehends them in itself.”1181 To state this more clearly,
Donald McCarthy declares that what develops as an
“intersubjective love on purely human level is but a shadow of the I-Thou relationship with the
Absolute Thou, or a preliminary condition for the full establishment through faith. The
ontological question, “What am I?”, can thus be answered by an Absolute Thou. An ontological
need…shows the need of a change of axis… The Absolute Thou is more completely within the
self than the self itself.”1182
This seems to us as expressing the same point that Binswanger has put forward while he
endeavors to rescue the ‘lovers’ from the snare of solitude á deux. The difference between
them, however, lies in the fact that Binswanger deliberately avoids having recourse to the
Absolute Thou. Instead, he pursues the path which leads to the unity and difference that
1174Gabriel Marcel, Tragic Wisdom and Beyond (with conversations between Paul Riceour and Gabriel Marcel),
trans. Stephen Jolin and Peter McCormick (Evanston: Northwestern University, 1973), 44.
1175Bernd Becher, Hilla Becher and Thuerry de Duve, Grundformen, vol. 40 of Schirmer’s visuelle Bibliothek
(n.p.: Schirmer/Mosel, 1993), 107, “schaut Desin […] sich als Mitdasein an”. Cf. Schrijvers, From Love to Life?,
341.
1176Ibid.
1178Marcel, “Les Menace de Guerre,” 136.
1179Marcel, Gabriel Being and Having (New York: Harper & Row, 1949), 79.
1180Transcendence for Marcel is understood as “transcendence”. He insists that ‘transcendent’ cannot mean
‘transcending experience.’ Cf. Marcel, Le Mystere de l’ Etre, 46.

1181Marcel, Man Against Mass Society, 259.
1182Donald McCarthy, “Marcel’s Absolute Thou,” Philosophy Today 10(1966): 178.
201
SAMBAYANIHAN
the Dasein experiences in the atmosphere of intersubjectivity. The course taken by

Binswanger, according to Schrijvers,
“prevents us from reducing the difference of love to an identity – as when one would lose track
of that facticity that I could have loved someone else equally – as much as appropriating this
identity of love to such an extent that different loves would no longer be possible – the danger
of a solitude á deux. Binswanger argues that what reason and rationality can barely understand
is the fact that in love there is “coinciding of this one particular You and You-ness in general
[einen geliebten Du und ‘Duhaftigkeit überhaupt]” … This means that here this ontic love – for
you – serves as the particular passageway to the idea of love, to the love that extends to all
beings. This love here, in this ontic variety, is extended to an ontology of love, as it extends the
greeting to life greeting life, universally. The one Good that you and I share, shares itself with
all and everything that can be named ‘good’. This is love’s principle: it cannot remain content
with you and I alone.”1183
It is obvious from the aforementioned “escape routes” provided by Marcel and

Binswanger, respectively, that the former pursues what can be considered as theistic
existentialism while the latter argues from a non-theistic standpoint. While Marcel, on the
one hand, has no qualms of being branded as a Christian Socratic philosopher (being a
convert to Catholicism), Binswanger, on the other hand, generally dismisses religion. 1184
Perhaps, it is safe to assume that although they come from the same context (i.e. from the
rubbles of the world wars) and pursued the same path (i.e., existentialism that deals with
the concrete life) they arrived at two different destinations (i.e., Marcel, the Absolute Thou;
Binswanger, “ultimately, an affirmation, a ‘yes’ towards one’s throwness in being with the
other and others”1185).
II.2.2.2. A Retrieval of the Pre-Modern LOOB and KAPWA
II.2.2.2.1. Identifying the LOOB: A Challenging Journey
When one attempts to investigate on the Filipino concept of loob, one is in for a ride.
It is certain that in this journey one will be greeted with a cacophony of meanings
representing the rich and profound dimensions of this indigenous vocabulary. True to its
‘nature’ as a conceptus, indeed, loob is undeniably pregnant with meanings,1186 which is
clearly demonstrated by the impressive collection of idioms rooted in and related to loob
with their respective attendant significations (i.e., denotations and connotations)
presented in the book written by Albert Alejo, a well-known philosopher and
anthropologist in the Philippines, entitled Tao Po! Tuloy! Isang Landas ng Pag-unawa sa
Loob ng Tao.1187 The existence of surplus meaning as far as the Filipino loob is concerned
1183Schrijvers, From Love to Life?, 341-342. Schrijvers explains that “The meeting of lovers is the crossing
between (ontic) encounter and the (ontological) Urbegegnung, between our together (Wir beide) and
togetherness in general (überhaupt) or … it is my being drawn to you because of the universal enticement that
rages through being and presences between all beings.” Ibid., 340.
1184According to Joris Schrijvers, Binswanger did so because of the climate of the period.
1186For a discussion on the various cognates of the Filipino loob, please consult Dionisio Miranda, Loob: The
Filipino Within (Manila: Divine Word, 1989), 1. Jeremiah Reyes suggests that the proper way of understanding
loob is not through the lens of a value but through the Thomistic notion of virtue. For more information please
see Jeremiah Reyes, “Loób and Kapwa: Thomas Aquinas and a Filipino Virtue Ethics” (unpublished doctoral
dissertation, Hoger Instituut voo Wijsbegeerte, KU, Leuven, 2015 Reyes proposes that “loob is the most obvious
key term in Filipino virtue ethics… is the subject of the virtues; it is what the virtues affect and modify.” Ibid,
73Cf. also Clyde Kluckhohn, “Values and Value-Orientations in the Theory of Action,” in Towards a General
Theory of Action, eds. Talcott Parsons and Edward A. Shils (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1951), 395.
1187Albert E. Alejo, Tao po! Tuloy!: Isang Landas ng Pag-unawa sa Loob ng Tao (Manila: Ateneo de Manila
University Office of Research and Publications, 1990). The extensive catalogue of 287 loob’s meaning and its
variants are found in the Appendix of this book entitled “Kayamanan ng Loob” (literally, Riches of Loob). Alejo’s
202
has definitely caught the interest of scholars from different disciplines and cultural
orientations to dig deeper into the “mystery” of the Filipino loob. Despite the extensive
academic work done by these pundits to identify some common threads that run across
the different layers and facets of the Filipino loob, the quest for the real essence of loob
has never been put to a definitive halt. There are some elements of loob on which they
generally agree but there are also others that continue to evade any final and conclusive
unanimity. It is proving to be a never-ending saga because, perhaps, it does not only bear
the multiple cultural baggage harnessed from the past history but also continues to pack
on new implications as new experiences and circumstances breathe new “life” to the
Filipino “homo viator”. The concept of loob is, indeed, a part of the living reality of every
Filipino, just like nakem and buut, which will unflaggingly escape the clutches of a single
monolithic categorization that some academics who are infected by the idea clara et
distincta1188 bug, courtesy of Modernity, have been endeavoring to find. Thus, it is safe to
say that scholars from all sides of the intellectual spectrum will continue to be fascinated
by the over-abundance of the concept of loob.
As a preliminary word, we must say that the Filipino concept of loob does not only
bear some semblance to the ‘self’ as respectively understood by Marcel and Binswanger,
but we also posit that including it in the discussion table will enrich the ongoing discourse
on intersubjectivity because this concept, taken in its pre-modern signification, underlines
or brings to the fore some relational components that may either be latent or absent in
Marcel’s and Binswanger’s intellectual undertakings because they are in no doubt still
severely afflicted by the malady of solipsism that has plagued the West and westernized
societies since Descartes’ discovery of the “je pense, donc je suis” – or the other formulation
“Je suis, J’existe” - that radically reduced ‘certitude’ to the “thinking self”. Perhaps, the
Filipino loob, as understood by some of the Filipino scholars who have tried to mine its
intersubjective treasure, will help ‘heal’ the ‘wound of existential division’, while not
forgetting that there are also concepts being explored within the ambit of western
worldviews considered to addresss the issue of the gap, that has haunted those afflicted
by western modernity, more specifically of the Casrtesian Cogito.
To proceed a little further in our discussion on the Filipino loob, it is important to
say that part of the richness of the concept of loob is its two-pronged usage: the ‘literal’
and the ‘personal’. The ‘literal’ simply pertains to the spatial or physical meaning of the
word loob which is obviously understood as referring to what is inside or the ‘inside’ itself.
Ordinarily, in Filipino or Tagalog, we can hear statements such as, “Nasa loob ng tukador
ang mga damit” (i.e., The clothes are inside the drawer) or “Pumasok ka sa loob” (i.e., Get
inside)1189 which do not require a deeper analysis on what the statements actually mean.
The use of the word is self-evident enough for one to catch its sense immediately. The
statements simply refer to the physical ‘inside’, which is, according to Leonardo Mercado,
collection come from various sources, such as dictionaries (both old and new), academic (e.g., theology,
sociology, philosophy, psychology) and non-academic (e.g., sayings, narratives, casual conversations) sources.
1188Cf. René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy with Selections from the Objections and Replies, Latin-
English Version, ed. and trans. John Cottingham (United Kingdom: Cambridge University, 2013), 64.
1189Jacobo explains that “[one] must be acquainted with the word for the interior—loób. This interior may be
that of a house, loób ng bahay, or a community, Loóban. Loób may also refer to the self’s intricate psychological
chambers. Kaloóban is a variation, but because of the agglutination interestingly transliterates as the ―virtue
of interiority. Kaloób-loóban, in its repetition of the root word, depicts a labyrinthine self, implying an
innermost quarter, a core space for a private thought or an intimate feeling. The architectural trope extends
to the language of corporeality. Lamang-loób refers to one’s ―inner flesh. Jayson Pilapil Jacobo, “Mood of
Metaphor: Tropicality and Time in the Philippine Poetic” (unpublished dissertation, Stony Brook University,
New York, 2011), 40-41.
203
SAMBAYANIHAN
a Filipino philosopher and theologian who has written extensively on the theme of loob, is
literally referring to what is known as sulud in Visayan and uneg/loob in Ilocano.1190
When the word is used in its ‘personal’ sense or is applied to the loob of the person,
however, the issue becomes messier or more complicated. Mercado, the philosopher-
theologian who has tried to present a ‘synoptic’ study of the Tagalog loob, Visayan buut,
and the Ilocano nakem, has posited that loob “has much to do with the Filipino’s notion
of selfhood,” which in common Tagalog parlance, has been used interchangeably with the
word ‘sarili’.1191 In the light of this, Mercado has provided some common English meanings
that are attached to these three indigenous terminologies: “motive, intention, mind,
reason, understanding, perception, judgment, decision, consciousness, conscience,
awareness, wish, desire, will, state of mind, disposition, mood, volition, courage, valor,
etc.”1192 The Tagalog sarili, according to Mercado, can be construed in three different
senses: “First, sarili means self. Second, by extension, sarili connotes freedom or
independence. Third, sarili extends itself to property or possession”.1193 Nevertheless, the
word sarili, despite its having a three-tiered signification that includes loob, is still different
from loob, according to Mercado, because loob is specifically the dimension of the self that
embodies the “essence” of the Filipino ‘cosmic self. Loob, as a ‘holistic’1194 and ‘cosmic’
concept, cannot be conceived in a compartmentalized way of thinking because the Filipino
loob encompasses the aspects of feeling, thinking and willing.1195 He underlines this notion
of non-compartmentalization in contrast to what he considers as the “Western” concept
of the self:
“Western man compartmentalizes himself. This way of thinking is evident in expressions like
‘not letting the emotions influence reason’ or ‘the heart having reasons which the head does
not know.’ Some western philosophers have been debating on whether the intellect is superior
to the will or not. Likewise western philosophy also looks at knowledge as an intellectual
apprehension of reality. But the Filipino, like his Oriental neighbors, has a total way of thinking
which is non-compartmentalized. The varied usages of loob attest to this fact. Thus ‘makasakit
and loob’/ ‘nasakit ti nakem’ involves sorrow and pain on one’s whole being. Furthermore, this
holistic view extends also to the Filipino's nondualistic world-view. Life also is not
compartmentalized.”1196
It is generally agreed, according to Mercado, that “[the] Filipino looks at, himself as a self,
as one who feels, as one who wills, as one who thinks, as one who acts: as a total whole-
as a ‘person,’ conscious of his freedom, proud of his human dignity, and sensitive to the
violation of these two.”1197
Aside from being characterized as ‘holistic’, Mercado argues that loob also pertains
to a person’s ‘interiority,’ which is corroborated by almost all scholars who have dealt with
the Filipino concept of loob in their respective academic pursuits. On that account, Albert
E. Alejo explains the concept of loób by using the metaphor of the clay vessel in the
following words:
“Sa alingawngaw ng salitang loob ang larawang gumuguhit kaagad sa ating isip ay isang uri ng
espasyo na may bahaging nakakulong at may bahaging nakalabas. Maaaring unang ginamit ng
ating ninuno ang ganitong kategorya sa kanilang pangangalakal. ―Loob ang binigkas nila upang
1190Leonardo Mercado, S.V.D., “Reflections on Buut-Loob-Nakem,” Philippine Studies 20, no. 4(1972): 580.
1191Ibid., 596.
1192Ibid., 582-590.
1193Leonardo Mercado, S.V.D., The Filipino Mind (Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and
Philosophy, 1994), 32, 34. Cf. also Mercado, “Reflections on Buut-Loob-Nakem,” 597-98. To understand the
idea of loob as ‘cosmic self’, we refer my readers to the article on nakem as a ‘cosmic self’ written by Alterado.
Cf. Danilo Alterado, “Nakem ken Ulimek: A Hermeneutics of Silence in the Ilocano Cosmic Self,” Philosophia
International Journal of Philosophy 16, no. 2(2015): 127-139.
1194Cf. Mercado, “Reflections on Buut-Loob-Nakem,” 597-598.
1195Ibid., 600-601.
1196Ibid., 598.
1197Ibid.
204
pangalanan ang loob ng palayok na kanilang hinuhubog, habang ang hinlalaki nila ay nasa
bahaging labas ng nabubuong sisidlang putik at ang ibang daliri naman ay katapat ng pumipisil
mula sa loob. At dahan-dahan, nabubuo nang sabay ang loob at labas ng palayok.” 1198
By the same token, “loób,” according to Vicente Rafael, “is at the root of one of the words
for ―to give, ipagcaloób, and a gift itself is caloób, literally part of the inside of something.
This inside is juxtaposed rather than dialectically opposed to outside.”1199 In order to
nuance the notion of ‘interiority’ as far as the person’s loob is concerned, Alejo,
underscores that although loob is undeniably understood as interiority, “If one studies
loób it cannot be encased only in a simplistic division between loób and labas.”1200 This
aspect of interiority is the point which Jeremiah Reyes considers as seriously problematic.
He disagrees with those pundits (i.e., Leonardo Mercado, Dionisio Miranda, Virgilio
Enriquez, Kathrin De Guia, Roque Ferriols, Rolando Gripaldo and Albert Alejo) who have
maintained the notion of interiority in their construal of the Filipino concept of loob, while,
at the same time, he lauds the effort of Leonardo De Castro to consistently view loob simply
as ‘will’, which for Reyes is a successful way of avoiding the pitfall of presenting loob as
an “inner self”.1201 In addition to what De Castro has put forward in his endeavor to
expound on the notion of loob, Reyes proposes that it is more proper to understand loob
not just a ‘will’ but as a ‘relational will’,1202 which clearly indicates the very important
‘milieu’ of relationality where the loob is ontologically situated. It is imperative, according
to Reyes, “to distance loob from the modern conceptions of the will, such as the
autonomous and self-legislating will be found in Kant.”1203 ‘Autonomy’ or being an ‘isolated
monad’ is something that is foreign to the Filipino concept of loob, especially in its pre-
modern or pre-colonial sense. Loob does not share the notion of the Cartesian res cogitans
that is imprisoned in its monadic cell of solipsism. Because of this, Reyes contends that
“[the] confusion starts when people latch on to [the] literal translation of loόb as ‘inside’
and use all sorts of twentieth-century Western philosophical and psychological theories
to explain loόb with the subjective-objective dichotomy of Descartes or Kant looming in
the background.”1204
Although we are inclined to agree with Reyes in this respect, we believe that this
‘confusion’ will be a perennial problem should we insist on using this Tagalog word which
obviously shares the same exact word with the ‘loob’ that we ordinarily use to refer to
spatial or physical interiority, which, as we have already discussed earlier, is not carried
1198“The word - loób,” according to Alejo, “instantaneously echoes an image of a kind of space that has a one
part concealed and another exposed. Our forebears might have first used the said category in their exchanges.
They uttered ―loób in order to name the interior of a piece of earth that their hands were molding into a jar,
while the thumb was in the exposed part and the other fingers were in front of that which was pressing from
the inside. And slowly, the inside and the outside of the jar were formed at the same time.” Alejo, Tao pô!
Tulóy!, 41. Translation was provided by Jacobo in his doctoral dissertation, “Mood of Metaphor: Tropicality,”
69.
1199Vicente Rafael, Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under
Early Spanish Rule (Ithaca and London: Cornell University, 1988), 125.
1200Alejo, Tao pô! Tulóy!, 22. Translation is provided by Jeremiah Reyes in Reyes, Loób and Kapwa, 93.
1201Cf. Leonardo De Castro, “Debts of Good Will and Interpersonal Justice,” Proceedings of Twentieth World
Congress of Philosophy, 10-15 August 1998; Boston University,

www.bu/edu/wcp/Papers/Asia/AsiaDeCa.htm [accessed March 15, 2017].
1202Leonardo de Castro has previously translated loób as ‘will. Leonardo de Castro, “Debts of Good Will,”
Philosophy in Asia, http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Asia/AsiaDeCa.htm [accessed July 6, 2015]. The older

Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala also translated it as voluntad or will. Juan José de Noceda and Pedro de
Sanlucar, Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala (Manila: Ramirez Y Giraudier. 1860), 193. For a discussion on
Reyes’s refutation of the current meanings or concepts attached to the Filipino loob that convey the notion of
interiority, we refer our readers to Reyes, “Loób and Kapwa,” 72.
1203Ibid., 74.
1204Ibid.
205
SAMBAYANIHAN
by the Ilocano word ‘nakem’1205 and the Bicolano/Visayan word ‘buot’ because these two
regional linguistic families have different terminologies used to refer to what is considered
as physical interiority. Besides, ordinary people also consider ‘inside’ as part of the
meaning of the ‘personal’ loob.
Speaking of Nakem, Danilo Alterado explains that, as far as the Ilokanos are
concerned, it is generally understood as a “cosmic self”, one that “embodies the Ilokano
sense of being.”1206 In this sense, he goes on to say that [“the] word nakem is the most
comprehensive indigenous term that renders the Ilokano interiority, the core and the
worth of one’s personhood,” which we argue is not similar to the physical interiority that
is evoked by the Tagalog word ‘loob’ because, as Alterado further explains that,
[etymologically], the Ilokano prefix “na” indicates fullness, as in naimbag, which means
fullness of the good, and the Ilokano suffix “kem” is suggestive of one’s interiority. Thus,
nakem encompasses other Ilocano terms that are equally suggestive of interiority like
rikna (feelings), konsensya (conscience), pakinakem (will), puso (heart), kararua (spirit),
and panunot (intellect).”1207 Physical interiority, in Ilokano, as some dictionaries would tell
us, is iti unég or saklop.1208 Moreover, he states that
“nakem is the seat of a person’s dignity and the essence of being human. In other words nakem
captures the Ilokano sense of being…It is that undivided and composed will that is synonymous
with confidence, self -assuredness, and determination. It directs one to think, to choose, and
to decide responsibly. Nakem is the inner compulsion that directs one to express who and what
one is as a human being… The Ilokano nakem is communicative and interactive. It always and
already embeds itself in the concrete discursive domain of social life… Significantly, the Ilocano
admits the community’s values and references that precondition the person’s intellect and will.
Nakem is normative for it contains the community’s ideals of moral imperatives (pagrebbengan)
and teachings (panursuro)… Nakem …is expressive of the ideal of the fullness of Ilokano being...
Nakem is always an “embodied nakem” in an individual Ilokano person who finds himself in a
concrete social milieu and lifeworld. The idea of self-communication implies the receptive other
at the other end to complete the discursive ethos. Thus, nakem spells out the relational and
receptive character. This communicative character of the Ilokano nakem also entails authentic
silence which allows authentic listening integral in genuine communication.”1209
Nakem, as well as buot, as understood by the Ilokanos and Bisayas/Bicolanos,

respectively, may share the same semantic world as the Tagalog loob but they still differ
from the latter because these words are not used to refer in the respective Filipino
languages as physical interiority. Thus, it begs the question: Can we not just accept the
notion of ‘interiority’ as indispensable aspect of the concept of Tagalog loob and never
attempt at limiting loob purely or absolutely to the notion of “interior-less” ‘will’ alone? In
fact, as we have already illustrated above, with the help of Alterado, even nakem, although
it may not be used to refer to whatever is physical inside, also evokes a certain notion of
interiority, the ‘interiority’ of the ‘cosmic self’. Perhaps, this is the reason why even if
Leonardo Mercado strongly rejects the use of “either/or” category when referring to the
Filipino notion of loob because it is located within the realm of ‘holism’ or of the
1205Alterado, “Nakem ken Ulimek,” 132-133.

1206Ibid., 132. Cf. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili, Kontemporaneo a Diksionario nga Ilokano-Ingles, Limitado nga
Edision/Contemporary English-Ilokano Dictionary, Limited Edition (Hawaii: Undertow, 2012/The Philippines:
CAS, 2013), 1182.
1207Alterado, “Nakem ken Ulimek,” 132. Cf. Guadalupe Valdes, G. “Heritage Language Students: Profiles and
Possibilities,” in Heritages Languages in America: Preserving a National Resource, eds. Joy Kreeft Peyton,
Donald A. Ranard and Scott McGinnis (McHenry, IL: The Center for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems,
2001), 37-77.
1208Bansa.org, “Ilokano English Dictionary,”
http://www.bansa.org/dictionaries/ilo/?dict_lang=ilo&type=search&data=inside [accessed July 16, 2016].
1209Alterado, “Nakem ken Ulimek,” 132-133.
206
‘both/and.’1210 Miranda and Prospero Covar do not dismiss right away the idea of com-
penetration of the inside and the outside as entirely meaningless.1211 Alejo’s explanation
of the concept of loob can be seen as a possible support to the argument of maintaining
the notion of interiority in the Filipino loob because, according to him
The loób is not only the combination of the lawak (breadth) and lalim (depth) of the walls, floors,
and eaves of a room but the laman (content) which are gathered in the center and that which
moves from the center unto the corner and out into the front. Loób is also the surroundings
that is composed of the sounds which are heard by the one who is knocking and not invading.
The loób is that which is felt even in its silence which is understood when someone understands
and shares that loób.1212
This argument of Alejo, for us, conveys the same point expressed in Marcel’s and
Binswanger’s notion of the ‘self’ which cannot be reduced to a disembodied Cartesian
subject. The loob is a concretely embodied self that “is and will always be directed towards
something, especially towards other people.”1213 It should never be treated in isolation like
an ‘object’ plucked out from its normal habitat because it is essentially immersed in a
relational milieu or, “completely embedded and integrated inside the web of
connectivity.”1214
In this web of connectivity, Jose de Mesa retains the importance of the core of
personhood which is the loob. He succinctly explains that “Loób apart from referring to the
core of personhood, also states what kind of core that is in relationship. Loób, one may
say, is a relational understanding of the person in the lowland Filipino context.” 1215
Miranda, on his part, affirms that “Loob needs kapwa even to be loob: its continued
responding to kapwa is the condition for its own existence and authenticity as loob.”1216
It is meaningless, therefore to investigate the concept of loob (i.e., something about the
‘will’ of a person) like a monad which is detached or isolated from its organic relation to
the kapwa and to the values and virtues that emanate from this ‘tandem’.
a. What is ‘Inside’? Loob as Potentia
Reyes suggests that a more proper way of understanding the pre-modern Filipino
loob is through the prism of Thomistic Virtue Ethics rather than simply looking at it from
the lens of a Cultural Value. With this approach, according to him, one can rescue the
concept of loob from the notion of shallow subjectivism or of a fleeting personal preference.
This shift of perspective has its own merits, but one has to be careful not to fall into
a trap of essentialism or purism in this venture which, we believe, will not hold water
considering the fact that, even in the realm of loob-kapwa, there are instances when
respectful and loving relationship is undermined by conflicts between the loob (self) and
1210Cf. Mercado, The Filipino Mind, 37. Mercado expounds that this organic harmony of the ‘both/and’ is found
in other indigenous Filipino words found in other languages in the Philippines, such as buot and nakem.
1211This has been pointed out in the article published by Reyes. Cf. Jeremiah Reyes, “Loób and Kapwa: An
Introduction to a Filipino Virtue Ethics,” Asian Philosophy 25, no. 2(2015): 148-171, doi:
10.1080/09552367.2015.1043173. Cf. also Dionisio Miranda, Buting Pinoy: Probe Essays on Value as Filipino
(Manila: Divine Word, 1992), 68. Cf. also Prospero Covar, Larangan: Seminal Essays on Philippine Culture
(Manila: Sampaguita, 1998), 23.
1212Alejo, Tao pô! Tulóy!, 79.
1213Reyes contends that “It not only presupposes an objectively real world (based on the two traditions it can
only be classified as ‘realist’), it even presupposes a world dense with spiritual entities and spiritual
connections.” Reyes, “Loób and Kapwa: An Introduction,” 154.
1214Ibid.
1215Jose De Mesa, In Solidarity with the Culture: Studies in Theological Re-rooting (Quezon City: Maryhill School
of Theology, 1987), 46.

1216Miranda, Buting Pinoy, 84.
207
SAMBAYANIHAN
kapwa (neighbor). One needs to be aware that sometimes this loving relationship turns
sour or violent. It is true that, at times, the loob also becomes oppressive, so does the
kapwa. Although it is true that Filipinos may not easily resort to violent means because
they consider pakikisama as a very important value which help them endure sufferings
related to relationship for a long period of time before they finally snap, the fact is they
can also reach the tipping point. Filipinos are not as expressive of their dissent or
disagreement as the westerners. They only express them when they have reached the
saturation point wherein their emotions and actions become uncontrollable. It can be
surmised that conflicts that transpire between the loob and the kapwa, violent or
otherwise, do not originate from the chasm that needs to be sutured by the virtue of love.
It is not about how the subject will reach out to the object, but it is about the issue of, as
a popular saying goes, ‘familiarity that breeds contempt’ 1217. Violation of one’s identity or
forceful cooptation of the loob in the kapwa, or vice-versa, is not an impossible scenario
because, according to Jocano,
“[we] [Filipinos] give higher premium to family interests than to other community interests. We
also frown at individualism of any kind. We do not approve of kanya-kanya (to each his/her
own) trait. In its stead, we emphasize “groupism” as seen in the importance we attach to kinship
and barkada (peer group; gang) relationships. Even our definition of personalism does not
equate with individualism. Instead, it is relationship-oriented, whereby what others say about
what we do is often a very important consideration in decision making.” 1218
It is true that, sometimes, when the emphasis on familial relationship is overemphasized,

the loob is unmindfully sacrificed. It encounters a crisis that may sometimes result into
an act of revolt or an outrage that mutually destroys the self and the other.
Using “Aquinas’ metaphysical doctrine of potency and act”, Reyes offers a corrective
lens to explain how the notion of ‘inside’ can still be applied to the Filipino concept of loob
which does not imply ‘interiority’ found in the modern subject.1219 ‘Inside’, according to
Reyes, must be understood in the context of the Filipino loob as potentia (potency) like in
the idea of a tree being “inside” the seed or the statue of David being “inside” the block of
marble. In this logic, we can say that what has “always” been “inside” (i.e., hidden) was
brought “outside” (i.e., actualized) by natural process of growth in the case of the tree and
by the intervention of the sculptor in the case of the statue of David. Reyes, therefore,
states that
“The will too, according to Aquinas, is a potential of the soul (Summa Theologiae I, Q. 77). It is
a ‘power’ that operates in act. It is the same power as free choice (liberum arbitrium), the power
to choose (Summa Theologiae I, Q. 83, A. 4). When we choose we bring this potency into act.
The potency is always there, but it needs to manifest itself through choices and the concrete
actions brought about by those choices. Aquinas also indicates that the virtues of this power
of the will are the ones directed towards others (Disputed Questions on Virtue, Q.1, A. 5).
Similarly, we can also consider loób as a potential or power rather than think of it in terms of
spatial or subjective interiority. The virtues of the loób are also directed towards others (kapwa).
For Aquinas there are several powers of the soul, such as reason, the will and the sensitive
powers, but for Filipino virtue ethics there is only one, the loób, because this is what concerns
relationships, and relationships are the most important thing in this ethics.” 1220
This is the reason why, for Reyes, the loob of the person is more deeply understood not
‘through reflection” but “by living in relationship with others” which embodies the essence
of what Karol Wojtyla had expressed in the following words: “Action reveals the person…
1217This expression first appeared in Aesop’s fable about the “The Fox and the Lion”.
1218 F. Landa Jocano, Filipino Value System: A Cultural Definition (Quezon City: Punlad Research House, 1997),
9.
1219Reyes, “Loob and Kapwa,” 72, 78-84.
1220Ibid., 80.
208
Action gives us the best insight into the inherent essence of the person and allows us to
understand the person most fully.”1221 To borrow the words of Miranda, “Loob comes to
be through its activity; without such activity loob is not; it does not exist.”1222 In the same
vein, Reyes explains that “How I treat others reveals who I am and what my loób is. And
conversely, I know the other person most when I am on the receiving end of his own
actions.”1223 Moreover, he states that “It is part of the meaning of loob—of what lies
within—that it must be ventilated. The kalooban lies inside but it must not be kept inside.
In a way, it is ‘what-lies-within-that-lives-without.’ It can only be manifested and perceived
externally.”1224 Thus, we can posit that the actualization of loob, whether it becomes a
virtue like in the case of the kagandahang loob (i.e., benevolent will) or a vice like in the
case of masamang loob (i.e., ill will), will certainly be influenced by the how and the where
it is being nurtured and played out – whether in a hospitable or hostile environment,
positive or negative, in an atmosphere of love or hate, harmony or divisiveness. Indeed,
Reyes is right in saying that “the loób is known only through relationship and interaction.
Even your own loób cannot be determined by yourself in isolation, instead it is determined
by how you relate and act towards your kapwa.”1225 Thus, the virtuous loob can be
actualized in the healthy relational environment that includes the presence of the kapwa.
This means that when the atmosphere is not conducive for cultivating virtues, the vicious
loob gains the upper hand. The loob becomes a threat to the kapwa. The loob, instead of
fostering a loving relationship together with the kapwa, becomes an instrument of division
and destruction. Indeed, situations of alienation, tension, and destruction creep in in the
context of this intimate relationship which may water down or dissolve the bond that bring
the loob and kapwa into a harmonious togetherness. One cannot simply turn a blind eye
towards the “negative tendencies” that arise in this “loving” relationship. Despite being
animated by the spirit of ‘intimacy and harmony’, they are still capable of harboring hatred
and inflicting injury, suffering and death upon others, even to family members whom they
consider as the core of their beings. The profound value they attach to one’s relationship
is certainly not a hundred percent guarantee that conflictual relationships are not sown
by the loob in the field of intersubjectivity that could lead to bloody and deadly encounters.
II.2.2.2.2. Kapwa’s Role in the Web of Relationality: The Other Side of the Relational Coin?
As we have already argued earlier, an understanding of the concept of loob is gravely

deficient if it is not viewed in tandem with another Filipino indigenous concept, which is
the kapwa. In its literal sense, kapwa can either mean ‘fellow’ or ‘both’, which according
to Levy Lara Lanaria, a Filipino theologian, expresses the notions of “sameness and
relational-ness”.1226 Beyond its literal sense, however, kapwa is understood as “the core
of Filipino personhood … the notion of a ‘shared self’ [which] extends to the I to include
the Other,” according to Katrin de Guia who is a student of Virgilio Enriquez, the founder
of the Sikolohiyang Pilipino movement (Filipino Psychology movement).1227 Kapwa, as a
‘shared self’, in the words of De Guia, “bridges the deepest individual recess of a person
1221Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979), 11.

1222Miranda, Buting Pinoy, 127.
1223Reyes, “Loób and Kapwa: An Introduction,” 155.
1224Ibid. Cf. also Leonardo De Castro, “Kagandahang loob: A Filipino Concept of Feminine Bioethics,” in
Globalizing Feminist Bioethics, ed. Rosemarie Tong (Colorado: Westview, 2000), 52.
1225Reyes, “Loób and Kapwa: An Introduction,” 155.
1226Levy Lara Lanaria, “Kapwa in Pamilya Rooted in Loob of Divine Image: Thoughts from a Filipino Catholic
Theologian,” Religions: A Scholarly Journal 6 (2014):36.

1227Katrin De Guia, Kapwa: The Self in the Other, Worldviews and Lifestyle of Filipino Culture-Bearers (Pasig
City: Anvil, 2005), 28.
209
SAMBAYANIHAN
with anyone outside him or herself, even total strangers.”1228 Enriquez, who has held
almost the same cogitation of kapwa as de Guia, explains that
“When asked for the closest English equivalent of kapwa, one word that comes to mind is the
English word ‘others.’ However, the Filipino word kapwa is very different from the English word
‘others.’ In Filipino, kapwa is the unity of the ‘self’ and ‘others.’ The English ‘others’ is actually
used in opposition to the ‘self,’ and implies the recognition of the self as a separate identity. In
contrast, kapwa is a recognition of shared identity, an inner self shared with others.1229
Furthermore, he expounds that, indeed, the notion of intimacy is incumbent to relation of

the loob and kapwa because
“[the] ako (ego) and the iba-sa-akin (others) are one and the same in kapwa psychology: Hindi
ako iba sa aking kapwa (I am no different from others). Once ako starts thinking of himself as
separate from kapwa, the Filipino ‘self’ gets to be individuated in the Western sense and, in
effect, denies the status of kapwa to the other. By the same token, the status of kapwa is also
denied to the self.”1230
Reyes who has pounded on what he perceives as the more appropriate English translation
of loob, which is ‘relational will’, also suggests that kapwa is best translated in English as
“together with the person”1231 because it is meaningless to define kapwa on its own. For
Reyes, there can be no other “starting point for kapwa” except in the context of
‘togetherness’.1232 This brings to mind Ferriols who has beautifully captured this notion of
intersubjectivity or togetherness in Tagalog: “nakikipagkapwa ang kalooban at
kalooban.”1233 It is so primordial that before one conceives of the unique identities of the
loob and kapwa respectively, one experiences first and foremost the intimate bond shared
by the self and the other. He, however, admits that “[of] course, the translation is not as
important as being aware of the traditions where kapwa was born, and how at variance
those traditions are with the Western modern tradition. If one keeps this in mind, one can
just import the word kapwa into English without a translation.”1234
At face value, it can be said that the Tagalog concept of kapwa bears some semblance
to Levinas’ l’autre or the Du in Buber. Exploring further than this skin-deep analogy,
however, reveals that there are some attendant ideas that are not shared in common by
these three relational concepts, but are individually held by each one. While Levinas’
‘Other’ is considered to be ‘infinitely different’ from the ‘self’, the Filipino kapwa, according
1228De Guia, Kapwa: The Self in the Other, 28.

1229Virgilio Enriquez, From Colonial to Liberation Psychology (Quezon City: The University of the Philippines,
1992), 52.
1230Ibid., 54.
1231He explains this by saying “Compare my translation with the old Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala where
capoua means ‘Ambos á dos igualmente’ [both two equally] and capoua co tauo means ‘hombre como yo’ [man
like me]. de Noceda and de Sanlucar, Vocabulario de la Lengua Tagala. See also the extensive usage of the
word kapwa in Urbana at Feliza, originally published in 1864, where the word is often combined with other
words, capuoua tauo (fellow man), capoua bata (fellow child), capoua babaye (fellow woman), capoua
escuela(classmate), etc. Modesto de Castro, Pag Susulatan nang Dalauang Binibini na si Urbana at ni Feliza
na Nagtuturo ng̃ Mabuting Kaugalian (Manila: J. Martinez, 1920). I prefer this over the definitions of Enriquez
and De Guia which mention a ‘self’. They have the right idea, but their starting point is one where the self and
other have already been opposed, it is the ‘modern’ starting point so to speak, and they wish to retrieve kapwa
from such conditions. The English word ‘self’ is loaded; it has been sculpted by a long and complex history of
ideas and upheavals in modern times as Charles Taylor has shown. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The
Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1989). It is closely bound to concepts such
as subjectivity, autonomy and independence.” Reyes, “Loob and Kapwa: An Introduction,” 156.
1232Ibid.
1233Ferriols, Pambungad sa Metapisika, 161. Reyes translated this to English with these words: “two loob’s
treat each other as kapwa”. Reyes, “Loob and Kapwa: An Introduction,” 99.
1234Reyes, “Loob and Kapwa: An Introduction,” 156.
210
to Reyes, is a being that is intimately tied to and profoundly known by the loob or self. 1235
Regarding the issue of otherness vis-à-vis selfhood, Reyes underlines that
“An interesting trend in twentieth century was that philosophers tried to bring back the
relational aspect to an intellectual climate which has forgotten it. This was after the complete
negation of the other experienced in the Holocaust of World War II (Levinas and Buber were
both Jews). However, for Levinas the Other is completely different from the Self, like the concept
of infinity. And for Levinas, there is no hope for anything like oneness in the same sense as the
Filipino pagkakaisa.”1236
As far as Levinas is concerned, Jaime Guevara points out that
“the other is infinitely irreducible. This is why the relationship between the two is not about a
unity of similarities. Rather, Levinas describes the relationship as one of asymmetry. Since, there
is no essential similarity, but only an essential difference between the self and the other, the
other cannot be said to be like the self and vice versa. The other is merely different… For Levinas,
there is nothing ‘shared’ between the self and the other. The notion of ‘shared identity’ does not
fit in his philosophy. Yet, Filipinos do experience ‘shared identity.’”1237
Thus, unlike the loob-kapwa tandem that is “defined” by the intimate link they share with
one another, the ‘self’ and the ‘l’autre’ is separated by the insurmountable chasm between
them. This is also true for Martin Buber’s Du, although it is seen as a “milder” version of
Levinas’ l’autre. According to Guevara, there is an noticeable agreement between Buber
and Levinas on their respective understanding of the other, wherein the “other is
irreducible to any categories of thought set up by the ego”.1238 Based on the analysis of
Guevara, Buber’s conception of the “authentic existence” of the other, ultimately, does not
depend on the existence of the self.1239 Reyes, therefore, contends that “for kapwa
relationship is the given, it is taken for granted. It is the starting point, not something to
be retrieved.”1240
What resembles kapwa more, according to Reyes opines, is the ‘communio
personarum’1241 that both Norris Clarke1242 and Karol Wojtyla have expressed in their
respective philosophical treatises. This is so, because Norris Clarke, as per evaluation of
Reyes, continues of the legacy of Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy that sees being or the
human person as
“substance-in-relation. Unlike the ‘self-enclosed substance of Descartes’ or the ‘inert,

unknowable substance of Locke’s, to be a substance in the universe is to be ipso facto in relation
with a host of other things through the act of being and through secondary acts (Clarke, 1994).
To be is to be substance-in-relation. Everything is caught up in this dynamic web of activity,
with God as its source, both as pure act (actus purus) and pure existence (ipsum esse
subsistens). This has clear affinities with the animist world view, which sees the world dense
and alive with spiritual connections. But Clarke goes a step further and applies this concept
specifically to the sphere of persons: 1243 “To be an authentic person, in a word, is to be a
1235Reyes, “Loob and Kapwa: An Introduction,” 156-57.

1236Ibid. Cf. Emmanuel Levinas, Totalité et Infini. (La Haye: M. Nijhoff, 1961).
1237Guevara, “Pakikipagkapwa,”13.
1238Ibid., 14.
1239Ibid.
1240Reyes, “Loob and Kapwa: An Introduction,” 157.
1241Cf. Karol Wojtyla, Person and Community: Selected Essays, trans. T. Sandok (New York: Peter Lang, 1993).
1242Clarke posits that “[the] perfection of being-and therefore of the person-is essentially dyadic, culminating
in communion. Cf. W. Norris Clarke, “Person, Being and St. Thomas,” Communio 19(1992):601. Cf. also W.
Norris Clarke, Person and Being (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University, 1993). See also Norris Clarke,
Explorations in Metaphysics: Being – God – Person (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1994).
1243W. Norris Clarke, “To be is to be Substance-in-Relation,” in Explorations in Metaphysics: Being, God, Person,
ed. W. Norris Clarke (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1994), 102-122.
211
SAMBAYANIHAN
lover, to live a life of inter-personal self-giving and receiving. Person is essentially a ‘we’ term.
Person exists in its fullness only in the plural.”1244
Wojtyla, on his part, understands the ‘we’ relationship as ‘participation’.1245 What seems
to be a problem in Wojtyla’s notion of participation is the “strong emphasis” he has given
to the “subjective ‘I’” which does not sit well with the Filipino notion of loob-kapwa.1246
Before we proceed to our discussion on how concept of loob-kapwa improves the
intersubjective understanding of Marcel and Binswanger, we would like to bring into the
discussion Barasab Nicolescu whose understanding of transdisciplinarity was based on
the ‘included middle’ that originally stemmed from the realm of quantum physics.
Although this might appear as stretching our imagination a little bit too much, which we
believe is the real essence of transdisciplinary research process, we are convinced that it
can enlighten us on our peculiar understanding of the relationship between the loob-
kapwa that is far more intersubjective than the respective insights of Marcel and
Binswanger on the said theme. In an online article entitled “Transdisciplinarity and
Complexity”1247 which Nicolescu has posted, we find a more relatively simplified rendition
of the ideas which he had put forward in his published works, such as From Modernity to
Cosmodernity:1248
“In order to obtain a clear image of the meaning of the included middle, we can represent the
three terms of the new logic — A, non-A, and T — and the dynamics associated with them by a
triangle in which one of the vertices is situated at one level of Reality and the two other vertices
at another level of Reality. If one remains at a single level of Reality, all manifestation appears
as a struggle between two contradictory elements (example: wave A and corpuscle non-A). The
third dynamic, that of the T-state, is exercised at another level of Reality, where that which
appears to be disunited (wave or corpuscle) is in fact united (quanton), and that which appears
contradictory is perceived as non-contradictory.”1249
He goes on to explain that,

“It is the projection of T on one and the same level of Reality which produces the appearance of
mutually exclusive, antagonistic pairs (A and non-A). A single level of Reality can only create
antagonistic oppositions. It is inherently self-destructive if it is completely separated from all
the other levels of Reality. A third term, let us call it T, which is situated on the same level of
Reality as that of the opposites A and non-A, cannot accomplish their reconciliation.”1250
Moreover, according to him, “The T-term is the key in understanding indeterminacy : being
situated on a different level of Reality than A and non-A, it necessarily induces an influence
of its own level of Reality upon its neighboring and different level of Reality: the laws of a
given level are not self-sufficient to describe the phenomena occurring at the respective
level.”1251 Nicolescu also notes that transdisciplinary, as an approach, deals with a reality
whose realm is multi-dimensional yet coherent, wherein the level of non-contradiction
1244W. Norris Clarke, Person and Being (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University, 1993), 218.
1245Karol Wojtyla, “The Person: Subject and Community,” in Person and Community: Selected Essays, ed. Karol
Wojtyla (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 1993), 219–262. Norris Clarke acknowledges his debt to Wojtyla. W. Norris
Clarke, “The Integration of Personalism and Thomistic Metaphysics in Twenty-First-Century Thomism,” in
The Creative Retrieval of St. Thomas Aquinas: Essays in Thomistic Philosophy, New and Old, ed. W. Norris
Clarke (New York, NY: Fordham University, 2009), 226–232.
1246For Reyes, this explains why Wojtyla acknowledges his indebtedness to “the phenomenology of Max Scheler
and to the ethics of Immanuel Kant. But the end goal for him is still the same, that is a unity and oneness
between acting persons.” Reyes, “Loob and Kapwa: An Introduction,” 157. Cf. Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person
(Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979), 302.
1247Basarab Nicolescu, “Transdisciplinarity and Complexity: Levels of Reality as Source of Indeterminacy,” in
Centre International De Recherce et Études Transdisciplinaire, http://ciret-

1248Basarab Nicolescu, From Modernity to Cosmodernity: Science, Culture, and Spirituality (Albany, New York:
State University of New York, 2014).

1249Nicolescu, “Transdisciplinarity and Complexity.”
1250Ibid.
1251Ibid.
212
(i.e., T-state) can co-exist with a level of contradiction (i.e., A and non-A). Thus, for
Nicolescu,
“Transdisciplinarity is the transgression of duality opposing binary pairs: subject/object,
subjectivity/objectivity, matter/consciousness, nature/divine, simplicity/complexity,
reductionism/holism, diversity/unity. This duality is transgressed by the open unity which
encompasses both the universe and the human being…The transdisciplinary model of Reality
has, in particular, some important consequences in the study of complexity. Without its
contradictory pole of simplicity (or, more precisely, simplexity) complexity appears as an
increasingly enlarging distance between the human being and Reality which introduces a self-
destructive alienation of the human.”1252
With this explanation, we learn from Nicolescu that the “included middle” expresses non-
contradictoriness or mutual inclusivity wherein the notions of “true” and “false” are
expanded “in such a way that the rules of logical implication no longer concerning two
terms (A and non-A) but three terms (A, non-A and T), co-existing at the same moment in
time… The logic of the included middle is the privileged logic of complexity, privileged in the
sense that it allows us to cross the different areas of knowledge in a coherent way, by
enabling a new kind of simplicity.”1253
This does not imply, however, that the opposite (i.e., “logic of excluded middle”) is
categorically denied or taken out of the picture. Instead, what happens is a narrowing
down of the validity of the scope which “the logic of the excluded middle” traditionally
held. This means to say that “the logic of the excluded middle” cannot be applied in all
circumstances since it is only valid, according to Nicolescu, “for relatively simple
situation”.1254 He contends that when “the logic of excluded middle” is absolutized and
universalized, it becomes harmful, especially when placed in the “complex” and
“transdisciplinary cases”.1255
On this note, we believe that it is possible to understand the peculiar relationship of
loob-kapwa from the prism of the ‘included middle’, because in this relationship, as
understood by most of the Filipino scholars which we will explain in more detail later on,
the loob and the kapwa are not identical but at the same time they are intimately linked
to one another – they are physically seen as separate or discrete entities but on another
level, the realm of relationality, they are construed or experienced as united. Thus, while
it affirms the logic A is not equal to –A, because their apparent distinctness, it does not
negate their complex togetherness, that is, the loob and the kapwa can
contemporaneously reside or harmoniously co-exist in each person, without also denying
that they are two different entities. This unique loob-kapwa relationship can also be
translated to how, as far as traditional Filipino consciousness is concerned, the confluence
of the spirit and the human worlds. This explains why within the Filipino worldview there
is an intimate link between the sacred and the profane as well as the closeness of the
human and the divine, which is unfortunately mistakenly labeled as split-level
Christianity by Bulatao.1256
II.2.2.2.3. Marcel and Binswanger Finding a “Homeland” in the Filipino Loob?
Seeing the closeness between Binswanger’s and Marcel’s notions of communion,

notwithstanding their differences, we also perceive a possible converging point between
them and the Filipino concept of “loob” (relational will) that is intimately linked with the
1252Nicolescu, “Transdisciplinarity and Complexity.”

1253Ibid.
1254Ibid.
1255Ibid.
1256Cf. Jaime Bulatao, S.J., Split-level Christianity (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 1966).
213
SAMBAYANIHAN
“kapwa” (together with the person) as understood by Jeremiah Reyes. Although the “twin”
concepts of loob and kapwa are a peculiar result of the fusion of Southeast Asian tribal-
animist Filipino and Spanish Catholic traditions, we believe that the united forces of
Binswanger, Marcel and the Filipino loob can prove that the Cartesian solipsistic ego,
carried over by Heidegger’s Dasein, is not the irreducible existential fact. In other words,
the solipsistic ego is untenable. This ‘trio’ strongly affirms that the real ontological factum
is the togetherness of the I-thou and not Descartes’ “I think I am” or Heidegger’s “I am
dying.” Binswanger and Marcel both locate this togetherness in the realm of love:
Binswanger proposes that love is an experience of unity and infinity and Marcel posits
that when one says “I love you” he/she is also saying “You shall not die.”
These western articulations of love, in our opinion, can find a hospitable home in the
Filipino “loob-kapwa” tandem as we have demonstrated earlier using the philosophical
proposals of Reyes, Miranda, Mercado and the like, because the very essence of these
concepts (i.e., loob as a relational will and kapwa as together with the person), when
actualized by the players in the field of inter-subjectivity, will weather any destructive
bifurcation thrown into the path of loob-kapwa by the Modern way of thinking rooted in
the solipsistic Cartesian ego. The loob-kapwa is a strong affirmation of inter-subjectivity
and communion. Certainly, we cannot overlook the problematic tendency goes along with
the intimate relationship between the loob and kapwa is concerned because reality tells
us that even in the context of loob-kapwa relation there are instances when respectful
and loving relationship is undermined by conflicts between the loob (self) and kapwa
(neighbor). There is truth to what Binswanger is saying that “what we call mental disease
[may] come about when the self is no longer able to distinguish between inside and
outside, between existence and world…In delusions of persecution [for example] these
dams have burst. Existential anxiety floods the world of fellowmen; the Dasein is
threatened from everywhere, prey to all.”1257 But, then again, we cannot also disregard the
reality of inter-subjectivity that the Filipinos experience wherein, according to Dionisio
Miranda, “Loob needs kapwa even to be loob: its continued responding to the kapwa is
the condition for its own existence and its authenticity as loob.”1258 In other words, the
absence of the kapwa renders the self or the loob inauthentic.
In the language of Binswanger, it is called ‘being-together-at-home-in-the-world.’
Marcel refers to this as the “mystery of communion” located in the “being-in-situation.”
Conceptually, as we have already explained earlier, there is no dichotomy between what
is within and without in the Filipino understanding of loob. Loob, which is not perceived
as a disembodied self, is always directed at something or someone. According to Reyes,
“Loob is only what it is in so far as it is completely embedded and integrated inside the
web of connectivity.”1259 A person seen against the background of the Filipino worldview
cannot be a genuine person without his/her recognition of one’s shared identity or of what
de Guia referred to as ‘people-centered orientation’1260 Moreover, the Filipino kapwa, as
earlier indicated, is not similar to the English concept of ‘others’ which is diametrically
opposed to the ‘self’. Therefore, the Filipino loob-kapwa, in its ‘ordinary’ sense, retains the
primordial unity of the I and the thou. For, indeed, in kapwa, as we have already quoted
earlier from Reyes, “relationship is the given. It is taken for granted. It is the starting point,
not something to be retrieved.”1261
1257Binswanger, Being-in-the-World, 311.

1258Dionisio Miranda, Pagkamakabuhay: On the Side of Life: Prolegomena for Bioethics from a Filipino-Christian
Perspective (Manila: Logos, 1994), 84.
1259Reyes, “Loόb and Kapwa,” 6.
1260de Guia, Kapwa: The Self in the Other, 28.
1261Reyes, “Loόb and Kapwa,” 9.
214
This is the reason why the fullness of personhood (i.e., what is considered in the
West as self-realization) is found in the Filipino expression of pagkakaisa (oneness), which
according to Enriquez is the “highest level of interpersonal interaction possible… a full
realization of pakikipagkapwa.”1262 Hence, the twin commandments found in the
Scriptures that express love for God and love for neighbor as oneself is not significantly
alien to the Filipino person. It is the very context of his/her existence, which perhaps
explains the religiosity of the Filipinos.
It is interesting to note, at this point, that the Filipino kapwa is ambivalent in terms
of number. It does not reveal immediately - unlike the words I, self and other - whether it
pertains to just one or many. It can be singular or plural. It is also true even in the concept
of kapwa. Therefore, there is an inherent openness to other others. It does not allow itself
to be trapped in solitude á deux. Naturally, it does not require an escape route needed by
Marcel and Binswanger in their respective intersubjective journeys.
Aside from this, the Filipino loob, unlike Marcel who starts from the ‘broken world’
and Binswanger who begins with the misglűckten, is situated in a primordial harmonious
diversity.1263 Thus, it is already immersed in what Binswanger considers as unity of
identity and difference and in what Marcel calls as creative tension in the mystery of being.
We feel, however, that the Filipino loob-kapwa lies closer to Marcel than to
Binswanger, because of its openness to the Transcendent, to the Divine. The kapwa of the
loob is not only limited to the human entities but is also extended to the spiritual entities
that ordinarily inhabit the traditional Filipino worldview.1264 Thus, the Filipino loob is
predisposed to an encounter with the Absolute Thou that Marcel discovers in his
pilgrimage to the mystery of being. In fact, for a Filipino person, the interpenetration of
the divine, human person and other/s is already a given. It is the starting point. It is also
the end-point.
Beyond this comparative work that we have done concerning Marcel, Binswanger,
and the Filipino loob-kapwa, there is another philosophical or theological avenue that can
be pursued. This theological trail which has already been initially blazed by Jose de Mesa
and Levy Lara Lanaria endeavors to establish a conceptual link between the Filipino loob-
kapwa tandem and the mystery of the Christian Trinitarian God – a unity in diversity.
Jose de Mesa, a lay theologian who has been fascinated by the richness of the native
concept of loob, has introduced into the ongoing theological discourse on inculturation
the possibility of using loob as a platform for providing a glimpse of the mystery of God’s
love through the native expression kagandahang-loob.1265 This “culturally appropriate
category” can be dynamically translated to English as “winsome benevolence of God” that
brings together into a creative blend the notions of beauty, goodness and will. This concept
of kagandahang-loob, according to de Mesa, will make the mystery of God’s love more
comprehensible to ordinary Filipino faithful whose worldview conceptually grasps the
meaning of loob as “the inner self... the core of one’s personhood and where the true worth
of a person lies”.1266 Coupled with the notions of “beauty and goodness”, kagandahang-
loob reveals also the Christian God, whose fullness of revelation comes in the Person of
1262Enriquez, From Colonial to Liberation, 64.

1263Diversity here includes conflicts and conflicting views.
1264Cf. Melba P. Magay, Filipino Religious Consciousness: Some Implications to Mission (Quezon City: Institute
for Studies in Asian Church and Culture, 2002), 5. Cf. also Hornedo, The Favor of the Gods, 81-82.
1265Cf. Jose de Mesa, Why is Theology Never Far From Home (Manila, Philippines: De La Salle University, 2003),
5-12.
1266According to De Mesa, “[it] is what makes the lowland Filipino what he is and who he is as a person. Not
only that, it is an appropriate term to describe a person in relationship to others because it provides an insight
as to what kind of person one is.” Jose de Mesa, In Solidarity with the Culture, 45.
215
SAMBAYANIHAN
Jesus Christ, the kagandahang-loob par excellence, the pure goodness which is, according
to de Mesa as quoted by Bevans in Theology in Global Perspective, “not cold, but warm, a
kindness which is not enslaving, but liberating.”1267 In view of this contribution of De Mesa
to the ongoing discourse on theological contextualization or inculturation, Bevans notes
two very important things:
“First, this understanding of God’s nature that is revealed in the context of Filipino culture is
in real continuity with the ideas of the Vatican II and its understanding of revelation, but it
goes beyond them as well, or at least nuances them for this particular context. This kind of
“thinking through” a particular theological concept, with the recognition that “theology is never
far from home” is what needs to be done in every cultural context and social location, for
theology is only theology when it begins to make sense to particular people at particular times
and in particular places... Second, however, this reflection on revelation out of Filipino culture
is one that can enrich the admitted Western understanding… In fact, genuine contextual
understanding of Christian faith should be able to enrich any understanding of revelation from
any context.”1268
Going back to the issue of kagandahang-loob, for Albert Alejo kagandahang-loob is

similar to the notion of kabaitan which also means benevolence or “kabutihang walang
daya” (i.e., “goodness without deceit”).1269 Looking at it from the perspective of the Filipino
loob-kapwa, it is possible to see God who is the Omnipotent Creator and the perfection of
kagandahang-loob as the very well-spring of the loob of the human person who is
continuously being sustained and inspired by this Absolute Source (i.e., God) so that the
human person will actualize his/her kagandandahang-loob that reflects God’s image and
likeness. And this God who is pure kagandahang-loob never ceases to invite people to
constantly remain in the loving and life-giving relationship with God as a manifestation of
kagandahang-loob. Outside this relation, love definitely fades and life certainly perishes.
The idea that God indefatigably offers to the human person an invitation to enter
into the mystery of communion shared by the Three Divine Persons with each other, is
also the very basis for Levy Lara Lanaria’s theological proposal to reflect on how the Bible,
especially in the Book of Genesis, reveals “a relational God-within” who has/have
projected to or implanted in the human persons the relational bond of the loob-kapwa.1270
The One True God that we have, according to him, is not a lonely and isolated God but a
God who is a loving community, a God whose “loob is essentially an intra-relational self”
– a ‘Trinity’. By uttering the words “let us make the human person according to our image
and likeness (Gen. 2:7),” God reveals God’s intention of making communion (unity in
diversity) as the raison d’ètre of every human being. This becomes clearly demonstrated
in what the Filipinos consider as the value of pakikipagkapwa which is practiced mostly
by the members of biological families and ecclesial communities. In other words, these
human relations mirror a faint but genuine image of the Trinitarian God who is ‘the’ most
real Loob-Kapwa or the Pakikipagkapwa par excellence.1271 In this framework, we
understand that the dynamics of “intra-relationships” that transpires within God’s loob
is, thereby, lovingly and freely shared (mapagmahal at malayang ipinagkakaloob) by God
to God’s created beings (i.e., human-beings).1272 This, we believe, is also the meaning of
Immanuel - the God with us, the God who will not abandon us even if a mother forgets her
child – because God’s Divine Loob is already embedded in the loob of the human persons.
God’s Loob is perceived by Filipinos as being intimately married into our loob as human
1267Stephen Bevans, An Introduction Theology in Global Perspective (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2009), 25.
1268Ibid.
1269Alejo, Tao po! Tulóy!, 139.
1270He postulates that “when God created human beings. He was first projected as a relational God-within.
‘We shall make man in our image, to our likeness’ (Genesis 1:26). “Lanaria, “Kapwa in Pamilya,” 39.
1271Lanaria, “Kapwa in Pamilya,” 39.
1272Ibid., 39-40.
216
beings, that is why, generally, Filipinos do not have a problem in declaring their profound
trust in the kalooban ng Diyos (God’s will) because the innermost depth of our being
(kaloob-looban) is believed to conform to the Loob of God. Indeed, as far as Filipino religious
worldview is concerned, our innermost being simply echoes what is “in the heart” of God:
God’s kalooban (God’s will) is ultimately our kalooban (the human person’s will) when we
listen carefully and truthfully to what the deepest core of our being is telling us. Filipinos,
in general, believe that God’s kalooban is not capable of harming the human beings who
are created in the God’s image and likeness. The human beings are, indeed, the loob who
are the kapwa of God who is the perfection of Loob-Kapwa community. The challenge,
therefore, is for the human beings to strive to constantly be attuned to God’s Divine Loob
in order for them not to lose sight of their real purpose in life which is to be a communion
of persons who respect, love and support each other as they journey together towards the
common goal of communal, as well as individual, self-actualization. Speaking more
specifically about the relationship between the Trinity and the community of God’s
creatures, Lanaria says that
“The Christian theological tradition has given names to the three-in-one God: Father, Son and
Spirit. Within the innermost Triune loob is a dynamic interaction of coequal persons in perfect
unity. Christians normally commune with the Triune God through Jesus Christ the one
mediator between God and humankind (1 Timothy 2:5 ‘As there is one God, there is one
mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus’). Believers refer to him as the incarnation of
God’s love (John 3:16 ‘Yes God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever
believes in him may have eternal life’). If God is kagandahang-loob (winsome benevolence; love),
then Jesus Christ, as de Mesa stresses, is God’s kagandahang-loob. To be united with the
Triune God is to be united with and through Jesus Christ-God who had ‘gone down’ from the
Spirit world and became our kapwa-in-corporeality. The union with Jesus who had returned
to the spiritual world in His resurrected body but now present in Spirit ‘is an intrinsic one,
based on an ontological reality’ wherein he ‘communicates his life, his being to (them) from an
innermost dwelling place within (their) being’ thus enabling them to be animated by his Spirit
and to live in him.”1273
Thus, we argue that the Filipino indigenous concept of loob-kapwa does not only
enrich Marcel’s and Binswanger’s respective notions of inter-subjectivity because it tries
to underpin the intimate relationship that binds the self and the other which was greatly
afflicted by the establishment of the Cartesian ego, but at the same time, it provides a
stepping stone towards an assent to the Trinitarian God who is the loob-kapwa par
excellence – a unity in diversity, a Divine Being who is Three Persons in one God and also
as a fertile ground to the conception of bahala na as an Filipino ordinary theology,
especially for those in diaspora.
II.2.2.3. Bahala Na: An Ordinary Theology Constituted within the Realm of Filipino Loob-
Kapwa Inter-subjectivity
On this fertile ground of inter-subjectivity, we situate our discussion on Bahala na

as an Ordinary Theology that embodies most especially a theological articulation proper
to Filipinos in diaspora. We believe that the complex trusting and loving bond present in
the loob-kapwa, which encompasses human-human, human-nature, and human-divine
relationships provides a profound theological basis for the Filipino utterance of Bahala
na. Because God and humans are both loob and kapwa to one another, in the Filipino
worldview, one believes that even if there are uncertainties in life, especially in the context
of the marginal existence of Filipino migrants, there is still solid reason to strive and to
hope. Loob-kapwa also provides a platform for extending love, forgiveness, care, service
1273Lanaria, “Kapwa in Pamilya,” 39-40.
217
SAMBAYANIHAN
and reconciliation towards fellow migrant communities and to former colonial masters in
the hope of building bridges by offering corrective measures instead of just carrying-on
the blame-game started by anti-colonial and anti-globalization advocates, which further
increased the gaps and deepened the wounds left by colonial experiences. Filipinos are
known for their resilience, because they somehow believe that they are accompanied by
God who is a loob who lovingly, mercifully and intimately takes care of His/Her kapwa
who is the human person - of course, including other beings created by God - who is also
a loob whose completeness is found in the kapwa.
II.2.2.3.1. The Enigma that is Bahala Na: Exploring the Bi-Polarity of a Cultural Trait
Theology, in the contemporary world, can longer be considered as a monopoly of the

professional theologians. In fact, Jeff Astley argues that “[‘theology’] is just God-talk,
talking about God. When the word was first used in the church, it was applied to anyone
who thought and spoke about their faith. It was only a lot later that it became an academic
subject, the possession of scholars.”1274 Theology is not and must not only be articulated
by academically trained scholars but also by people who have remained to be in the fringes
of professional theological enterprise – the ordinary people. Theology certainly includes
what Astley considers to be the “the theology of God’s church.”1275
Although we have obviously elevated our exploration to the level of academic theology
by engaging academic theologians and by using jargons proper to academic theology, we
would like to propose for the inclusion of bahala na, a typical Filipino expression, as a
form of ordinary theology which is uttered against the background of loob-kapwa that , in
turn, expresses a profound trust of the Filipino people in a God who is intimate, loving,
merciful and generous to them – a God who is held in high esteem but who is experienced
as immanent and concerned in their day to day living.
Etymologically speaking, Bahala na is derived from the Tagalog word ‘Bathala’ which
means God. Gorrospe, however, contends that there is no solid basis for arguing that the
word ‘bahala’ is, indeed, derived from the indigenous term ‘Bathala’ which is used to refer
to the Divine Being.1276 Gripaldo, in response to this disagreement of Gorrospe, uses
Wittgenstein’s claim that when “meaning is used in the language, then one of the
significant usages of the term has a reference to God.”1277 Thus, this expression can be
loosely translated to English as “Come what may. It is up to God,”1278 which can be
construed as expressing the notion of self-surrender that emanates from what we have
noted earlier as the complex relation between the loob and kapwa who are understood in
the pre-modern Filipino consciousness as distinct but mutually inclusive entities.
Because the ‘togetherness’ is taken for granted in this regard, one is not immobilized when
he/she is faced with some wondrous task or seeming insurmountable quandary because
he/she never feels alone but is “accompanied” not only by the human kapwa but most
especially by God who is loob-kapwa par excellence.
1274Astley, Ordinary Theology.

1275Ibid.
1276Vitaliano Gorospe, S.J., Christian Renewal of Filipino Values (Manila: Ateneo de Manila University, 1966),
216.
1277Rolando M. Gripaldo, “Bahala na: A Philosophical Analysis,” Filipino Cultural Traits: Claro R. Ceniza
Lectures, ed. Rolando M. Gripaldo (Washington D.C.: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2005),
209. Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigation, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (New York: MacMillan,
1989), 20.
1278Gripaldo, “Bahala na,” 199.
218
a. The Janus Face of the Bahala Na
Bahala na can either be positive or negative depending on how it is being used. On

the one hand, it is positive if bahala na is used as a brief period of discernment to
eventually gain strength and momentum to address whatever problem handed on to
him/her. On the other hand, it is negative if bahala na is merely expressed as words
devoid of action, because it does not solve the issue at stake but rather complicates and
prolongs the agony.
According to Therese Marie Rico,
“Bahala na has some similarities with Hinduism. Just like bahala na, Hinduism has been
criticized as a form of fatalism. Contrary to the popular belief, Hinduism does not breed
fatalism, but just a resigned attitude based upon the belief that there is nothing much one can
do about what happened in the past or what is happening now and what is going to happen in
the immediate future. Hinduism does not breed fatalism, but provides an opportunity to every
individual to shape his future and he is inclined spiritually, to liberate himself from the world
of births and deaths by 1. developing detachment, 2. controlling desires, 3. cultivating mental
stability, 5. performing good actions, 6. devotion and 7. complete surrender to God. True
liberation comes when one achieves self-realization and becomes free from the cycle of birth
sand deaths. In bahala na, on the other hand, viewing the saying ―Nasa Diyos ang awa, nasa
Taoang gawa‖ in another perspective could mean that if one trusts God, he or she will be in
good hands but one has to do his or her part to achieve the desires of his or her heart, given
that these desires are good or desirable in nature. The similarities of bahala na and hinduism
can be traced to the fact that Filipinos and Hindus have the same oriental perspectives
especially with regard to the cosmic forces surrounding them.”1279
Having said all this, we would like to appropriate the positive aspect of the bahala
na attitude of the Filipinos as an important feature of the theology for Filipino Diaspora
that is also marked by its liminal, hybrid and peregrine nature.
The Filipino theology of the bahala na provides a richer liminal space, because it
makes the threshold more penetrable in a sense that the unrelenting, daring and
persevering spirit of the Filipinos refuses to simply give up the struggle in order to rise
above any insuperable precarious situations. The bahala na theology, in our own
understanding, goes beyond subversion and resistance, because it is about resilience,
which means the ability not only to survive but to thrive in any difficult moments.
Considering the abject poverty that reduces millions of Filipinos to subhuman condition
(which can be very shocking and traumatic for people from the richer countries) and
pushes millions of Filipinos to desperately find work abroad (jobs that are usually way
below their mental capacities and professional trainings), the Filipinos still maintain a
generally warm and happy disposition, which cannot be simply dismissed as an outright
denial of reality.
We have to elucidate at this point that there are varied notions attached to this
Filipino expression that create division among the interpreters of Bahala na. Unfair
criticisms on the Filipino Bahala na, according to Jocano, were articulated in the 1940
edition of Osias Readers, a textbook which dealt with Filipino values and personality.1280
Usually, negative criticisms come from the foreigners or taga-labas (outsiders) who see
1279Therese Marie Rico, “Bahala Na” (unpublished paper, National College of Public Administration and
Governance, University of the Philippines, 2003), http://www.scribd.com/doc/33899837/BAHALA-NA.
1280Cited by Rico, “Bahala Na.” Cf. Jocano, Filipino Value System.
219
SAMBAYANIHAN
this expression as an attitude of “que sera sera” (dislike for planning), passivity,
irresponsibility and unaccountability vis-à-vis the turns of events and patterns of life.”1281
A contrary opinion on what was held by Enriquez, however, who, in a literature that
went into circulation before Jocano’s publication, argued that the Reader, in fact, gave a
balanced reading of the Filipino “expression” at stake, because the book did not fail to
underscore what could be characterized as positive meaning of Bahala na, which is about
courage and fortitude that emanate from a volition that is not in any way short of realism
because it recognizes the difficulties one has to face and whatever consequences that it
may bring which one has to simply accept.1282 That is why, for Enriquez, as was already
put forward in the 1940’s textbook, bahala na, aside from whatever is negative pointed by
the critics, reveals a “confrontative surface value”1283 which may manifest as an attitude
of “determination at the face of uncertainty.”1284 Moreover, using Lagmay’s understanding
of bahala na as his point of reference, Enriquez contends that bahala “operates in a
situation which is full of uncertainty and lacking in information, where despite the
uncertainty of the situation very few avoid or run away from the predicament.”1285
b. Bahala Na as Indolence?
Amidst all these valorizations of bahala na offered by Jocano and Enriquez, one must
not overlook, however, that bahala na, because it is an attempt to survive, can also become
an excuse for not striving harder to achieve excellence.1286 In other words, it can be used
to rationalize mediocrity. According to Therese Maria Rico, with the bahala na mentality,
“people tend to resort into such idea…. As a justification of not achieving nor maximizing
the potentialities or inventiveness they have in hand – which is most of the time compared
to being tamad or lazy.”1287
One of the positive characteristics of bahala na which are usually perceived by the
taga-loob (insiders), as opposed to the notion of indolence, is about a courageous act of
taking the risk in the midst of possible failure or when the situation is clouded by a haze
of uncertainty. In front of a great quandary, according to Lagmay, a Filipino does not easily
give up, instead, he/she tries to improvise to overcome whatever is unknown, stressful or
unpredictable, because there is a God who assures him/her that he/she is never alone in
this ‘task’ and that eventually everything will be alright.1288 Thus, we have Jose de Mesa
who claims that Bahala na speaks of the “virtue of risk-taking, enterprise and joint trust
in both human effort (bahala tayong lahat) and Divine Providence (bahala ang
Maykapal)”.1289 In the same vein, Rolando Gripaldo identifies this as “theistic fatalism”1290.
The “fatalistic” slant of such an expression, for him, rests in one’s “resignation to the
1281In other words, at least from the perspective of the taga-labas, this is a “fatalism” or an expression that
reeks of “an escapist value” that, according to Bostrom as cited by Enriquez, “… serves as a reliever of tension
and reaction against the social structure. Cf. Rico, “Bahala Na.”
1282Cf. Virgilio Enriquez, “Indigenous Personality Theory,” in Indigenous Psychology, ed. Virgilio Enriquez
(Quezon City: Akademya ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino, 1990), 285-310.

1283Ibid.
1284Ibid.
1285Ibid.
1286Ibid.
1287Ibid.
1288Cited in Rico, Bahala Na. Alfredo Lagmay, “Bahala Na,” in Ulat ng Ikalawang Pambansang Kumperensya
sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino, eds. Antonio, L., L. Samson, E. Reyes and M. E. Paguio (Quezon City: Lathalaing
Pambansang Samahan ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino, 1977), 120-130. Cf. also Rico, “Bahala Na.”
1289Jose M. de Mesa, And God Said “Bahala Na!” The Theme of Providence in the Lowland Filipino Context
(Quezon City: Maryhill School of Theology, 1979).

1290Gripaldo, “Bahala Na,” 207.
220
consequences” of an undertaking.1291 Nevertheless, it is a profound and hopeful appeal to

the providential grace of God who will personally “take care” of one’s future. Gripaldo
understands ‘fate’ here differently from the Greek sense of the word that evokes blindness,
inscrutability, inescapability, impersonality and irrationality. His notion theistic fatalism
follows the doctrine of Divine Providence. Bahala na comes into the picture when, even
after a thorough deliberation, a mantle of uncertainties still hangs on one’s shoulder
amidst the urgency of a decision or choice. On that account, Gripaldo contends that
“’Bahala na’ is a positive value in at least the following situations or circumstances which are
beyond one’s control: 1) When calamities or accidents occur despite all precautionary
measures; 2) when death of a loved one takes place in spite of all attempts to let him/her live
longer, or in spite of all careful attention made relative to the situation; 3) when the death is
sudden or unexpected; 4) when one feels the uncertainties that lie ahead despite making a
careful and deliberate choice or decision; 5) when, in spite of a very extensive deliberate
process, one cannot still decide what to choose until finally picks out a choice indifferently.”
Precariousness and uncertainty are, therefore, alleviated by one’s trust in Divine Providence.
In this context, an utterance of the phrase provides a “psychological peace of mind and an
emotional stability” to the person concerned.1292
In a way, it becomes a coping mechanism in the face of a precarious undertaking. 1293 It

must be noted here that the term “coping mechanism” is not understood in this doctoral
research in the strictly Freudian sense. Generally, “Psychological coping mechanism” is
understood as
“strategies or coping skills. Unconscious or non-conscious strategies (e.g., defense

mechanisms) are generally excluded. The term coping generally refers to adaptive or
constructive coping strategies, i.e., the strategies reduce stress levels. However, some coping
strategies can be considered maladaptive, i.e., stress levels increase. Maladaptive coping can
thus be described, in effect, as non-coping. Furthermore, the term coping generally refers to
reactive coping, i.e., the coping response follows the stressor. This contrasts with proactive
coping, in which a coping response aims to head off a future stressor.”1294
When the popular Filipino expression is taken to mean as “it’s up to the person to take
care of things/situation,” “a warning to prepare for the consequences of a person’s
choice/action,” “an indication of carelessness or un-mindfulness,” and tolerating/leaving
the person alone,” there is, indeed, some truth to what the critics of bahala na say about
it.1295 But certainly, we cannot ignore the fact that the profound meaning of bahala na
reveals a humble articulation of an assurance that “even if we do not know what the future
holds for us, we know who holds our future” because God cares. This statement, which
we believe have been uttered by many religious luminaries, comes from the biblical
declaration that, indeed, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path”
(Psa.119:105) and “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; For you
are with me; your rod and your staff—they comfort me” (Ps 23:4 NRSV), which we consider
as a profession of faith to the God who assures God’s people that “Behold, I am with you
always, even unto the ends of the Earth!” (Mat.28:20).
1291Gripaldo, “Bahala Na,” 207.

1292Ibid.,215.
1293Distor, “Filipino Way”, Kasama 11, no. 2(1997),
http://cpcabrisbane.org/Kasama/1997/V11n2/FilipinoWay.htm [accessed July 18, 2016].
1294Cf. Changing Minds, Coping Mechanisms,
https://www.google.be/search?q=coping+mechanism&rlz=1C1OPRA_enBE560BE561&oq=coping+mechanis
m&aqs=chrome69i57.4227j0j8&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8 [accessed December 13,
2013].
1295Gripaldo, “Bahala Na,” 205-207.
221
SAMBAYANIHAN
Considering the etymology of the phrase and the different implications mentioned
above, we argue that this expression belongs to the world of theology; it qualifies as an
articulation of what Jeff Astley calls “ordinary theology”. “Bahala na theology” provides a
face to one of the pervading theologies of the Filipino people, which they “put on” like their
rosaries and scapulars wherever they go ---- even abroad1296. It is an expression or an
utterance of their personal relationship with God and of their ‘moral fiber’ as Filipinos.
On this premise, we contend that, for the Filipino migrants who are the focus of the
this study, the utterance of “bahala na” exhibits what we categorize as an ordinary
theology which cannot be simply dismissed or labeled as some sort of mindless fatalism,
because most of them are aware of the risks and the limitations set by their circumstances
but they do not simply give up even when they are almost crushed to the ground, because
they care about their families and they hold on to God’s assurance, as the famous verse
from the Book of Isaiah says, that even if “a woman [forgets] her nursing child, or [shows]
no compassion for the child of her womb? Yet I will not forget you” (Is 49:25). Bahala na
in this context is seldom about resignation. They do not easily give up. They continue on
hoping and fighting for what they think will be the best, not just for them but for their
families. In fact, most of the time they place their personal needs at the back seat. When
they say “bahala na”, a lot of times, it is for the sake of their loved ones. They would rather
be inconvenienced or suffer the consequences of their decision in front of a seemingly
insurmountable quandary than letting their families and loved ones suffer. Most of the
time it is a humble acceptance of the reality that “I cannot do it on my own” and that
“without God, I can do nothing, and I am nothing”. In fact, it is an honest confession that,
indeed, ultimately “I cannot solely rely on my own strengths and capacities”. At the same
time this expression presents a rather bold declaration of hope that “this too shall pass”
and God will carry us through the darkness and perils of our journey. Bahala na allows
us to see our intersubjective reality and that we need God and each other by pulling us
closer to the ground to be in touch with “humusness”1297 (i.e., our relationship to the soil
and that, in the Book of Genesis, “the LORD God formed man from the dust of the
ground,1298 and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living
being” (Gen. 2:7). All these articulations are situated within the ambit of the loob-kapwa
wherein the kalooban (will) of God reveals God’s kagandahang-loob1299 who generously and
mercifully gives God’s kaloob (gift) to God’s unworthy kapwa who is lovingly and lavishly
created in God’s image and likeness as a creaturely loob who finds completeness and
perfection in his/her pakikipagkapuwa sa kapwa (fellow creatures) and Kapwa (God).
According to Enriquez,
“Pakikipagkapwa is much deeper and profound in its implications. It also means accepting and
dealing with the other person as equal. The company president and the office clerk may not
1296The book published by Mary Grace T. Betsayda, a Filipino immigrant, under the title: “Bahala Na Ang
Dios” (“Leave it to God”): The Church’s Role in the Socialization of Filipinos in the Greater Toronto Area,
testifies to the fact that this Filipino value system is still carried by Filipinos overseas.
1297It is “a dark-brown organic substance in soils, produced by the decomposition of vegetable or animal matter
and essential to the fertility of the earth.” It “provides nutrients for plants and increases the ability of soil to
retain water.” humus. Dictionary.com., Humus, http://www.dictionary.com/browse/humus [accessed:
November 1, 2016]. Humus n.1796, from Latin humus “earth, soil,” probably from humi on the ground, from
PIE dhghem - “earth” (cf. Latin humilis “low;” see chthonic). Related: Humous(adj.). humus. Dictionary.com.,
“Humus,” Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.dictionary.com/browse/humus [accessed November 1,
2016].
1298It can also be “formed a man (Heb adam) of dust from the ground (Heb adamah)”. Cf. Bible Gateway, Genesis
2:7, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A7&version=NRSV [accessed November

1, 2016].
1299Enriquez understands this as “shared inner nobility” that “displays the characteristic
internality/externality dimension of Filipino psychology.” It is an of generosity that is nothing short of
spontaneity emanating from the inherent goodness and graciousness of the giver of kindness or gifts.
Enriquez, From Colonial to Liberation, 47-48.
222
have an equivalent role, status, or income but the Filipino way demands and implements the
idea that they treat one another as fellow human beings (kapwa-tao). This means a regard for
the dignity and being of others. Aside from the socio-psychological dimension, pakikipagkapwa
has a moral and normative aspect as a value and conviction. Situations change and relations
vary according to environment.”1300
c. Bahala na as Manifestation of Resilience
The proposed bahala na theology, anchored in Filipinos’ profound faith and trust in
God and hinges on the Filipinos’ unwavering will to survive, expresses resilience that
makes “[a] Filipino pliant like a bamboo … [that] sways and bends with nature’s relentless
onslaughts, but it refuses to yield or die.”1301 It is about the Filipinos’ “amazing ability as
a people to recover from a misfortune,” according to Nelly Flavis-Villafuerte.1302 In a similar
light, a well-respected journalist in the Philippines, Conrado de Quiros, provides us
wonderful insight of what Filipino resiliency is about in these words:
“And a great deal of the Filipino’s response, I guess, owes as well to his creativity. My favorite
example there is the barong Tagalog. That originated in the Americans forcing the indios at the
beginning of their occupation to wear transparent shirts so they could not hide their bolos
underneath them. Eventually, by dint of refashioning and embroidery, the indios turned the
thing into their national costume. The badge of national shame became the badge of national
honor. That’s a pretty brilliant way to respond to adversity.”1303
Conrado de Quiros is quick to critically add, however, that resiliency, similar to

bahala na, must go beyond the notion of getting by, “especially when [it is unfortunately]
chanted by government and the media like a mantra, or platitude.”1304 For de Quiros,
religion played a role in the conditioning of the Filipino psyche to be resilient in the
negative light through “its promises of a better berth in heaven in exchange for a poorer
one on earth.”1305 He also believes that Colonialism has done its part as well by making
people believe that their oppressed condition is the natural state of being. Hence, people
should “never mind the pain; [they]’ll always get by.”1306 Thus, he persuades that Filipinos
to go beyond resiliency. He suggests that “Maybe, it’s time [they] got bloody furious.”1307
Being furious, in our understanding, means that people must become pro-active and not
just unquestioningly embrace suffering and believe that it is their natural lot in life.
Beyond resiliency, they must do their best to prevent any impending disasters and fight
for their right while invoking the aid of Divine Providence. Hence, one must be on guard
for possible misuse and abuse of the notion of resiliency when it is attached to the theology
of the bahala na. Bahala na and resiliency situated in the liminal, hybrid, and peregrine
character of the diasporic theology/ecclesiology of the Filipino migrants must always be
fired up by its resolute spirit to resist the oppressive structures of the status quo and to
strive to make things better.
1300Enriquez, From Colonial to Liberation, 47.

1301These lines from the poem of I.V. Mallari were cited in the Nelly Flavis-Villafuerte’s article (“The Resilience
of Filipinos Tested,” Manila Bulletin, October 9, 2009, http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/223926/the-
resilience-filipinos-tested [accessed September 2, 2012].
1302Ibid.
1303Conrado de Quiros, “Filipino Resilience,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 20, 2009,
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20091020-231079/Filipino-resilience [accessed:
October 1, 2009]. My italics.
1304Ibid.
1305Ibid.
1306Ibid.
1307Ibid.
223
SAMBAYANIHAN
At this point, we can recall what we have earlier cited as manifestations s, according
to Daniel Pilario, of “subtle resistance” couched in the narrative of resilience (Bahala na)
in facing the oppressive power of the Hispanic colonial missionaries: confession and
pasyon.
Thus, in the same manner that a lot of Filipinos have broken the glass ceiling and
proved successful in their careers and economic standings, the theology of bahala na
encourages Filipinos to continuously use their everyday experience of struggles (ordinary
theologies) to provide a ‘clearing” for the reign of God to happen in their midst – to harness
their everyday articulations of faith in order to resist oppression, marginalization, and
dehumanization towards a liberation of the Filipino migrants.
II.2.2.3.2. What About Faith? Bahala Na!
This view on bahala na, based on our exploration of this concept, sits very well with
the Tagalog term for faith: pananampalataya. Pananampalataya’s rich meaning can be
mined, if we try to stretch our imagination a little bit further, by dividing the word into
two more basic words: pagnamnam (tasting) and pagtatataya (taking risk). Thus, we argue
that the profound meaning of the Tagalog word pananampalataya rests on one’s ability to
take risk amidst uncertainty. This risk-taking, however, does not flow in the same stream
with stoicism or hubris, because, amidst the insecurity of the “journey”, one is motivated
by an initial, albeit brief and infinitesimal, taste of something to be experienced in its
fullness in the future, no matter how impossible it may seem. Jocano, almost echoing the
Filipino notion of pananampalataya, supports Enriquez’s valorization of bahala na for he
views it as an “inner strength to dare, to take the risk, to initiate and move, to take up a
challenge, to assume responsibility for an act,1308 welling up from the “reservoir of psychic
energy in the diwa”(soul, spirit, consciousness, mind, sense, idea).1309
Contrary to an outsider’s reading of bahala na as fatalistic and defeatist, Jocano
claims that bahala na encourages a positive outlook for it allows one to access one’s
inherent capabilities and to strengthen faith and trust in God who is merciful and
gracious, which is expressed in a very popular Filipino adage: Nasa Diyos ang awa; nasa
tao ang gawa (Mercy is God’s prerogative; work is human-being’s responsibility). Hence,
if one combines profound faith and trust in God with unrelenting perseverance, he/she
will definitely be able to overcome any tribulations or seemingly impossible tasks laid set
before him/her. By so doing, one’s self-worth is enhanced by allowing the daring spirit to
surface and to move a person to trust in his or her capability and responsibility. He further
mentions that bahala na allows one to “visualize the true nature of problems, make proper
decisions, and take the necessary actions.”1310 Thus, a person who says bahala na almost
always finds a way to resolve a seemingly insurmountable crisis and ends up at least
surviving, if not actually thriving. Of course, whether the solution one has devised is
morally right or not, is another part of the story.
It becomes negative when it is used as a scapegoat or an excuse for irresponsibility.
One must be critically aware, according to Vitaliano Gorospe, that
“in the past, the negative aspect of bahala na which dominated Filipino life, meant a false sense
of resignation (ganyan lang ang buhay [life is simply like that]), a superstitious belief or blind
faith (malas/swerte, tadhana, kapalaran [misfortune/luck, destiny]), or escape from decision-
making and social responsibility. As such, it may be the root cause of our national apathy
(walang pakialam) and collective paralysis of action (bakit pa kikilos? [why move?]) to solve both
local and national problems. Everything is already predetermined or fated. Negatively, bahala
1308Cf. Jocano, Filipino Value System.

1309Ibid.
1310Ibid.
224
na could engender a false sense of security with God as insurance or security blanket. For
example, if God wants Filipino families to have plenty of children (ang anak ay kayamanan [a
child is wealth]), God will take care of everything. Bahala na could be the cause of the absence
of national initiative and of that discipline required for national growth. When negative bahala
na prevails, nothing ever gets done. Potholed roads, uncollected garbage, countless unsolved
murders, carnapping [carjacking], and smuggling remain year after year… A sense of national
frustration, helplessness, and despair grips the nation and the people no longer care. Nothing
is going to happen – bahala na, come what may.”1311
Bahala na can either be positive or negative, depending on how it is being used, as

we have discussed in the previous paragraphs. Briefly, we can say that, on the one hand,
it is positive if bahala na is used as a brief period of discernment to eventually gain
strength and momentum to address (with the grace of God) the precariousness of the
situation, and the uncertainty of the consequences, given the limited choices at hand. On
the other hand, it is negative if bahala na is merely expressed as words devoid of action,
because it does not solve the issue at stake, but rather prolongs, complicates and even
aggravates the agony.
II.2.2.4. Is this the Way to Go? Bahala Na!: Filipino Migrant Theology as an Expression of
Ordinary Theology
We have stated in our first chapter that, to date, there are more or less 12 million
Filipinos who are dispersed all over the world mainly for economic reasons. We are of the
opinion that most, if not all of them, whether outwardly expressed or silently kept in their
hearts, are motivated and armed by their pananampalataya whose emblematic
articulation is the Filipino phrase bahala na. Thus, what we would like to offer our readers
at this point is how bahala na as an ordinary theology is embodied in the lives of these
millions of diasporized Filipino people.
Earlier, we have pointed out that, as an ordinary theology, bahala na can be
considered as learned and learning. Certainly, this did not just come out of the blue. It is
something that has been molded through the different experiences of the Filipino people;
especially the circumstances brought about by their migrant status. Betsayda’s argument
is particularly instructive here: “in the case of Filipinos, because religion has been in place
in the culture for so long, it becomes something associated with ‘being Filipino’ itself...
because of colonization, Roman Catholicism has become so intrinsically linked with the
Philippines to the extent that they cannot be separated.”1312 They have learned to strive
and hope against all odds while relying on Divine Providence. It is also a learning theology
because, as the nature of migration and globalization evolves, so does the diasporic
experience of the Filipinos. Hence, it is also a theology that is in-construction as these
Filipinos strive every single day to make sense of their poverty, struggles, successes, etc.
It continues to evolve in order to catch up with the rhythm of and the changes in the
phenomenon of migration and globalization.
Bahala na theology, however, cannot be seen as an overarching theological
metanarrative of the Filipino Diaspora. Certainly, despite the preponderance of this
expression, not everyone can be considered to subscribe to this way of talking about their
relationship with God and about their religious experience. Thus, it can be thought of as
tentative and it simply presents itself as one of the embodiments of ordinary theology
1311Cf.Vitaliano Gorospe, S.J., “Understanding the Filipino Value System,” in Values in Philippines Culture
and Education, ed. Manuel B. Dy (Washington D.C.: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1994),
62-69. Brackets are mine.
1312Betsayda, “Bahala Na ang Diyos,” 49-50.
225
SAMBAYANIHAN
appropriate for the stories of diasporized Filipinos. It can never fully embody the multitude
of experiences of Filipinos in diaspora. It is always a partial understanding of this mystery.
Just like bahala na attitude of the Filipinos that is aware of the “uncertainity” of the
situation but still moves the Filipinos to carry on with the tasks, bahala na theology is
also a humble articulation of faith knowing that it will always be partial. That is precisely
the reason why, later in this chapter, we shall endeavor to open an avenue towards a
discussion of the notion bayanihan spirituality as complementing bahala na theology.
But, for now, we can say that, despite its tentativeness or incompleteness, bahala
na theology can still be seen as significant or meaningful for the Filipinos in diaspora as
they continue their daily grind or battle in their host countries to make both ends meet
which is expressed beautifully by a famous Filipino adage: “Nasa Diyos ang Awa, nasa
tao ang gawa.” One is assured of God’s help as long as one also does his or her best. This
profound trust in God’s mercy and the strong will to continue on striving can be discerned
in the remarkable popularity of certain devotions, such as the fondness of the Filipinos
for the Black Nazarene devotion which honors the image of the “black” Suffering Christ
carrying the cross that is celebrated every first Friday of the month and January 9 each
year, the Sto. Niῆo (Infant Jesus) that is celebrated every third Sunday of January, and the
Our Lady of Perpetual Help that is celebrated every Wednesday in the Philippines and on
Thursdays in other parts of the globe. All these, including the devotions to Our Lady of
Peñafrancia in Bicol, Our Lady of the Lost Holy Rosary in Manaoag, the Our Lady of Peace
and Good Voyage in Antipolo, and other Marian devotions continue to attract millions of
devotees every year on their respective feast days. For them, such devotions powerfully
represent their deep trust in God who is generous and merciful amidst their plights, hopes
and desires as diasporized people.
Bahala Na theology can also be applied to the God-talk of the millions of Filipinos in
diaspora. Their theological articulation, most of the time, transpires not in the formal halls
of the theological institutions, not even in the prominent places of worship, like the
church, but almost it can be heard in their civic activities, videoke sessions; family
gatherings, and in casual conversations while waiting for their bus or queuing for the cash
register in the supermarkets. It is not a surprise that one or more of them would simply
say in the middle of the conversation, bahala na.
Bahala na is a subterranean theology, because it is shunned or seldom articulated
by people who are well-versed in official Catholic doctrines. On this ground, it has a
subversive bent that allows a transformation in the “meaning” of the venue and the form
of worship in the “belly of the Empire” 1313 as Filipinos continue to vaccinate the Western
churches with a potent dose of Filipino religiosity that can possibly become “foundations
to structural transformation.”1314 It is manifested in how Filipinos “transform” the
churches from primarily being a place of worship, to a venue for creating social and
cultural capital that “enable them to thrive spiritually, socially and economically. 1315
Betsayda cites in her book the result of two case studies in San Francisco, California
which
1313For Rieger, “Empire incorporates more complex notions of culture (including the constant tensions between
dominant and subaltern forms of culture) and because it incorporates concerns of power that commend to
our attention a closer look at other phenomena as well, not only politics but also economics, and the complex
ways in which these phenomena impact each other.” Cf. Rieger, Empire and Power, vii. Cf. also Pagden, Peoples
and Empires, 70.
1314Cf. Pilario, Back to the Rough Grounds, 45.
1315Betsayda, “Bahala Na ang Diyos,” 20-21.
226
“examine how Filipinos are bringing back social capital to the fabric of American society
through the churches they have taken over, from declining congregations, or established on
their own. It also shows how they blend Filipino cultural practices and beliefs to create new
and stronger sociocultural capital. Finally, it analyzes the transnational nature of sociocultural
capital spread globally through the Filipino diaspora.”1316
It is true, therefore, that the face of the Church in the West has been surreptitiously
transformed in many ways through the subterranean theologies of the migrant people.
These can be conceived as the “flashes in the pan” 1317 that re-direct the course of history.
They are “the collective swell of countless muffled voices”1318 or the “emergent voices”1319
that burst the hegemonic bubble. On this note, Carlo Osi had once claimed that “staying,
living and working abroad for the most part is a subconscious protest, a mini-revolt of
sorts, against the people, politicians and circumstances that ail the Philippines.” 1320 It is
a manifestation of the Filipino’s refusal to be stuck in the cycle of dehumanizing poverty
and to be swallowed up in the corrupt system of government bureaucracy. What Osi had
said in 2012 can still be considered as applicable to the present situation, except perhaps
the ones that pertain to the strength of the Philippine currency and the “actual” presence
of pork barrel funds. He sharply drove his point by saying that, despite the appreciation
of the peso vis-à-vis the US dollar, the phenomenon of millions of OFWs (overseas Filipino
workers) taking their exodus from the country, year after year, is a poignant but
subliminal message of disapproval to the “greed, corruption, tainted pork barrel funds,
patronage politics, kickback, debts of gratitude and governance inefficiency” perpetrated
by those who are in the positions of power that, undoubtedly, block any progress in the
country.1321 Seeking employment abroad is, indeed, a silent protest and, at the same time,
a powerful appeal expressed by the millions of Filipinos all over the globe, hoping for an
incremental change in their situation. From these daily experiences they harness their
everyday articulations of faith in order to resist oppression, marginalization, and
dehumanization and move towards a liberation of Filipino migrants. These articulations
resonate to Tamez’s words which we have already cited earlier:
“There is a truth here that we cannot overlook and that we, who seek a new order of life, must
embrace: the foretastes of utopia are experienced in everyday life, and it is in everyday life that
we begin to build this utopia…There is no place else. And everyday life in the private sphere is
the focal point for re-establishing a new relationship that will have its effect in the public
sphere.”1322
Because Bahala Na theology is an expression of Filipino faith, which is

pananampalataya, it is religious in character, which, according to Astley, is more deeply
earthed – close or sharing in the salvific nature of religious and spiritual life from which
it springs. With the bahala na God-talk, Filipinos in many parts of the globe are able to
hope for a brighter future, because they are convinced that everything will come to pass,
that sadness or problem is never the last word.1323
1316Betsayda, “Bahala Na ang Diyos,” 20. Cf. Joaquin L. Gonzales and Andrea Maison, “We Do Not Bowl Alone:
Social and Cultural Capital from Filipinos and Their Churches,” Asian American Religions: The Making and
Remaking of Borders and Boundaries, eds. Tony Carnes and Fenggang Yang (New York: University, 2006).
1317Bloch, French Rural History, 170.
1318de Certeau, The Mystic Fable, 105. Cited in Cueto, “Tactics of the Weak,” 244.
1320Cf. Carlo Osi, “Filipino Diaspora as a Form of Revolt,” Global Nation, January 25, 2008,
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/mindfeeds/mindfeeds/view/20080125-114815/Filipino-Diaspora-as-a-
Form-of-Revolt [accessed September 23, 2012].
1321Osi, “Filipino Diaspora.”
1322Cf. Tamez, Against Machismo, 135. Cited in Cueto, “Tactics of the Weak,” 256-257.
1323Operating on the “nasa Diyos ang awa, nasa tao ang gawa” mentality, Filipinos affirm their faith (holding
on to their rosary beads and novena booklets) as they pray to the God of mercy and of graciousness who, they
227
SAMBAYANIHAN
With the “nasa Diyos ang awa, nasa tao ang gawa” mentality of the bahala na
theology, Filipinos normally articulate their faith as they utter their prayer to the God of
mercy and of graciousness who will help them resolve their issues and overcome their
problems as long as they also do their humble part. In the face of tragedies and any other
calamities, they make sense of their faith while kneeling (and doing) and not while sitting
and contemplating their navels. In the same vein, lo cotidiano theology suggests that life
shows “us how to understand liberation and, therefore, becomes an analytic category for
understanding social practices and the processes of oppression-liberation. A theology that
tries to accompany and makes explicit the liberating aspirations of the poor and oppressed
must look here.”1324
Bahala Na theology as an embodiment of ordinary theology for the Filipinos in
diaspora also shares in its character as irregular dogmatics, since it is also strongly
influenced by the person and biography of their authors. They are articulations of
struggles and joys personally experienced by the Filipino migrants themselves. And
because Bahala Na theology is spoken in the context of concrete narrative and personal
ways of thinking, it is not articulated in detached and clear-cut conceptualizations, but
within the terrains of the rough ground of praxis, in the very day practice of life. Moreover,
it is being anchored in concrete and personal narratives. Bahala Na theology is, indeed, a
true embodiment of an on-look theology that is arising from the real experiences of the
Filipinos in diaspora directed to events, individuals and situations that are viewed as
freighted with religious meaning.
That being said, we are reminded of the notion of “free dogmatics” that Barth had
developed in his theology, which was thought of as existing prior and alongside the more
academically oriented theology. 1325 The latter, in his estimation, “always had its origin in
irregular dogmatics and could never have existed without its stimulus and co-
operation.”1326 In the same vein, Maria Pilar Aquino claims that “in the daily life of people
reside the values and categories on which social consensus is based.” 1327 This bahala na
theology articulated by the Filipino migrants, indeed, is the inspiration for this current
theological undetaking.
As a consequence of the aforementioned statements, we suggest that the “marriage”
of bahala na and ordinary theology’ provides us a new theology that not only takes into
account the condition of the Filipinos in diaspora but also lends voice to the ‘ordinary’
articulations of their faith. Bahala na theology may not get a unanimous approval from
the “experts”, but it is here to stay and will continue to exist alongside the official academic
theologies as a learned-learning, tentative, significant, meaningful, subterranean,
religious, kneeling-celebratory, irregular dogmatics, mother-tongue, and on-look theology.
II.2.2.5. Limitations of the Parallelism Between Bahala Na Theology and Ordinary

Theology
We do not claim, however, that there is a perfect parallelism between ordinary

theology and bahala na theology. We are aware that ordinary theology is properly located
in the grassroots, while our proposed bahala na theology is an academic representation
trust, will help them resolve their issues and overcome their problems as long as they also do their humble
part.
1324Aquino, “The Collective Dis-covery of our Own Power,” 257.
1325Barth, Church Dogmatics, 3.
1326Ibid.
1327Aquino, “The Collective Dis-covery of our Own Power,” 257.
228
of the ordinary theology ordinarily articulated by the ordinary diasporized Filipinos. We

are aware of the fact that, compared to ordinary theology, Bahala Na theology is leaning
towards a second-hand articulation of God-talk, which is done first-hand in the rough
ground of praxis by ordinary theology. Hence, we do not offer this brand of theology as a
replacement for ordinary theology, but as a channel or conduit that respectfully connects
the rough grounds of praxis and the systematic world of the academe.
Therefore, being more or less a second-hand articulation, it can and should always
be challenged and renewed by ordinary theology through the constant immersion or
involvement in the rough grounds of praxis by the one articulating bahala na theology. It
must always remember to base its articulation on the God “who chose what is foolish in
the world to shame the wise; [the] God [who] chose what is weak in the world to shame
the strong; [the] God who chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are
not, to reduce to nothing things that are” (1 Cor 1:27-28).
II.2.3. Finding the Place of Ordinary Bahala Na Theology in the Ambit of

Contemporary Theological Discourse
Contemporary theology, like in any period of history, is in search for new models and
metaphors that appeal to contemporary taste, temperament and language. With the
inevitable popularity of postmodern and postcolonial thinking in the contemporary world,
wherein the importance of alterity, difference, sub-alterity, and hybridity have taken the
center stage, one is challenged to formulate new theological articulations that take into
serious consideration the new questions that arise from the present pluralistic society
and, at the same time, recover elements that are essential to theology. It is indeed a
difficult undertaking, especially because ‘essential elements’ are not easily identifiable
anymore considering the fact that traditional doctrines are also put into question by
contemporary experience of life.
Our humble response to this concern, considering the underrated involvement of
Filipino theologians in the present global theological discourse and the remarkable but
often taken for granted presence of Filipino migrants who are taking over the abandoned
churches in the West, has been to retrieve the treasures embedded in the Filipino notion
of loob-kapwa, which we believe embodies the foundational basis of the theology of bahala
na. Loob-kapwa, in our assessment, bears some semblance to Marcel’s understanding of
I-thou relationship and to Ludwig Binswanger’s phenomenology of love. We believe,
however, that upon closer examination, this loob-kapwa which serves as the foundational
concept of bahala na theology goes beyond Marcel and Binswanger by bringing us back
to the organic union between the I and the thou that, unfortunately had been shattered
by Modernity.
Within this topography, we have proposed to present a rendition of theology that
takes into account the conditions of Filipino diaspora and articulates the unique
expression of Filipino faith (pananampalataya). We call this Bahala Na theology: an
“ordinary theology” for the Filipinos in diaspora. With this undertaking, we have tried to
provide a typically Filipino avenue for theological exploration, especially in terms of
understanding the unique faith of the Filipino people who, in the present time, fill the
empty churches1328 abandoned by the previous occupants in the belly of the Empire. At
1328Cf. Gonzales and Maison, “We do not Bowl Alone,” 21-38.
229
SAMBAYANIHAN
this point, we would like to note that Epifanio San Juan, Jr. refers to the situation of the
diasporic Filipinos in the United States of America as being in the “Belly of the Beast.” 1329
We purposely have used the word “Empire”, however, in place of the word “Beast”,
because we are using this expression in the light of Jeorg Rieger’s concept of Empire.
Rieger suggests that “Empire, in sum, has to do with massive concentrations of power
that permeate all aspects of life that cannot be controlled by any one actor alone… Empire
seeks to extend its control as far as possible; not only geographically, politically, and
economically – these factors are commonly recognized – but also intellectually,
emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, culturally, and religiously.” 1330 Combining the
two terminologies, San Juan’s “belly” and Rieger’s “Empire”, we believe makes the
condition of the Filipino migrants in the powerful countries of destination more nuanced
and less “evil” than the grim picture that is being painted by San Juan, of course, without
an oversight of the serious problems that are entrenched in their migrant status. As they
find themselves existing precariously in the midst of the contemporary centers of economic
and political powers, they also find a fertile ground for creating a positive spiritual impact
in their host countries. Undeniably, this phenomenon in the churches of the West (and in
other countries) continue to affect the life of the whole Church, which also, in return, re-
shapes Filipino religiosity vis-à-vis the challenge of globalization and migration.
II.2.3.1. Is Pope Francis an “Ordinary Theologian”? An Exploration on the Similarities and

Differences between the Latin American Understanding of “Theology of the People” and
Bahala Na Ordinary Theology
The present pope, Francis, who before his election as a successor of Peter was known
as Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina, sets himself apart from the previous popes
because of his very pastoral approach in leading the flock entrusted to his care and in
delivering his messages. Certainly, his training both in science and in theology makes him
one of the academic theologians of our time. Despite his training, however, he can be
considered as an “honorary ordinary theologian” because of his down-to-earth teachings
(i.e., his daily homilies at Casa Santa Martha, Apostolic Exhortations and Encyclicals)
which steer away from highly academic discourses but rather try to meet the people in the
level that they are in. As an ally of ordinary theology, he is, as a matter of fact, advocating
for genuine recognition of the sensus populum or what is understood in his home-country
as “Theology of the People.”1331
When one examines his Evangelii Gaudium, it is not difficult to discern the common
themes and even his recommendations to pursue a kind theology that resembles ordinary
theology. For example, he exhorts his readers to follow the way of Ignatian contemplation,
that is finding God in all things (i.e., to read situations, to look for the people, places and
trends where God is present). Francis, in this pastoral exhortation, strongly suggests a
return to the basic knowledge and experience of the people in the Church’s programs for
evangelization and catechesis to facilitate people’s understanding of their faith, instead of
being stuck in the highly sophisticated theological categorizations that only doctrinaires
can decipher. In this regard, he urges catechists/evangelizers to help people understand
1329Cf. Epifanio. San Juan, Jr., Toward Filipino Self-Determination: Beyond Transnational Globalization
(Albany, NY: SUNY, 2009), loc. 267.
1330Cf. Rieger, Christ and Empire, 2-3.
1331Cf. Luciani, Pope Francis and the Theology of the People.
230
the Church teachings, as they continue to seek “new avenues and new paths of creativity,”
in light of God who has revealed Godself as loving and faithful.1332
In the area of homiletics, he strongly underlines that a homily is a ministry of utmost
importance in the life of the Church; hence, must be taken seriously. 1333 It has to be
concise, and must not resemble an erudite speech, or academic lecture,1334 but instead, a
heart-to-heart communication that avoids any air of moralism or “doctrinaire
preaching.”1335 On top of all these, he emphasizes that preaching must never be trapped
in any negativity but rather allow positivity to be the prevailing spirit 1336 – approachable,
ready for dialogue, patient, warm and welcoming… never judgmental.1337
He stresses that, an evangelizer must never feel superior, or set apart from those
he/she ministers to. One must not resort to analyzing and classifying others 1338 that
impede the Church’s effort to gather the lost, the last and the lonely into the loving and
forgiving embrace of God. He also warns the faithful against those who are rabidly fixated
on the so-called “right liturgy”, “right doctrine”, and “right image of Church” that eclipse
or corrupt the real ministry of the Church, which is to make the love of God palpable in
the here and now.1339
Another feature of this written work that, in our opinion, is related to ‘ordinary
theology’ is Francis’ take on the theme of inculturation where he remarks that there is no
monolithic cultural expression of the faith that originates from a Church that, admittedly,
possesses a variety of faces.1340 It follows, therefore, that people cannot be forced to imitate
“expression which European nations developed at a particular moment of their
history.”1341 Pope Francis stresses the invaluable and active evangelizing power of popular
piety that must never be left untapped1342 and discourages desk-bound theologizing.1343
In his address to the International Theological Commission on 5 December 2014, he
underscored “the importance of listening… to ‘what the Spirit says to the churches’ (Rev.
2:7), through the various manifestations of the faith lived by the People of God.”1344 This
view, certainly, does not deviate from the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, which
Francis underlined by using the following words: “Indeed, together with the Christian
people as a whole, the theologian opens his/her eyes and ears to the ‘signs of the times.’
He/she is called to ‘hear, distinguish and interpret the many voices of our age, and to
judge them in the light of the divine word’ – it is the Word of God that judges – ‘so that
revealed truth can always be more deeply penetrated, better understood and set forth to
1332Pope Francis, “Evangelii Gaudium (EG): Apostolic Exhortation on the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today’s
World” (November 24, 2013), no. 11,
https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-
ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html [accessed February 17, 2016].
1333Ibid., no. 135.
1334Ibid., no. 138.
1335Ibid., no. 142.
1336Ibid., no. 159.
1337Ibid., no. 165.
1338Ibid., no. 94.
1339Ibid., no. 97.
1340Ibid., no. 116.
1341Ibid., no. 118.
1342Ibid., no. 126.
1343Ibid., no. 133.
1344Pope Francis, “Address of his Holiness Pope Francis to the Members of the International Theological
Commission,” December 5, 2014,

https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/december/documents/papa-
francesco_20141205_commissione-teologica-internazionale.html [accessed February 17, 2016].
231
SAMBAYANIHAN
greater advantage.”1345 In this speech he understood diversity, which does not undermine
unity, as essential part of catholicity. Unity amidst plurality is guaranteed, according to
him, by “common reference to one faith in Christ and is nourished by the diversity of the
Holy Spirit’s gifts” wherein mutual enrichment and corrections are healthily fostered in
any theological dialogue.1346
Pope Francis’ “theological-pastoral option” can be clearly traced back to his Latin
American theological upbringing, which is embodied by “theology of the people” 1347 (or
interchangeably known as “theology of culture”).1348 This theology is developed by Lucio
Gera and Rafael Tello, which became the unique brand of Argentinian theology beginning
in 1969 to dissociate itself from the Marxist approach of Latin American liberation theology
that relied heavily on social and economic analysis.1349 In a book review on Walter Cardinal
Kasper’s A Poor Church for the Poor – Pope Francis Theological Roots, Hellenbroich quoted
Kaspers that Gera’s theology of the people “is not guided by the idea of class struggle but
by the idea of harmony, peace and reconciliation.”1350 This approach that is assumed by
Pope Francis, therefore, tries to view things in a holistic manner wherein any attempt to
view the different facets of ecclesial life as disparate and mutually exclusive, a “separation
[that] provokes a dysfunctional relationship between the academic world and the reality
of the poor”, is shunned.1351 This way of theologizing, as conceived by Gera and adapted
by Pope Francis, “does not advocate changing social and political structures just for the
sake of change; rather, it seeks to discern the mission and identity of the church on the
basis of its option of the poor. Such an option fosters sociopolitical dialogue and promotes
pastoral ministry inspired by the ideal of social justice to be found concretely in the
‘faithful people.’”1352 Within this framework, Pope Francis, as he had already articulated
during the assembly of the Society of Jesus in 1974, denounces, useless confrontations
between the hierarchy and laity, the futile squabbles between the so-called progressives
and conservatives that divides the church and accords “more importance to the parts than
to the whole.”1353 Consistent to this view, he underlined in his address to the Civil Society
– Asunción in Paraguay on 11 July 2015 his concept of genuine dialogue:
“This is the culture of encounter. Dialogue is not about negotiating. Negotiating is trying to get
your own slice of the cake. To see if I can get my own way. If you go with this intention, don’t
dialogue, don’t waste your time. Dialogue is about seeking the common good. Discuss, think,
and discover together a better solution for everybody. Many times this culture of encounter can
involve conflict…During dialogue there is conflict. This is logical and even desirable. Because
is I think in one way and you in another way and we walk together, there will be conflict. But
1345Pope Francis, “Address of his Holiness Pope Francis.” Cf. Austin Flannery, O.P.; ed., “Apostolic
Constitution,” in Gaudium et Spes, Vatican Council II: More Conciliar Documents (Northport, N.Y.: Costello,
1975), n. 44.
1346Gaudium et Spes, no. 44.
1347Cf. Lucio Gera, “The Meaning of the Christian Message in the Context of Poverty and Oppression,” Latin
American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) 1964, Petropolis, Brazil. Elisabeth Hellenbroich, “A Poor Church for
the Poor, Pope Francis Theological Roots,” Frontiere, May 8, 2015, www.frontiere.info/a-poor-church-for-the-
poor-popefrancis-theological-roots/ [accessed February 17, 2016].
1348Rafael Luciani and Félix Palazzi, “The Latin American Origins of Pope Francis’ Theology,” America: The
National Catholic Review, February 1, 2016, www.americamagazine.org/issue/rooted-vision [accessed

February 17, 2016].
1349Cf. Gera, “The Meaning of the Christian Message.”
1350Elisabeth Hellenbroich, “A Poor Church for the Poor, Pope Francis Theological Roots,” Frontiere, May 8,
2015, www.frontiere.info/a-poor-church-for-the-poor-popefrancis-theological-roots/ [accessed February 17,

2016].
1351Pope Francis, “Address of his Holiness Pope Francis to the Members of the International Theological
Commission”. Cf. Lucio Gera, “The Meaning of the Christian Message.”

1352Gera, “The Meaning of the Christian Message.”
1353Ibid.
232
we mustn’t fear it, we mustn’t ignore it. On the contrary, we are invited to embrace conflict…
This means that we have to ‘face conflict head on, to resolve it and to make it a link in the chain
of new process’ [Pope Francis, “Evangelii Gaudium,” 227]. Let us dialogue. Where there is
conflict, I embrace it, I transform it and it is a necessary element of a new process. It is a
beginning that will help us greatly. ‘Unity is greater than conflict’ (ibid, 228). Conflict exists: we
have to embrace it, we have to try and resolve it as far as possible, but with the intention of
that unity which is not uniformity, but rather a unity in diversity. A unity which does not cancel
differences, but experiences them in communion through solidarity and understanding. By
trying to understand the thinking of others, their experiences, their hopes, we can see more
clearly our shared aspirations. This is the basis of encounter: all of us are brothers and sisters,
children of the same heavenly Father, and each of us, with our respective cultures, languages,
has much to contribute to the community.”1354
In the same breath, he exhorted the Church, when he spoke to the people of Paraguay
during his visit in July 2015, to “[become] inserted and incarnated in the experience of
the common people and discerning the shape of the church’s liberating, salvific action
from the perspective of the people and their concerns,” and, therefore, avoid any lopsided
ideologies that “will be of no help at all… since they do not start with the people, have an
incomplete, unhealthy, or harmful relationship with the people.”1355 In Quito, Pope Francis
urged the people to avoid building an elitist church, rather, he encouraged the faithful to
immerse themselves directly in actual reality by calling on them “to opt for the poor” while
they “resist the temptations of one-sided proposals that tend toward ideology, despotism
and sectarianism.”1356
In the mind of Pope Francis, this theology finds its most vivid manifestation in our
“option for the poor”, option for the common people in the fringes of society who express
their simple yet profound faith by way of “popular religiosity,” which Pope Francis prefers
to call as “popular spirituality.”1357 This option, according to Pope Francis, recognizes
profoundly the fact that “each people is the creator of their own culture and the
protagonist of their own history”1358. Hence, it entails avoiding the tendency to see people
as one monolithic block without unique individual life and history. On this note, this
successor of Peter stresses that “the genius of each people receives in its own way the
entire Gospel and embodies it in expression of prayer, fraternity, justice, struggle and
celebration.”1359 This, therefore, brings to mind, Luciani and Palazzi, lay theologians from
Venezuela, who contend that
“The religious mystique that springs from the popular culture is the hermeneutical locus par
excellence, which makes it possible to overcome the barriers separating popular from academic
theology, or the faith of the poor, who live in the midst of vicissitudes of everyday life, from the
ecclesiastical institution and its official liturgy. It makes possible, moreover, to understand that
the evangelization of cultures proceeds by way inserting oneself – both personally and
institutionally – into the life world of those on the margins and working for the integral liberation
1354Cf. Pope Francis, “Pope Francis in Paraguay: Address to Civil Society, Salt and Light Media, July 11, 2015,
http://saltandlighttv.org/blogfeed/getpost.php?id=64590&language=en [accessed February 17, 2016].
1355Cf. Luciani and Palazzi, “The Latin American Origins.”
1356Pope Francis, “Homily of the Holy Father,” July 7, 2015, Parque Bicentenario, Quito, Ecuador, during the
Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope Francis to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay, 5-13 July 2015,
https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2015/documents/papa-
francesco_20150707_ecuador-omelia-bicentenario.html [accessed February 17, 2016].
1357Cf. Rafael Luciani and Félix Palazzi, “Pope Francis’ Theology Begins with the People’s Faith,” America: The
National Catholic Review, April 25, 2016, www. Americanmagazine.org/issue/popular-voice [accessed June 5,
2016].
1358EG, no. 122.
1359EG, no. 237.
233
SAMBAYANIHAN
of all in this globalized world. It means expanding our relationships and moving out of our
comfort zone.”1360
In the 2013 Apostolic Exhortation, the meaning of the phrase, “moving out of the
comfort zone,” was made very clear by Pope Francis who said: “I prefer a Church which is
bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church
which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security” (EG, 49). 1361
In the same vein, he firmly stated in Laudato Si that “Theological and philosophical
reflections on the situation of humanity and the world can sound tiresome and abstract
unless they are grounded in a fresh analysis of our present situation, which is in many
way unprecedented in the history of humanity” (Laudato Si,17).1362 Hence, it definitely
shuns any form of “abstract spiritualism” but, instead, it promotes due recognition of
“popular spirituality.”
We have to clarify, however, that Pope Francis’ theological perspective is nowhere
close to ‘populism’. Instead, it can be properly referred to as “popular,” in a sense that it
tries to meet people in their actual lived experience. According to Juan Carlos Scannone,
this “people” (pueblo) are “those who share a way of life and political project, both of which
are sustained by an ethics aimed at seeking the common good.”1363 Furthermore, this
“people”, according to Luciani and Palazzi, is understood by Pope Francis in three
intertwining levels: “people-as-poor (socio-economic), people-as-nation (political) and
people-as-faithful (religious), which “constitute sacred place where God makes himself
present.”1364 On the same tenor, Pope Francis underlined in his address in Bolivia on 9
July 2015 that “the way we listen to God our Father is how we should listen to the faithful
people.”1365 It is imperative that we listen to the faithful people, according to Pope Francis,
because “The faithful express the faith in their own language, and they show their deepest
feelings of sadness, uncertainty, joy, failure, and thanksgiving in various devotions:
processions, votive lights, flowers, and hymns. All of these are beautiful expressions of
their faith in the Lord and their love for his Mother, who is also our Mother.”1366
Now, with everything that we have explained above, we can say that, indeed, there
is a congruence between Pope Francis’ theology of the people and Jeff Astley’s ordinary
theology. In our analysis, we think that latter’s proposal provides the descriptive
1360Luciani and Palazzi, “The Latin American Origins.”. See also Juan Carlos Scannone, S.J., “Pope Francis
and the Theology of the People,” Iglesia Descalza: A Voice from the Margins of the Catholic Church, August
2014.
1361The remaining paragraph states: “I do not want a Church concerned with being at the centre and which
then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures. If something should rightly disturb us
and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the
strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ, without a community of faith to support
them, without meaning and a goal in life. More than by fear of going astray, my hope is that we will be moved
by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which
make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving and Jesus
does not tire of saying to us: “Give them something to eat” (Mk 6:37).” Cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 49.
1362Pope Francis, “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home,” Encyclical, Vatican website (2015), 17,
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-
laudato-si.html [accessed February, 16, 2016].
1363Scannone, “Pope Francis and the Theology of the People.
1364Rafael Luciani and Félix Palazzi, “The Latin American Origins of Pope Francis’ Theology, Part 2,” America:
The National Catholic Review, November 13, 2015 [accessed February 17, 2016].
1365Pope Francis, “Meeting with Clergy, Religious and Seminarians,” July 9, 2015, Santa Cruz, Bolivia,
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/07/09/pope_francis_discourse_to_clergy_and_religious_of_bolivia/1
157289 [accessed February 17, 2016].
1366Pope Francis, “Address of the Holy Father: Meeting with Clergy, Religious and Seminarians,” July 8, 2015,
Quito, Ecuador. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/july/documents/papa-

francesco_20150708_ecuador-religiosi.html [accessed February 17, 2016].
234
articulation of the theological framework espoused by Pope Francis, which he learned from
his mentor, Lucio Gera. These two (i.e., theology of the people and ordinary theology),
based on our assessment, find a concrete expression in the bahala na that most Filipinos,
migrants and otherwise, articulate as they live their faith every day, simple yet profound,
amidst trials and uncertainties as they continue to value the prominent place of liturgy
and popular religiosity in their religious life.
Given all these, where do we situate bahala na in the ambit of official teaching of the
Church? Does it hold water? Or this proposal is just a futile academic exercise?
Both Pope Francis and Jeff Astley argue that the religious sensitivities/sensibilities
and articulations of the ordinary people must be taken seriously as they are also part of
what we understand as the sensus fidei.1367 Although the expression sensus fidei as such
did not appear either in the Scriptures and the Vatican II documents, Vatican II’s
emphasis on the active participation of all the faithful in the life of the Church (Lumen
Gentium 35 & 84 and Dei Verbum 8 ) provides a foundation for the doctrine of sensus fidei.
Sensus fidei, however, is nothing like a democratic majority. It must not be construed as
purely the voice of the lay people, because it is “the capacity of individual believers and of
the Church as a whole to discern the truth of faith,”1368 meaning, it is not about placing
the laity on the one side as representing the sense of the faithful and the hierarchy as the
Magisterium on the other side. This involves the ‘sense’ of all those belonging to the whole
Church.
Thus, both theology of the people and ordinary theology, and consequently bahala
na, have a place in the doctrine of sensus fidei. The God-talk of the laity, the ordinary
faithful or the pueblo, according to the document released by the International Theological
Commission in 2014, must be respectfully and carefully listened to for “not only do they
have the right to be heard, but their reaction to what is proposed as belonging to the faith
of the Apostles must be taken very seriously, because it is by the Church as a whole that
the apostolic faith is borne in the power of the Spirit.”1369 Specifically, the ITC demands
that those who are given by the Church the authority to teach must pay close attention to
what ordinary believers experience in their respective cultural settings.1370 Certainly, the
role of the Magisterium (i.e., pope and the bishops who are also part of the sensus fidelium)
is to cultivate but at the same time critically evaluate the sensus fidelium (i.e. “Church’s
own instinct of faith”)1371, whose connection is found particularly in the liturgy.1372
1367According to the International Commission’s “Sensus Fidei in the life of the Church” “The phrase, sensus
fidei, is found neither in the Scriptures nor in the formal teaching of the Church until Vatican II. However,
the idea that the Church as a whole is infallible in her belief, since she is the body and bride of Christ (cf.
1Cor 12:27; Eph 4:12; 5:21-32; Rev 21:9), and that all of her members have an anointing that teaches them
(cf. 1Jn 2:20, 27), being endowed with the Spirit of truth (cf. Jn 16:13), is everywhere apparent from the very
beginnings of Christianity.” (no.7). The ITC distinguishes the two intimately linked realities of sensus fidei:
“On the one hand, the sensus fidei refers to the personal capacity of the believer, within the communion of
the Church, to discern the truth of faith. On the other hand, the sensus fidei refers to the communal and
ecclesial reality: the instinct of the Church herself, by which she recognizes her Lord and proclaims his word.”
International Theological Commission (ITC), Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church, 2014: no.3,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20140610_sensus-
fidei_en.html [accessed February 17, 2016].
1368Cf. Cindy Wooden, “Vatican Theologians: don’t Confuse Sensus Fidelium with Majority Opinion,” Catholic
Herald, June? 23 2014, http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/06/23/dont-confuse-sensus-fidelium-

with-majority-opinion-of-the-faithful-say-vatican-theologians/ [accessed February 17, 2016].
1369ITC, Sensus Fidei, no. 76.
1370Ibid., no. 59.
1371Ibid., no. 3.
1372Ibid., no. 75. In paragraph 76 and 77 of the document, the ITC states that: “Being responsible ensuring
the fidelity of the Church as a whole to the word of God, and for keeping the people of God faithful to the
Gospel, the magisterium is responsible for nurturing and educating the sensus fidelium…The magisterium
235
SAMBAYANIHAN
Considering the fact that solely the magisterium, according to Newman, 1373 enjoys
the power of Ecclesia docens, however, we ask how much time and effort is really given to
the “attentive listening to the sensus fidelium, knowing that the magisterium is also part
of the sensus fidelium? Is there really a genuine dialogue that takes place, or is it just
mostly a monologue? How loud is the voice of the magisterium compared to the voice of
the ordinary faithful? How much of the real articulations of the “ordinary theologians” are
factored in? Well, we can only surmise. Although, the commission argues that “The voices
of the lay people are heard much more frequently now in the Church, sometimes with
conservative and sometimes with progressive positions, but generally participating
constructively in the life and mission of the Church.”1374 But, then again, we ask how
much of this voice come from the ordinary faithful as compared to the academically
trained theologians is taken into account? Who has a stronger voice? Also, we can only
wish that the magisterium will be more attentive to the voice of the ordinary faithful,
because the more attentive they are to their articulations the more we discover how rich
the deposit of faith is and the deeper and wider our understanding of our faith is. When
we start paying close attention to the “theology of the ordinary people, appreciating and
factoring in the validity of their expressions, the closer we get to the core of our catholic
faith as the People of God.
Nevertheless, we have to keep in mind that when we talk about sensus fidelium we
should not confuse faith with opinion. According to the ITC, “Opinion is often just an
expression, frequently changeable and transient, of the mood or desire of a certain group
or culture, whereas faith is the echo of the one Gospel which is valid for all places and
times.”1375 It is true, but we also have to be very careful not to take faith, being an echo
with universal and timeless validity, as something disembodied or as a thing-in-itself that
exists outside particular cultural expressions. Faith does not exist in a vacuum. Faith is
always articulated in a particular language and expressed in a particular culture. Every
articulation and expression of faith bears its own unique characteristics and qualities. It
is always expressed in a context. But, certainly, a context is never isolated from its wider
contexts and other contextual realities. It is also situated in a constellation or multiple
constellations of contexts, which may affirm or negate its validity.
We just find it curious that the said document immediately stresses, after citing the
difference between opinion and faith, that “In history of the people of God, it has often
been not the majority but rather a minority which has truly lived and witnessed to the
faith”.1376 We agree that majority’s voice is not always right, but we also have to
understand that a lot of these voices are either deliberately muted or unwittingly ignored,
especially when it comes to recognizing the actual people who embody or incarnate
genuine faith. We are not saying that the commission is trying to undermine the weight of
the voice of the majority by equating it to public opinion. 1377 We are suggesting, however,
also judges with authority whether opinions which are present among the people God, and which may seem
to be the sensus fidelium actually corresponds to the truth of the Tradition received from the Apostles. As
Newman said: ‘the gift of discerning, discriminating, defining, promulgating, and enforcing any portion of the
tradition resides solely in the Ecclesia docens’. Thus, judgment regarding the authenticity of the sensus
fidelium belongs ultimately not to the faithful themselves nor to theology but to the magisterium.”
1373Cf. John Henry Newman, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, ed. John Coulson (Maryland,
Rowman and Littlefield, 1961), 63. Cf. also ITC, Sensus Fidei, no. 77.
1374Ibid., no. 116.
1375Ibid., no. 118.
1376Ibid., no. 77.
1377As a matter of fact, the commission underlined several ways of consulting the faith in paragraphs 120-
126. The ITC states that “all the faithful ‘have the right, indeed at times the duty, in keeping with their
236
that we should also start, having been affirmed by the commission itself, looking at the
majority with a fresh eye. Instead of just saying that “It is therefore particularly important
to discern and listen to the voices of the ‘little ones who believe’ (Mk 9:42)1378, we can start
looking at these “little ones who believe” as the people who do not belong to the hierarchy,
the magisterium and the academic institutions, who comprise the majority of the People
of God. We need to see more concretely in the parishes and in the dioceses, and not only
in theory, that indeed the ordinary faithful are consulted and are given the chance to air
their side. We need to accept that, although not always, “vox populi; vox Dei” is indeed
true. We need to be less fearful or suspicious of the majority who also live their faith in
the way they deem fitting or in keeping with the Christian tradition, without necessarily
being lax or undiscerning but rather by really taking time to listen to them no matter how
simple or complex, orthodox or less orthodox their articulations or expressions are. There
is always something that we can learn from them, whether supporting or questioning our
position, which can also be diverse but in one way or another related to the whole. We
need to enter into a genuine dialogue of faith and be ready to be surprised and to be
changed by the dialogue itself – though not necessarily to swallow everything hook-line-
and-sinker. Luciani and Palazzi, explaining the necessary “process of pastoral conversion”
as highlighted by Pope Francis in his meeting with the CELAM on 28 July 2013 in Rio de
Janeiro, contends that “there must be a decentralization of the church’s decision-making
power and a reduction of the functionalism characteristic of centralized, authoritarian
structures… the ‘complex of the elect’… Such theology holds that God separates a person
from the world in order to make the person superior to other members of the church.” 1379
“For truly,” as it is affirmed by the ITC, “it is the whole people of God, which, in its inner
unity, confesses and lives true faith”.1380 Of course, this requires maintaining a delicate
balance between the part of the lay faithful and the role of the Magisterium, which is easier
said than done. Nevertheless, the structure is already there, we only need to make it more
of a tangible reality than an awe-inspiring ideal or a wonderful but impalpable theory.
At this point, we need to clarify that sensus fidei, as explained by the ITC’s document,
cannot be equated to theology.1381 The former, properly understood, is “a foundation and
a locus of the work” of theology.1382 Theology articulates, with careful discernment, what
knowledge, competence and position, to manifest to the sacred Pastors their views on matters which concern
the good of the Church…Accordingly, the faithful, and specifically the lay people, should be treated by the
Church’s pastors with respect and considerations, and consulted in an appropriate way for the good of the
Church. ITC, Sensus Fidei, no. 120.” Moreover, this body clarifies that “The word ‘consult’ includes the idea
of seeking a judgment or advice as well as inquiring into a matter of fact. On the one hand, in matters of
governance and pastoral issues, the pastors of the Church can and should consult the faithful in certain cases
in the sense of asking for advice or their judgment. On the other hand, when the magisterium is defining a
doctrine, it is appropriate to consult the faithful in the sense of inquiring into a matter of fact, ‘because the
body of the faithful is one of the witnesses to the fact of the tradition of revealed doctrine, and because their
consensus through Christendom is the voice of the Infallible Church’” Ibid., no. 121. Cf. also Newman, On
Consulting the Faithful, 54-55, 63.
1379Rafael Luciani and Felix Palazzi, “The Latin American origins of Pope Francis’ Theology, Part 3,” America:
The National Catholic Review, November 19, 2015, www.americamagazine/issu/call-coversion-o [accessed

February 17, 2016].
1381Ibid., no. 81.
1382According to the ITC document, “The latter is not just an object of attention for theologians…On the one
hand, theologians depend on sensus fidei because the faith they study and articulate lives in the people of
God. In this sense, theology must place itself in the school of the sensus fidelium so as to discover there the
profound resonances of the word of God. On the other hand, theologians help the faithful to express the
authentic sensus fidelium by reminding them of the essential lines of faith, and helping them to avoid
deviations and confusion caused by the influence of imaginative elements from elsewhere.” Ibid.
237
SAMBAYANIHAN
the sensus fidelium expresses, lives and gives witness to.1383 The sensus fidelium, on its
part, “both gives rise to the and recognizes the authenticity of the symbolic or mystical
language often found in the liturgy and in popular religiosity”.1384 What comes after this
statement is of particular importance to us who may have been tempted to stay in our
theological ivory towers, because the document underlines that “Aware of the
manifestations of popular religiosity, the theologian needs actually to participate in the
life and liturgy of the local church, so as to be able to grasp in a deep way, not only with
the head but also with the heart, the real context, historical and cultural, within the
Church and her members are striving to live their faith and bear witness to Christ in the
word of today”.1385 This is truly in line with the mind of Pope Francis who, in espousing
theology of the people, exhorts the faithful to move away from a “depersonalized”
theology.1386
It is in this understanding where we situate our proposal to recognize bahala na, in
the context of Filipino diaspora, as an articulation of a “theology of the people” as described
by Astley’s “ordinary theology.” Thus, what we have gathered from paying close attention
to and careful investigation of the narratives of the Filipino diasporic communities is
brought more explicitly in this endeavor and given a name of bahala na ordinary theology
so that they may also start regarding themselves as theologians in their own little ways
who contribute to the good of the life of the Church. Together with Pope Francis and Jeff
Astley, we join our voice in making more room for “theology of the people” or “ordinary
theology”, which we believe is embodied in bahala na, to enrich and also to challenge the
current theological landscape.1387
It interesting to note at this point that there is an article published under the Journal
of Adult Theological Education which is an exploration on “how theological educators
should respond to ordinary Christology as well as ordinary soteriology … how to respond
to beliefs in Jesus that do not conform to the canons of official orthodoxy and proceeds to
argue for the functional Christology of ordinary believers to be given a say in defining
orthodoxy and enlarging normativity.”1388 Ordinary Christology, we believe, can help us
understand in a more nuanced matter how bahala na fits into the category of ordinary
theology.
Regarding the issue of methodology that is proper to ‘ordinary theology’ or ‘theology
of the people’, there is an article entitled “The Wider Church can Learn from Latin America”
that was published under the National Catholic Reporter on 3 January 2017 that
mentioned that
“A large percentage of the analysis and pastoral recommendation of the latest CELAM in
Aparecida, Brazil, are clearly reflected in Francis’ apostolic letter, Evangelii Gaudium, a
blueprint for a renewed, dynamic universal church. What is being suggested is not a dogmatic
1383This ITC document explains that “Theology should strive to detect the word which is growing like a seed
in the earth that lives of the people of God, and, having determined that a particular accent, desire or attitude
does indeed come from the Spirit, and so corresponds to the sensus fidelium, it should integrate it into its
research.” ITC, Sensus Fidei, no. 82.
1384Ibid., no. 82.
1385Ibid.
1386EG., no. 75.
1387For more discussions on “Ordinary Theology”, which we believe is similar to what Pope Francis refers to
as “Theology of the People,” we recommend reading the book Exploring Ordinary Theology: Everyday Christian
Believing and the Church where a collection of theological, analytical, methodological and empirical studies
was presented from various authors. Cf. Jeff Astley and Leslie Francis, eds., Exploring Ordinary Theology:
Everyday Christian Believing and the Church (England: Ashgate, 2013).
1388Cf. Ann Christie, “Responding to Ordinary Theology: Issues and Challenges for Theological Education,”
Journal of Adult Theological Education 10, no. 1(2013): 38-49.
238
application of the latest Latin American “revision of life” to the universal church, but rather a
sharing of that dynamic…The hope is that the rest of the universal church might enter into the
dynamic of reflection and action, while researching the church’s wealth of teachings and
documentation to come up with new theological and pastoral perspectives that respond better
to the reality of modern-day life…There is a second important aspect of the Latin American
process that is implicated for use in the universal church, the process of theology. It is more of
a process than a defined or fixed pronouncement or authoritative dogma. It is what Francis and
the Argentinian church call the “theology of the people.” It is akin to what Vatican II called the
theology of the, people of God…This second aspect is closely related to and forms an integral
part of the methodology of “revision of life.” The essence of this second aspect refers to who the
participants are and how the theological process is carried out. It is characterized by its
grassroots or upward thrust, as opposed to a more authoritative or top-down approach. It is
the people of God sitting in reflection on their lives and on the Scriptures and church teachings
and coming up with new theological perspectives by which to conduct their lives… There is an
effort to be inclusive rather than exclusive, to be more compassionate rather than judgmental.
This is accomplished through a fresh study and understanding of sacred Scripture.”1389
In his most recent visit to Colombia, Pope Francis made an emphasis on his talk to
the Executive Committee of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) that “the
Church cannot be led by a clerical caste.”1390 In the same breath, referring to the mission
of the Church in Latin America, he stressed that
“The Gospel, then, cannot be reduced to a program at the service of a trendy Gnosticism, a
project of social improvement or the Church, conceived as a comfortable bureaucracy, any more
than she can be reduced to an organization run according to modern business models of a
clerical caste…We cannot let ourselves be paralyzed by our air-conditioned offices, our statistics
and our strategies. We have to speak to men and women in their concrete situations; we cannot
avert our gaze from them. The mission is carried out by one-to-one contact.”1391
Likewise, speaking about the presence of various races and the importance of the
“ordinary people” (i.e., youth, laity and women) in the context of Latin America, he pointed
out that
“The Church is not present in Latin America with her suitcases in hand, ready, like so many
others over time, to abandon it after having plundered it. Such people look with a sense of
superiority and scorn on its mestizo face; they want to colonize its soul with the same failed
and recycled vision of man and life; they repeat the same old recipes that killed the patient
while lining the pockets of the doctors... Please do not let them be reduced to servants of our
ingrained clericalism. For they are on the front lines of the Latin American Church.”1392
He, then, concluded his speech by underlining that the bishops must not “lose touch
with their people and with the popular religiosity on the continent.”1393
In this framework, bahala na, which is profoundly expressed in the popular
religiosity of the Filipino diasporic communities, finds hospitable place in the papacy of
Pope Francis, especially because, according to Scannone in his article “Pope Francis and
the Theology of the People”,
“Evangelii Gaudium also converges with the Theology of the People when it relates to popular
piety with the other key elements for both such as the inculturation of the Gospel (EG 68, 69,
70) and ‘the neediest’ and their ‘social advancement’ (EG 70). Both distinguish it, clearly from
‘Christianity made up of devotions reflecting an individual and sentimental faith life’ (ibid.)
without denying, nonetheless, the need for an ulterior ‘purification and growth’ of that
1389Emmet Farrell, “The Wider Church can Learn from Latin America,” National Catholic Reporter, 3 January
2017, https://www.ncronline.org/news/world/wider-church-can-learn-latin-america [accessed July 14,
2017].
1390Pope Francis, “Pope to CELAM: The Church Cannot be Led by Clerical State,” Rome Reports,
http://www.romereports.com/en/2017/09/08/pope-to-celam-the-church-cannot-be-led-by-a-clerical-
caste/ [accessed 9 September 2017].
1391Pope Francis, “Pope to CELAM.”
1392Ibid.
1393Ibid.
239
SAMBAYANIHAN
religiosity, for which ‘popular piety is precisely the best starting point’ (EG 69), as the
exhortation itself proposes.”1394
On the basis of what we have discussed so far, we realize that what “theology of the
people” or “ordinary theology” is advocating agrees on some point with the proposal of Ian
Fraser, an member of the Iona community, to “reinvent theology as people’s work”.1395 He
contends that we are entering a “new era in theology”1396 wherein “Theology for living
cannot be got from books”1397 and “In much of the world church, the membership is no
longer leaving theology to ‘theologians’ but hammering it out at while heat in the fire of
experience, tempering it as weaponry for fights of life.”1398 This theological worldview,
something that may not sit well together with Newman’s understanding of the role of the
Catholic Magisterium, insists that “No longer is scholarly caste given the last word in
judging what is of worth in the field of theology – how can those sort out wheat from chaff
who have never ploughed a field? Scholars can have a part in the whole work. They are
no longer allowed to cornet the theology market.”1399 Clearly, this pushes the envelope,
and this is, indeed, not easily digestible if we operate within the framework of the Catholic
sensus fidei wherein the Magisterium, as we have already discussed above, solely
possesses the Ecclesia docens, meaning the faithful themselves do not have the final say
or judgment regarding what to and what not to believe in or what is authentic faith or not,
what is orthodox or unorthodox. Understanding theology as a “commonwealth”, Fraser
argues that “no one part of the world church has the right to lay down the norms by which
theology must now be developed and evaluated.”1400 Nonetheless, he balances this view by
asserting that “part of specialist’s responsibility [is] to challenge populist theology which
may produce a misshapen faith,”1401 because he does not deny that our history teaches
us that the Christian community has, indeed, the propensity to distort the Gospel. This
is where he situates the role of the scholars who, being immersed in the real hustle and
bustle and earthliness of faith-life, possess a dual role: to guard the church against the
distortions brought about by “people’s power” while, at the same time, against the
misrepresentations of the “clergy power”.1402 He clearly indicates that “Powers, religious
and secular, are to be confronted if they deny place to those whom God has given
place.”1403 Thus, this really calls for a radical reorientation of the global church, something
that requires vigilance among all the members of the church (i.e., the ordinary laity, the
scholars and the hierarchy) so that there is really check and balance to ensure that the
entire church is truly involved in cultivating theology as a commonwealth.
To be honest, this seems to be a pie in the sky considering that people who have
enjoyed the exclusive right as ultimate guarantor and judge of the sensus fidelium may
not easily yield to this radical reorientation, but also because people who have long been
uninvolved or indifferent to such theological enterprise, despite their inherent gift and
task to participate actively as a member of the church, will not be easily persuaded or
awaken from their theological lethargy. This is where we find the value of Pope Francis’
1394Scannone, “Pope Francis and the Theology of the People.”

1395Ian M Fraser, Reinventing Theology as the People’s Work, 4th ed. (Glasgow: Wild Goose, 2005).
1396Ibid., 8.
1397Ibid., 9.
1398Ibid., 11.
1399Ibid.
1400Ibid., 13.
1401Ibid., 40.
1402Ibid., 41.
1403Ibid., 42.
240
advocacy to promote “theology of the people” as a viable option for our contemporary
society impacted by globalization, migration and countless faces of poverty. This is also
why we are supporting the recognition of bahala na ordinary theology, because we want
people to realize their important role in community of faith. In the words of Fraser, we
hope that no matter how difficult this undertaking is and no matter how long it takes to
finally make this a concrete reality, “God’s people must gain a new respect for their own
gifts, for the foundation for understanding God’s work in the world which comes from their
own experience, for their own language as the fittest for theological thinking and
articulation, for their capacity, drawing upon one another’s resources, to analyze
situations and relate them effectively to insights gained from Scripture.”1404 Of course, we
are not ignorant of the fact that this might require another Council to be convoked or that
it may not happen in our time, but we cannot simply lie down in resignation. Nevertheless,
we can begin changing people’s mind, even in a very gradual manner, by allowing them to
see that their stories of faith matter a lot to the church and that they are genuine
participants in the ongoing communal theological venture where they concretely see their
faces and voices knitted together with that of others who never cease learning about,
living, and giving witness to their faith in God who reveals Godself to everyone. We see
that one of the effective ways of doing this is the formation of the Basic Ecclesial
Communities, which we shall discuss in the last chapter of this doctoral project, among
the Filipino diasporic communities, at least as an initial endeavor for the reason that
religious language is still alive in these communities, who can infect other communities
in a non-intrusive and unimposing way.
Except for the diminished role of the Magisterium, we believe that Pope Francis will
find Fraser’s proposal as agreeable. Nonetheless, if we really take “theology of the people”
or “ordinary theology” seriously we might witness a major re-structuring of power in the
church and revolutionizing our understanding of what hierarchical communion really is.
What we can simply say right now is, if we really want theology to be relevant to the
present and future society, we need to buckle up and prepare for a challenging, dizzying,
time-consuming yet exciting and enriching ride. Be prepared for a lot of surprises and
twists and turns. For, certainly, we cannot predict how the journey will turn out, but we
can be assured that it is worth the ride: God, ever new and ever old, is waiting for us to
see God with fresh eyes and renewed faith. Thus, we say bahala na.
II.2.3.2. Bahala Na Theology and the Intersection between Resistance, Happiness and
Remembrance
Operating on the notion of the liminal, the hybrid, the pilgrim and the resilient,
bahala na theology for Filipino Diaspora can be seen through the prism of Sang Hyun
Lee’s conceptualization of Christian spirituality of resistance. He asserts that a
“spirituality of resistance cannot be limited to the resistance against racism and racial
and ethnic prejudice”1405 only. It must be balanced by happiness. In view of this, Sang
Hyun Lee reminds us that the Greek word for happy, makarios, is translated into English
as “fortunate,” “happy,” “in a privileged situation,” and “well-off;” while the English term
happiness means “gladness, feeling fortunate, contentment, tranquility, blessedness, in
union with God, and so on.”1406 Against the background of the various meanings of the
1404Fraser, Reinventing Theology, 43.

1405Lee, From A Liminal Place, 156
1406Ibid, 157.
241
SAMBAYANIHAN
Greek makarios and the English happiness, Jonathan Edwards offers an interesting
insight that happiness is a state that harmonizes “the knowledge of true beauty and the
delight in and love of true beauty.”1407
Indeed, our proposed bahala na theology for the Filipino migrants embodies the
prophetic resistance which is deemed as necessary for the liminal and the hybrid. Bahala
na, like Lee’s spirituality of resistance, balances resistance with the celebration of the
reign of God in the here and now which can be discerned in the fondness of the Filipinos
to celebrate feasts even in the midst of precarious circumstances or misfortune.1408 For
them, resistance does not and must not preclude happiness. To illustrate this happiness
amidst resistance, we can cite the fact Filipinos are able to laugh amidst tragedy and even
“celebrate” by singing together in a “videoke” session in the midst of death and problems,
which may be frowned upon by people from other cultures and be seen as a form of
escapism. The fact is, Filipinos, in general, do not just easily lose hope, precisely because
there is the enduring remembrance of the pagnamnam (foretaste) of the Reign of God that
is their reservoir of inspiration and happiness. They may be battered and beaten badly,
but they do not simply give up because they continue to hold on to their memory of God’s
goodness and mercy.
Speaking of remembrance, Sang Hyun Lee declares his opposition to Miroslav Volf’s
opinion that “[r]edemption will be complete only when the creation of ‘all things new’ is
coupled with the passage of ‘all things old’ into the double nihil of non-existence and non-
remembrance.”1409 Instead, Lee insists on his affinity to Albert Camus’s view of “happiness
that forgot nothing, even murder.”1410 He agrees with Camus and disagrees with Volf,
because he asserts “that if pain and injustices are forgotten, then their seriousness is not
duly recognized and respected.”1411 He adds: “My conception of heaven is not where all
bad things are forgotten, but where all tragic and painful things are fully remembered yet
do not shatter us the way they used too. Heaven is where all the injustices are remembered
and rectified.”1412
Sang Hyun Lee’s idea of heaven “where all the injustices are remembered and
rectified” sits well together with our proposal of bahala na theology fitting for Filipino
Diaspora that is characteristically marked by liminality, hybridity, “peregrination”, and
resilience, because its constant articulation and re-articulation of ordinary/lo cotidiano
theology - together with its constant straddling between two realms - will ensure the non-
forgetting of the countless stories of oppression, marginalization and dehumanization.1413
Our constant visit with the Filipino migrants allows to see how important it is for Filipinos
to remember their stories as they narrate and re-narrate their experiences of struggles
and “adventures” in going abroad like a broken record. However, in these encounters with
them where they tell very personal stories, one may notice that it is rather rare that
Filipinos will wallow in their misery and hopelessness or desperately be stuck in poverty,
1407Jonathan Edwards, The Miscellanies a-500, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 13, ed. Thomas A.
Schafer (New Haven: Yale University, 1994), 87, 106. See also, Jonathan Edwards, “Concerning the End for
Which God Created the World,” in Ethical Writings, vol. 8, ed. Paul Ramsey (New haven: Yale University, 1989),
433.
1408Edwards, The Miscellanies, 433.
1409Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 134, 135-36. Cited in Lee, From a Liminal Place, 159.
1410Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays (New York: Vintage, 1970), 101-2; idem; Albert Camus, The
Plague (New York: Knopf, 1968), 232. Cited in Lee, From a Liminal Place, 158.
1411Ibid., 159.
1412Ibid.
1413Ibid.
242
because they are so creative in finding ways to survive. As a proof of that, seldom does
one see Filipinos turning into mendicants and street dwellers in foreign countries. The
constant effort of the Filipinos to cross the threshold of hope guarantees continuous
“unsettling” of the “settledness” of the oppressive, marginalizing, and dehumanizing
structures of the status quo. Thus, it becomes possible in this liminal, hybrid, pilgrim and
resilient bahala na people to find reasons to be happy while persistently remembering the
wounds and indefatigably striving to overcome the negative structures in the globalized
world.
This kind of theology can be conceived within the narrative framework of Jesus’ post-
resurrection appearances to His disciples that indicated the presence of wounds of the
cross, according to Sang Hyun Lee. In the same manner that the “wounds helped Jesus
himself and doubting Thomas remember the crucifixion and restored Thomas’s
relationship with his Lord,” the proposed theology also allows the diasporized Filipinos
never to trivialize their negative experiences as they endeavor to make things better – an
experience of the reign of God. It should be noted, however, that improving one’s life is
and must not be the only concern of the Filipinos, but also the constant fight for justice
that changes the world and the way people live together.
Though marginalized and liminal as persons, they still see beauty and smile with
gladness, because they know that they always have the power to provide a venue for the
in-breaking of God’s reign. Filipinos, whether in the country and abroad, will always find
reason to get-together, to celebrate, and to have a good laugh, even for a short while,
amidst the pains and the struggles that they experience in life, which for some people
might be construed as an escapist attitude. It is not escapist, however, because Filipinos
still always go down to the foot of the mountain to face reality and to do their best to
survive and to thrive after their celebrations of “mini-transfiguration” that nourishes their
hopeful spirits.
II.2.3.3. Bahala Na from the Liminal Place: Sang Hyun Lee Informing Filipino Migrant
Theology
Precisely the reason why we maintain the “resilient” character of our proposed way
of theologizing is to find an opening for reconciliation within the narrative of subaltern
resistance. Sang Hyun Lee suggests that “[l]iminality may indeed be a necessary facilitator
of reconciliation, although it cannot be a sufficient facilitator.”1414 It is true, however,
according to James Cone, that “[a] word about reconciliation too soon or at the wrong time
to the oppressors only grants them more power to oppress.”1415 Miroslav Volf, in view of a
reconciliation facilitated by liminality, presents a realistic picture by saying that what is
achievable in this life is “non-final reconciliation based on a vision of reconciliation that
cannot be undone… The final reconciliation is the backdrop against which Christians
engage in the struggle for peace under the condition of enmity and oppression.”1416 Hence,
in this case, there is an aspect of provisionary-ness or penultimate-ness of reconciliation
that is achievable in the here and the now.
Sang Hyun Lee proposes that the liminal space can be “a creative space from which
new identities may emerge and also communitas may be formed, despite the painfulness
1414Lee, From a Liminal Place, 164.

1415James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed (New York: Seabury, 1975), 238-243.
1416Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 110.
243
SAMBAYANIHAN
and the disorienting effects of the experiences of people in the marginal state.”1417
Although some Filipinos assert their right and refuse to simply bury the hatchet and let
bygones be bygones, unless pertinent issues are clarified and resolved, one may see that
a lot of Filipinos have this tarnished ability, in their negative Bahala Na attitude, to either
“peacefully” co-exist with their enemies or just pretend that everything is alright -
something that makes “outsiders” think that Filipinos are notorious in remembering the
unpleasant events in life and never learning from them. Hence, they are perceived to be
repeating over and over the same mistakes that they have done and continuously going
through the same cycles of oppression or marginalization that they have suffered without
resolving issues or arresting uncharitable elements or putting a halt to any dehumanizing
experiences. Indeed, it is true, a lot of Filipinos have to be liberated, most importantly,
from their less confrontative attitude (read: overly subservient attitude) that make them
silently harbor the pain without properly healing the wounds or resolving the issues that
strain their relationships. Concerning conflict resolutions and genuine forgiveness that we
are hinting at in this section of the paper, Werner Jeanrond’s discussion on the
hermeneutics of love is particularly instructive:
“It is this horizon that summons all Christians to a relationship with God’s creative and healing
project through the praxis of love accompanied by a critical hermeneutics of love. This
hermeneutics helps Christians to shape communities, to build bodies (1 Cor. 8.1), and to
challenge all forms of injustice, oppression, war, and colonization. Christian resistance is born
from this hermeneutics of love that desires global community as the form of the most elaborate
love on earth.”1418
Thus, the liminal space must become for the bahala na theology an opportunity for
ventilating their hurts and their concerns in order to gain proper recognition of their rights
and suitable exercise of their freedom from the shackles of oppression and
marginalization. All these, when combined with the image of the pilgrim who is responding
to the call of the Other (God and neighbor), will create a possibility for genuine
reconciliation in the spirit of the hermeneutics of love.
In our estimation of bahala na as a Filipino diasporic ordinary theology, we see some
intersections between our proposed way of theologizing and Sang Hyun Lee’s Asian
American Theology “from a liminal place,” because they both try to capture the
predicaments of being in the margin or in the border but at the same time they find some
creative ways, on the basis of faith or relationship with God, to value of being “open to the
Father’s will” as exercised by Jesus.1419 In this theological framework, one is able to go
through agony of being a migrant by simply surrendering to the Father and, which
according to Lee, “also meant [Jesus’] freedom from anything other than his Father’s will.
Jesus shows this freedom in his unhesitating willingness to cross all human-made
boundaries and barriers to embody his Father’s forgiving love to fallen creation… He was
free to move beyond the existing social structures, rules, and restrictions.”1420 In the same
manner, Filipino’s bahala na allows them to plough through the treacherous waters of
migration, amidst uncertainties and insecurities, with nothing else, literally and
figuratively, but their profound trust in Divine Providence. We can recall the stories of
some Filipino migrants we met in Milan who narrated to us how they had to take the risk
of crossing the Swiss-Italian border, left on their own with no light otherwise they would

1418Werner Jeanrond, A Theology of Love (Great Britain: CPI Antony Rowe, 2010), 232.
1420Ibid., 69.
244
be seen by border patrols and nothing else except for handbags where they keep important
documents for the journey, wherein their only assurance is that God will not abandon
them, because they believe that what they were doing was for the good of their families
who are hoping for them. Bahala na theology is about liberation and mission. It is about
freedom from the oppressive and marginalizing structures of the contemporary globalized
world and, at the same time, freedom for surrendering oneself to God in obedience and to
mission.
This brings to mind, as well, Marcel’s prayer: I hope in Thee for Us,” 1421 which can
be expressed by a Tagalog adage: “Bahala na. Diyos na ang bahala. Kung ito ay kalooban
ng Diyos, ito ay ipagkakaloob, alang-alang sa aking mga mahal sa buhay (i.e., Come what
may. God is in control. If this is God’s will, it will be given for the sake of my loved ones).
We have to underline, at this point, that this prayer uttered by the Filipino migrants, as
we have already explained above, is seen from the vantage point of the loob-kapwa where
the organic unity of I and T/thou is the foundation. Lee says something similar when he
underscores “Jesus’ liminality and the emergence of communitas” which, according to him
as explained by Victor Turner, “is the response to ‘the desire for a total, unmediated
relationship between person and person,’ and is an ‘expression of men {sic} in their
wholeness wholly attending.”1422 This communitas is manifested not only in the concern
of the Filipino migrants to their families back home but also in the remarkable efforts and
fascination of Filipino migrants to form hybrid associations where culture, politics, religion
and other civic cause and activities meet as we have already expounded above.
Bahala na, seen from the lens of liminality, is related to Peter Phan’s “being betwixt-
and-between” where the predicaments of marginal existence of both belonging and not
belonging at the same time come together, allows the migrants to do some “soul-searching”
amidst suffering to find creative ways to reconcile the “neither-nor” and the “both-and”
situation in order “to-be-beyond-this-and-that.”1423 For Phan, this interstitial space
becomes a platform for “intercultural theology” where hermeneutics of affirmation,
suspicion and reconstruction creatively coincide and collide.1424 In the same manner, Lee’s
liminal place “provides the courage to face the bewildering space of liminality and to do
the work of constructing a hybrid identity without relying upon the false security of an
essentialized finite principle,”1425 which is, in the words of Fumitaka Matsuoka, being a
“jook sing.”1426 In other words, “to receive the gift of courage to live in the midst of an
unresolved and often ambiguous state of life.”1427 For Lee, it is referred to as “holy
insecurity.”1428 In this place a creative integration of multiple worlds unfolds while one
strives to resist being dissociated from any of these worlds, which is best expressed by
Brock’s notion of “interstitial integrity”:
“Interstitial integrity is our ability to lie down, spread-eagle reaching to all the many worlds we
have known, all the memories we have been given, tempered in the cauldrons of history and
geography in our one body. We find our value in taking our small place in long legacies of
incarnating spirit in bodies. Through such legacies, we participate in shaping our many worlds,
1421Marcel, Homo Viator, 53, 67.

1422Lee, From a Liminal Place, 70. See also Turner, Ritual Process, 128.
1423Peter Phan, “The Experience of Migration as Source of Intercultural Theology,” in Contemporary Issues of
Migration and Theology, eds. Elaine Padilla and Peter Phan (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), 183-184.
1424Ibid., 185-198.
1426Fumitaka Matsuoka, Out of Silence: Emerging Themes in Asian American Churches (Cleveland: United
Church, 1995), 62.

1427Matsuoka, Out of Silence, 52.
245
SAMBAYANIHAN
and we grow in wisdom and beauty and live in the traces we leave in others, so they, too, might
cook without recipes.”1429
In our understanding of bahala na, this state of liminality, once properly utilized,
enables one to hope with absolute openness towards Divine Providence to welcome and
create new possibilities originally overshadowed by the precariousness of Filipino
migrants’ marginal existence. It is to follow the way of Jesus’ Paschal Mystery, exhibiting
as “weerloze overmacht,”1430 where the periphery is not romanticized or spiritualized but
seen with fresh eyes and open mind as one hones creative potentials to transform marginal
existence from state of liability to attitude of resilience and solidarity as embodied in the
bayanihan spirit (i.e., communal or familial solidarity) that Filipinos value and strive to
achieve.
Daniel Pilario, in an article he wrote for Postcolonial Europe in the Crucible of Cultures,
is particularly instructive in this regard. He notes that “[f]or whatever disruption the global
capital has caused these communities, they continue to ‘adjust, because they must, to
alter, even radically altered conditions.’ Thus, beyond grand theories of bust and boom, it
is these placeable ‘rough grounds’, in their ‘actual material historical process’ that need
to be faced, to be analyzed and worked out. For it is here – and only here – that people
have actually resisted and survived.”1431 Bayanihan in the “grammar” of bahala na
theology embodies Filipino resistance and resilience in the face of hegemonizing and
dehumanizing program of globalization,1432 which is an everyday endeavor for Filipino
migrants – the ordinary theologians – whose “practices of resistance,” according to Pilario
whish we have cited earlier, “are not ill-intentioned or consciously planned to topple the
dominant power. They are the result, in all honestly, of the only available means to
survive.”1433 In the same vein, Pilario argues against the feasibility of the more organized
resistance at the grassroots level in these words:
“[It] might be laudable to boycott products of multinational companies that employ child labor
or neglect the environment but there is not much choice as to the brand of shoes, milk or rice
in these communities. Any brand that is available is a real “grace,” certainly better than
nothing. Even as we know the evils of the contractualization of labour, workers would prefer a
temporary job contract without any long-term benefits (e.g., retirement, social security, etc)
than no work at all. Anti-globalization demonstrations like in Seattle or Genoa are praiseworthy
and need to be replicated as much elsewhere. But the really poor do not have the leisure to
spend a whole day protesting in the streets and going home later without food on the family
table. What is at issue is the more basic day to day survival. Given the power of the hegemony,
the subalterns do not have a wide territory to maneuver; they can only poach on the dominant
in order to survive.”1434
1429Cf. Rita Nakashima Brock, “Interstitial Integrity: Reflections toward an Asian American Woman’s Theology,
in Introduction to Christian Theology: Contemporary North American Perspectives, ed. Roger A. Badham
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1988), 191. Rita Nakashima Brock, “Cooking without Recipes,” in Off the
Menu: Asian and Asian North American Women’s Religion and Theology, eds. Rita Nakashima Brock, et al.
(Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 140.
1430This term is roughly translated to “vulnerable power,” or, literally means “defenseless supremacy or
defenseless superior power”. Although this term was introduced by Hendrikus Berkhof in 1973. Cf. Hendrikus
Berkhof, Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of Faith, trans. Sierd Woustra (Grand Rapids: William B.
Eerdmans, 1986), 140-147.This was taken up by Wiersinga. Cf. Herman Wiersinga, Verzoening met het Lijden?
(Baarn: Nelissen, 1975), 53. And then, Schilebeeckx incorporated this in his theology. Cf. Edward
Schilebeeckx, “Overweginen ronds Gods ‘weerloze overmacht’,” Tijdschrift voor Theologie21(1987): 381.
1431Pilario, “Back to the Rough Grounds,” 36-37. Cf. Raymond Williams, Towards 2000 (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1985), 187.

1433Ibid. Cf. Phan, “The Experience of Migration,” 44.
1434Pilario, “Back to the Rough Grounds,” 43-44.
246
We can say, therefore, that their revolutionary potentials are harnessed and concretized
in their effort to transform their unfortunate situation into an opportunity for resistance
and creativity that, according to Bourdieu, “produced without any calculation, and in the
illusion of ‘most absolute sincerity’.”1435 It is, in the words Martin Bloch, a powerful
revolutionary strategy that emerges via “[t]he patient, silent struggles, stubbornly carried
on by the … communities over the years [that] would accomplish more than these flashes
in the pan.”1436 Bahala na, in the context of Filipino migration, is a genuine articulation
of Filipino pananampalataya (faith) that, as we have already mentioned above, is fueled
by an initial taste of “God’s love and salvation” (pagnamnam) and expressed in one’s
courage to take the risk (pagtataya), which becomes, to borrow the line from James Scott,
“the stubborn bedrock upon which other forms of resistance may grow.”1437 A concrete
manifestation of this are the efforts of some Filipino catholic communities (i.e.,
chaplaincies, missions and personal parish) to alleviate the unfortunate condition of
Filipino irregular immigrants by providing them language lessons, informing them about
their legal rights as well as aiding them in bringing to court employers culpable of abuse,
helping them discover their creative and leadership potentials, assisting them in acquiring
legal status, and facilitating their search for jobs.
Perhaps, one thing that makes bahala na different from Lee’s “theology from a liminal
place” is the manifest awareness that one is never alone, that the family or community is
always implied in one’s endeavor. To be lonesome is never a norm of Filipinos. To be loners,
especially in the case of diasporic Filipinos, is never a rule but an exception, because
generally Filipinos find a creative way to connect with people, especially with compatriots,
wherever they find themselves in. And usually, they find the company they are looking for
in the context of church communities.
Another thing, we think, that is present in Lee’s liminal place and Phan’s “betwixt-
and-between” which might have been forgotten by the Filipinos, or perhaps they are simply
unaware of it, is the reality of interculturality in the bahala na theology. Being a Filipino
is already an intercultural existence considering their multiple colonization experience
and their hybrid ethnic/racial profile that may have caused them to take interculturality
for granted. Filipinos might have become complacent because most of them are mixed-
blood already, which makes them exert less effort in the cause of interculturality. As a
matter of fact, Filipino culture is nothing else but a creative mixture of Asian, North
American, Latino and European cultures. At times, they are even criticized as having no
original culture at all but just a schizophrenic mesh of disparate cultures. It may not be
their real intention, but, in the end, they are seen as having the tendency to form ghettos.
The truth is, they may prefer to be with the people from their own language groups, but
most of them leave an open door to others who want to join and be considered as an
“honorary” yet fully integrated member of their respective organizations; honorary,
because the person is “adopted” by the community. Maybe, an awareness of the
interculturality of the communitas can be strengthened when bahala na is recognized as
a viable theology in the contemporary globalized world? When Filipinos migrants are given
1435PierreBourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Stanford: Stanford University, 1990), 292. Pilario, Back to the Rough
Ground,” 44.
1436Bloch, French Rural History, 170. Cf. Pilario, Back to the Rough Ground,” 44.
1437James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven Yale
University,1985), 273. Cf, Pilario, “Back to the Rough Ground,” 45.
247
SAMBAYANIHAN
due recognition as ordinary theologians; hence, gaining a seat in the contemporary

theological discourse, they can appreciate more the interculturality of their endeavor.
II.2.3.4. Bahala Na Vis-à-vis Mestisaje Theology in the Border of Death and the Valley of
Life
Bahala na, is a theological narrative shared by millions of Filipinos in diaspora; they,

who travel not as tourists but primarily as job-seeking migrants in the foreign lands.
Bahala na, in our own estimation, is similar to the “theology of migration” that Daniel
Groody is proposing in his published works, which he anchors in the idea of “migration of
Jesus Christ” who, because of his great love for the world had “left his homeland and
migrated into the far distant territory of humanity’s sinful and broken existence. There he
laid down his life on a cross so that we could be reconciled with God and migrate back to
our homeland, where there is peace, harmony, justice and life. 1438 This theology, which
hinges on Jesus’ migration that reconciles a four-fold division caused by human-beings’
disobedience, is seen by Groody as a four-fold journey of the corazon through the “border
of death and valley of death” (i.e., from cόrazon destrozado to cόrazon rehabilitado, to
cόrazon animado, and, ultimately, to cόrazon florido).1439 Against this background, Groody
explains the predicaments of Mexican migrants, which we find very similar to the
experience of Filipino migrants, by saying that
“Crossing the great borders exacts an enormous toll on Mexican immigrants and their families.
Leaving home creates many emotional and practical difficulties. In the midst [of] the process of
emigration, immigrants often face a terrible irony: they leave Mexico to escape the insecurity of
life, only to come to the United States where they experience an even greater insecurity. They
give up their homes, their language, and their customs for an uncertain and precarious future.
For many of immigrants, crossing the border of death means leaving behind much of what
ultimately gives meaning, value and cohesion to their lives.”1440
In view of the first phase of the migrant heart’s journey, Groody argues that
“These immigrants are willing to descend into the depths of hell in the desert for the people
they love so that they may have better lives. Within their particular stories of hunger, thirst,
estrangement, nakedness sickness, and imprisonment we can begin to see the face of the
crucified Christ…Like Jesus, many of these immigrants sacrifice their comfort and risk their
lives for the good of others (John 15:13). For these immigrants, the life of Jesus reveals the
truth about God and the truth about their human experience… [a] journey to Jerusalem, a land
of great promise but also of great suffering… Golgotha, but it is also the place where some
experience the rising of a new way of life.”1441
As far as the second phase of the journey is concerned, Groody explains that this is about
“a ritual process of spiritual transformation” that allows one to find a “spiritual home in a
foreign land.”1442 This phase, according to Groody, must proceed from a movement that
entails
“[more] than just going from darkness to light… these immigrants are undergoing a conversion
that, in many ways, is far more basic and fundamental: Conversion means becoming a human
being. It means moving from being ridiculed and rejected to being valued and esteemed, but
1438For more details on this theology, please read Dan Groody, “A Theology of Migration: A New Method for
Understanding a God on the Move,” America, February 7, 2011.
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=12682 [accessed December 10, 2012].
1439Cf. Dan Groody, Border of Death, Valley of Life: An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit (Lanham, Boulder,
New York, Toronto, Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).

1440Groody, Border of Death, 18-19.
1441Ibid.,13-33.
1442Ibid., 41-69.
248
most of all, from an oppressed existence to a liberated one where they discover the graced
dimension of their humanity. In essence, the conversion process for these Mexican immigrants
is about their participation in the paschal mystery, that is to say, a movement from death to
life.” 1443
And finally, in the phase where there is a “flowering of the heart”, according to Groody, we
shall hear about
“particular stories [of the Mexican immigrants that] are related to the more universal story of
human beings in pilgrimage to God. In them we already see hints of the Exodus, the Magnificat,
and the Paschal mystery. Like many other faithful people who have walked before them, these
immigrants experience a real geographical and existential Passover, a physical and spiritual
movement across a border of death and a new beginning in a valley of death.” It is inspired by
Juan Diego who, “hearing the call of the Mother of God, he breaks through the shackles of his
damaged self-image and eventually carries out her mandate… [a] movement from nonbeing to
being and from his dehumanizing life to the developmental blossoming of his human potential.”
1444
Indeed, what Groody has said about the four-fold “theology of migration” sheds light to
what we understand as bahala na theology – a theology that recognizes the intimate link
between the struggles of the Filipino migrants and the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ –
abandoning “home” to cross borders in order to transform realities of sin and death, and
to reconcile what has been separated by human-beings’ rejection of God’s will. In this
framework, bahala na is not only about knowing that God knows their plight and traverses
the borders with them, but also about realizing that their struggles are a participation in
the mission of Jesus Christ who has come to restore what God has originally planned for
God’s creatures. Indeed, it comforts and inspires them.
This theology that embodies the crossing of the “border of death and valley of life” is,
in our assessment, related to what Virgilio Elizondo calls as a “Galilean journey”1445 which
tells us about the stories of resistance and survival of the Mexican migrants who, as
mestizos/zas, try to resist oppression and to overcome marginalization by invoking what
is considered as “redemptive inclusion” wherein “difference [is seen] as a gift rather than
a threat, that your difference can enrich me and hopefully my difference can enrich you,
and hopefully when I’m weak your strength can help me and when you’re weak my
strength can help you, we different groups not as opposing each other but as – how can
we build together a better humanity.”1446 Without romanticizing the notion of difference,
he argues that effort to overcome exclusion via “mestizaje” or “mestizo/za theology” makes
difference not only as something to be accepted but as something to be desired because,
for Elizondo, “Difference can be humanizing. For example, I love to travel, and if everyone’s
the same, why travel? You go to different regions of France and only in that region you
can get a particular cheese. It’s great. Difference is beautiful if we don’t use it to segregate
1443Groody, Border of Death, 79-108.

1444Ibid.,115-133.
1445Cf. Virgilio Elizondo, Galilean Journey: The Mexican American Promise, 6th ed. (New York: Orbis, 2006). This
book talks about the “death and resurrection” of the Mexican-Americans as they struggle to resist
marginalization and rejection – suffering and death – and as they strive to achieve liberation – resurrection -
in the form belonging and “universal acceptance, welcome and love.”
1446This is taken from an interview with Virgilio Elizondo, Interview with Virgilio P. Elizondo, “Diversity is a
Sign of New Creation,” http://www.faithandleadership.com/multimedia/virgilio-p-elizondo-diversity-sign-

the-new-creation [accessed December 10, 2012]. For Elizondo mestizaje is a term that pertains to the “creation
of a new people” – “an eschatological people in whom God self-reveals and becomes human, through biological
and cultural mixing. It becomes a sacrament of the new humankind in the presence of God.” Cf. Kevin Patrick
Considine, “Is the Future Mestizo and Mulatto? A Theological-Sociological Investigation into the Racial and
Ethnic Future of the Human Person within the U.S,”
www.zygoncenter.org/studentsymposium/pdfs/papers03/symposium03 [accessed December 10, 2012].
249
SAMBAYANIHAN
and kick people out. To be able to enjoy difference is a gift of God’s creation.”1447 This
“brand” of theology, as understood by Elizondo, makes us aware of the thought that “God
grows up as a human in this land that’s constantly confronted with ethnic differences,
and Jesus begins to initiate something new out of that. He’s constantly crossing borders
because Christianity is a constant call to go beyond. To me, Christianity is more of a
movement than an institution. It’s a movement of the Spirit to constantly go beyond
humanly made borders of separation to create frontiers of new existence.”1448
While we appreciate the similarity between bahala na, Groody’s “theology of
migration”, and Elizondo’s “mestizaje”, it important to note at this point that both Groody
and Elizondo acknowledge the indispensable role of the ordinary faithful in articulating
the aforementioned theologies – something that we consider as essential to bahala na
theology. Groody declares that
“In brief, my theological method is based on the Incarnation—the belief that God migrated to
humanity so all of us in turn could migrate back to God. Broadly considered, these elements
are woven together in a process that involves 1) immersion in the world, especially into the
life of the poor; 2) “interfluence,” or the ways in which the lived experience of Christian faith
and the deposit of Christian tradition mutually influence each other; and 3) an interpretation
of life that seeks to deepen our relationship with God and each other. This method is not just
about retrieval and application, nor the gathering of new information for human formation.
Rather it is a vision of life that leads to transformation and the construction of a new
imagination.”1449
Elizondo, on his part, boldly declares that

“it is my own people – the ancianos and the ordinary faithful – who have been and continue to
be my greatest teachers and my most valuable source of inspiration…“In them, I continue to
hear the words of Jesus when he praises the Father for having revealed to the little ones what
he had hidden from the wise and the learned. I continue to be reminded of the words of Pope
Paul VI, when he spoke about the ‘evangelical instinct’ of the poor who know when the gospel
is being served or destroyed.”1450
All these three abovementioned versions of theology, which we believe to be echoed in Pope
Francis’ “theology of the people”, endeavor to resist, according to Groody, the tendency “to
degenerate into a career in which understanding seeks recognition.”1451 They are
theologies, Groody argues, that battle out becoming overly professionalized wherein
theologians become gravely pastorally irrelevant because they are so preoccupied by
“answering questions that no one is asking and speaking in a language few understand,
while ignoring pressing issues that affect the human community and offering little
guidance or nourishment for this journey to a better homeland.”1452 What makes Groody’s
“theology of migration” and Elizondo’s “mestizaje” worth adapting in our proposal to make
bahala na as a contextualized theology for the Filipinos in diaspora, aside from the
required personal immersion or involvement of the theologians in the “rough grounds of
praxis”, is the effort to take seriously the issues of justice and liberation without being
stuck in the binary discourse of “oppressor-oppressed” and “colonizers-colonized”, while
1447Considine, “Is the Future Mestizo and Mulatto?”

1448Ibid.
1449Groody explains that “While it shares much with other theological approaches, my method involves the
study of the written word (printed texts), attentiveness to the spoken word (living texts), engagement with the
marginal word (crucified texts), and understanding of the contemporary word (cultural texts), expressed at
times through multiple media or the visual word (symbolic texts). All of these texts are an integral part of the
task of theology, serving the evangelizing mission of the church in its proclamation of the incarnate Word (the
revealed text).” Cf. Groody, “A Theology of Migration.”
1450Elizondo, Galilean Journey, 126.
1451Cf. Groody, “A Theology of Migration.”
1452Ibid.
250
at the same time anchoring the theological articulation in God’s nature, as earlier quoted,
“who chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; [the] God [who] chose what is
weak in the world to shame the strong; [the] God who chose what is low and despised in
the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are” (1 Cor 1:27-28).
II.2.3.5. Bahala Na and Miroslav Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace
Earlier in this paper, we mentioned that we find in Miroslav Volf’s “theology of

embrace” a trans-colonial theological articulation of bahala na: an endeavor of the migrant
Filipinos to overcome colonialism by naming the horrors of colonialism, searching for
saving graces buried under the heap of colonial rubbles, and moving forward toward a re-
imagined future, which is embodied by a profound trust in Divine Providence and strongly
inspired by the “anamnesis”1453 of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ. Although Volf’s
celebrated book, in a complex but very insightful way, examines the intricacies of the
themes exclusion (i.e., violence brought about by wars, genocide, domination, hegemony
and colonization) and embrace (i.e., reconciliation that renders justice to the oppressed or
victims and forgiveness of the oppressor or perpetrator), which may not totally resonate
to the experiences of the Filipino migrants who have their own unique share of stories of
oppression and marginalization (i.e., maybe obliquely similar to what the Jewish people
experienced during the Holocaust and the “ethnic-cleansing” that the inhabitants of the
former Yugoslavia had to endure in the 1990’s genocide) we see some interesting
congruence between his notion of “forgiving-embrace” that is best exemplified, together
with the parable of the merciful father, by Jesus’ crucifixion and the bahala na God-talk
of the Filipino migrants who, amidst the unpleasant or horrendous experiences they have
been through in their countries of destination, have continued to hold on to their faith
and to devise ways not only to survive but also offer their “reverse hospitality” (i.e.,
hospitality of the stranger) to the citizens of their host countries as if nothing wrong has
happened and, at the same time, letting them “taste” their brand of religiosity that strongly
embodies the spirit of hospitality, community, familial-solidarity, mercy and generosity.
In a preface written by Miroslav Volf in Exclusion and Embrace, he asks the question:
“How does one remain loyal both to the demand of the oppressed for justice and to the gift
of forgiveness that the Crucified offered to the perpetrators?”1454 The most obvious answer
to this is, without a doubt, doing so is such an impossible mission. It is, for many of us,
a mutually exclusive undertaking: It is either you render justice to the victims and
condemn the perpetrators, or you forgive the culprits to the detriment of those who
suffered. Either way, you sacrifice one side of the equation. As most of us would want to
believe, the two cannot come together.
For us to achieve a sort of paradigm shift, Volf’s rumination on the intimate link
between the cross of Christ and the embrace of the loving father offers us new lens in
looking at reality that allows us to appreciate the meaning of Christian reconciliation: a
coming together of justice for the victims and forgiveness to the perpetrators. He clearly
indicates, although he also recognizes that this goal cannot be achieved easily considering
the intricacies of human emotions, conditions and relations, that there is a way out of the
1453For Smolarski, this word is properly understood as an act wherein “the present is brought into intimate
contact with the past” and the other way around. In other words, it can be conceived as “actualizing” what is
being remembered. Hence, it is not simply an “active remembrance.” Cf. Dennis C. Smolarski, Liturgical
Literacy: From Anamnesis to Worship (New York, NY/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1990), 11.
251
SAMBAYANIHAN
“us versus them” mentality or “exclusionary polarities” which is poignantly or alarmingly

expressed by Željko Vuković, a Serbian journalist, in his book Ubijanje Sarajevahas: “There
is no choice. Either us or them…Either we will inhabit this place or them, either we will
destroy them or they will destroy us; no option is available.”1455 Although we can cite some
instances where one, because of the surrounding circumstances, is left with no choice,
Volf rightly argues that when one “destroys the other rather than to be destroyed” is
already, without a doubt, a choice in itself.1456 Therefore, it can be surmised that we always
have a choice. Even the very refusal to make a choice is, indeed, already a choice.
It may not be readily available, especially to the one who suffered atrocities in the
most extreme forms, but there is also a choice to defy that powerful gravity of the polarizing
rhetoric of “either us or them”; a choice to overcome polarity and start moving towards a
situation of “common belonging” or to the inclusionary language of togetherness. When
we start looking at liberation, as Volf suggests, from the perspective of the Crucified Christ,
whose Divine image of “vulnerable love”1457 is revealed in its fullness, we begin to
appreciate the coincidence of justice and mercy in God’s love.1458 On the cross, we find a
God who gives up God’s self so that the human being may not be given up;1459 it is an act
emanating from a self-sacrificing love, which may be scandalous to our hostility-ridden
world, that offers a counter narrative to our propensity as human-beings to harbor enmity
and to inflict violence towards others – something that both victims and perpetrators are
guilty of - in order to offer an embrace that reaches out both to the wounded and the
agents of woundedness, welcoming both of them to the in-dwelling1460 of the Trinitarian
God. “When the Trinity,” according to Volf, “turns toward the world, the Son and the Spirit
becomes, in Irenaeus’ beautiful image, the two arms of God by which humanity was made
and taken into God’s embrace.”1461 This embrace is both a gift and a task for humanity to
do the same towards others – making space for forgiveness and reconciliation, which
means moving out of a venomous mentality that distinguishes the ‘absolutely innocent
victim’1462 and the ‘totally evil guilty perpetrator’, recognizing that the victims are never
unquestionably guiltless when they continue to harbor “the spirit of revenge” 1463 in their
1455Željko Vuković, Ubijanje Sarajeva (The Killing of Sarajevo) (Beograd: Kron, 1993), 42. Cf. also Volf, Exclusion
and Embrace, 99.
1457Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (n.p.: SCM, 1981), 56. Originally
published as Trinität und Reich Gottes. Zur Gotteslehre, 1980.

1459The perichoretic love of the Trinity spills over to God’s relationship with humanity wherein, Volf states,
“God will not be God without humanity,” which is expressed beautifully in Paul’s words: “While we were
enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his son” (Rom 5:10). Cf. Volf, Exclusion and Embrace,
126.
1460That is “reciprocal relationship” as expressed in Jesus’ claim that “The Father is in me and I am in the
Father” (John 10:38). Cf. also Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 172. Volf prefers to call this as “mutual
interiority”. Cf. Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 128. In Prestige’s words, it is “co-inherence in one another
without any coalesce or commixture.” Cf. George Leonard Prestige, God in Pastristic Thought (London: S.P.c.K.,
1952,1956), 298.
1462Volf, engaging Lamb in his argument, rightly points out that “Though the victims may not be able to prevent
hate from springing to life, for their own sake they can and must refuse to give it nourishment and strive to
weed it out. If victims do not repent today they will become perpetrators tomorrow who, in their self-deceit,
will seek to exculpate their misdeeds on account of their own victimization.” Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 117.
Cf also. Sharon Lamb, The Trouble with Blame: Victims, Perpetrators and Responsibility (Cambridge: Harvard
University, 1996), 54.
1463Cf. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One, 28th (modern) ed. (np.:
Penguin, 1969), 162. “Resistance to repentance,” according to Volf, “will be even greater if we see ourselves as
dis-privileged and powerless victims… Whether we are aggressors or victims, genuine repentance demands
that we take ourselves, so to say, out of the mesh of small and big evil deeds that characterized so much of
252
hearts that is so hardened by unrelenting hatred. This Divine embrace is wonderfully

celebrated in the Holy Eucharist where the entire “Body of Christ” (i.e., head and body)
expresses “mutual interiority” – “the giving of oneself to the other and the receiving of the
other into the self that the triune God has undertaken in the passion of Christ that we are
called and empowered to live such giving and receiving out in a conflict-ridden world.”1464
This sacrament brings together two seemingly opposing poles: “actualizing
remembrance”1465 and “reconciling forgetfulness”1466. In this celebration, the whole history
of salvation is sacramentally performed wherein an anamnesis of God’s love that
overcomes human depravity takes place: In one place and in one temporal event it
“remembers” the original bliss that God showered upon God’s creatures, the rupture
between God and the human person brought about by the latter’s disobedience, the
enmity between human beings brought about by pride and envy, and, most especially, the
Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ wherein the great sacrifice of Jesus on the cross blots
outs (i.e., a Divine act of forgetting) humanities transgressions against God and other
God’s creatures, which, in effect, re-enshrines God’s covenantal love for God’s beloved
people in order to reconcile the human-being to God and to fellow creatures in Jesus’
resurrection. When this awesome sacrament is being celebrated with utmost humility and
genuine openness to God’s grace, even if the memory of transgression must be retained
until true remorse and conversion have taken place, people eventually, with the help of
God, let go and forget and are reconciled, in the way Jesus treated the woman caught in
the act of adultery (John 8:1-11) and in the way God made Joseph remember his past and
be reconciled with his brothers (Gen 41:51; 42:21-23; 44:47ff). For, according to Volf, “no
one can be in the presence of God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming
this double exclusion – without transposing the enemy into the sphere of shared humanity
and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness.”1467
In the most recent Apostolic Letter issued by Pope Francis to formally close the Year
of Mercy, the current Pontiff said something that we believe captures the very essence of
Volf’s “theology of embrace” exhibit in the cross of Jesus:
“Forgiveness is the most visible sign of the Father’s love, which Jesus sought to reveal by his
entire life. Every page of the Gospel is marked by this imperative of a love that loves to the point
of forgiveness. Even at the last moment of his earthly life, as he was being nailed to the cross,
Jesus spoke words of forgiveness: ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’
(Lk23:34).
Nothing of what a repentant sinner places before God’s mercy can be excluded from the
embrace of his forgiveness. For this reason, none of us has the right to make forgiveness
conditional. Mercy is always a gratuitous act of our heavenly Father, an unconditional and
unmerited act of love. Consequently, we cannot risk opposing the full freedom of the love with
which God enters into the life of every person.
Mercy is this concrete action of love that, by forgiving, transforms and changes our lives. In
this way, the divine mystery of mercy is made manifest. God is merciful (cf. Ex 34:6); his mercy
our social intercourse, refuse to explain our behavior and accuse others, and simply take our wrongdoings
upon ourselves: ‘I have sinned in my own thoughts, in my words, and in my deeds,’ as the Book of Common
Prayers put it.” Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 119.
1464Ibid., 128-129.
1465Cf. Smolarski, Liturgical Literacy,11.
1466Forgetfulness here is not be taken in its pejorative sense. Rather, this is understood as blotting out our
transgressions through the mercy of God as expressed in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah: “I will forgive
their iniquities, and remember their sins no more” (Jer. 31:35).
253
SAMBAYANIHAN
lasts for ever (cf. Ps 136). From generation to generation, it embraces all those who trust in him
and it changes them, by bestowing a share in his very life.” 1468
Moreover, Pope Francis said in the same document that
“Mercy renews and redeems because it is an encounter between two hearts: the heart of God
who comes to meet us and a human heart. The latter is warmed and healed by the former. Our
hearts of stone become hearts of flesh (cf. Ezek 36:26) capable of love despite our sinfulness. I
come to realize that I am truly a ‘new creation’ (Gal 6:15): I am loved, therefore I exist; I am
forgiven, therefore I am reborn; I have been shown mercy, therefore I have become a vessel of
mercy.”1469
Thus, we can say that, in these words, Pope Francis is expressing the same notion of
mercy and forgiveness as developed in Volf’s “theology of embrace”, which is latched on
the overwhelming love of the Merciful God who transforms “our hearts of stone [to] become
hearts of flesh” that enkindles the fire of love in us and behooves us to extend concrete
acts of mercy and love by forgiving others who have wronged us. Both of them recognize
the impossible of such vocation without the necessary grace coming from God. For Pope
Francis, mercy and forgiveness is something that is urgent. It is not something that we
can postpone until the Parousia. In this letter which he promulgated on the 2016
Solemnity of Christ the King, Pope Francis clearly indicated that “Now is the time to
unleash the creativity of mercy, to bring about new undertakings, the fruit of grace. The
Church today needs to tell of those ‘many other signs’ that Jesus worked for, which “are
not written’ (Jn 20:30), so that they too may be an eloquent expression of the fruitfulness
of the love of Christ and the community that draws its life from him.”1470
Now, we ask the question: what does this “embrace” have to do with trans-colonial
bahala na ordinary theology? First, bahala na is about “letting go and letting God.”
Clearly, based on our preceding discussions, bahala na articulates the same thing that
Volf tries to convey in his theology of embrace: “the final reconciliation,” Volf argues, “is
not the work of human beings but of the triune God… the final reconciliation is not a self-
enclosed ‘totality’ because it rests on a God who is nothing but perfect love.” 1471 When a
Filipino person utters bahala na, he/she is entrusting to God not just the outcome of the
present difficult undertaking but also is invoking God’s guidance and inspiration so that
one may make the right choices and actions, especially in terms of making peace with
people who, humanly speaking, are impossible to love or to be forgiven. When it comes to
the issue of Filipino migration, bahala na offers not just a temporary sigh of relief for the
Filipinos facing difficult situations (i.e., marginalization, oppression, discrimination,
1468Pope Francis, “Miserecordia et Misera,” An Apostolic Letter of Pope Francis on Mercy and Peace, no. 2.
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/papa-francesco-lettera-
ap_20161120_misericordia-et-misera.html [accessed November 23, 2016].
1469Ibid., no. 16.
1470Ibid., no. 18. He argues that it should not be delayed because “In our own day, whole peoples suffer hunger
and thirst, and we are haunted by pictures of children with nothing to eat. Throngs of people continue to
migrate from one country to another in search of food, work, shelter and peace. Disease in its various forms
is a constant cause of suffering that cries out for assistance, comfort and support. Prisons are often places
where confinement is accompanied by serious hardships due to inhumane living conditions. Illiteracy remains
widespread, preventing children from developing their potential and exposing them to new forms of slavery.
The culture of extreme individualism, especially in the West, has led to a loss of a sense of solidarity with and
responsibility for others. Today many people have no experience of God himself, and this represents the
greatest poverty and the major obstacle to recognition of the inviolable dignity of human life. To conclude, the
corporal and spiritual works of mercy continue in our own day to be proof of mercy’s immense positive
influence as a social value. Mercy impels us to roll up our sleeves and set about restoring dignity to millions
of people; they are our brothers and sisters who, with us, are called to build a ‘city which is reliable’.”
254
unjust compensation, and the like) but an inspiration to hang on to the promises they
have given to their families and loved-ones back home because they believe that God is in
control. They can endure all the sufferings and grab every opportunity to be happy and
enjoy life because in their heart of hearts God will ease their pains and make life bearable
for them. Thus, they can go on serving faithfully their employers, despite undue treatment
from the latter, because God will sustain them for the sake of their families and relatives
back home. For Filipino migrants, most of the time, it is not about them. It is about their
families whom they love. Filipino migrants say bahala na, as well, when they opt to work
in the countries that formerly colonized the Philippines and or in the countries where
Filipinos where known to be marginalized, trying to forget the hurts of the “past” for the
financial benefits of their families left in the Philippines. Despite being discriminated
against by people in their host countries by virtue of their color or race, most of them do
not easily give up because their faith assures them that such situation is transitory and
that God will help them not only to persist but, most especially to come out of it
triumphant in the end. All for the love of their families who depend on them. Even in war-
torn countries where their future seems uncertain, they still opt to go or stay, which for
some, especially those coming from the wealthier nations, is sheer stupidity because they
are simply pushing their luck too much or, in a way, committing suicide. Their choice to
“bury the hatchet” for the greater cause of sacrificing their lives in order to give better lives
to their loved-ones back home will never be possible without their deep conviction that
God will take care of them, that God will overcome all obstacles for them, that God will be
their strength, that God holds their future. In other words, they trust that Divine
intervention will carry them through in the ups and downs of their migrant life – a life in
the “belly of the Empire”, a life in the midst of oppressive structures, a life of conflict and
violence, a life away from their loved-ones, but a life worth living for the sake of the people
who are hoping for and depending on the, which for “outsiders”, especially those who are
raised in highly individualistic society, is utterly incomprehensible. Volf’s “theology of
embrace” may not be meant to address the issue of Filipino migration because it seems to
be specifically written to tackle the issue of reconciliation vis-à-vis violence or atrocities
suffered in the cases of wars and genocides, but we can discern some intersections
between the two for the very reason that the people who utter bahala na, the Filipino
people (migrant or not), do not rely too much on their personal strengths in order to face
or overcome their challenging moments in their lives but on the power of God who is good
and merciful. If for Volf the victims can only forgive and forget because of God’s grace
working in them, the Filipino migrants can only offer faithful-service and “reverse-
hospitality” to their employers in their host countries, amidst the fact that many of these
employers are abusive and take advantage of the former’s irregular and liminal status,
because they have profound faith in Divine Providence and God’s boundless mercy. As we
already indicated earlier: Nasa Diyos ang awa, nasa tao ang gawa or, in other words,
when one does his/her best, God’s mercy will take care of the rest.
Reconciliation, in Volf’s cogitation, is symbolically manifested in the four-fold
“embrace” he enumerated in his book: “opening the arms, waiting, closing the arms, and
opening them again.”1472 A genuine reconciliatory embrace requires that all these elements
are present or fulfilled, otherwise it will fall short of a true embrace or it ceases to be “an
act of love” but becomes “an act of oppression and, paradoxically, an act of exclusion”.1473

1473Ibid.
255
SAMBAYANIHAN
This embrace is about creating a space for oneself and for the other, which renders the
one offering embrace vulnerable and vigilantly waiting for the other’s response. While
waiting for the other to accept or reject the offer of embrace, the one who initiates the act
needs to be patient in making the other realize that it is not a solitary act. Once the other
welcomes the invitation, one has to close the arm in order to “hold and be held by one
another”1474 – “belonging together in their mutual alterity.”1475 And finally, one has to open
the arms again like the loving father in the popular parable whose “most basic
commitment”, Volf surmises, “is not to rules and given identities but to his sons whose
lives are too complex to be regulated by fixed rules and whose identities are too dynamic
to be defined once and for all. Guided by the indestructible love which makes space in the
self for other in their alterity, which invites the others who have transgressed to return,
which creates hospitable conditions for their confession, and rejoices over their presence,
the father keeps re-configuring the order without destroying it so as to maintain it as an
order of embrace rather than exclusion.”1476
Bahala na, as implied by this expression, opens a possibility for pagtataya (i.e.,
taking risk), which makes one vulnerable to others, like people or circumstances, the one
uttering it. Saying bahala na is like opening one’s arms; thereby, exposing oneself to
possible attacks or untoward treatment. When one says bahala na while contemplating
on reconciling with a person who has offended him/her, or the other way around, he/she
is aware of the possibility of either acceptance or rejection. One is not certain of what will
transpire but he/she, in the hope that everything will be well, takes the risk of doing what
is necessary for reconciliation to the agents of injustice, violence, marginalization, and
discrimination: creating a space for one another or exposing the “wound” so that the other
may penetrate one’s woundedness for possible empathy and reparation. Moreover, this
risk involves embracing the consequences of one’s decision.
This line of thought brings us to a point where we can also argue that once bahala
na is enlightened by Volf’s “theology of embrace”, the Filipino migrants will be able to
identify their miseries, name and judge transgressions perpetrated by both their
oppressors and themselves while at the same time strive to find bridges of healing and
reconciliation with the grace of God.
II.2.4. Bahala Na and Bayanihan: An Exploration on How the Filipino Spirituality

of Bayanihan Complements Bahala na Theology
Certainly, our use of the popular Filipino expression, bahala na, has brought us to
several theological avenues that can help us introduce in a meaningful way the input of
the Filipino migrants in the area of contemporary theology, especially concerning the
aspect of ordinary theology. Nevertheless, we cannot deny the fact that this theological
expression has its own limits, which we have already underscored and briefly explained
earlier. Thus, at this juncture, we would like to explore an avenue that will deepen or
broaden our understanding of the theology that the Filipino migrant people can share to
our contemporary world. And this avenue; we believe, pertains to the notion of Filipino
bayanihan. We believe that the utterance of bahala na becomes more powerful and
1474Zali D. Gurevitch, “The Embrace: On the Element of Non-Distance in Human Relations,” The Sociological
Quarterly 31, no. 2(1990): 194.
1476Ibid., 166.
256
meaningful when it is complemented by or infused with or fortified by the spirituality of

bayanihan. One is able to genuinely live out one’s pananampalataya, articulated as bahala
na, when faith is anchored in the assurance bayanihan spirit.
Bayanihan is considered by the Filipinos as an exhibition of the spirit of camaraderie
or collaborative effort. Originally, this terminology is used to refer to the act of transferring
a traditional Filipino house from one place to another which, normally, involves the entire
bayan (i.e., the community).1477 Thus, it is a communal endeavor of the entire community.
Usually, it is thought of as a happy and hopeful event of journeying together despite the
wondrous tasks that they need to perform, because they support each other, share each
other’s resources and feast on the food being prepared for everyone to enjoy. The proprietor
of the house that is collaboratively being moved from its former location to its new more
favorable location has the courage to embark on this task because he/she is assured that
he/she has the entire community at his/her back as they pitch in according to their
capacity that will certainly make a wondrous task more achievable. The help extended by
each one certainly makes the journey a lot lighter, manageable and enjoyable. Thus, the
owner says “bahala na, let’s do it!” He/she may still have some questions about this
journey but he/she will possess the necessary courage to make that bold step, willing to
take the risk, because he/she is assured of the support of the entire community which
he/she had already experienced even before in that community. It is, indeed, a beautiful
expression of pananampalataya.
We surmise that bayanihan becomes possible for Filipinos because of the loob-kapwa
relationship that serves as the foundation of every Filipino interaction with other people.
Without this intersubjective bond, it will not be easy for the Filipinos to simply sacrifice
their own time and convenience just to extend a helping hand to others, like a neighbor
who wants to transfer his/her humble abode from one location to another. It is about
journeying together from an old place to a new one where everyone gives his/her fair share
of time, talent and treasure. This event expresses a whole range of meanings. To name
just a few, we can say that it is about movement, change, collaboration, transformation,
diversity, unity, pananampalataya, hospitality, festivity, love, sensitivity, assistance,
communication, leadership, servanthood, discipleship, ritual, challenges, trust in one
another and in Divine Providence, gratefulness, heroism, self-sacrificing love, hopefulness,
and inculturation. It is an event that embodies the theology of church. It is about a
gathering, an ek-kaleō, which calls a particular assembly for a common goal. It is an event
of charity that we believe to embody in an inculturated and meaningful way the
perichoretic love of the Trinity. With bayanihan, one does not have to worry because the
kapwa is there, in the form of the neighbors and most especially of God, who will assist
him/her and his/her family in this transitional event in their lives.
1477Brazal explains that “When Filipinos hear the term bayanihan, the first image that usually comes to mind
are neighbors helping each other move a house or farmers helping one another in harvest. The context of this
discourse is the agricultural rural setting where mutual aid is necessary for people to cope especially with
major agricultural tasks. If we employ semantic analysis, bayanihan comes from the root word bayani – hero.
The suffix “an” indicates each one being a “bayani” or a “hero” to one another. A hero is one who lives and
dies for his country. Modern-day heroes in Philippine discourses however include those who bring honor to
the country like Manny Pacquiao or those who sacrifice for their family and contribute to the nation’s economic
survival as the overseas contract workers.” Brazal, Redeeming the Vernacular, 56. She, however, noted, as we
have also pointed out in our first chapter that “Suspicions have been expressed regarding the hailing of
overseas contract workers (OCWs) as heroes. This has been used by the government to promote the export of
labor, which reduces unemployment while not seriously attending to the need to curb corruption to develop
the Philippine economy. One cartoon in the internet says ‘Bayani nuon, pulubi ngayon’ (A hero before, a
beggar today) because when they come back to the Philippines, there are still no job possibilities for them.”
Ibid.
257
SAMBAYANIHAN
We cannot, however, overlook the reality that, in the course of the bayanihan
journey, just like in any human enterprise, misunderstanding may creep in due to some
personality differences and exhaustion. When this does happen, the task is either stalled
or aborted. Chaos may also come into play. But, when things are ironed out, after they
have cleared their disagreements and once they have recuperated from physical fatigue
due to the weight of the house being carried, they try to re-negotiate, patch things up, get
over their negative feelings, re-strategize to go back to the joint venture and continue the
journey. That is why, the presence of a leader is very important because he/she sets tone
in order for those who are offering their help will work in a coordinated manner mindful
of the fact that each one offers a unique and priceless contribution to the success of the
task at hand. The leader needs to be sensitive enough to pick up the nuances, the fitness
and temperaments of the participant in order for him/her to guide the group properly.
Having said all this, we are of the opinion that bayanihan spirituality can be promoted
as a viable complementary expression to the bahala na which can be seen as one of the
appropriate ordinary theologies for Filipinos in diaspora. We believe that this captures
most eloquently bahala na which is an articulation of the Filipino pananampalataya. We
have observed through our close and extended contact with the Filipino migrants in
Western Europe and in the United States of America that one of the most important
elements that keep the Filipinos hopeful amidst all the precarious conditions that they
have been subjected to, one that propels them to say bahala na amidst the insecurity of
their journey, is spirit of bayanihan wherein they experience being supported in various
ways by fellow Filipinos who become their extended families abroad. Their diasporic lives
become more bearable because of the generosity that most fellow Filipino migrants have
afforded them.
This, then, reminds us of Agnes Brazal who, in her article on vernacular
hermeneutics, brought up the possibility, which was originally articulated by Antonio
Meloto, one of the pioneering leaders of Couples for Christ, of seeing bayanihan (i.e., “being
a hero to one another”) as a cultural version or expression of what we find in the Gospel
as the “Multiplication of Loaves and Fish.”1478 For her, re-reading this Scriptural passage
from the point of view of bayanihan is opens an avenue towards a multi-directional or
multi-lateral empowerment.
Bayanihan, of course, cannot be universalized or generalized because this is not true
in every case for there are also some Filipinos who choose to detach themselves from other
Filipinos and remain apathetic to their fellow Filipinos, but majority of the Filipinos, based
on our study, easily welcome each other as “family” and offer support to each other, such
as emotional, financial and others. So, they do their best to improve the lives of their
families back home despite all the challenges that they face in the foreign land because
they are assured that they are not doing this alone, but together with other Filipinos who
have wholeheartedly welcomed them as members of their extended families. Bahala na.
On this premise, we can argue, that bayanihan can be an expression of an ordinary
theology of the Filipno migrant people which encourages interculturality, solidarity and
charity while saying bahala na. Bayanihan, as shared by the Filipinos to the world, will
help bring about a new Pentecost, according to Brazal and Meloto, wherein “people of
different languages and races can be in solidarity with each other for a good cause.” 1479
1478Cf. Antonio Meloto, “I Want to be a Good Catholic,” Gawad Kalinga, http:// gk1mb.multiply.com/journal
[accessed May 23, 2015]. Cited in Brazal, Redeeming the Vernacular, 59.
1479Ibid.
258
Bayanihan can be an image of the real essence of the universality of the Church where
everyone is welcome to pitch in, regardless of economic standing, culture, race, religion,
nationality, and gender. This brings to mind the battle cry of PCP II which extols the
Church in the Philippines as “Church of the Poor”: “Nobody is so rich the he/she cannot
receive; Nobody is so poor that he/she cannot give.”1480 With bayanihan, everyone is an
important part of the task or the journey. Thus, we believe that, as Filipino migrants
continue to say bahala na, they can also serve as inspiration for others to do his/her own
humble but essential part in building the Kingdom of love, justice, mercy and peace. They
can encourage other believers to continue striving while trusting in Divine Providence
because we have the whole Church on our side, sustained by the love of the Trinity who
supports us and accompanies us in our journey of faith towards the eternal banquet
prepared for us in heaven.
II.2.4.1. Bahala Na and Bayanihan: The Challenge of the Stranger
Ordinary theology of the Filipino migrants, represented by the complementary

theological expressions of bahala na and bayanihan, necessarily includes in its framework
the image of a stranger or alien/foreigner, which is being put forward by Eleazar
Fernandez as central to the identity of the contemporary Christian church.1481 If the
diaspora church “fails to embrace this identity,” Fernandez opines, “surely it will fail in its
mission and ministry.”1482 Fernandez believes that the use of this metaphor is not
surprising at all because it is consistent with the picture of Jesus Christ who was also a
“diaspora-stranger, a displaced-stranger, a dislocated-stranger” that was referred to in
Matthew 9:58 as “the Son of Man who has nowhere to lay his head” and in Matthew
25:35-36 as the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, and prisoner who was given food
and drink, welcomed, given clothing, taken care of, and visited.1483
This identity of the stranger that is to be recovered and embraced by the
complementary theologies of bahala na and bayanihan, to use the words of Fernandez,
must not simply be a “temporary condition (something that we can get over someday)” but
rather a posture that is “permanent.”1484 Making this posture as a permanent “event” will
allow the diasporized Filipinos - who know by heart what it is like to be treated and to
think of themselves a stranger – to be more sensitive to fellow strangers who are trying to
find their place in the greater scheme of things. It should be noted that Fernandez asserts
that, and we agree with him on this point, the “‘church’s integrity is judged in relation to
how it deals with the strangers in our midst.”1485 Assuming this vantage point as a
permanent posture, according to Fernandez, will help the Filipino migrants to constantly
see and remember “how the powerful missionary churches of the global North have
introduced an alien and alienating Christianity in the global South that led to the suffering
of people from this region.”1486 This will be a painful reminder to them not to imitate the
colonizing and oppressive attitude of the stranger. It will serve as an inspiration for them
not only to be kind to strangers but to be kind as a stranger. With bayanihan, we can see
the hospitality not only to but also of the stranger is feasible. Having said that, we call to
1480CBCP, PCP II.

1482Ibid.
1483Ibid.
1484Ibid., 225.
1485Ibid., 226.
1486Ibid.
259
SAMBAYANIHAN
mind what Fernandez has said about the peculiar link between hospitality and the
stranger: “the practice of hospitality is the plumb line by which we have to judge ourselves
and our society; it is the yardstick, the litmus test by which our moral stature is
judged.”1487
Considering the notion of the hospitality to and of the stranger, which we see as a
possible concrete expression bayanihan, we are reminded of Henri Nouwen’s rendition of
hospitality which we see as particularly insightful and instructive. Noting the distinction
between the German Gastfreundschaft that emphasizes “friendship” with the guest and
the Dutch gastvrijheid that expresses “freedom” of the guest, he comes up with the notion
of hospitality that means “offering a friendship without binding [freedom] the guest and
freedom without leaving him alone [friendship].”1488 Hence, any church of the diasporic
community for that matter, as a stranger, becomes a venue for hospitality where
friendship that neither “binds” nor “abandons” the guest is opened up. For Fernandez,
“hospitality is primarily a ‘creation of a free space’ where the stranger can be at home and
be a friend instead of a threat or an enemy.”1489
However, this notion of hospitality which we believe to be embodied by bayanihan, if
it must truly address the issues of the diasporized people, including the Filipino migrants,
must not only be limited to the welcoming of the stranger by another stranger but must
push itself further by pursuing charity towards acts of social justice. Definitely these acts
of social justice demand an unmasking of and opposition to “the unjust ‘table manners’
of the global market”. This stance on hospitality that is appropriate for the contemporary
globalized society brings to mind Donald Messers “exhortation:” [While] “faith-based
charity provides crumbs from the table, faith-based justice offers a place at the table.”1490
II.2.4.2. The Quest of Bahala Na and Bayanihan: Taking a Cue from Exodus Narrative
(not from but) towards Egypt: Finding a Way towards Liberation within Migration
The complementary notions of Bahala Na and Bayanihan which we have discussed

above, we believe, can also take some inspiration from Fernandez’s proposal to view
Filipino migration theology against the background of the Exodus of Jacob’s family
towards Egypt.1491 For him, this biblical narrative is paradigmatic of Filipino
pananampalataya amidst the challenges they face as migrants dispersed in the main hubs
of world economy and politics. This particular way of reading the narrative, according to
Fernandez, will “cast the exodus in a much broader light” wherein Moses-led departure
from Egypt is considered to “constitute [only a] significant moment” in the “over all struggle
of the people… [that] leads them in the task of transformation within the geographic
confines of Egypt.”1492
1487Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Borders , 226. This view on the church’s integrity which we are
assuming is consistent with Lester Edwin Ruiz’s very insightful contention that the “who the stranger is”
pertains to the “socio-analytical question,” while the “how we relate to the stranger” concerns the “ethical
question”. Cf. Lester Edwin J. Ruiz, “Diaspora, Empire, Solidarity: Hope and the (Marginalized) Subaltern as
rupture(s) and repetition(s),” CTC Bulletin 23, no. 1(2007): 39-59.
1488Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out: Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (New York: Image, 1975), 71.
1490Cited by Donald Messer, “More Than Random Acts of Kindness,” in Ending Hunger Now: A Challenge to
Persons of Faith, eds. George McGovern et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 88-89.
1491Cf. Eleazar Fernandez, “Exodus-toward-Egypt: The Filipino-Americans’ Struggle to Realize the Promise
Land in America,” in The Postcolonial Biblical Reader, ed. R.S. Sugirtharajah (Malden, MAS.: Blackwell, 2006),
291-333.
1492Ibid., 293.
260
But before we delve deeper into this theme, let us first consider some pertinent points
that Fernandez has underlined in his article published in The Postcolonial Biblical Reader
which basically tackled the issue of the relevance of theology to the narrative of Filipino
migration in the U.S. We believe that this particular discussion will shed light as to why
the story of Jacob’s migration is a better biblical metaphor for Filipino migration theology
rather than the Exodus led by Moses.
In the previous chapter, we have discussed the continuous struggle of the Filipino
migrants to blend in in their respective countries of destination. No matter how they try
to be like the local citizens, they still fail to do so. As far as the Filipinos in the U.S. are
concerned, according to Fernandez, Filipinos continue to be “aberrations, forever ‘missing
the mark.’”1493 The thought of Filipinos not perfectly copying the people “ordinarily”
considered as the “genuine” Caucasian Americans, reminds us of the story of the ambition
of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis wherein they were tempted to be like God which
became the root cause of their perdition. Like these biblical characters who exemplify both
the gloriousness and the weakness of the human person, the Filipinos, according to Luis
Francia, were also tempted by the “twin-headed snake of Spain and America” who seduced
them to be like the “white gods.”1494 For a lot of the Filipinos, which we have already
pointed out earlier, the United States of America is not only a “white god” but a “huge
god”, because they always dream of having a share in the “hugeness” of America. In line
with this project, it is necessary to decolonize Filipinos from their colonial mentality. They
should endeavor to disabuse themselves of their unending desire to become like their
“white and huge gods” which also causes them to discriminate against other ethnic
groups, especially those with African origin. Filipinos behave “as if they were white in
relation to blacks, [because they believe] that their lighter complexion puts them closer to
the whites.”1495 Unless the Filipino Americans are liberated from such mentality, according
to Fernandez, their “image of God will remain… an image of Uncle Sam.”1496 Fernandez,
therefore, surmises that to liberate the Filipinos from their colonial mentality means
focusing more on the image of “the God who travels, affirms and encounters them in their
identity and ethnicity.”1497 This entails, in his own estimation, a notion of a God who is
“neither colorless nor colorblind (read/white).”1498 In this perspective, God is presented as
transcending color “not because God is colorless (white) but rather because God is colorful
and cognizant of the beauty of each color… a God [who] would be ‘pissed off,’ to use the
expression of Alice Walker, ‘if [we] pass by the color purple in the field somewhere and
don’t notice it.’”1499 By assuming this particular vantage point, one also declares “a
prophetic no to any uncritical allegiance to the American Dream…. [which] has become
[for many Filipino Americans] an obsession… that their relationships with others both
within the Filipino-American community and in the wider society are often measured in
terms of success or failure relative to the American Dream.”1500 Thus, Filipino Americans,
1493Fernandez, “Exodus-toward-Egypt,” 293. This impossibility of task to be American is likened by Fernandez

to the “sinner” whose ‘falling short of the norm is…like falling from grace: out the norm is hell, a place where
an encounter with God is perceived as impossible.”
1494Luis Francia, ‘‘The Other Side of the American Coin,’’ in Flippin: Filipinos on America, eds. Luis Francia
and Eric Gamalinda (New York: The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, 1996), 6.
1495Ibid.
1497Ibid.
1498Ibid.
1499Ibid.
1500Ibid., 301.
261
SAMBAYANIHAN
like the biblical Israelites, must be able to “reflect upon both the blessings and the perils
of their new life.”1501
In line with this recommendation of Fernandez, he persuades the Filipino Americans,
and we also add here the other Filipino migrants, to engage in “social criticism that is not
a betrayal of their dream but a necessary move to realize the America of their dreams….
a move beyond tinikling1502 (native bamboo dance) solidarity… to a solidarity that deals
with the sociopolitical issues faced by society as a whole.”1503 This social criticism also
involves, Fernandez believes, a realization that the “presence and plight in America is a
microcosm of the plight of the Two-Thirds World in general,”1504 because it is true that,
according to Robert Blauner, “the economic, social, and political subordination of the third
world groups in America is a microcosm of the position of all peoples of color in the world
order of stratification.”1505 Like the Israelites who eventually broke their silence on the
account of the unbearable situation they were subjected to, Filipino Americans must be
able raise their voice in solidarity with the other oppressed sectors of the contemporary
globalized societies they are in.
In view of the global significance of subordination of the third world groups,
Fernandez strongly proposes that, beyond sending remittances to the families back home,
“they must not only give words to their pain but also go public with their vision… [for them
to] cease to be unequivocally happy about their relative advantage over Filipinos back
home, because they will come to see that this advantage of theirs is predicated on the
disadvantage of others… to avert the easy escape-goating of the weakest members… in
time of crisis.”1506 This part of Fernandez’s reading of the “Filipino-Exodus-Towards-Egypt”
story reminds us of our proposed Bayanihan spirituality that is mindful of one’s
responsibility to remember and resist the oppressive and dehumanizing structures, while
not forgetting to celebrate God’s mercy and graciousness in prayers, in liturgies and in
joyful gatherings. It also brings to mind one’s responsibility to provide a space for
hospitality and solidarity with fellow-strangers caught in the shadows of globalization.
Resonating to Cavanaugh’s and Sang Hyun Lee’s notion of hospitality and solidarity,
Fernandez remarks:
“As people who have experienced marginalization and who have known what it means to cross
geographical and cultural divides, Filipino Americans can help to build bridges of connections.
As people who have known what it means to suffer as a result of one’s color, they can also help
to articulate a vision of a just, colorful, and sustainable tomorrow. Filipino Americans must not
remain passive bystanders in America, busying themselves in pursuit of all the ‘‘bigs’’ of the
American Dream; they must live up instead to the calling of responsible citizenship.”1507
In this manner, Fernandez declares that

“[i]f the new generations are to express their utang na loob (debt of gratitude) to those who broke
their silence, they must do so by turning these monuments of past accomplishments into
movements of today – movements of transformation, movements to forge a colorful tomorrow.
America is in the hearts of Filipino Americans, and they have not given up the America of their
dreams. The task is not only to understand America, as Carlos Bulosan put it, but also to make

1502Tinikling is a native bamboo dance where the performers try to imitate the movement of the heron that
hops between the rice blades by hopping in between bamboos without being caught. Hence, it is a show of
grace and skill in avoiding danger of being caught in the middle (read: avoidance of conflicts).
1504Ibid., 302.
1505Robert Blauner, ‘‘Colonized and Immigrant Minorities,’’ in From Different Shores: Perspectives on Race and
Ethnicity in America, ed. Ronald Takaki (New York and Oxford: Oxford University, 1987), 159.
1506Fernandez, Exodus-Towards-Egypt, 302.
1507Ibid.
262
America a just society. This is to realize the America of one’s heart. The America that Filipino
Americans desire in their hearts can only become a reality through a historical project – a
project of breaking silence, of naming the pains, of articulating a colorful society, of acting on
dreams so that the promised land may be realized in Egypt.”1508
Now, moving on to the our main topic in this particular section, we recall that
Fernandez has used the biblical narrative of Jacob’s migration instead of the more popular
exodus story of Moses as a metaphor for his particular notion of theology of migration
which basically entails the following purposes: 1) to present some problematic areas of
Filipino diaspora in the United States; and 2) to mine some liberative aspects in them
that can be utilized to understand the nature of theology that is appropriate for the
narrative of the Filipino diaspora.
The motivation behind this venture is the conviction that any story could be read or
interpreted in many different lights because they are always “open”. Since narratives are
always “open” to various interpretations, he noted that the exodus stories can be read as
either liberating or terrorizing, depending on the perspective used by the reader. He notes
that the exodus from Egypt story, apart from the more usual reading of it as a story of
liberation for the Israelites, can also be read in another light. “When viewed from the
perspective of those who identify with the plight of the Canaanites,” according to
Fernandez, “this liberating narrative becomes an exodus-conquest narrative and hence a
narrative of terror, for the acquisition of the Promised Land, Canaan, comes by way of
conquest of a people, the Canaanites, with the help of Yahweh, the liberator-God turned
conqueror-God.”1509 Naim Ateek and Mitri Raheb agree with Fernandez by saying that this
particular narrative is extremely disturbing for the Palestinians, considering their plights
and the bloody conflict that they have now with the Israelites.1510 In the same vein, the
American Indians, according to Robert Allen Warrior, “have suffered conquest and
genocide at those who escaped from the Old World and laid claim to the promised of the
‘New World’.”1511 Hence, it is true that a single narrative can be interpreted in a variety of
ways: liberative or oppressive, etc., depending on which lens a particular reader uses. On
this premise, therefore, Fernandez considers the possibility of viewing the exodus-
towards-Egypt as a narrative of liberation that is in keeping with the experiences of the
Filipino Americans, which he had also hoped to be applicable in one way or another to the
other diasporized Filipinos.1512 Fernandez’s retrieval of the liberative aspects in Jacob’s
story of migration can enrich our understanding of ordinary theology of and for Filipinos
in diaspora which is best exemplified by combining bahala na and bayanihan.
Although we do not deny the powerful image of liberation exemplified by the narrative
about Moses who led the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt; nevertheless, we believe
that Jacob’s saga is a more relevant biblical metaphor to the present circumstances
surrounding Filipino diaspora wherein we see Filipino migrants as more likely to stay in
their host countries despite the unfortunate things they suffer in those countries. Jacob’s

1509Ibid.,291.
1510Naim S. Ateek, Justice and Only Justice: Towards a Palestinian Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1989); Mitri Raheb, I Am a Palestinian Christian (Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress, 1995). See also; Marc H.
Ellis, Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987).
1511Robert Allen Warrior, ‘‘A Native American Perspective: Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians,’’ in Voices from
the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World, ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991), 287–
95.
263
SAMBAYANIHAN
narrative, for us, provides us with a message of liberation which is primarily about the
notion of “freedom for” and “freedom to” rather than the “freedom from”.1513
According to Fernandez, it will not be unthinkable for the Filipino migrants to find
resonance in the plights of the Palestinians and American Indians who were displaced by
the foreign invaders, because the Filipino migrants “have by no means entered the
Promised land, the United States or America, as jubilant conquerors; to the contrary, they
have landed on these shores as a colonial people and have gone on to experience life as
second-class citizens.”1514 Having said that, he suggests that the more appropriate
narrative for the Filipino Americans, which may also be applicable to the situation of other
Filipino migrants in different parts of the globe, is the exodus-toward-Egypt instead of the
exodus-from-Egypt, because for him, it conveys “an ambiguous nexus of captivity and
liberation, of closure and promise, of blessings and alienation.” 1515 Thus, in this regard,
he does not understand the term exodus in its ordinary meaning of “flight” or “migration”
but rather as “release” or “liberation,” which has the homeland of the colonial masters as
the destination, “where they are able to share in the cornucopia of their masters’ blessings
but also remain colonized in brazen as well as subtle ways every day of their lives.”1516
Their movement may be towards the “Promised Land” (i.e., United States of America) ,
unlike Jacob’s family which is towards Egypt, but their experience is not in any way close
to Israel’s experience who “successfully and violently” subdued the Canaanites. Because,
while they are “liberated” from their financial worries back home courtesy of their
employment in the U.S., they experience marginalization and other forms of injustices.
Their exodus is not necessarily construed as a “release” or “liberation” but is seen as a
“migration” or “movement” toward the homeland of their colonial masters and not a
Moses-led “exodus-out-of-Egypt.” It is about exodus that speaks about the struggles of
the people in the “belly of the Empire” that motivates them not to flee but to effect
transformation in the same location where they experience oppression structures.1517
Some similarities between the Israelites and Filipinos, according to Fernandez, can
be discerned through a lens called “inter(con)textual” reading of the Bible which is
proposed by Daniel Patte and Kwok Pui-lan. In relation to this approach, Patte suggests
that
“(1) We have to acknowledge the contextual character of our interpretation. There is no context-
free reading, whether in the past or in the present. (2) We have to stop and listen to the voices
of biblical readers who have long been silenced in each context. (3) We have to learn the reading
strategies and critical tradition developed in other parts of the world, such as enculturation,
liberation, and inter(con)textuality. Contextual readings do not mean anything goes or that
interpreters may proceed without self-critique. (4) We have to respect other people’s readings
and assume responsibility for our own interpretation. (5) Other people’s readings often lead us
to see our blind spots, and invite us to notice aspects of the Bible we have overlooked. (6) We
have to learn to read with others in community, rather than reading for or to them, assuming
our reading is superior to others.” 1518
Against this background, therefore, Kwok Pui-lan argues that
1513Fernandez, “Exodus-Towards-Egypt,” 291-333.

1514Ibid.
1515Ibid., 301-333.
1516Ibid., 292-293.
1517Ibid., 293.
1518Cited in Kwok Pui-lan, “Reading the Christian New Testament in the Contemporary World,” Fortress
Commentary on The Bible, 9.

http://www.augsburgfortress.org/media/downloads/9780800699178NTChapter1excerpt.pdf [accessed July
16, 2016]. Cf. Daniel Patte, Introduction to the Global Bible Commentary (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2004), xxi–
xxxii.
264
“The biblical readings from the Global South contribute to a global scholarship that takes into
account other religious texts and classics in what is called intercultural and cross-textual
reading (Lee). It is also interpreted through the lens of oral texts and retold and performed
through storytelling, role-play, and skits. The exploration of these methods decentralizes
Eurocentric modes of thinking that have gripped biblical studies for so long. It allows us to see
the Bible and the world with fresh perspectives and new insights.”1519
In view of this parallelism, it can be asserted that both of them have been driven by
poverty to find a greener pasture. In the case of the Israelites, it was famine in Canaan;
while in the case of the Filipino Americans, it was a combination of a more complex and
textured “confluence of economic, political and cultural factors.”1520 Fernandez claims
that, “except for those with economic means and those in military service”, Filipinos
migrate to the U.S. (in “waves” like the family of Jacob) “[o]ut of their dire need and in the
firm belief that plenty of opportunities exist in the States.”1521 We believe that, as far as
the Filipino economic migrants are concerned, they have, in one way or another, said to
themselves as they cross oceans and lands to seek employment in other countries like the
U.S.: “I really do not know what awaits me there, but bahala na. I am doing this for the
sake of my family.” This concern for the family is, in our opinion, grounded on the spirit
of bayanihan.
This particular vantage point, therefore, allows a comparative reading of Joseph in
the Old Testament and the Filipino migrant workers. Similar to the biblical Joseph who
ordered that the bags of his brothers be filled with grain and money, the Filipino
Americans too, profoundly moved by the spirit of bayanihan, put “grain” and money in
their families’ pockets back home in the form of foreign remittances and balibakyan boxes
(literally “repatriate boxes”)1522 filled with everything that they can send to their
families.1523 Again, this can be seen within the prism of bayanihan wherein the OFW
shares his/her blessings to his/her family. Most of them sacrifice their own convenience
in order to send these love packages at least once a year.
Another point of convergence between the two, according to Fernandez, is how both
the Israelites and the first American Filipinos “were given jobs that, from the master’s
point of view, ‘fit’ their occupational backgrounds and training” (also physical features for
the Filipinos): The Israelites were sent to Goshen to tend sheep (Gen 47:6), while the
Filipinos (being small in physical stature) were sent to the farms “for planting and
harvesting of such crops as asparagus, iceberg lettuce, spinach, strawberries, and sugar
beets.”1524 Some of them were sent to the Hawaiian sugar cane plantations, Alaskan fish
canneries, and railroad construction in the mainland. Later on, however, Filipino
Americans were able to land jobs that suit their education and technical training in the
Philippines, “although many well-trained and well-educated Filipinos continued to land
jobs far below their levels of competence.”1525 All these would have not been possibly
1519Kwok Pui-lan, “Reading the Christian NT,” 14. Fernandez points out that, for Kwok Pui-lan, the “real flesh-
and-blood readers assume a variety of positions—in relation to time, geography, geopolitics, diaspora location,
social location, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and so on—in the power knowledge nexus that inform
their readings and cultural or religious discursive productions in the global market.” Fernandez, Exodus-
towards-Egypt, 140.
1520Ibid.
1521Ibid.
1522Literally, this means returning to home.
1523Fernandez, “Exodus-Towards-Egypt,” 294-295.
1524Ibid., 295.
1525Ibid.“Although Filipino immigrants hold university degrees and have strong work experiences, some
researchers have pointed to the “de-professionalization” of Filipino immigrants. Cf. Philip Kelly, Mila Astorga-
Garcia, Enrico Esguerra and Community Alliance for Social Justice, Toronto, “Explaining the De-
professionalized Filipino: Why Filipino Immigrants Get Low-paying Jobs in Toronto,” CERIS Working Paper,
265
SAMBAYANIHAN
endured by the Filipinos without their pananamapalataya that allows them to take the
risk (pagtataya), because they have tasted something wonderful (pagnamnam) in the
midst of hardships and heartbreaks that they face. Indeed, they were and are willing to
suffer for the sake of their family.
In the same article, however, he points out that there is also a difference between the
biblical Israelites who eventually cried out for help and, eventually, were led by Moses out
of Egypt and the Filipino Americans who have no intention of leaving the U.S. despite the
unimaginable “nightmares” they have encountered in the land of their colonial
masters.1526 Thus, it is clear for him that there is a limit to this comparison. Fernandez
admits that he does not wish “to establish a [total] correspondence between the biblical
narrative and the Filipino-American experience. What he simply wants to do is to perform
an inter(con)textual reading of the biblical narrative and the Filipino-American experience
so that they may enrich each other, opening the way in the process for new horizons of
thinking, dwelling, and acting to come.”1527 On our part, however, we simply would like to
see this as an embodiment of Filipino’s unflagging determination in the face of
precariousness and uncertainty. Their hopes, in general, are not diminished by the
challenges they face and they continue to keep their noses above the water to survive,
and, much more than that, they do their best to swim towards the dry land of success.
Thus, it is an exodus - an exodus not out of Egypt but towards Egypt. It is about
discovering beneath the heap of injustices the “pearl” of great price. It is about resilience
and transforming unfair situation from within. It is participating in the Paschal Mystery
of Jesus Christ who willingly accepted death on the cross, never abandoning His mission,
in order to give life. It is about finding happiness amidst the conditions of anxiety and
insecurity, reconciliation while resisting injustices, hospitality while overcoming rejection,
and solidarity while critically addressing inequality. Therefore, bahala na, like Jesus’
power in vulnerability, offers a counter-cultural approach to the dominating and
oppressive culture of the “colonial masters”. Of course, this will only possible in an
atmosphere of solidarity or bayanihan. When people cooperate and fight together for this
cause, even if it is an uphill battle, success can be attained.
Bahala na, which allows the Filipinos to find reasons to be thankful in staying in
their host countries and to offer friendship to the locals amidst sufferings and
discrimination, turns the table wherein the stranger (alien/foreigner), like Jesus who is
also a “displaced-stranger”, offers hospitality to the host and fellow strangers by “turning
water into wine at the wedding at Cana”, “feeding the multitude” and “offering His body
series no. 75, Toronto: Joint Centre of Excellence on Research on Immigration and Settlement, 2009,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242537196_EXPLAINING_THE_DEPROFESSIONALIZED_FILIPIN
O_WHY_FILIPINO_IMMIGRANTS_GET_LOW-PAYING_JOBS_IN_TORONTO [accessed July 15, 2016]. Kelly and
colleagues reported that Filipino immigrants, in general, often seek “survival jobs,” in lieu of one related to
their pre-immigration career. It could be argued that Filipinos‟ high levels of employment, coupled with the
downwards mobility in their career paths, may be partly driven by the large number of Filipino women
participating in the Live-in Care Program (LCP). For example, once LCP contracts are fulfilled, Filipino LCP
workers often will apply for a temporary work permit while awaiting approval for their immigration papers. In
such cases, Filipino LCP workers will have already participated in the Canadian labor market for several years.
In most cases, these Filipino women will participate in labor sectors that do not match their areas of expertise.”
Joseph Gerald B. Cuenca, “Filipina Live-in Caregivers in Canada: Migrants’ Rights and Labor Issues: A policy
Analysis” (unpublished thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, 1998),
https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/8907 [accessed July 15, 2016].
1527Ibid.
266
as the Bread of Life”.1528 This certainly reminds us of intertwining of gastfreundschaft and

gastvrijheid that we have discussed earlier,”1529 which, for Fernandez, is primarily about
“a ‘creation of a free space’ where the stranger can be at home and be a friend instead of
a threat or an enemy.”1530 This, however, must be balanced, in order not to fall into
unhealthy spiritualization, by acts pursuing social justice that, according to Donald
Messers, offers both “faith-based charity [that] provides crumbs from the table, [and] faith-
based justice [that] offers a place at the table.”1531 And that is none other than the
bayanihan spirit which Filipino people can harness and put into good use.
We believe that the notion of Bahala Na theology nestled in the story of Israel’s
Exodus-Towards-Egypt is a viable option for a genuine academic representation of the
ordinary theologies arising from the millions of Filipinos displaced all over the world, who
continuously work and hope for a better future for their families and loved ones, despite
the not so hospitable and discouraging experiences they have had in the foreign land. We
certainly advocate this kind of contextual articulation of theology, because they (read:
Filipino migrants) not only find themselves in the picture but also are given a chance to
speak, dialogue, challenge, enrich or revise any attempt of representing them in the entire
theological enterprise whether in the ecclesiastical or in the academic realms.
If they constitute a great number of Filipinos, they must be given a voice and a
chance to participate in the on-going re-narration of the history of salvation. They are not
simply passive receivers of faith but they are active agents in the continuous “handing-
down” of Christian Tradition that originated from the Father, inaugurated by Jesus Christ
and “preserved” by the Holy Spirit.
Definitely, we do not canonize the Filipino migrants for they carry with them both
the precious and the dangerous religious and cultural traditions. They do not always hit
the mark, because they also falter like any other individual born in this world, but they,
in their humble but potentially rich liminal place, certainly are counted amongst the
people that Jesus Christ had come for and are “destined” to be saved (liberated). They are
also part of the people who strive to experience the Reign of God amidst all the darkness
they have gone through in life. They are fellow pilgrims in the journey to “final” liberation.
Armed with their bahala na cum bayanihan theology, they are given power to “bloom
where they are planted”, to be liberated without escaping the liminal place, to see not only
the dead Jesus on the cross of their sufferings but also the resurrected Christ who invited
everyone to partake of the glory of the reign of God without abandoning the cross, without
abandoning “Egypt.”
1528Fernandez believes that the use of this metaphor is not surprising since it is consistent with the picture of
Jesus Christ who was also a “diaspora-stranger, a displaced-stranger, a dislocated-stranger” that was referred
to in Matthew 9:58 as “the Son of Man who has nowhere to lay his head” and in Matthew 25:35-36 as the
hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick, and prisoner who was given food and drink, welcomed, given clothing,
taken care of, and visited. Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Borders, 224.
1529Nouwen, Reaching Out, 71.
1531Cited by Messer, “More Then Random Acts,” 88-89.
267
SAMBAYANIHAN
Bayanihan: A Most Eloquent Expression of Bahala Na as Pananampalataya ‘En-

Via’ Constituted by Loob-Kapwa: A Partial Conclusion
The title of this chapter is From Bahala Na to Bayanihan, because it speaks about
the journey towards intellectual and theological maturity that we have been to in this most
august faculty, starting from the Advanced Master’s programme up to the present
endeavor of obtaining a doctoral degree in theology. It tries to convey, as well, the
existential voyage of Filipino migrants who, anxious but full of hope, left the country
embattled by insecurity to a discovery of the welcoming home of community that express
solidarity.
Our exploration on the current chapter has brought us to some very detailed
discussions on how the Filipino expression bahala na could possibly be seen against the
background of what Astley has been proposing as ‘ordinary theology’. The first part of this
chapter, therefore, focused on appraising the viability of ‘ordinary theology’ vis-à-vis some
criticisms laid down against it. At the end of our discussion, we came to a conclusion that
‘ordinary theology’ deserves a serious consideration because it does not only exist
alongside academic theology, but it also serves as a veritable source for formal theologizing
considering that it is articulated by the main bulk of believers and it also benefits from
the fruits of academic theology. Thus, ordinary and formal or academic theology are both
enriching and are enriched by one another.
Our quest has also zeroed in on bahala na which we believe is anchored in the
Filipino notion of inter-subjectivity: the intimate relationship between the loob (relational
will) and the kapwa (together with the person) which is ultimately grounded on the
pakikipagkapwa par excellence of God who reveals Godself as a perichoresis – the most
profound expression of unity-in-diversity. Bahala na, as an ordinary articulation of
theology, genuinely expresses Filipino faith known as pananampalataya – taking risk
because one has profoundly, albeit fleeting, the goodness of God. On the merit of
everything that we have said about bahala na, we came to a concluding remark that,
indeed, it can qualify as a genuine expression of ‘ordinary theology’.
After this considerably lengthy discussion on bahala na we proceeded to an
investigation on how bahala na could represent the God-talk of the Filipino migrants who
are doing their best not only to survive but to make the most of their liminal existence in
their countries of destination amidst the actual experience of marginalization and
oppression. Along with this discussion, we also tackled the question whether Pope
Francis, despite his formal training in theology and his very important role in the hierarchy
of the Church, could be seen as traversing also the region of ordinary theology considering
his continuous “plea” for Church leaders and educators to “listen to the people.” This
portion certainly argued that, indeed, Pope Francis is unequivocally recognizing and
passionately promoting the importance of “ordinary theology”.
Aside from placing bahala na as an ordinary theology in dialogue with Pope Francis,
we also brought in the discussion table other contemporary theologies on migration and
reconciliation, such as the theologies put forward by Sang Hyun Lee, Virgilio Elizondo,
Dan Groody, Eleazar Fernandez, and Miroslav Volf. At the end of this exploration, we
concluded that, indeed, there are so many converging points between bahala na and the
theologies promoted by the aforementioned theologians, especially in the issues
concerning liminality, power amidst weakness (i.e., werlooze overmacht), passion for
religion, and reconciliation.
268
Having said that, we can say that everything that we have laid down in the preceding
pages as our reason for proposing bahala na as an ordinary theologicy of Filipino faith,
i.e., pananampalataya, that stems from the mutuality of the loob and the kapwa points
us to what we consider as a contextual theological metaphor of Filipino ordinary theology
in the context of migration, the spirit of bayanihan.
Speaking of which, we recall what the Gawad-Kalinga, the social arm of Couples for
Christ, has done in Mindanao, the group of islands in the southern Philippines. It has
brought together in the spirit of bayanihan, volunteers from Christians, Moslems, and
indigenous Filipinos to build homes for displaced sectors in that area who were
predominantly Moslems. Because of this, Montelibano stated that “[this] is a new covenant
of brotherhood (sic) among Filipinos where old fears and prejudices are set aside to forge
radical ways to find peace and build a nation,”1532
If bayanihan is introduced and propagated in the global stage by the ordinary Filipino
theologians, indeed, it will become a new movement of and from the Holy Spirit that makes
the Filipino communities give witness to a faith that embodies conscious practice of social
responsibility and profound solidarity, because, as the popular Filipino saying goes, “sakit
ng kalingkingan, damang-dama ng buong katawan.” Literally, this means “pain suffered
by the littlest of the toes is deeply felt by the entire body”. This is, for us, a profound
articulation of what it means to be Church as the Body of Christ. To be part of His Body
is to be part of the ‘catholicity’ of the Church, which recognizes diversity amidst unity.
Bayanihan is indeed the kind of Filipino faith that we need to cultivate and promote in the
context of global migration for it makes bahala na as a more viable theological articulation
because it highlights the confluence of the loob and the kapwa.
If we articulate bahala na from the perspective of ordinary theology which takes the
mutual relationship of the loob and kapwa as the foundation, bayanihan can also breathe
new life to the meaning of bayani (hero) which we now attach to the identity of overseas
Filipino migrant workers. In this case, they are not only seen as heroes as far as their
contribution for nation-building is concerned but, on our part, we become more aware of
the possibility of merging the notions of being hero (bayani) and holy (banal) in the
theological concept of martyrdom (witness). According to Bienvenido Nebres, S.J., the
former president of the Ateneo de Manila Univeristy, what we need in the contemporary
world is “a development model that merges faith and patriotism, spirit and science,
holiness and heroism. It is not referring to a self-centered religion and family ties that only
seek the interest of kin which can be barriers to development but about the capacity for
caring and sacrifice that Filipinos are capable of because of their love for God and devotion
to family. It is about loving the Philippines and pride in being Filipino.”1533 With this, the
Filipinos, especially those who are abroad, can become true missionaries who are proud
of their Filipino identity and faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who are ‘sent’ to become
heroes and saints sowing the seed of love, mercy, hope and liberation in the global stage.
Bayanihan is an eloquent manifestation of what we know as agape or Christian love. For,
indeed, people will know that they are Christians by their love.
1532Jose Ma. Montelibano, “GK Bayani Challenge: Sulu -Only for the Brave,” Gawad Kalinga,
http://gk1mb.multiply.com/journal [accessed May 23, 2015].
1533Cf. Antonio Meloto, “Gawad Kalinga: The Spirituality of Nation-Building,” Gawad Kalinga,
http://www.gkswiss.org/attachments/GKThe_Spirituality_of_Nation_Builidng.pdf [accessed May 23, 2015].
269
CHAPTER 3
FROM MISA NG BAYAN TO LITURHIYANG SAMBAYANIHAN
EXPLORING A TRANSCULTURAL LITURGICAL CELEBRATION IN THE CONTEXT OF

FILIPINO DIASPORA
“Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of the prophets, but test
everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from what is evil.”
-1 Thess 5:19-20
Introduction: A Preliminary Attempt to Explore the Notion of Trans-coloniality in

the Context of Transculturally Inculturated Liturgies: Filipino Migrant Catholic
Communities – A Case in Point
I
n my almost 16 years of close contact with the Filipino migrant communities in
Europe and in the United States of America, I have been privileged to participate in
many liturgical or Eucharistic celebrations organized by Filipino migrants. On several
instances, I have met Filipino mass-goers who have to travel, either by public
transportation or private vehicle, at least 2 hours just to participate in what they call
“Filipino mass.” For them, there is nothing more meaningful than participating in a
Filipino mass. It is something that they really look forward to. With my experience of the
so-called Filipino masses celebrated by Filipino communities, however, I have noticed that
at face-value these celebrations are similar to what is known as the “roman rite”. The only
noticeable differences, without employing any critical analysis, are the obvious
predominant presence of the Filipino people and the use of Filipino-composed liturgical
music in the mass. The language used in the liturgy, as I have observed, is either English
or Tagalog. Most of the time, because of the fact that the Philippines have a plethora of
languages, the masses are said in English. In that way, nobody feels left out or
discriminated against. At least, Filipinos, in general, speak or understand English. With
this language, other nationalities who speak and understand English are welcome to
participate in the said celebrations. At times, these Filipino masses are even said in the
local languages of the host countries, but still they refer to them as Filipino masses
because most of the attendees and, most especially the organizers, are Filipinos.
This makes me wonder why we, Filipinos, continue to call our Eucharistic celebration
as “Filipino mass” when, as a matter of fact, it resembles in so many ways what is
recognized as the “Roman Catholic Rite”? Can we not simply refer to it as a Catholic
Eucharistic celebration? Period. Why insist on calling it as such when this does not even
approximate what some of us have known as inculturated liturgies like the “Ambrosian
rite,” “Hispanic rite,” “Zairian liturgy,” or the Misa ng Bayan that was proposed by Anscar
Chupungco and his collaborators?
Can we really have a properly inculturated “Filipino” mass? If so, what are the
required elements for it to be considered as a genuinely inculturated liturgy? And, is there
really a place for inculturated liturgies in the context of migration? Can we not just settle
the issue by simply being faithful, in all aspects, to the Roman Rite prescribed by the
Vatican? What have we to lose? What have we to gain if we come up with inculturated
liturgies in our migrant context? Maybe, we do not even have to create them because,
without being aware of it, all the Filipino masses that we have been celebrating are, indeed,
SAMBAYANIHAN
already inculturated liturgies, despite not being officially recognized as such? Anyway,
Daniel Pilario, in his article “Politics of ‘Culture’ and the Project of Inculturation, points
out the correct observation of Jose Comblin that inculturation is, in no doubt, “a very
ambiguous concept.”1534
As known to many, the Second Vatican Council has ushered in a myriad of changes
in the life and liturgy of the Catholic Church. In fact, the first conciliar document that
came out of Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, significantly influenced the final forms of
the succeeding documents promulgated by the Second Vatican Council, especially the
Lumen Gentium and the Gaudium et Spes.1535 Vatican II, without a doubt, has spawned
countless initiatives from different parts of the globe to make not only the mission and the
structures of the Church to be faithful to the Spirit of aggiornamento but also germinated
numerous sacramental reforms in the Church that are aimed at making the liturgy of the
Church more at home to the sensus fidelium and to the contemporary world. Certainly,
we cannot deny that, indeed, there are some renewals that are sound and there are also
other developments that are judged otherwise.
The Philippines, home to the biggest population of Catholics in Asia, has also
responded to the call of Vatican II for renewal, which is manifested in several aspects of
Church life. One of them is the promotion and formation of Basic Ecclesial Communities.
Another is the propagation of the use of the vernacular language in the celebration of the
sacraments. Moreover, although not so widespread, the Church in the Philippines,
through the “initiative” of a well-respected Filipino liturgist named Anscar Chupungco1536
of the Order of Saint Benedict, has proposed an inculturated celebration of the Mass
popularly known as the Misa ng Bayang Filipino,1537 which, until the present time, even
with the overwhelming support and approval of the Filipino bishops, has not yet received
a seal of approval from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of
Sacraments.1538 Speaking of inculturation vis-à-vis the CDWDS, Bro. Hansel Mapayo,
SSP, as part of the proceedings of the 2016 International Eucharistic Congress held in
the Philippines, mentioned that “While Fr. Francis presents the progress on liturgical
reforms, he also points out that despite calls for reforms in all continents, the
implementation seems to have dissipated. He says that the main cause of this lack of
1534Daniel Pilario, “Politics of ‘Culture’ and the Project of Inculturation: Some Challenges from the Perspective
of Cultural Materialism,” Jahrbuch fur Kontextuelle (1999): 172. Cf. also Jose Comblin, “As Aporias da
Inculturaςão,” REB 56 (1996): 664-84, cited in Roger van Rossum, “Latin American Theological Journals and
the Culture Debate,” Exchange 24 (1997): 126.
1535Flannery, “Vatican Council II: More Conciliar Documents.”
1536This Benedictine monk, who died on 9 January 2013, taught Liturgy at both the Maryhill School of
Theology (Quezon City, Philippines) and the Anselmianum in Rome. In his career as the foremost liturgist in
the country, in collaboration with other experts, he proposed an Ordo Missae that, in their estimation, best
exemplified Filipino culture whose principles and structures were underlined in his 1977 article. Cf. Anscar
Chupungco, “A Filipino Attempt at Liturgical Indigenization,” Ephemerides Liturgicae 91, nos. 4-5(1977): 370-
376.
1537This inculturated liturgy was first introduced by Fr. Anscar Chupungco, OSB, in 1976. Cf. Anscar
Chupungo, Towards a Filipino Liturgy (Manila: Benedictine Abbey, 1976). Misa ng Bayan has been revised
four times already by the Filipino liturgical experts. For more details regarding this proposed Filipino mass,
please refer to the interview with Fr. Camilo J. Marivoet, CICM who served as the secretary of the National
Liturgical Commission. Cf. Fr. Camilo J. Marivoet, CICM, “Interview with Fr. Camilo J. Marivoet, CICM,”
Ugnayan Diwa 1, no. 1(1989): 3-4, 8.
1538Leonardo Mercado, SVD, a well-known Filipino pioneering figure in the areas of Filipino philosophy and
theology, in his book on inculturation, points out the irony of encouraging inculturation in line with the vision
Vatican II’s while seemingly “blocking” approval of the Misa ng Bayan Filipino by the official bodies in the Holy
See. Cf. Leonardo N. Mercado, S.V.D., Inculturation and Filipino Theology (Manila: Divine Word, 1992), 136.
272
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
enthusiasm for inculturation ‘comes from the Congregation of Worship.” 1539 This “delay”
has propelled Fr. Daniel Pilario, CM, to ask a very important question during the
International Eucharistic Congress held in Cebu (Philippines) in January 2016: “When
does our ad experimentum end or is it ad infinitum? What is the role of the Roman Curia
vis-a-vis the Bishops’ Conference in matters of implementing liturgical reforms? And,
lastly, ‘what is wrong with our liturgists?’”1540 Timely and excruciatingly critical, these
penetrating questions posed by Pilario are nothing short of significance because,
considering everything that has transpired in the Catholic Church since the Vatican II,
the approval of Misa for wider and more regular use in the archipelago has been stalled
for four decades now. Definitely, there is no denying that not every member of the Church
is happy about this proposed inculturated liturgy, which was experienced by them in
several dioceses and congregations on special occasions. One only has to run through
the plethora of available literature in print and on internet to know how divided people
are on this issue.
Notwithstanding the varied views on the proposed Misa ng Bayan, we remain
convinced that the issue of liturgical inculturation is of prime importance in this current
theological endeavor which uses a trans-colonial lens in critically analyzing the role of
Filipino diaspora in contemporary life of the Church vis-à-vis the issue of globalization.
Together with some theologians like Leonardo Mercado, we argue that, indeed, liturgy is
an indispensable locus theologicus for understanding the nature and structure of the
Church because it is an essential catalyst for inculturation,1541 which assures the
continuing relevance the Church in the lives of the people. When people are at home in
the liturgy being celebrated by the community, when people feel that their own faith and
personal or communal narratives are expressed in the verbal and symbolic expressions
used in the liturgy vis-à-vis the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ and the entire salvation
history, that is a great indication or a clear sign not only of successful inculturation as
envisioned by the Vatican II but also of the significance of the Church and/or religion to
people’s lives. The Council unequivocally declares that “the rites… should be within the
people’s power of comprehension and normally should not require much explanation.” 1542
If that is the case, comprehensibility, noting also Louis Marie Chauvet’s understanding of
the sacraments as ‘symbolic language’ events,1543 makes liturgy truly alive in them. Giving
importance to the indispensable ‘theological’ aspect of the liturgy, i.e., “worship is
ultimately about God”, should not result in the diminishment or the sacrifice of its
‘anthropological’ feature. Indeed, liturgy cannot be a true worship of God, when the role
of the people is ignored or simply downplayed.
Liturgical inculturation, for us, is an area which is relevant to the trans-colonial
discourse which we are employing in this doctoral project, because this enterprise requires
not only the opinions of the experts but, most importantly, a careful listening to or a
1539Cf. Hansel Mapayo, “Sizing Up the Inculturation of our Liturgy,” IEC2016SOCIALMEDIA,·January 21, 2016,
http://iec2016.ph/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Sizing-Up-the-Inculturation-of-our-Liturgy.pdf?924c5f
1540Ibid.
1541In this book, Mercado argues that “one reason” why the Vatican II had to take up the issue of Liturgy in
its agenda, before anything else, is because it provided a “grounding” for other aspects of Church life that
must be articulated, examined and formulated in the course of the Council. According to him, “This is because
liturgy is a practical testing ground of the various theological branches.” Mercado, Inculturation and Filipino
Theology, 134.
1542Rita Ferrone, Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium (New York: Paulist, 2007), no. 34.
1543Cf. Louis Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament: Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence,
trans. Madeleine Beaumont and Patrick Madigan (Collegeville, MN.: The Liturgical Press, 1994).
273
SAMBAYANIHAN
genuine dialogue with those who are in the church pews who operate within cultural
domains and are encouraged by the Vatican II, being bonafide members of the ‘People of
God’ to offer their “full, conscious, active participation” in the Life and Liturgy of the
Church. Considering that the focus of this research work is on Filipino migrant
communities, we shall not only look into the present state of liturgical inculturation in the
Philippines, but, most especially, we shall factor in our discussion how liturgy is
organically re-contextualized in the case of Filipino migrant communities as they continue
to navigate complex waters of the globalized world – negotiating their liminal place as
economic migrants whose history as a people was shrouded by multiple colonization,
dislocation and dispersion. We believe that their inculturated liturgies, obviously
“unofficial” in their status, certainly carry the cultural outlook of the Filipino migrants
and their bahala na theology that may or may not be reflected in the proposed inculturated
liturgy courtesy of Chupungco, because, as we understand it, culture continues to evolve;
it is never static.
Considering the aim of this chapter, we believe that it is necessary to include the
following discussions in this dissertation: 1) A cursory review of how the notion of culture
has evolved through time; 2) A sketch on how transculturality can be seen as a more
appropriate view of inculturation in the context of Filipino diaspora; 3) A re-examination
of Misa ng Bayan’s viability in the contemporary period, especially in the context of Filipino
diaspora. This last section of the chapter will also tackle the different theological views
and the different practical development concerning liturgical inculturation that will be
used as resources for inculturating liturgy in the context of Filipino migration. In this
portion we shall also present the Roman Liturgy as a product of long series of inculturative
process and as originally coming from the “common culture” of the people. We shall also
underline in this part the importance of the Marian devotion in any Filipino liturgy.
What we hope to achieve in this chapter is to present a transcultural liturgical
inculturation within the prism of trans-coloniality. One may ask: How does trans-
coloniality come into play in transcultural inculturation of liturgy? Our simple answer for
that is: When different cultures that come in contact with the culture brought in by the
Filipino migrants in Western Europe, most especially the culture of those in the
grassroots, are adequately considered or seriously factored in in the development and
transformation a particular Filipino migrant culture, trans-coloniality is genuinely at work
in the process.
In order to accomplish this task we engage some noted anthropologists, sociologists
and theologians that dealt with the issue of culture, inculturation, liturgy or sacraments
and of the intimate relationship ecclesiology and liturgy: 1544 1)Richard Niebuhr, 2)
Raymond Williams; 3) Gerald Arbuckle; 4) Daniel Pilario; 5) Paul Cardinal Poupard;
Leonardo Mercado; 6) Pope Benedict XVI; 7) Bishop Francisco Claver; 8) Leonardo
Mercado; 9) Alexander Schmemman who was an “influential Orthodox Christian priest,
teacher, and writer. In his teachings and writings, he sought to establish the close links
between Christian theology and Christian liturgy;” 10) Anscar Chupungco, a Benedictine
monk who has authored, being a highly prolific writer, at least 17 very popular books on
the topic of liturgy. He became the first Filipino professor at the famous Sant’ Anselmo in
Rome which, according to the letter of invitation that he received from the said school,
1544At this juncture, we acknowledge our indebtedness to Daniel Pilario who has made it easier for us to locate
the different interlocutors in the debate and understand, at least in a provisional way, the main currents in
the issue of inculturation. Cf. Pilario, “Politics of ‘Culture,’” 172-194.
274
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
“recognize your competence in the field and realize the importance of having a truly
universal faculty which would reflect the universality of the Church herself. As the first
Filipino on our faculty, your experience in that country and part of the world should bring
a new dimension to studies here where so many students are coming from the Third
World.”1545 11) Jaime Belita, a member of the Congregation of the Mission, who has written
several works on Filipino theology and liturgy. His doctoral dissertation which was
submitted to the Faculty of Theology of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven bore the title of
“A Filipino Eucharist?: A Theological Reflection on the Misa ng Bayang Pilipino in the Light
of a Tillichian Sacramentology.” 12) Pope Francis who, in his pontificate, has been
encouraging the clergy to “smell like the sheep” and be attentive to the theological
articulations of the people on the ground.
II.3.1. A Glimpse of the Evolution of People’s Understanding of Culture and

Inculturation
“Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English
language… mainly because it has now come to be used for important concepts in
several… disciplines, and in several distinct and incompatible system of thought.”1546
-Raymond Williams
The term inculturation, as we have already mentioned above, is beset with so much
ambiguity that, until now, people from opposing sides have not found a common ground
and have continued to argue against each other about what genuine inculturation really
means. According to Pilario, this disagreement is comparable to the divergences that the
issue of “culture” has spawned in our contemporary time.1547 He warns us that “It is this
‘ambiguity’ that could be easily manipulated to set the interests of whoever has control
over society and power over its production of meanings.”1548 With these words, we are
warned by Pilario of the “power play” involved even in the definition of the concept of
culture, and in effect, of inculturation. This means that whoever has a more powerful voice
in an already unequal ground for dialogue gets to define what culture and inculturation
are. Thus, he insists that “In our efforts at inculturation, lack of awareness of this politics
of culture not only risks in-effectivity but also places ourselves in the danger of ideological
manipulation of the process of meaning-production towards our own ends, no matter how
‘religious’, ‘pastoral’ or ‘indigenous’ they may be.”1549 Hence, a critical analysis of what
inculturation truly means is in order. Certainly, we cannot also avoid to touch upon the
more fundamental issue, which is about culture - the underlying concept that is the real
source of the controversy we are dealing with.
1545Lito Zulueta, “Fr. Anscar Chupungco: Filipino Benedictine who Tangled with Pope Benedict,” Philippine
Daily Inquirer, February 18, 2013, http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/90517/fr-anscar-chupungco-filipino-
benedictine-who-tangled-with-pope-benedict/#ixzz4QvxAEQaA [accessed April 3, 2016].
1546Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University,
1985), 87.
1547Pilario, “Politics of Culture”, 172.
1548Ibid.
1549Ibid., 172-173.
275
SAMBAYANIHAN
II.3.1.1. A Note on Culture and Cultural Formation: A Saga of Evolution
“Culture is what saves human life from being mere a disaster; it is what enables
man to live a life which is something above meaningless tragedy or inward
disgrace.”1550
-Ortega y Gasset
To begin with, Richard Niebuhr, on his part, admits the “tenuous fashion” of his
“task of defining the meaning of culture”, just like his attempt to define Christ.1551 For him
it is an “enduring problem.”1552 Despite the difficulty in endeavoring to define what culture
is, Niebuhr believes that it is possible to provide some descriptions that will help us
understand in some ways what culture is. These are: 1) “Culture is the social heritage
they receive and transmit;”1553 2) “Culture is… human achievement;”1554 3)”the world of
culture is world of values;”1555 4) “the values with which these human achievements are
concerned are dominantly those of the good for man;”1556 5) “culture in all its forms and
varieties is concerned with the temporal and material realization of values;”1557 6) “culture
is a social tradition which must be conserved by painful struggle;”1558 and 7) “pluralism…
is characteristic of all culture.”1559 With these descriptors in mind, we can have an idea of
the convoluted, or should we say dynamic, nature of culture that cannot simply be ignored
as one grapples with the issue of inculturation. We can gather from Niebhur that, as an
initial and tentative notion, culture involves wide-ranging processes and elements for it to
become more or less an essential part of the daily life of a particular group of people. It
covers practically every single aspect of human life which, collectively, becomes a “guiding
principle” of specific groups of people as they continue to search for life’s meaning, create
avenues for self-actualizations, realize events of/for self-fulfillment, and secure a lasting
1550Jose Ortega y Gasset, Mission of the University, trans. Howard Lee Nostrand (London and New York:
Routledge, 1946), 44.
1551Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Row, 1951), 29-30. Niebuhr, however, provides
a rather abstract definition of culture, obviously influenced by Malinowski, by saying that it “is the ‘artificial,
secondary environment’ which man superimposes on the natural. It comprises language, habits, ideas, beliefs,
customs, social organization, inherited artifacts, technical processes, and values.” Ibid., 32. Cf. also Branislaw
Malinowski, “Culture,” Encyclopedia of Social Sciences 4(1944): 621 ff.
1552Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, 1-39.
1553Ibid., 33.
1554Ibid.
1555Ibid., 34.
1556Niebuhr argues that “Though the search of the good-for-man is dominant in the work of cultures, it is not
evident that this anthropocentrism is of an exclusive sort. It is not only conceivable that men should undertake
to labor and produce for the sake of some other being’s good, but it seems true that they do indeed in their
cultures often seek to serve causes transcending human existence… They regard themselves as
representatives of life, so that social organization and laws as well as art and religion show some respect for
life even in non-human beings.” 1556 Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, 35.
1557Ibid., 36.
1558This conservation, according to Niebuhr, is “not so much against the nonhuman natural forces as against
revolutionary and critical powers in human life and reason.” He derives this argument from Henri Bergson,
The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (London, Macmillan, 1935). Williams’s nuanced understanding of
hegemony vis-à-vis residual and emergent views will help us understand how this conservation is done.
Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, 37.
1559Niebuhr contends that “The values a culture seeks to realize in any time or place are many in number. No
society can even try to realize all its manifold possibilities; each is highly complex, made up of many
institutions with many goals and interweaving interests. The values are many, partly because men are many.”
Ibid., 38. Cf. also Ruth Benedict, “The Diversity of Cultures,” in Patterns of Culture (Boston, New York,
Houghton: Mifflin, 1934), 21-44. Bronislaw Malinowski, “Basic Needs and Cultural Responses,” in A Scientific
Theory and Other Essays (New York: Van Rees, 1944), 91-119; Bronislaw Malinowski, “The Nature of Derive
Needs,” in A Scientific Theory and Other Essays (New York: Van Rees, 1944), 120-131.
276
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
influence of the past and present for a brighter future. Thus, we must say that the issue
of culture, because of its complexity and its extensive impact on human life, cannot be
easily pinned down or settled. But, certainly, we cannot deny the urgency of finding some
reliable conceptual grounds to latch on our understanding of culture that will help us
argue for the viability and importance of inculturated liturgies for Catholic
ecclesiology/ecclesiologies in the context of contemporary globalization wherein millions
of diasporized Filipinos, wittingly or unwittingly, continue to influence the evolution of the
face of Catholic faith.
Amidst this quandary, we employ the help of Raymond Williams who, in our
estimation, share our quest and our agenda on several points by virtue of his being in the
“border country”, which for him is best exemplified by “its emphasis on neighborhood,
mutual obligation and common betterment”.1560 A critical, elaborate and systematic
discussion of some theories of culture, which uses Raymond Williams as the main
interlocutor, can be found in the Master’s thesis submitted by Daniel Franklin Pilario to
the Faculty of Theology of the Katholieike Universiteit in Leuven in 1998 entitled “Culture,
Marxism and Inculturation: A Critical Assessment of Some Theories of Culture in the
Church’s Inculturation Discourse from the Perspective of Raymond Williams’ Cultural
Materialism.” This master’s thesis serves as our guide as we find our way through the
complex evolution of the concept of culture that has shaped the Western or European
worldview, which we believe is still impinging on our contemporary globalized world. In
that paper, Pilario provides us with a glimpse of how different thinkers conceive culture,
Arij Roest Crollius’ who considers culture as “self-realization of man-in-the-world”;1561
Louis Luzbetak who regard culture as “socially-shared design for living;”1562 and Robert
Schreiter who conceives of a “semiotic theory of culture.”1563 Pilario also offers some
elaborate treatment on traditions pertinent to evolution of the concept of culture, such as
the “Utilitarian” tradition,1564 which is embodied by the works of David Hume, Claude
Helvetius, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Adam Smith; “Culturalist” tradition
mainly exemplified by the works of concepts advanced by Matthew Arnold and T.S. Eliot.
II.3.1.1.1. Utilitarianism
What we shall be presenting in the succeeding pages are simply snippets of the
different contributions of significant theoreticians associated with different perspectives
on culture and cultural formation. Thus, we shall not be offering an in-depth analysis of
each position we shall tackle in this portion. Our main purpose in including a rather
1560Raymond Williams, “Culture is Ordinary,” in Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism, ed. Robin
Gable (London: Verso, 1989), 3-18 cited in. Daniel Pilario, “Politics of ‘Culture,’” 172-194.
1561Cf. Arij Roest Crollius, S.J., “Inculturation and the Meaning of Culture,” Gregorianum 61(1980): 253 – 273.
1562Cf. Louis Luzbetak, The Church and Cultures: An Applied Anthropology for the Religious Worker (Pasadena,
CA: William Carey Library, 1970/1963), 139, 156.

1563Cf. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies, 45-56. Cf. also Daniel Franklin Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and
Inculturation: A Critical Assessment of Some Theories of Culture in the Church’s Inculturation Discourse
from the Perspective of Raymond Williams Cultural Materialism,” (unpublished master's thesis, Faculty of
Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium, 1998), 71-72. Other relevant points were discussed by
Pilario in pages 73 and 98 – 102. These are based on: 1) Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies, 49; 2) Paul
Shankman, A Comment on “The Thick and the Thin: On the Interpretive Theoretical Program of Clifford Geertz,
Current Anthropology 25(1984); 3) Roger Keesing, “Anthropology as Interpretive Quest,” Current Anthropology
28(1987): 162; 4) Vincent Crapanzano, “The Masked Subversion of Ethnographic Description,” in Hermes’
Dilemma and Hamlet’s Desire: On the Epistemology of Interpretation (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University,
1992), 74-76.
1564Cf. Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 116-124.
277
SAMBAYANIHAN
shallow treatment of their respective contributions is to give our readers an idea in a

nutshell of how complex the history of cultural discourse is.
As already mentioned above, the first very important personality identified with the
tradition of Utilitarianism is David Hume. According to Pilario, this philosopher was able
to show by way of empiricism that
“morality in fact consists of our response to our passions, motives, volitions and ideas. These
responses, that is, our ‘moral action,’ proceed from the ‘principles of sympathy and humanity’
in us. These ‘principles’ have ‘utility’ as their foundation, that is, whether certain acts are useful
or pernicious to society. By founding every moral act in empirical reality, Hume’s concept of
‘utility’, therefore, provided a critical tool which aimed to liberate morality from mystified
concepts, misguided notions and ideological manipulations of abstract categories prevalent in
common sense, medieval metaphysics and religion – the immediate context most
Enlightenment thinkers are in polemics with.”1565
On his part, Helvetius, as one of the precursors to utilitarianism, went against what
capitalist utilitarianism is all about. It can be discerned in Heveltius’s ruminations that
‘utility’, for him, involves a dual movement: that the government must be concerned about
the ‘happiness’ of everyone in the society and, also, that every member of the society must
give importance to the welfare of the entire society. Thus, this is not only about the
happiness of a selfish or self-centered individual.1566 Regarding the position espoused by
Helvetius, Geoffrey Scarre expounds that
“Helvetius’ intended target was not individuality, but the gross social disparities of rich and
poor in the eighteenth-century Europe. French utilitarianism was not so much careless of the
individual, as careful of the mass of people whose interests were invariably subordinated to
those of rich and powerful minorities… What rightly mattered more to an eighteenth-century
utilitarianism was the domination of many by the few. All men, Helvetius believed, had a right
to an ‘equal felicity’, and philosophers should help ensure that they obtained it.”1567
Continuing our discussion on utilitarianism, we cannot miss Jeremy Bentham who

is credited for the famous phrase “greatest happiness for the greatest number” and
considered as one of the most significant advocates of utilitarianism. Betham argues that
“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.
It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do…
They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off
our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In other words, a person may
pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality, he will remain subject to it all the while. The
principle of utility recognizes this subjection and assumes it for the foundation of that system,
the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and law.”1568
This view of Bentham on the “principle of utility” is anchored in a belief that “the
community is a fictitious body, composed of individual persons who are considered to be
constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community is the – what? – the
sum total of the interest of the several members who compose it.”1569 Therefore, Bentham
1565Pilario,“Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 121. Cf. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an
Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reason into Moral Subjects, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd ed. [with
variant readings by P.H. Niddith] (Oxford: Claredon, 1978).
1566Cf. Claude Helvetius, De l’homm, de ses facultés intellectual, et de son education (London: Las Société
Typographique, 1774/ 1771).

1567Geoffrey Scarre, Utilitarianism (London: Vintage, 1994), 52-53.
1568Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) in Utilitarian and Other
Essays: J.S. Mill and Jeremy Bentham, ed. Alan Ryan (London: Penguin, 1987), 65. Cf. also Jeremy Bentham,
The Rational of Reward (London: John and H. L. Hunt, 1825). Cited in Geoffrey Scarre, Utilitarianism: The
Problem of Philosophy (London/New York: Routledge, 1996), 76. Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation (London, Macmillan, 1823), 66.
1569Ibid.
278
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
is not in any way endorsing ‘selfish individualism’. In connection with that, he argues that
“An action then maybe said to be conformable to the principle of utility, for, for shortness’
sake, to utility (meaning with respect to the community at large) when the tendency it has
to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to diminish it.”1570
Another towering intellectual figure that supported the concept of utilitarianism was
John Stuart Mill who was educated by his own father James and mentored by Bentham.
According to him, “Man is never recognized by him as a being capable of pursuing spiritual
perfection as an end; of desiring, for its own sake, the conformity of his own character to
his standard of excellence, without hope of good or fear of evil from other sources than his
inward consciousness.”1571 We recall that, concerning this issue, Mill underlines the
importance of character cultivation via ‘culture’ which, as a representative of the best of
the liberal tradition, guarantees his contention against laissez faire capitalism. Pilario
explains that “Mill did not mean that having an excellent character is purely a means
towards happiness. He also asserts that fine character is the ground of happiness itself.
In contrast to Bentham, Mill believes that there is more to life than pleasure. Against
Bentham’s one-dimensional view of man as a pleasure seeking-being, he is convinced that
happiness, as a purpose of life, is a multi-dimensional affair where beauty, truth, virtue,
personal excellence and other ends exist alongside pleasure.”1572
The last important personality involved in the tradition of Utilitarianism which we
would like to mention in this section is Adam Smith. We know from our studies that he
argued for free trade and insisted that “It is not from benevolence of the butcher, the
brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner but from the regard to their own
interest.”1573 Thus, Teichgraeber contends that Smith’s Wealth of the Nations was not
promoting absolute laissez faire since “the choice he posed was not regulations versus no
regulations, but finding a reasonable way to eliminating the worst regulations” only. 1574
His work was only reinterpreted due to some significant changes that occurred in history:
the British industrial revolution and the French Revolution. Pilario, therefore, explains
that “Influenced by Hutcheson (1694-1746), Smith believes that a human beings’ moral
action is motivated by ‘sentiments and feelings,’ not by reason or self-love… The image of
Adam Smith as the theoretician for heartless economic planners on their drawing boards
to amass all profits, is a myth. He was in fact aware of the many abuses that could go
with the establishment of ‘free trade.’”1575
II.3.1.1.2. Culturalism
The Culturalist tradition, which developed as a protest to Utilitarianism, was first

expressed in the Romantic view that regarded culture as an art. According to Williams,
“The positive consequence of idea of superior reality was that it offered an immediate
basis for an important criticism of industrialism. The negative consequence was that it
1570Bentham, An Introduction, 66.

1571John Stuart Mill, “Bentham,” in Utilitarianism and Other Essays: J.S. Mill and Jeremy Bentham, ed. Alan
Ryan (London: Penguin, 1987), 152. Cf. also Scarre, Utilitarianism, 95. Cf. also Raymond Williams, “Mill on
Bentham and Coleridge,” in Culture and Society: Coleridge to Orwell (London: Hogarth, 1993), 49-70.
1572Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 127.
1573Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, vol. 1, ed. R. H. Campbell
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1976). 15.

1574Richard Teichgraeber III, ‘Free’ Trade and Moral Philosophy: Rethinking the Sources of Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth
of the Nations’ (Durham: Duke University, 1986), 167-68.

1575Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 130.
279
SAMBAYANIHAN
tended, as both the situation and the opposition hardened, to isolate art, to specialize the
imaginative faculty.”1576 This is precisely the very reason why, according to Williams, the
critical stance of the Romantics was weakened, since
“Under pressure, art became a symbolic abstraction for a whole range of general human
experience: a valuable abstraction, because indeed great art has this ultimate power, yet an
abstraction nevertheless, because a general social activity was forced into the status of a
department or province, and actual works of art were in part converted into a self-pleading
ideology… In practice, there were deep insights, and great works of art; but in the continuous
pressure of living, the free play of genius found it increasingly difficult to consort with the free
play of the market, and the difficulty was not solved, but cushioned by an idealization.”1577
“Most works of art,” Williams added, “are effectively treated as commodities and most
artists, even when they justly claim quite other intentions, are effectively treated as a
category of independent craftsmen or skilled workers producing a certain kind of marginal
commodity.”1578
Another thinker, which we have mentioned above as a proponent of the “Culturalist”
tradition is Matthew Arnold who views “culture as the pursuit of human perfection”. 1579
Arnold, as an advocate of the “culturalist” perspective, supported whole-heartedly and
consistently the view of culture as a measure against anarchy. In view thereof, he had
upheld the indispensable role of the State in ensuring, even to the point of being
repressive, law and order, because he asserted that “without order, there can be no
society; and without society, there can be no human perfection.”1580 As a consequence of
this rather extreme position, he received a lot of criticisms, especially because he seemed
to be promoting, according to Pilario, “In this context…[a] project of creating the ideal
State through the remnant,” that is the minority group in society who are identified as that
group of selected individuals who are given the task to ensure that the forces of the masses
will not overwhelm the society, “in practice was messed up with the powers of the actual
State which, in reality, was very far from being ideal.”1581
As was mentioned earlier, T.S. Eliot is also considered to be one of the leading figures
in the “culturalist” tradition by underlining the notion that culture is “a whole way of
life,”1582 Eliot stressed in one of his scholarly works that, something that obviously
revealed a more complex concept than meets the eye, “[the] term ‘culture’ has different
associations according to whether we have in mind the development of an individual or a
group or a class, or of a whole society. It is part of my thesis that the culture of the
individual is dependent upon the culture of the group or class, and that the culture of
group and class is dependent upon the culture of the society that is fundamental, and it
is the meaning of the term ‘culture’ in relation to the whole society.” 1583 What is of special
interest for us at the moment is the fact that Eliot had argued that “there is an aspect in
1576Williams, Culture and Society, 43. “Most works of art,” according to Williams, “are effectively treated as
commodities and most artists, even when they justly claim quite other intentions, are effectively treated as a
category of independent craftsmen or skilled workers producing a certain kind of marginal commodity.” Ibid.,
42.
1577Ibid., 47.
1578Ibid., 42.
1579Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (London: John Murray, 1932), 203.
1580Ibid., 203.
1581Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 146-147.
1582Thomas Stearns Eliot, “Notes Towards the Definition of Culture,” in Christianity and Culture (New York:
Harcourt Brace, 1977), 93.

1583Ibid.
280
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
which we can see a religion as the ‘whole way of life’ of a people, from birth to the grave,
from morning to night and even in sleep, and that the way of life is also its culture.” 1584
Another thinker associated with the “culturalist” school of thought, which we have
noted above, is F. R. Leavis who is known for espousing the notion of “high culture”.
Leavis, together with Thompson, was highly influenced by the earlier works entitled
Change in the Village in 1912 and The Wheelright’s Shop in1923. These two books inspired
the nostalgia of both Leavis and Thompson who spoke about the “old England” where life
was so much better by being ‘organic’ and natural unlike the modern state which was
marked by Industrial Revolution. In Culture and Environment, Leavis, being sentimental
about the past, expounds that
“What we have lost is the organic community with the living culture it embodied. Folk songs,
folk dances, Cotswold cottages and handicraft products are signs and expressions of something
more: an art of life, a way of living, ordered and patterned, involving social arts, codes of
intercourse and a responsive adjustment, growing out of immemorial experience, to the natural
environment and the rhythm of the year.”1585
It is important to note that, because of this position, Leavis asserted that
“In any period, it is upon this small minority that the discerning of art and literature depend:
it is (apart from cases of the simple and familiar) only a few who are capable of unprompted
first-had judgment. Upon this minority depends our power of profiting by the finest human
experience of the past; they keep alive the subtlest and most perishable parts of tradition.
Upon them the implicit standards that order the finer living of an age, the sense that this is
worth more than that, this rather than that is the direction with which to go, that the center
is here rather than there. In their keeping…is the language, the changing idiom, upon which
fine living depends, and without which the distinction of spirit is thwarted and incoherent. By
‘culture’ I mean the use of language.”1586
At this point, we would like to mention that our critique on Leavis will be discussed in a
more elaborate way as we elucidate on Raymond Williams’s notion of ‘ordinary culture.’
II.3.1.1.3. Marxism
Pilario, in his masteral thesis which can be considered as an excellent source of basic
understanding on how Raymond Williams developed his own idea of culture, gives us the
different intellectual giants associated with Marxian paradigm:1587 1) Karl Marx; 2)
Friedrich Engels; 3) Georg Plekhanov; 4) Antonio Gramsci; 5) and Raymond Williams’
“cultural materialism”.1588 Some of these details can also be found in Aylward Shorter’s
Toward a Theology of Inculturation which is basically an overview of how culture has been
construed by the Church through time.
As far as Marx is concerned, we can say that except for an outline, as pointed out by
Williams, nowhere in the works of this famous historical figure can we find a theory of
culture that could qualify as systematic. Despite this absence, however, we cannot but
give credits to how Marx and Engels assessed the capitalist economy of their time that
1584Eliot, “Notes Towards the Definition of Culture,” 103.

1585Frank Raymond Leavis and Denys Thompson, Culture and Environment: The Training of Critical Awareness
(London: Chatto and Windus, 1948), 1-2. Frank Raymond Leavis, Mass and Minority Culture (Cambridge:
Minority, 1930), 3-5. See also Frank Raymond Leavis, Nor Shall My Sword (London: Chatto and Windus, 1972).
Our critique on Leavis will be discussed together with Williams’ ‘ordinary culture.’
1586Leavis, Mass and Minority Culture, 3-5. See also Leaving, Nor Shall My Sword.
1587Cf. Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 158-177.
1588Cf. Williams, Culture and Society, 265.A detailed discussion on Williams’ cultural materialism will follow
later in this chapter.
281
SAMBAYANIHAN
certainly provided a strong foundation, perhaps indirectly, how the bourgeois culture in
the context of capitalism must be criticized. It is interesting to note, at this point, that
Williams used Marx’s architectural metaphor (i.e., base and superstructure) as a stepping
stone to develop the notion of cultural materialism which Williams, eventually, utilized in
arguing against Marx’s conception of culture as a superstructure.1589
Engels’s contribution to the development of the concept of culture can be gleaned at
in a literature entitled A Letter to J. Bloch, which was published sometime after the death
of Marx. In this written work, he wrote the following words to clarify what the architectural
metaphor they had developed really meant:
“According to the materialist conception of history, the ‘ultimately’ determining element in

history is the production and reproduction of real life. More than this, neither Marx nor I have
ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the ‘only’
determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless abstract, senseless phrase.
The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure – political
forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitutions established by the victorious
class after a successful battle, etc., judicial forms, and even the reflexes of all these actual
struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious
views and their further development into systems of dogma – also exercise their influence upon
the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form.
There is an interaction of all these elements in which, amid all the endless host of accidents
(that is, of things and events whose inner interconnection is so remote or so impossible of proof
that we can regard it as necessary. Otherwise the application of the theory to any period of
history would be easier than solution of s simple equation of the first degree.”1590
In the same breath, he also addressed another message to W. Borguis where he explained
that
“Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc., development is based upon
the economic basis. It is not that economic situation is the cause, solely active, while everything
else is only passive effect. There is rather, an interaction on the basis of economic necessity,
which ultimately always asserts itself… So it is not, as people try here and there conveniently
to imagine that economic situation produces an automatic effect. No. men make their history
themselves, only they do so in a given environment, which conditions it, and on the basis of
actual relations already existing, among which the economic relations, however much they may
be influenced by the other – the political and ideological – relations, are still ultimately the
decisive ones, forming the keynote which runs through them and alone leads to
understanding.”1591
Talking about Marxism, we should not fail to mention Georgi Valentinovich

Plekhanov who is considered to be the Father of Russian communism owing to the fact
that he founded the Osvoboznedie Truda (i.e, The Emancipation of Labor) which is the first
Russian Marxist group. He is also credited for being the first one to theorize on “dialectical
materialism.”1592 Pilario explains that
“Seen in a larger context of his monist-materialist view of history and his rejection of Berstein’s
revisionism, Plekanov’s concept opens the avenue to a more determistic version of ‘scientific’
Marxism which later developed into the position of Lenin and the Communist Internationals …
Plekhanove transposes the base/superstructure analogy into the relationship between content
and from in art… what originally was a simply aesthetic theory in Plekanov became, in
1589Cf. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology in Karl Marx, Friderich Engels: Collected Works,
V.5. Marx and Engels: 1845-47 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1976). Cf. also Karl Marx, Preface to A
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy in Karl Marx, Frederich Engels: Collected Works, V. 29. Karl
Marx: 1857-61 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1987).
1590Friedrich Engels, “A Letter to J. Bloch [1890]” in Marxism and Art: Essays Classic and Contemporary, ed.
Maynar Solomon (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1978), 30.

1591Ibid., 33.
1592Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 164-166. Cf. Georgii Plekhanov, Art and Social Life, trans.
E. Hartley, in Art and Social Life, eds. P. Davidson et al. (Cambridge: Chadwick Healey, 1978).
282
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
Zhdanov’s hands, an aesthetic legislation that should be implemented to support some political
purpose – an ‘ideological remolding and education of the toiling people,’ the bottom line of which
is the legitimization of the Soviet State.”1593
Another famous thinker identified with Marxism is Antonio Gramsci which we shall
engage more extensively in the succeeding parts of this paper where we will discuss the
importance of Williams’s contribution to the development of the contemporary
understanding of culture.1594 Williams’s notion of culture, which is considerably
influenced by Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony, will be the basis of our main
argument regarding the role of culture in religion, liturgy and evangelization. As far as
Raymond Williams is concerned, because he is our main interlocutor in our discussion on
culture and cultural formation, we shall devote more time in analyzing his position later
on in the course of this doctoral dissertation.
II.3.1.2. Inculturation as Understood by Crollius, Luzbetak and Shreiter
Before we embark on that task, we would like to discuss first the importance of
Crollius, Luzbetak and Schreiter who have spilled a considerable amount of ink in trying
to advance the notion of inculturation, which is what we are really interested in this
particular chapter of our post-graduate project.
II.3.1.2.1. Crollius on Inculturation
Arij A. Roest Crollius’s understanding of culture is derived mainly from Karl

Rahner1595 and A. van Leeuwen.1596 Crollius stresses that a concept of culture, as
summarized by Pilario, is considered to be coherent when the following requirements are
met: “a) it should render intelligible the connection between our being human and the fact
of culture; b) it should provide a framework for cohesion of various cultural levels; and c)
it should explain the connection between ‘culture’ and ‘cultures’.”1597 Crollius’s rendition
of culture offers a critique to the “merely descriptive” understanding of culture offered by
the philosophical anthropological tradition wherein E.B. Tylor, B. Malinowski and C. Levi-
Strauss are considered to be the more influential representatives. However, Crollius’s
“analogical view of culture”, one that follow’s the Thomistic “concept of analogical
predication”, is seen as problematic because it gives an idea that some cultures are more
superior than others, which solidifies the claim that for diverse cultures to meaningfully
coordinate with one another, some lower forms must be subordinated. This, for us,
justifies the conviction of colonizers to subdue the savage or barbaric cultures of the
“newly discovered territories” in order to civilize them. Certainly, with the analogical view,
Crollius is in grave danger of falling into the trap of ‘cultural ethnocentricism.”1598
1593Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 164-166.

1594Cf. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, ed. and trans., Q. Hoare and
G. Nowell Smith (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971). Cf. also Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Political
Writings 1921-26, ed. and trans. Q. Hoare (London: Lawrence and Wishasr, 1978).
1595Karl Rahner, Geist in Welt (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1957). Cf. also Karl Rahner, Spirit in the World, trans.
William Dych (London: Sheed and Ward, 1968).

1596Crollius mentioned as his reference on A. van Leeuwen a mimeographed article entitled “Compendium
praelectionum ethicae” which was published by Nijmegen Berchmanianum ca. 1960.

1597Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” Cf. also Crollius, “Inculturation and the Meaning of
Culture,” 257.
1598Cf. Marvin Harris, The Rise of Anthropological Theory (New York: Crowell, 1968),180-216. Cf. also Pilario,
“Culture, Marxism and Inculturation”, 55-62, 85-86.
283
SAMBAYANIHAN
II.3.1.2.2. Luzbetak on Inculturation
Known for his important contribution in the field of missiological anthropology with
the direction of a fellow SVD scholar in the person of Wilhelm Schmidt, Luzbetak’s
understanding of culture as the “society’s design for living” is a “composite view” that
incorporates: “(1) a plan (2) consisting of a set of norms, standards, and associated notions
and beliefs (3) for coping with the various demands of life, (4) shared by a social group, (5)
learned by the individual from the society, and (6) organized into a dynamic (7) system of
control.”1599 Although he is applauded for genuinely “playing the game” of anthropological
cultural theories “within its own playing field,” he also draws flak for his “functionalist’
view of culture, which may not be articulated by Luzbetak himself, because his
preoccupation towards creating a “composite’ theory of culture that directly addresses the
concerns of missiology unwittingly juxtaposes the incompatible intellectual stances of
Goodenough who advocates cognitive anthropology1600 and Geertz who promotes symbolic
anthropology1601. Moreover, his view, when scrutinized more deeply, reveals that he follows
what Durkheim would consider as “organic solidarity”1602 that gives importance to the
“stability” which must be attained and preserved by all parts of an organic society. Pilario
cites several reasons for believing that Luzbetak follows a “functionalist” path despite his
efforts to engage non-functionalist theories in his works:
“In the first place, the dominant cultural framework of culture as ‘society’s design for living’
reveals his functionalist perspectives. Secondly, though he also cites the weaknesses of the
functionalist framework as reductionist in ‘its exaggeration for consistency, harmony, balance,
purposeless, and wholeness for culture and society,’ he actually defends it from its critics –
Schreiter for one – who are blind to its contributions. Thirdly, his texts themselves would reveal
his functionalist cultural framework: his concept of culture as a successful and functional
design for living, the functional and psychological integration of culture, and his categories of
social equilibrium and cultural disintegration to explain social change. Fourthly, the main
structure of the present book (1998) – especially chapters 5-7 which [discuss his] cultural
theory – is mainly a carry-over of his previous book (1963). … [that] explicitly mentions
‘functionalism’ as its option.”1603
II.3.1.2.3. Schreiter on Inculturation
Robert Schreiter prefers to use the term “local theology” instead of inculturation or
contextual theology, which, for him, begins with “that long and careful listening to a
culture to discover its principal values, needs, interests, directions, and symbols.”1604 This
is, indeed, a very important perspective that we must employ in our endeavor because all
theologies, including those that present themselves as universally valid, are all “local
theologies.”1605 By going through the pains of examining, although in broad strokes only,
pertinent contemporary cultural theories, such as the ‘functionalist’ views that highlight
1599Luzbetak, The Church and Culture, 156.

1600Cf. Ward Goodenough, “Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics,” in Report of Seventh Annual Round Table
Meeting on Linguistics and Language Study, ed. P. Garvin (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 1957),
167-173.
1601Cf. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (London: Fontana, 1973). Of special
interest to us are the two essays found in this collection, namely: “Religion as a Cultural System,” and “Thick
Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture.”
1602Cf. Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in the Society, trans. W. D. Halls (New York: The Free Press,
1997). Cf. also Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 62-70.

1603Cf. Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 62-70, 91-92. Cf. also Luzbetak, The Church and Culture,
135-39, 147, 148, 156-59, 249-63, 314-421.

1604
Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies, 20-21, 28.
1605Ibid.
284
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
the importance of society’s effort to organize itself, involving all components, to become an
“integral whole”; the‘ecological and materialist’ preference to look into the complex but
intimate “relationship between culture and its physical environment” - the approaches
best exemplified by the works of Levi-Strauss known as ‘structuralist’ that zeroed in on
how “unconscious structures” substantially affect or define any “cultural expression and
social transformation.”1606 Ultimately for Schreiter, these approaches, despite their
usefulness in the field of cultural studies, cannot outdo the viability of the ‘semiotic´
approach that he is advocating because, according to him, it “holds the most promise for
developing local theologies” for the very reason “that religion has special affinity to the
symbolic world of meaning.”1607 Roger Keesing, in “Anthropology as Interpretive Quest,”
points out the problems in the semiotic approach where interpretation of symbolic
meanings is a task supposedly shared by the community by arguing that symbols “are
differently read, differently constructed by men and women, young and old, experts and
non-experts, even in the least complex societies. An anthropology that reifies them into
texts and objectifies their meanings, disguises and even mystifies the dynamic of
knowledge and uses.”1608 Moreover, quoting Scholte, Keesing contends that “one cannot
merely define men and women in terms of webs of signification they themselves spin…
few do the actual spinning while the… majority is simply caught.” 1609 Another problem
seen as far as ‘semiotic’ approach is concerned is constant possibility of “misinterpreting
or over-interpreting” of people’s culture given the prejudice of professional
anthropologists, which for Crapanzano becomes “masked constructions of real events
subverted ‘by the authority of the author, who stands above and behind those whose
experience he purports.’”1610 What is perceived as a problem in Schreiter’s ‘semiotic’ is also
true for Geertz and Lotman1611 whom Schreiter has appropriated in his work.
It is essential that, in viewing the different developments in the history of the concept
of culture, we do not lose sight of the fact that the various concepts we encounter are
reactions or responses, flawed or limited as they are, to the excessive or distorted or
repressive or oppressive or discriminating views that dominated their respective temporal,
political and social contexts.
II.3.1.3. Williams’s Culture as Ordinary
We have chosen Raymond Williams to be one of our main interlocutors, aided by the
remarkably meticulous rumination of Pilario, because we believe that he is our ally in
debunking the myth propagated by the elite class that culture is only shared by a chosen
few or the superior individuals in the society. According to him, culture, is nothing else
but ‘ordinary’, which is, in his appraisal, the “lived and actual social identity”.1612 Opposite
to the “high-culture tradition” espoused by the Leavisites that perceive ‘culture’ as
belonging to the chosen few, the élite, “culture as ordinary” means that which is commonly
1606Cf. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies, 45-56. Cf. also Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,”
71-72.
1607Cf. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies, 49. Cf. also Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 73.
1608Cf. Keesing, “Anthropology as Interpretive Quest,” 171.
1609This quotation of made by Keesing is derived from Paul Shankman who, unfortunately, failed to mention
where exactly in B. Scholte said it. Cf. Shankman, A Comment on “The Thick and the Thin.” Cf. also Keesing,
“Anthropology as Interpretive Quest,” 162. See also Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 102.
1610Cf. Crapanzano, “Hermes Dilemma,” 74-76. Cf. also Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 98-102.
1611Cf. Jurij Lotman, “On the Metalanguage of a Typological Description of Culture,” Semiotica 14 (1975): 97-
123.
1612Williams, “Culture is Ordinary,” 3-18 cited in Pilario, “Politics of ‘Culture,” 172-194.
285
SAMBAYANIHAN
created and held by the ordinary people. Speaking of the Leavisites, which we are
contrasting with those who are promoting the concept of “culture as ordinary”, we would
like to explain at this point that these are a group of intellectuals who follow the “tradition”
set by the famous British literary critic, Frank Raymond Leavis who argued for the creation
of the very important sector of the British society (i.e., “highly-trained intellectual elite”)
who will ensure the preservation of what is considered as “essential English values and
cultures” which were, in that time, may become extinct due to the overwhelming “mass
civilization brought about by mass media and technology.”1613 Hence, in opposition to the
“elitist” current of the Leavisites, William proposes a concept of “common culture” that is
shaped not by the select group of people who are detached from the ordinary life of the
ordinary people but by the entire experience of the community/communities of ordinary
working-class people that, according to Williams, is an alternative critical stance to the
elitist culture that “either suppresses the meanings and values of whole groups, or which
fails to extend to these groups the possibility of articulating and communicating those
meanings,”1614 which, instead of installing the superiority of the elite class, “[keeps] the
channels and institutions of communication clear, so that all may contribute, and be
helped to contribute”1615 to the ongoing production of culture wherein no working formula
is ever fixed or elevated to the level of universality.1616 Having said that, Williams
underscores that symbols like the “clenched fist”, which is essentially belonging to the
working class, cannot have a fixed meaning or cannot be static because “the clenching
ought never to be such that the hand cannot open, and the fingers extend, to discover and
give a shape to the newly forming reality.”1617 As a good illustration of this argument, we
are reminded of the symbol of “clenched fist” extended like a boxer’s punch which is now
popularized by President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines as a symbol of the aggressive
fight against drugs and corrupt practices in the Philippines. Thus, the clenched fist is
taking on another meaning in the context of Philippine politics and culture.
We believe, that our discussion on Bahala na as complemented by bayanihan within
the framework of ordinary theology of/for the Filipinos, migrants or not, sits very well with
Williams’s notion of “common culture” or “culture as ordinary”, which must never be
frowned upon or looked down as either illegitimate, disordered, or primitive that is,
unfortunately, usually not taken seriously. It is true that bahala na and bayanihan, like
‘culture’, mean a lot of things for a lot of people. It is true also that, for many Filipinos,
these complementary concepts embody their basic theological principle, whether keenly
aware of it or not, in order to make sense of their existence and their relationship with
God and other created beings. Bahala na and bayanihan, like the “common culture” that
is never static, belong to the ambit of ‘Filipino ordinary theology’ that continues to evolve
as migrant Filipino people continue to imbibe new learnings from their individual and
collective experiences and challenges as diasporic people.
1613Cf. Pilario, “Politics of ‘Culture,” 172-194, 173.

1614Raymond Williams, “The Idea of a Common Culture,” in Resources of Hope: Culture Democracy and
Socialism (London/New York: Verso, 1989/ 1st ed.; 1968), 35-36.
1615Ibid., 38.
1616Williams, Culture and Society, 300, 334-35.
1617Cf. Ibid., 335. Cf. also Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961), 118.
286
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
II.3.1.3.1. Williams’s Common Culture vis-à-vis Poupard’s Notion of Culture
Speaking about the “commonness” of culture, we can say that, at face-value, the
Pontifical Council for Culture construes, in an obviously theological fashion, culture as
similar to Williams’s “common culture” because this council asserts that culture is
“this particular way in which persons and peoples cultivate their relationship with nature and
their brothers and sisters, with themselves and with God so as to obtain a fully human existence
(Cf. Gaudium st Spes, 53). Culture only exists through man, by man and for man. It is the whole
human activity, human intelligence and emotions, the human quest for meaning, human
customs and ethics. Culture is so natural to man that human nature can only be revealed
through culture.”1618
We would like to indicate at this point, before we proceed to our discussion on the
“relation” between Williams’s common culture and Poupard’s notion of culture, that the
council’s position is not devoid of any theological underpinning, because the mention of
God will certainly entail exclusion of “de-Christianized” or atheistic societies. Nevertheless,
we wonder whether not having God in the equation disqualifies these people from having
a culture according to the Council’s understanding? This “guideline” in understanding
culture issued under the presidency of Paul Cardinal Poupard, as we have already
indicated above, somehow treads the same conceptual path as Williams’s “common
culture”, and we can also add here our notion of bahala na and bayanihan. The difference
between them, however, lies in the fact that Williams’s understanding of culture is not
necessary linked to the theology or notion of God while the Council’s statement
unequivocally brings into the discussion, as expected of any Church pronouncements, the
importance of God in the cultural equation. This is the point where we deviate from
Williams and converge with the aforementioned document.
Although this official Church document recognizes the essential role played by every
human being in the creation of culture and, at the same time, warns that “man” must not
“become prisoners of any of his cultures”, precisely because culture is and must never be
fixed (i.e., “subject to change and decay”)1619, we have this impression that the authors of
the said document are still operating, perhaps in a very sophisticatedly covert manner, on
what is considered as “high-culture” tradition, given the fact that it maintains that “A
coherent culture is based on the transcendence and superiority of the spirit over matter,
and harmonizes scientific knowledge and metaphysics,”1620 which are realms that
‘ordinary’ people, in our assessment, have little knowledge of or, we can say, these are
elements that are far remote from the ‘ordinary’ language of the ‘common’ people.
Moreover, it argues that “the pastoral approach to culture requires philosophical reflection
as a pre-requisite so as to give order and structure to this body of knowledge and, in so
doing, assert reason’s capacity for truth and its regulatory function in culture,”1621 which
we believe are heavily based on either western philosophy or the Enlightenment tradition.
Of course, we have nothing against about philosophy or higher levels of learning, but we
believe that giving so much importance on them creates an impression that the task of
dictating which culture is viable or not lies still on the hands of the “educated” or the elite
class who is well-versed in philosophy and other academic or scientific materials.
To be fair with this document, however, it underlines the “[creation] of whole culture
which effectively included everyone, a culture built on faith and organized around it…this
1618Pontifical Council for Culture, “Towards a Pastoral Approach to Culture,” Vatican, May 23, 1999: no. 2.
1619Ibid., no. 4.
1620Ibid., no. 11.
1621Ibid.
287
SAMBAYANIHAN
must not be left to specialists in folk heritage or politics, whose aims are often alien, if not
hostile, to faith: pastoral workers, Christian communities, and qualified theologians,
should be involved.”1622 These lines indicate that the document, indeed, recommends
collaboration among different stakeholders in the formation or creation of culture.
Nonetheless, the question of who has a louder voice in this dialogue of cultural
participants still looms in the horizon, especially because the Council’s president’s
statement on Paul VI’s view of culture is as follows: “For him true culture presupposes a
spiritual perspective, the cult of truth. It is at once the capacity for judgment and
adaptation, the soul of civilization and the essential quality of a humanity in the process
of growth, the patrimony of the past and the essential component of life. It is the mistress
of wisdom and source of legitimate pride. The living complexity of cultures attests to the
ever-renascent search for the Infinite.”1623
In the document, Poupard underscores that, while it is important to appreciate the
“[exchanges] among diverse cultures [which] reinforce their originality” 1624, it is imperative
that the “irreplaceable components” of history and philosophy must be carefully retained
and highly valued. This statement, we believe, must be placed in a proper perspective
because it is subject to misinterpretation. While is it true that the value of history and
philosophy is of paramount importance in the process of inculturation, we need to make
sure that there is genuine attentiveness to and appreciation of various cultures as well,
especially of those whose histories and philosophies “deviate” from what has traditionally
been held as European or Western. We need to be critical on how different perspectives
are taken into account in the discussion on “culture”. We need to ask if the ordinary daily
material life of the people, especially the poor and those in the margins, is taken into
account or not? Otherwise, the “culture” that will be recognized as common to the people
being represented in the inculturative process will simply be an ‘elitist’ one, because
important dimensions of life, such as those ordinarily experienced by the poor in the
broadest sense of the word, are not taken into serious account. This is the same issue
that we have identified in the case of sensus fidelium which we have explored earlier. An
unwitting or a careless oversight on how power is being played by the different
stakeholders in the process of inculturation, or how carefully the hierarchy has listened
to the voices of the ordinary people, may yield a lopsided result. Perhaps, the end-product
will only bear the imprint of the overpowering voice of the Magisterium and not the voices
of the ordinary people adequately considered.1625
Certainly, it should not be taken also as a case of “vox populi, vox Dei” which we
know is not always right. We need also to be critical of the voices that we allow in the
“communal discernment” towards a sound inculturative process, because we know also
that there are positions or perspectives espoused by some modernist philosophers,
anthropologist, sociologists and others that run in contrast to the Christian view of life
that takes into serious account the aspect of spirituality in the realm of culture, which for
Paul VI is “anthropological inevitability.”1626
1622Pontifical Council for Culture, “Towards a Pastoral Approach to Culture,” no. 27.
1623Paul Cardinal Poupard, The Church and Culture: Challenge and Confrontation; Inculturation and
Evangelization, trans. John Miller (New Hope, KY: St. Martin de Porres Dominican Community, 1994/ 1 st ed.
1989), 9.
1624Ibid.
1625Pilario’s contention in his unpublished thesis that “the classical concept – the ‘high culture’ tradition – is
still dominant in the Magisterium’s discourse” supports our argument that, indeed, we can discern some
‘high-culture’ innuendos in the document in question.
1626We acknowledge our indebtedness to Prof. Jacques Haers on this particular remark.
288
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
After everything that we have touched upon in this particular section, we can say
that, indeed, the issue of liturgical inculturation is something that is extremely challenging
to settle considering the ‘provisional’ character of what is ‘common’ or ‘ordinary’ and, most
especially, the hierarchical structure of our Church wherein the normative liturgical
structure is that of the Roman type: simple, needing almost no explanation and
unencumbered by useless repetitions. The official Roman liturgy, whose origin can be
considered as emanating from the common culture, has developed, in the present, into
something that can be seen as not bearing the marks of what we ‘globally’ understand as
‘common culture’ or of ‘ordinary theology’ in its common sense but something that is
simply handed down as a finished product by the experts, or perhaps even imposed, to
the ecclesial communities in the different local churches all over the world. Therefore, by
the looks of it, the current liturgy that we have in our Church can be considered, if it is
not an exaggeration, still as a product of the ‘high-culture’ tradition.
II.3.1.3.2. Williams’s Common Culture vis-à-vis Grasmsci’s Notion of Hegemony
Williams’s understanding of culture may become clearer to us when seen together

with his critique of Karl Marx’s theoretical scheme that distinguishes base (economics)
from superstructures (culture together with politics and ideology).1627 Williams, although
critical of the two-tiered approach of Marx,1628 perceives a “liberating perspective” in Marx’s
argument once the “economistic” reading of Marx is conceptually transcended by way of
“cultural materialism” that employs Garmsci’s understanding of “hegemony”.1629
On that note, Williams recommends that, instead of seeing “social process” in a
dichotomized fashion, as the ‘scientific’ or ‘orthodox’ that is incumbent to Marx’s
economistic understanding of it, one should see it in its “totality” 1630 or, in the words of
Pilario, a “single and indissoluble historical process”1631 of the entire society. In this
perspective, “culture” is also considered part of what is known as “material production”1632
and not something elevated to the level of ‘ideal’ by the English romantics. It is the “whole
way of life.”1633 Williams prefers to use this expression coming from T.S. Eliot that already
presupposes the existence of “class struggle’” which was pointed out by Thompson in his
1627In this framework Marx favors more the base than the superstructures.
1628Pilario explains that this layered scheme of Marx bears two consequent meanings: “Firstly, ‘culture’ is in
effect considered as ‘epiphenomenal’ or ‘mere reflection’ of the economic base. As it takes on idealist and
‘noble’ connotation, it is also rendered mute and irrelevant to the workings and manipulations of the
supposed-to-be more real ‘economic’ life. Secondly, human intention and agency – the capacity for culture –
is also seen as powerless in the context of the debilitating force of economic ‘determination.’” Pilario, “Politics
of Culture,” 176.
1629To transcend here means an endeavor to reread Marx’s “productive forces” and to redefine Marx’s
terminologies like ‘bestimmen,’ ‘überbau,’ and ‘grundlage,’ beyond the classical Marxist framework. Pilario,
“Politics of Culture,” 176. Cf. also Raymond Williams, “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory,”
in Problems in Materialism and Culture (London: Verso, 1980). Reprinted as Culture and Materialism (London:
Verso, 2005). 31-49. Cf. also Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (London: Oxford University, 1977).
1630Williams, “Base and Superstructure,” 35.
1631We are borrowing here the descriptors used by Pilario. Pilario, “Politics of Culture,” 178.
1632Williams argues that when “we have the broad sense of productive forces, we look at the whole question of
the base differently, and we are then less tempted to dismiss as super-structural, and in that sense as merely
secondary, certain vital productive social forces, which are in the broad sense, from the beginning, basic.”
Raymond, “Base and Superstructure,” 35. Pilario supplies that “Education, press, religion and leisure,” which
are considered by Marx as belonging to the ‘superstructure’, “in effect compose the greater bulk of
contemporary material production.” Pilario, “Politics of Culture,” 177.
1633Raymond Williams, “Culture and Revolution: A Response,” in From Culture to Revolution: The Slant
Symposium, eds. Brian Wicker and Terry Eagleton (London: Sheed and Ward: 1967): 299. Cf. Eliot, Notes
Towards a Definition of Culture.
289
SAMBAYANIHAN
critique of Williams. Thompson contends that if one views culture in the same way as Eliot
and Williams do, there is a clear and present danger of turning a blind eye towards the
conflicts and struggles among different worldviews. Instead, Thompson suggests that we
define culture as a “whole way of struggle”.1634 Once culture is reduced to the realm of
‘class struggle’, Williams argues, however, that “love and comradeship…seriousness and
responsibility of work, the recognition and care for each other” are excluded.1635 Thus,
Williams is quick to warn us, however, that “while it is true that any society is a complex
whole of such practices, it is also true that any society has a specific organisation, a
specific structure, and that the principles of this organisation and structure can be seen
as directly related to certain social intentions, … intentions which in all our experience
have been the rule of a particular class.”1636 Thus, we should not be naïve to overlook the
element of power (i.e., domination) involved in the creation of culture wherein the entire
society participates in varying degrees and in different levels of influence. Gramsci’s notion
of hegemony, as employed and nuanced by Williams in his analysis, enlightens us of the
fact that creation of culture is never neutral, or culture is produced not without any form
of subordination of the weaker “worldview” by the more dominant “ideology” or “class
outlook.” Williams, however, avoids the temptation to see hegemony as “dragged back to
the relatively simple, uniform and static notion” of it.1637 Definitely, hegemony is not a
monolith, but rather an extremely complex structure that does not stop evolving, adapting
and repelling to ever-changing threats and challenges.1638 He does not disregard, however,
the fact that some “practices, experiences, meanings, values” do not neatly follow the
contours of the “effective dominant culture.”1639 In other words, there are “alternative” or
“oppositional” cultures, as Williams puts it, or other worldviews that exist, in varying
degrees, vis-à-vis the dominant one.1640 We must not be oblivious of the part of reality, as
Williams rightly argues, that the process of cultural formation comprises not only the
contributions of those who belong to the dominant class but also, in one way or another,
of the effects or influence of those in the fringes and contrapuntal locations.1641 These
oppositional and alternative views that, whether we accept it or not, indispensably
influence the hegemonic structure are like the ‘ordinary theology’ which Astley wants us
to take seriously in our theological enterprise (i.e., learned and learning; tentative and
significant; meaningful; subterranean; religious; kneeling and celebratory; irregular
dogmatics; mother-tongue; and onlook) because, whether we like or not, they have an
impact on the actual configuration of academic theology. In Pilario’s words, they are the
“mixed and inarticulate consciousness of the marginalized people” which certainly affect,
without our conscious knowledge of it, “the development of academic theology, or the
formal and the articulate.”1642 The ‘effective and dominant culture’ is never a “static
1634Cf. Edward P. Thompson, “The Long Revolution: Part I,” New Left Review 9 (1961): 24-33; Edward P.
Thompson, “The Long Revolution: Part II,” New Left Revolution 10 (1961): 34-39.
1635Williams, “Culture and Revolution,” 299.
1636Williams, “Base and Superstructure,” 31-49, 36.
1637Ibid., 37. In Williams’s estimation, hegemony is “more substantial and more flexible than any abstract
imposed ideology” because alternative worldviews, opinions, values, meanings and attitudes are either,
incorporated, accommodated, or tolerated “within a particular effective and dominant culture.” Ibid, 39.
1638Ibid.
1639Ibid., 40.
1640Ibid.
1641Williams, Marxism and Literature, 113.
1642Pilario, “Politics of Culture,” 179.
290
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
system” but, by way of “incorporation”, is dependent on what is seen as a “real social

process.”1643 Precisely because of this, Williams contends that
“hegemony is not to be understood at the level of mere opinion or mere manipulation. It is a
whole body of practices and expectations; our assignments, our ordinary understanding of the
nature of man and of his world. It is a set of meanings and values which as they are experienced
as practices appear as reciprocally confirming. It thus constitutes a sense of reality for most
people in the society, a sense of absolute because experienced reality beyond which it is very
difficult for most members of the society to move, in most areas of their lives.” 1644
We can therefore conclude that they are, indeed, in varying degrees of co-existence and
co-dependence with the mainstream culture.
Indeed, there are alternative and oppositional cultures that exist in the fringes or
alongside the dominant could either be ‘residual’ (i.e., “experiences, meanings and values
… lived and practiced on the basis of the residue – cultural as well as social – of some
previous social formation”)1645 or ‘emergent’ (i.e., “new meanings and values, new
practices, new significances and experiences” which are “continually being created”) 1646.
Speaking of the “residual” kind of culture, Williams explains that
“some of the sources of residual meanings and practices … [are] the results of earlier social
formations, in which certain real meanings and values were generated. In the subsequent
default of a particular phase of a dominant culture, there is then a reaching back to those
meanings and values which were created in real societies in the past, and which still seem to
have some significance because they represent areas of human experience, aspiration and
achievement, which the dominant culture under-values or opposes, or even cannot
recognise.”1647
Regarding, the “emergent” culture, Williams admits that it is not easy at all to “find a non-
metaphysical and non-subjectivist explanation of emergent cultural practice.”1648
Cultures, for Williams, are formed by way of “selective tradition” that incorporates,
retains, suppresses and discards elements depending on what is considered as the
effective dominant culture – something “which, within the terms of an effective dominant
culture, is always passed off as ‘the tradition,’ ‘the significant past’”.1649 As the expression
suggests, amidst the wide array of meanings and practices that transpired in the past,
only a handful few survive the test of time and afforded the “right” to linger and to create
an impact on the present order or structure of the day. Some are recycled or, in the words
of Williams, “reinterpreted, diluted, or put into forms which support or at least do not
contradict other elements within the effective dominant culture”.1650 What cannot be
incorporated in the continuous process of negotiation is simply, repressed excluded or
forgotten.1651 Being repressed or excluded, however, does not necessarily stop the
marginal views to “exert pressure” on what is considered to be hegemonic because culture,
as a “whole way of life”, is certainly a continuous agonistic process of negotiation
participated by, in the words of Pilario, “different elements of the indissoluble single
historical process.”1652
1643Williams, “Base and Superstructure,” 38.

1644Ibid.
1645Ibid., 40.
1646Ibid., 41.
1647Ibid., 42.
1648Ibid.
1649Ibid., 39.
1650Ibid.
1651Williams, Marxism and Literature, 113.
1652For him, “culture is fundamentally praxis, liberating praxis.” Pilario, “Politics of Culture,” 180.
291
SAMBAYANIHAN
This claim brings to mind what we have underlined in first part of this research
project: 1) Rieger’s argument about top-down globalization that only allows variations to
distract or camouflage the rather monotonous hegemonic power or center;1653 and 2)
Chakrabarty’s assertion to be keenly aware of “the ambivalences, contradictions, the use
of force, the tragedies and ironies” that are present in contemporary history that is heavily
influenced by Western Enlightenment worldview.1654 Chakrabrty reminds us that a total
rejection of Enlightenment rationalism is not possible and viable. 1655 But, certainly, we
can also insist that dissenting voices must be recognized, respected and considered as
alternatives if they truly have merits. Again, the question of who acknowledges the merit
must never be taken for granted.
All the foregoing discussions make us see that, despite the “ordinariness” 1656of
culture (i.e., formed by and forming all the stakeholders), a straightforward identification
of culture or dominant cultures cannot be easily had because of the complex relationships
among the dominant, the alternative and oppositional cultures present in reality. Aylward
Shorter warns us that, indeed, “Culture is a considerably more complex and more
comprehensive phenomenon. Within a single culture there are cultural levels, and some
of these levels may enjoy sufficient autonomy to justify being called ‘sub-culture’.”1657
Thus, it is very dangerous to enshrine one particular culture as THE culture ordinarily or
commonly, in the strict sense of the word, held by everyone, no matter how widespread it
may be. As an example, we cannot say that in the Post-Christian or Secular Europe there
is no more room for God-talk and, also, that spirituality is already obliterated from the
people’s consciousness. Traces of “alternative”, “residual” and “oppositional” worldviews
can still be discerned in the present-day European ways of life. We also have to keep this
very important point in mind as we endeavor to identify Filipino migrant cultures and in
our project to describe a possible configuration of inculturated liturgy for the Filipinos in
diaspora. It is certainly a tricky thing to do.
II.3.1.3.3. Arbuckle on Culture
At this juncture, we would like to engage in our discussion Gerald Arbuckle who,
instead of providing a clear-cut definition of culture in his book, goes through the pains
of enumerating different contrasting perspectives on the notion of culture which he refers
to as “seismic shifts in meaning”.1658 In Chapter 1 of his book entitled Culture, Inculturation
and Theologians, he outlined three very important phases in the development of people’s
understanding of culture: 1) The Classicist; 2) The Modern; and 3) The Postmodern.1659
1653Rieger, Globalization and Theology, 3.

1654Ibid.
1656Cf. Raymond Williams, Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism (London: Verso, 1989), 3-14.
1657Aylward Shorter, Toward a Theology of Inculturation (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1999), 17.
1658Gerald Arbuckle, Culture, Inculturation and Theologians: A Postmodern Critique (Minnesota: Liturgical,
1996), xxi. According to Pilario explains that “Robert Schreiter’s model could serve as the representative type
for the works of inculturation of Gerard Arbuckle, Carl Starkloff and William Beirnatzki…Gerard Arbuckle, for
instance, made use of concepts from Mary Douglas and Victor Turner especially on myths, symbols and grid-
group cultural analysis.” Cf. Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 105-106. Cf. also Gerard
Arcbuckle, Earthing the Gospel: An Inculturation Handbook for Pastoral Workers (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis,
1988). With regards to Douglas’ influence, Arbuckle made use of Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations
in Cosmology (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975) and Mary Douglas, Cultural Bias (London: Royal
Anthropological Institute of UK and Ireland, 1978). As far as Victor Turner’s influence is concerned, Arbuckle
accessed Turner (The Ritual Process).
1659Cf. Arbuckle, Culture, Inculturation and Theologians, 1-18.
292
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
According to him, the classicist definition of culture had been popular until the 19 th
century. This particular view of culture can be seen as the “the sum total of the spiritual,
intellectual and aesthetic aspects of human society,” which Marx, in our discussion above,
considers as the “superstructure” normally associated with the elite values and lifestyles
of the European civilization.1660 This definition jives with the historicism or the Eurocentric
history that we have discussed in the first part of this doctoral research wherein Europe
was considered to be the standard for genuine culture, and practically for everything that
must be desired by the rest of the world. We cannot forget that even Husserl, for that
matter, argued for the superiority of European culture. Lonergan reminds us that during
that time
“culture was conceived not empirically but normatively. It was opposite of barbarism. It was a
matter of acquiring and assimilating the tastes and skills, the ideals, virtues and ideas, that
were pressed upon one in a good home through a curriculum of liberal arts. It stressed not
facts but values. It could not but claim to be universalist. Its classics were immortal works of
art, its philosophy was the perennial philosophy, its laws and structures were the deposit of
the wisdom and the prudence of mankind.”1661
Armed with this worldview, it is understandable how the propagators of faith also became
promoters of civilized society that was, at times, made possible by forceful yet subtle
suppression or by blatantly obliterating from the face of the earth what is primitive, savage
or barbaric. As a consequence, embracing Western civilization was thought to be
synonymous to embracing the salvation brought about by Christ. As Aylward Shorter
quotes Hillaire Belloc in his book on inculturation, “Faith is Europe and Europe is
Faith”1662
This view, Arbuckle contends, is nothing but myopic because it does not see the
plethora of deficiencies incumbent in the European/Western culture and, especially,
because it “overstresses historical lifestyles or customs of ethnic groups and downplays
their struggles to adapt to the world in which they live…The definition simply ignores how
people feel and what they do.”1663 Thus, what was extolled in the olden days as the more
advanced or sophisticated European/Western culture and tradition that used to be seen
as an ideal which should be imitated, must be demystified by exposing the inherent
internal conflicts among different European cultural heritages and the ugly struggles of
the peoples who fight for legitimate places under the sun.
The modern definitions of culture can be traced back to Edward Tylor who, being the
first intellectual to use the term ‘culture’ in 1871, defined culture as a “complex whole,
which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and
habits acquired by man as a member of society.”1664 This notion of culture had spawned
varied views on the notion of culture, like the ones espoused by Emile Durkheim, Max
Weber, Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski. Arbuckle claims that “Durkheim believed
that cultures are like the body of an animal. The purpose of each organ is to contribute to
the unity and order of the whole body. So also in cultures: Institutions or social structures
exist to maintain order and the survival of cultures that individuals are so constrained,
even coerced, by these structures that their behavior has a certain social and cultural
1660Arbuckle, Culture, Inculturation and Theologians, 2.

1661Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (London: Darton, 1972), 301.
1662Cf. Hillaire Beloc. as quoted by Shorter, Toward a Theology of Inculturation, 20.
1664Edward Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 1 (New York: Harper, 1871), 1. According to Arbuckle this definition
implies that “First, culture comprises those human attributes that are learned and learnable and are therefore
passed on socially and mentally rather than biologically. Second, culture is in some sense a ‘complex whole’;
unity and harmony are key assumptions.” Cf. Arbuckle, Culture, Inculturation and Theologians, 2.
293
SAMBAYANIHAN
regularity.” 1665 Weber, on his part, according to Arbuckle, “did not emphasize this coercive
role of culture, but rather focused more on the role of ideas and individuals in evoking
change.”1666 Although the aforementioned thinkers generally accepted that culture is
something that unifies man’s way of life as a complex whole, some of them, like Durkheim,
recognized the presence of the element of coercion in the process of unification; while
others, like Weber, gave more weight to how individuals and ideas influence change in
culture. Other anthropologists, like Boas, who is seen as perpetuating the legacy of
Durkheim, apprehended culture as “[embracing] all the manifestations of social habits of
a community, the reactions of the individual as affected by the habits of the group in
which he [sic] lives, and the products of human activities as determined by these
habits.”1667 In this view, which is carried on by Clyde Kluckhohn and William Kelly, an
element of constraint the binds people together, even in an unconscious manner, is widely
acknowledged as an essential part of culture. We must remember that, for them, “A
culture is a historically derived system of explicit and implicit designs for living, which
tends to be shared by all or specially designated members of a group.” 1668 Malinowski’s
functionalist perspective, obviously influenced by Durkheim, views culture as something
that “consists in… satisfying the innate biological desires of man.” 1669 Despite the variety
of meanings of culture we gather from this modern thinkers, we can say confidently that
they all agree on the practical “homogeneity” (i.e., almost devoid of adulteration and
internal dissent) of a particular culture, like a “billiard ball”, that is passed on from
generation to generation.1670
Using Bauman to support his claim, Pilario warns us
“that the modern concept of culture is in fact a product of universalizing project of the ‘modern
state.’ The cultural norms set by ‘divine commands’ or ‘natural laws’ in the classical era were
secularized yet we see the same universalizing normative process. Cultural relativism – this
intellectual ideology of culture – ‘was launched as a militant, uncompromising and self-
confident manifesto of universally binding principles as social organization and individual
conduct. It expressed not only the exuberant administrative vigor of the time, but also a
resounding certainty as to the direction of anticipated social change. Indeed, forms of life
conceived as obstacles to change and thus condemned to destruction had been relativized; the
form of life that was called to replace them was seen, however, as universal, inscribed in the
essence and the destination of the human species.’”1671
Contrary to the modern definitions of culture, which consider cultures as “discrete

entities, frozen in time, homogeneous and without internal dissent, unreceptive to outside
influences,”1672 the postmodern definitions of culture generally agree that culture is
fragmented with porous borders wherein identity is multiple, power is contested and
dissenters are integrated, because interdependence is seen as an important value in a
rather chaotic trans-local milieu. According to Arbuckle, postmodern or contemporary
anthropologists and thinkers, see culture as
1665Arbuckle, Culture, Inculturation and Theologians, 2-3.

1666Ibid.,3.
1667Franz Boas, “Anthropology,” in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 2, ed. E.R. A. Seligman (New York:
Mcmillam, 1930), 79Cf. Arbuckle, Culture, Inculturation and Theologians, 3.

1668Clyde Kluckhohn and William H. Kelly, “The Concept of Culture,” in The Silence of Man in the World Crisis,
ed. Ralph Linton (New York; Columbia University, 1945), 98.

1669Bronislaw Malinowski, Freedom and Civilization (London: Unwin, 1947), 33. Arbuckle explains that for
Malinowski “biological and psychological needs of individuals [are] the fundamental force for social stability.”
Arbuckle, Culture, Inculturation and Theologians, 4.
1670Ibid.
1671Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation”, 2. Cf also. Zygmunt Bauman, Intimations of Postmodernity
(London: Routledge, 1992), 11.

1672Arbuckle, Culture, Inculturation and Theologians.
294
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
“a pattern of meanings encased in a network of symbols, myths, narratives and ritual, created
by individuals and subdivisions, as they struggle to respond to the competitive pressures of
power and limited resources in a rapidly globalizing and fragmenting world, and instructing its
adherents about what is considered to be the correct way to feel, think and behave.”1673
Postmodern thinkers are more divided than those of their Modern counterparts. However,
according to Arbuckle, they generally are in agreement with each other on the following
aspects: “the rejection of rational criteria as the exclusive source of knowledge; the
dismissal of overarching or universal myths or narratives and the acceptance of individual
stories; the celebration of differences, spontaneity, superficiality, ad humor; chaos, not
order at the center of cultures as people struggle for identities and power.”1674 The whole
postmodern anthropological debate, according to Arbuckle, can be clustered into two
different camps: 1) Anti-functionalism, which is represented by symbolic interpretive
strand (e.g., Geertz, Ricoeur, Douglas and Turner) and structuralist strand (e.g., Levi-
Strauss); and 2) Poststructuralism that highlights the notions of “culture is becoming”
(e.g., Turner and Derrida), “individual action” (e.g., Bourdieu, Sahlins and Giddens),
“discourse/power (e.g., Foucault, Barthes, and Williams), “feminist critique” ( e.g., More
and Ortner), “individual narratives” (e.g., Lyotard), “chaos” (e.g., Mosko and Damon), and
“reflexivity” (e.g., Clifford, Marcus, Fischer and Ong). One of the points of convergence of
postmodern anthropologists, according to Arbuckle, is the conviction that “Every culture
is fragmented to some degree or other, internally contested, its borders permeable. There
is no such thing as ‘pure’ culture: never will be. Cultures are hybrid, constantly
interacting, mixing, and changing.”1675
Raymond Williams is not only a very good example of a postmodern thinker but, as
far as our agenda are concerned, he is, indeed, our best interlocutor because he argues
that culture is not an exclusive propriety of the elite class but something that is common
or ordinary (i.e., consisting of dominant, residual and emergent cultures), belonging to the
entire society or community who continue to negotiate and revise, amidst the existence of
power play and power structures, what they honor as something of social value that needs
to be “protected”, for want of a better word, for the generations to come.
We need to mention here that it is of utmost importance that a critical stance must
be assumed in promoting and perpetuating any culture because, according to Musimbi
Kanyoro, an African feminist theologian, “culture is a double-edged sword. In some
instances, culture is like the creed for the community identity. In other instances, culture
is the main justification for difference, oppression and injustice.”1676
Speaking about the postmodern or contemporary definitions of culture, Arbuckle
provides us some aspects that we need to consider in order for us to have a more profound
understanding of how cultures are construed nowadays:1. “Cultures as webs of symbols
and myths;”1677 2. “Cultures as ‘not dirt’, ‘pure,’ and power reservoirs;”1678 3. “Cultures as
stigmatizing patterns of social exclusion;”1679 4. “Cultures as narratives negotiating

1674Ibid., 5.
1675Ibid., xxi.
1676Musimbi Kanyoro, Introducing Feminist Cultural Hermeneutics: An African Perspective (Introductions in
Feminist Theology (Sheffeild: Sheffeild Academic, 2002), 13. Cited in Isabel Phiri, “South Africa,” in Introduction
to Third World Theologies, ed. John Parrat (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2004) 37-162.
1678Ibid., 37-48.
1679Ibid., 49-62.
295
SAMBAYANIHAN
identities;”1680 5. “Cultures as processes of ritualizing life;”1681 6. “Cultures as

multicultural processes;”1682 and 7. “Cultures as patterns of religious symbols.”1683
Theologically speaking, Arbuckle explains that the notion of cultures being “webs of
symbols and myths” implies that for “communication to occur in theology and liturgy, the
structure of symbols must first be able to express something relevant to the culture of the
people; otherwise what is said is meaningless.”1684 This means that there are symbols or
myths which are not universal. Particular symbols and myths speak to particular group/s
of people. When symbols and myths used in the liturgy are not relatable to the targeted
community or assembly, liturgy becomes a useless undertaking. The symbolic act is futile.
Regarding the second aspect elaborated by Arbuckle in his book (i.e., “not dirt”,
“pure,” and power reservoirs), theologically speaking, it is important to understand that
the church is never a disembodied and ahistorical entity. The church is never mono-
cultural but, instead, represented by a variety of cultures and cultural expressions by
virtue of embodiment and historicity, which cannot be simply ignored or given little weight
because, as Henri de Lubac says, the church, “Like all human institutions… has her
exterior façade, her temporal aspect, often ponderous enough… There is certainly nothing
‘nebulous and disembodied’ about her – far from it.”1685 Thus, reciprocity is very
important.
The third aspect underlined by Arbuckle has a very important implication to theology
because it touches upon some patterns in a culture that further stigmatize people living
in poverty; thereby perpetuating and intensifying the sufferings of the poor (i.e., “the
immaterial or dehumanizing effects of poverty resulting from this exclusion, such as the
experience of powerlessness, shame and stigma, violence, denial of rights, diminished
citizenship, and loss of self-worth”).1686 Aware of these patterns, the church is called to
“view all our actions through the lens of a ‘preferential option for the poor.’” This entails,
according to him, “our willingness, while maintaining good stewardship, to risk not just
our surplus, but even our capital resources in the service of people who are poor.” 1687
Furthermore, like what our current Pope is constantly reminding the leaders of the
Church, Arbuckle underscores that “we are called to listen to and to learn from people
who are disadvantaged; Jesus Christ has a special love of people who are poor because,
like him, they are powerless and rejected.”1688
Part of his theological reflection on the fourth aspect of culture that he highlighted
in his book is the admonition for theologians to be “able to help people relate to the
Christian fact to contemporary realities”, because they will become useless thinkers sitting
on their ivory towers who “end up talking only to themselves.”1689

1681Ibid., 81-98.
1682Ibid., 99-120.
1683Ibid., 121-137.
1684Ibid., 35. Arbuckle, in this regard, uses the case of incongruence between the “traditional Western symbols
of Jesus, such as King or Judge,” and the Asian culture, which is more familiar with the symbols of “Teacher
of Wisdom, the Healer, the Liberator, the Obedient One.” Cf. Peter Phan, Being Religious Interreligiously: Asian
Perspectives on Interfaith Dialogue (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2004), 128-46.
1685Henri de Lubac, The Splendor of the Church (London: Sheed & Ward, 1956), 114.
1686Arbuckle, Culture, Inculturation and Theologians,51. Cf. also Tim Butler and Paul Watt, Understanding
Social Inequality (London: Sage, 2007).

1688Ibid. See also Gerarld Arbuckle, A Preferential Option for the Poor (Canberra: Catholic Health Australia,
2008), 19 -59.
1689Arbuckle, A Preferential Option., 79-80.
296
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
Because, according to Arbuckle, “Symbols, myths, and rituals are not replaced as
quickly as buildings or landscapes or mass-produced as neatly as automobiles or
toothbrushes,” he warns theologians and liturgists, and we may add here the Church
leaders, of the danger of insensitivity to the culture of the people when bringing about
change in rituals like what happened to the reform of the Vatican II: “The reform of Roman
Catholic worship was rightly mandated in 1963 by the Vatican II and dramatic changes
were initiated immediately. But there was little or no feeling for the complexity and
dynamics of rituals, and serious mistakes were made.”1690
Regarding the issue of multiculturality, Arbuckle offers some critical questions that
are pertinent in terms of understanding pastorally the relation of culture and liturgy,
which the Sacrosanctum Concilium has reflected upon:1691
“What is the culture of a particular country?; Is it a culture oppressing subcultures within its
boundaries?; What is there are many subcultures or ethnic groups within the one parish?; How
is it possible to avoid domination by one or more ethnic groups during liturgical adaptation?;
How are both the unity of the parish and its diversity to be honored?; Are the pastors and
teachers portraying minority cultures stereotypically as neat, unified wholes?; How is the
postmodern understanding of culture, with its fluidity, openness, and fragmentation, to be
respected and welcomed while maintaining reverence for tradition?”1692
Arbuckle claims that these questions will not be answered “Unless the first principle of
multiculturalism is rigorously adhered to, namely, that appropriate structures must be
established to permit ongoing dialogue to occur between the parties concerned.”1693 This
argument is heavily influenced by Bhikhu Parekh who stresses that
“Multiculturalism does not simply mean numerical plurality of different cultures, but rather a
community which; is creating, guaranteeing and encouraging spaces within which different
communities are able to grow at their own pace. At the same time, it means creating public
spaces in which these communities are able to interact, enrich the existing culture and create
a new consensual culture in which they recognize reflections of their own identity.”1694
By the same token, Arbuckle expounds that the definition provided by Parekh, which was
originally meant to speak about ethnic groups but is now extended to “apply any subgroup
in society”, entails the following suppositions:
1. “Culture is to be understood in the postmodern sense… that is, no cultures are static, but
all are fluid, and the boundaries of every culture are porous and open to change; members of
subcultures differ in their commitment to values and openness to change.” 2. “It rejects two
popular classifications of multiculturalism: demographic and holistic. The former connotes that
a particular society merely contains different cultural groups; the second means that a society
values cultural diversity but gives higher priority to group-wide cohesion.” 3. “It accepts the
social philosophy of political multiculturalism that acknowledges the legitimate interests of
subcultural groups within a society or an organization. Adequate politio-economic and
educational structures must permit minority peoples by right to be fully involved in decision-
making in matters that affect their lives.’ 4. “Multiculturalism is about sharing power, that is,
in the process of negotiation a balance between cohesion and diversity members of traditional
dominant power groups must be prepared also to make significant adjustments.” 5. Only from
a position of cultural strength will members of ethnic groups be able to move out to contact
other cultures with a sense of self-respect and confidence.” 6. “Through the process of power

1691The teaching of the Second Vatican Council on Liturgy states: “in the liturgy the Church does not wish to
impose a rigid uniformity in matters which do not involve the faith or the good of the whole community. Rather
does she respect and foster qualities and talents of the various races and nations.” Cf. Constitution on the
Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium), 37.
1693Ibid., 119.
1694Bhikhu Parekh, cited in Goldberg, Multiculturalism, 335.
297
SAMBAYANIHAN
sharing, the dominant culture itself will be undergoing change, losing its overriding influence
as a more overall hybrid culture slowly continues to emerge.”1695
Thus, Arbuckle suggests that we must highlight the reality “that all cultures are hybrid,
constantly changing and experiencing internal divisions.”1696
In the last aspect of culture explored by Arbuckle in his book, he offered a theological
reflection on the “positive quality of … chaos at the heart of the universe” that enlightens
our contemporary theological enterprise concerning culture.1697 He argues that the
“church is in the chaos of confusion that [cannot] be ignored, but can instead be embraced, as
Christ has done… This is a time rich in potentiality for refounding the church through the
passionate collaborative efforts of people in touch with the anxieties and hopes of people who
possess boundless faith, imagination, and creativity to bring the Gospel alive within this
postmodern world.”1698
On that ground, Arbuckle asserts that “Theologians must seek to discern where God is
working and articulate a theology sensitive to the local culture,”1699 because, we must not
forget that “theology,” according to Lonergan, “mediates between a cultural matrix and the
significance and role of a religion in that matrix.”1700
Our theological discussion on culture will not be complete if we do not bring into the
table what the documents of the Second Vatican Council provide us. To begin with, let us
listen to what Gaudium et Spes has to say about culture:
“It is one of the properties of the human person that he can achieve true and full humanity
only by means of culture, that is through the cultivation of goods and values of nature.
Whenever, therefore, there is a question of human life, nature and culture are intimately linked
together.
The word ‘culture in the general sense refers to all those things which go to the refining and
developing of man’s diverse mental and physical endowments. He strives to subdue the earth
and by his knowledge and his labors, he humanizes social life both in the family and in the
whole civic community through the improvement of customs and institutions; he expresses
through his works the great spiritual experiences and aspirations of men throughout the ages;
he communicates and preserves them to be an inspiration for the progress of many, even of all
mankind.
Hence, it follows that culture necessarily has historical and social overtones and the word
‘culture’ often carries with it sociological and ethnological connotations; in this sense, one can
speak about a plurality of cultures. For different styles of living and different scales of values
originate in the different ways of using things, of working and self-expression, of practicing
religion and of behavior, of establishing laws and juridical institutions, of developing science
and the arts and of cultivating beauty. Thus, the heritage of its institutions forms the patrimony
proper to each human community; thus, too, is created a well-defined, historical milieu which
envelops the men of every nation and age, and from which they draw the values needed to foster
humanity and civilization. (GS, 53)”1701
Pilario, as far as this article is concerned, commented in his thesis that
1695Cf. Arbuckle, Culture, Inculturation and Theologians, 115-116.

1696Ibid., 117.
1697Ibid., 136.
1698Ibid., 137.
1699Ibid., 138.
1700Lonergan, Method in Theology, xi.
1701Austin Flannery, ed., Vatican Council II, Vol. 1: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, new rev. ed.
(New York: Costello Ireland: Dominican, 1975). Cf. also Vatican II, Schema Constitutio pastoralis: De Ecclesia
in mundo huius temporis. (Rome: Vatican, 1965), 109. Cf. also Vatican II, Constitutio pastoralis: De Ecclesia in
mundo huius temporis (Rome: Vatican, 1965), cap. II, 65-74, 52-59. Cf. also Vatican II, Consitutio pastoralis:
De Ecclesia un mundo huius temporis. De quo agetur in sessione public (Rome: Vatican, 1965), cap. II, 53-62,
50-58. Cf. also Robert Tucci, “The Proper Development of Culture,” in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican
II, vol. 5. The Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (New York and
London: Herder and Herder and Burns and Oates, 1969), 255.
298
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
“The above description shows that there was a deliberate intention in the Council to bring out
a novel conception of culture, as can be seen in the process of the formulation and revision of
this text. In the first place, the Council Fathers consciously made a distinction between ‘culture’
and ‘civilization’ – the latter of which, was prevalently used by the Magisterium to signify
‘culture’ until this period. Secondly, the chapter’s title given in the schema submitted to the
Council Fathers for voting on 16 November 1965: “De cultus humani progressu rite promovendo”
was changed to “De culturae progressu rite promovendo” in the final text. This change was not
only in chapter titles but also in various subtitles and many passages of the text. We see this
change as significant not only in terms of etymological accuracy. The option of the Council
Fathers to us ‘cultura’ instead of ‘cultus humani’ despite its ambiguity reveals much of the
concept of culture in Vatican II. Though coming from the same Latin root, ‘cultus’ would refer
more to the sense of refinement or adornment or being ‘civilized’ and ‘cultivated’ reminiscent of
a ‘high culture’ tradition. Thirdly, the intimate link established between nature and culture in
the beginning of GS 53 was “intended to eliminate from the start any misconception that the
term [‘culture’] bore a restricted meaning valid only for those who have received elaborate
education, i.e., ‘cultivated persons’ in the sense of the Latin ‘humanus civiliqu cultus’ because
the chapter concerns not merely with higher culture, but all human cultures’”.1702
Arbuckle, in his estimation of Vatican II’s understanding of culture, argues that the
documents of the Council, especially Gaudium et Spes, gave a confusing view of culture
because while it presented a more classicist definition of culture (i.e., “all those things
which go to the refining of developing of man’s diverse mental and physical
endowments”1703) it also underlined the role of the evangelizers to “foster vital contact and
exchange between Church and different cultures.”1704 Pilario corroborates by saying that,
indeed, the phrase in GS 53 gives away the classical ‘high-culture’ that undergirds
Gaudium et Spes despite its attempt to give a sociological-ethnological meaning of
culture.1705 He substantiates his claim by quoting Carrier who argues that, in Gaudium et
Spes, the “old Christian order valid for all epochs has not been repudiated even as new
approaches to culture had been introduced.”1706 Of course, we cannot overlook that the
document also expresses a newfound optimism on the capacity of the human person for
progress, which is a mark of modernity.
II.3.2. Transculturality: A New Way of Looking at Inculturation in the Context of

Migration
The question that we shall attempt to answer in this portion of the dissertation is
whether a transcultural perspective of inculturation for the context of Filipino diaspora
will hold water or not? We are inclined to think that the answer to this query is yes. Any
process of inculturation in the context of migration, especially in the milieu of
contemporary globalization, would require a careful consideration of all the different
cultures that are present in the crucible of cultural formation, precisely because there is
no such thing as a culture that exists in a vacuum. We are of the opinion that
transculturality is a better lens to be assumed in this particular issue, instead of
multiculturality or interculturality, because our understanding of this vantage point is
that it takes into consideration not only the interaction or reciprocity of multiple cultures
but also the event of transformation or evolution of a culture that takes place in the
1702Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation.”

1703Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World: Gaudium et spes, promulgated
by His Holiness Pope Paul VI, December 7, 1965 (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1985), 53.
1704Cf. Gaudium et Spes, 44. Arbuckle, Culture, Inculturation and Theologians,140.
1705Pilario, “Culture, Marxism and Inculturation,” 6. Cf. Hervé Carrier, “The Church Meeting Cultures:
Convergences and Perspectives,” in The Church and Culture Since Vatican II: The Experience of North and Latin
America, ed. Joseph Gremillion (Indiana: University of Notra Dame, 1985), 141.
1706Ibid.
299
SAMBAYANIHAN
interaction which is never-ending. It is always in motion. It is constantly in flux. Of course,

we are aware of the other connotations of the terminology that we prefer to use in this
doctoral project, such as the idea of a hyper-culture that is seen as being beyond any
cultural demarcations. The danger of misconstruing our preferred concept is always
looming in the horizon. That is part of what we call surplus in the meaning of a concept.
What we simply need to do is to mark the parameters of the terminology that we are
adopting. We just need to be clear what we mean and do not mean whenever we use the
word. The succeeding discussions, therefore, will be devoted to unraveling everything that
is related to the issue of inculturation, especially regarding the inculturative process
appropriate for the Filipino diaspora which we believe to be transcultural.
II.3.2.1. Exploring the Notion of Inculturation: A Journey towards a Complex Reality
Although the word ‘inculturation’ has appeared several times in the preceding
discussions, it is imperative that, before we plunge in to the heart of this chapter which is
about the viability of the Misa ng Bayan in the context of Filipino diaspora, we devote a
substantial discussion on how ‘inculturation’ is understood by different stakeholders in
the Church. Should this proposed liturgy not hold water for the diasporic context of the
Filipino migrants, we shall provide some suggestions at the end of this chapter on how to
formulate a feasible liturgy for the Filipino migrant communities in Europe.
As far as the ‘term’ is concerned, Joseph Masson, a Belgian Jesuit who taught at the
Gregorian University in Rome, is responsible for introducing it to the theological
vocabulary of the Church. Due to some missiological problems that he was encountering
at that time, he started using the theological jargon even before the Second Vatican
Council was convened by Pope John XXIII in 1962.1707 He stressed “Today there is a more
urgent need for a Catholicism that is inculturated in a variety of forms (d’une faςon
polymorphe).”1708 Because this issue was of great concern for the Church, the Jesuits
followed this up during the 32nd General Conference of the Society of Jesus that took place
from December 1974 to April 1975 as evidenced by the remarkable references pertaining
to ‘inculturation’ in the ‘proceedings’ of the said meeting. As a result, a decree entitled
“The Work of Inculturation of the Faith and Promotion of Christian Life”1709 was
promulgated at the end of this general conference, which prompted Fr. Pedro Arrupe, the
Superior General of the Society of Jesus at that time, to issue on 15 April 1978 a letter
addressed to all members of the Society to give importance to the work of inculturation
because, in the words of Arrupe, “[it is] a principle that animates, directs and unifies the
culture, transforming it and remaking it so as to bring about a ‘new creation’.” 1710 A year
1707He used the term ‘inculturation’ in view of his work on missiology (1959 and 1962), especially in the article
entitled “Ouverte Sure Le Monde”, which had to clarify and address some challenges brought about by “cultural
disparities”. Nkem Hyginus M.V. Chigere, Foreign Missionary Background and Indigenous Evangelization in
Igboland (Münster: LIT, 2001), 449.
1708Cited in Shorter, Towards a Theology of Inculturation, 10. Joseph Masson, “L'Église ouverte sur le monde,”
Nouvelle Revue Théologique 84, no. 10(1962):1038.

1709Cf. Society of Jesus, Documents of the Thirty-First and Thirty-Second General Congregations of the Society
of Jesus (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1977), 439-40.

1710The entire paragraph reads: “Le principe fondamental, toujours valable, est que l’inculturation est
l’incarnation de la vie et du message chrétiens dans une aire culturelle concrète, en sorte que non seulement
l’expérience chrétienne s’exprime avec les éléments propres à la culture en question (ceci ne serait encore qu’une
adaptation superficielle), mais aussi que cette même expérience devienne un principe d’inspiration, à la fois
norme et force d’unification, qui transforme et recrée cette culture, étant ainsi à l’origine d’une nouvelle création.
Il s’agit de l’expérience du peuple de Dieu inséré dans une aire culturelle déterminée, qui a assimilé les valeurs
traditionnelles de sa culture, mais qui s’ouvre aussi aux autres cultures. Expérience donc d’une Église locale,
discernant le passé et bâtissant l’avenir, dans le moment present.” [“The fundamental principle, which is still
300
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
after that, for the first time ever in 1979, ‘inculturation’ was mentioned in a Papal
document wherein Pope St. John Paul II referred to it as a ‘neologism’.1711 Since then,
‘inculturation’ has become commonplace in the Church’s theological discourses,
especially in the areas of Christology, Ecclesiology, Liturgy, Missiology and the like. Its
popularity and preponderance, however, gave rise to a multiplicity of meanings and usages
that a lot of times have confused or divided those who are involved in the life of the Church.
II.3.2.2. Models of Inculturation: Faith in Many Forms and Faces
Speaking about multiplicity of meanings attached to the term ‘inculturation’, there

are some models of inculturation that we can highlight at this point in our discussion,
which we feel will help us in our quest for the appropriate liturgical inculturation that we
would like to propose for the Filipinos in diaspora. Chibueze Udeani, in his monograph
entitled Inculturation as Dialogue: Igbo Culture and the Message of Christ, provides some
prominent models of inculturation, which are: 1) Inculturation as incarnation; 2)
Inculturation as conversion; 3) Inculturation as reassimilation; 4) Inculturation as
transmission; 5) Inculturation as interaction; 6) Inculturation as process; and 7)
Inculturation as a dialogue with the message of Christ.1712
Regarding the first model of inculturation which is ‘incarnation, we can say that its
inspiration is the Gospel of John where it says: “And the Word became flesh and lived
among us” (Jn. 1:14 NRSV). This particular Scriptural passage tells us that Jesus, the
Son of God, was born into a specific culture. Thus, it means to say that the Word of God,
at one point in the Salvation History, by becoming a human flesh came to be concretely
encountered within the parameters of a particular culture. Of course, this is not to say
that the Word of God, or even the Gospel for that matter, is conceived to be limited only
or eternally condemned to a particular culture. Certainly, the unfolding of the Gospel and
of Godself is ongoing and goes beyond time and space. “The proponents of this model,” as
critically explained by Udeani, “believe that it is only within the frame of culture,
irrespective of the accompanying limitations, that the gospel become concrete. The
limitations of culture come from its nature as a product of human beings within time and
space. As regards its temporal nature, a culture cannot offer everything that is required
valid, is that inculturation is the incarnation of Christian life and message in a concrete cultural area, so that
not only does the Christian experience express itself with the elements peculiar to the culture in question
(This would still be a superficial adaptation), but also that this same experience should become a principle of
inspiration, both a norm and a force of unification, which transforms and recreates this culture, a new
creation. It is the experience of the people of God inserted into a specific cultural area, which has assimilated
the traditional values of its culture, but which also opens up to other cultures. Experience of a local Church,
discerning the past and building the future, in the present moment.”] Pedro Arrupe, Écrits pour évangéliser
(Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1985), 168-169. See also Pedro Arrupe, S.J., “Letter to the Whole Society on
Inculturation”, Studies in the International Apostolate of Jesuits (Washington: Jesuit Missions, 1978), 1-9.
When this letter was issue by Arrupe, several seminars focusing on the issue of inculturation were conducted
at the Gregorian University in Rome (1977-77), Jerusalem (1981), Yogyakarta (1983). Cf. Roest Crollius, “What
is So New About Inculturation?” in Inculturation: Working Papers on Living the Faith and Cultures, ed. Ary A.
Roest (Rome: Gregorian University, 1984), 1-18.
1711Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Catechesi Tradendae (Ottawa: Canadian Conference of the Catholic
Bishops, 1979), 53. Anscar Chupungco, in his book entitled Liturgical Inculturation: Sacramentals, Religiosity
and Catechesis, mentions that “according to G. De Napoli, the term ‘inculturation’ was coined in 1973 by G.
L. Barney, a Protestant missionary who was a professor at Nyack Alliance School of Theology in Nyack, New
York. Stressing the need to keep the Christian message intact throughout the course of cultural exchange,
Barney used the term in the context of frontier missions.” Anscar Chupungco, Liturgical Inculturation:
Sacramentals, Religiosity and Catechesis Liturgical Inculturation (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical, 1992), 25.
1712Cf. Chibueze Udeani, Inculturation as Dialogue: Igbo Culture and the Message of Christ (Amsterdam and
New York: Rodopi, 2007), 137-218.
301
SAMBAYANIHAN
for the total understanding of the Message of Christ. This message transcends all
cultures.”1713 Shorter, however, contends that
“In spite of its stimulating character, the analogy of Incarnation has serious inadequacies if it
is limited to the human enculturation of Jesus… In the first place, if the concept of Incarnation
is limited to the cultural education of the earthly Jesus, when the analogy is applied to the
evangelization process the impression is created that this is equated with the first insertion of
the Gospel to culture. The understanding of inculturation as an on-going dialogue between
Gospel and culture is more or less overlooked… Secondly… the analogy encourages in practice
a one-way view of inculturation. This is because it is a Christology ‘from above’…Christ’s own
enculturation was a unique and unrepeatable event… In the third place, the incarnation-model
may encourage people to succumb to the temptation of culturalism… we may forget to ask how
he himself challenged the culture of his adoption.”1714
As far as the conversion-model is concerned, inculturation means conversion to

Christianity because only in doing so will a particular culture access the light of revelation.
This model teaches that Christian faith, when embraced totally, enriches, rather done
destroys, a particular culture by shedding light to the ambiguities and deviations
belonging to that culture which must be eradicated or purified. Obviously, this is a
triumphalistic model of inculturation wherein divine revelation is thought to be an
exclusive property of Christian faith.
Reassimilation-model, according to Udeani, “advocated a ‘creative acceptance’ or a
‘critical reassimilation’ of the basis and the works of the founder – Jesus Christ, which
Christianity has brought forward.”1715 Inculturation in this framework means that people,
within their socio-cultural background or milieu, should never cease in their effort to
“reassimilitate” what is considered to be “the event of Jesus Christ”; it is about living
genuinely the “Christic model” all throughout their life. 1716 This model certainly has its
own share of problems, which includes Christology. The question is: how do we know that
the same “identity” of Christ is found in the ‘christic-model’ and in Jesus Christ that
Christian tradition has passed on from generation to generation or in the Incarnate Word
of God?
Transmission-model of inculturation insists on the ‘transmission’ of that “essential”
and “uncontaminated” element of Christian faith from culture to culture and from
generation to generation. This, however, is quite problematic because it views
inculturation as mono-directional. Ultimately, it means to say that cultural elements are
immaterial. What matters most is the fact that the “unadulterated nucleus” is retained in
whatever cultural manifestations it appears.
Inculturation as interaction, in the words of Udeani, entails “[striving] for balance
between the needs of the local church existing in a particular and the tradition of theology
of the Christian faith as approved and taught by the official Church,” which, unfortunately
as a perceived weakness of this model, requires dependence “on a theoretical instrument
for its analysis of the society.” 1717
In contrast to that, what is desirable in the process-model of inculturation is its
methodical flexibility and multi-directional goals. What matters most is/are the process
or processes that is/are being undertaken in many different levels, stages and intensities.
Certainly, too much focus on the process will result in the confusion of goals, which might
eventually end up not pursuing inculturation.
1713Udeani, Inculturation as Dialogue, 139.

1714Shorter, Towards a Theology of Inculturation, 81-82.
1716Ibid.
1717Ibid., 146.
302
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
Udeani explains, using Africa as an example, that “inculturation as dialogue with

the message of Christ” entails “three main parties in the dialogue” which are “the Message
of Christ, the Africans and their cultures, and the official church” (i.e., “the history and
tradition of the Church”1718). For him, the goal of this model
“within African context is to make it possible for Africa to develop the right form of relationship
to the Message of Christ… Inculturation has the goal of making it possible for Africans to be
Africans and remain Africans even after they have become Christian… It is not concerned with
the clarification of doctrines, but is occupied with helping the Africans to live the Message…As
a dialogue inculturation takes up the task of listening to, and asking questions about the
Message of Christ. It thinks about, articulates, tries to understand and re-express it within or
in terms of the African cultural milieu, hence making it possible for Africans to live it as the
Message of Christ and the Good News of Salvation… Another important goal of inculturation
as dialogue is to challenge Africans to make their reasonable contributions as equal partners
in the community of universal Christian family; to ask themselves pertinent questions about
Christian faith; to take the fundamental option of being converted and of, being thereby both
fully Christian and fully African… Inculturation as dialogue aims at introducing a fresh breeze
into the Christian community so that those who have not had the chance to contribute in their
talents and charisma to the service of the universal Christian community will have the chance
to do it.”1719
Certainly, this model is not without problems and challenges. Udeani underscores
that “The contact between the cultures of colonialists in Africa and those of the different
groups cannot be described as having been dialogical. It was more of a confrontation and
annihilation of the other cultures and their ‘otherness’ through the colonialists. The
Christian religion is not innocent of this crime.”1720 Moreover, it is not unknown that
“Catechism was taught and practiced without considering the intercultural dialogue. It
was simply a transplantation of a ready-made model of Christianity.”1721 What Udeani
considers as “the central point of the challenge of inculturation as dialogue”, which we
also understand as “common discernment”1722 that underlines narrativity as a method, is
similar to what our methodology requires of the researcher in this theological endeavor:
pakikisangkot. He asserts that “nobody can evangelize convincingly and effectively without
having first engaged himself/herself with the life of the people to be evangelized and with
the culture-producing forces of this group.”1723
We should note, however, that Udeani believes that “Today Western concept of God,”
whatever that means, “is still presented as if it were the only valid concept.”1724 We place
an interjection in the foregoing statement because we are aware that Western culture is
not as monolithic as one would think it is. As far as the notions of God in what we now
consider as the ‘geographical West’ is concerned, one cannot but stumble upon a plethora
of perspectives or images. But, of course, what we would like to state in this portion of our
doctoral work is the position of Udeani which does not necessarily mean that we totally
agree with him. Udeani adds, however, that ‘Theologically, the Church gives the
impression that she is ready to recognize the inculturation of the gospel. But as soon as
a local church takes steps to become, a real local church, not only just geographically and
1718“A conscious demarcation,” according to Udeani, “is made between the use of the two terms: ‘Message of
Christ’ and ‘Christian Message’. The former refers to the message of salvation as brought personally by Jesus
Christ and revealed by, through and in his person, life, works and actions, death and resurrection. The later
concept is used to mean the result of the encounter between the ‘Message of Christ’ and the respective cultures
it met before being introduced into [a particular culture].” Udeani, Inculturation as Dialogue, 148-149.
1719Ibid., 196-197.
1720Ibid., 168.
1721Ibid.
1722This was suggested by Prof. Jacques Haers in our discussion on inculturation as dialogue.
1724Ibid., 142.
303
SAMBAYANIHAN
topologically but theologically and ontologically, the official church authority restricts and
at times obstructs such a move. The usual argument is in the name of unity…church
authority is not yet at ease with the idea of the unity without uniformity.”1725
“Another basic problem”, Udeani underlines, “is that of racism in all its variations…
coupled with the problem of Eurocentrism…and the superiority complex coupled with
arrogance which leads to considering everything European or Western as the standard of
judgment… Paternalism in the church which is reflected in such tendencies as ‘we know
better than you what you need’ or the ‘roma locuta, causa finita’ mentality also belongs in
this category of problems.”1726
Canon law is also considered by Udeani as a problem in inculturation because he
claims that “The minute prescriptions of canon law make it difficult … for the local African
churches to enrich the celebration of the liturgy and the sacraments by using elements of
African cultural background… Most of these laws reflect European backgrounds and are
easily practicable within the European context yet have simply been baptized for the
universal church.”1727
For genuine inculturation to take place, in the mind of Udeani, these “prerequisites”
must be met: 1) “dialogue must encompass all areas of human life;”1728 2)
“Complementarity, bilateral enrichment and fulfillment of real diversity of religious
experience;”1729 3) “tolerance;”1730 4) “Trinitarian principle which concerns the basic
relativity of each culture;”1731 5) “Every partner sees the other partners as equally
important” which is seen from the lens of Buber wherein every single participant possesses
the inherent right to express his/her opinion; thereby, sincerely contributing his/her piece
to the ongoing dialogue;1732 6) “All the partners in dialogue must show a firm resolution
and readiness for a dialogical synthesis of culture;”1733 7) “humility;”1734 8) “Inculturation
as dialogue demands strong confidence in the partner, faith in his/her power to make and
remake, to create and recreate;”1735 9) “hope;”1736 and 10) “critical thinking.”1737 All the
aforementioned requirements make clear what Fr. Mark Francis, a well-respected scholar
1725He uses here as examples the “restrictions posed on the Zairian liturgy [and] the ban on the Indian liturgy.”
Udeani, Inculturation as Dialogue, 172.
1726Ibid., 173.
1727Referencing Leonardo Boff, Udeani contends that “It could be maintained that Western Christianity as it
developed historically. It blocks the way inculturation of the Message of Christ. It no longer finds real
adjustments easy to exercise through the practice of self-criticism.” Udeani, Inculturation as Dialogue, 173-
74, 175.
1728Ibid., 199.
1729Ibid.
1730Udeani explains that “Tolerance is the acceptance of the other out of goodwill. This grows out of the fact
that one becomes conscious of the independence that exists between them.” Ibid., 200.
1731According to Udeani, “distributive equality” is an important element of this. Ibid.
1732Ibid., 201. Cf. Martin Buber, Das Dialogische Prinzip (Gerlingen: Verlag Lambert Schneider GmbH, 1994),
293.
1733This principle means that “It denies rather the ‘invasion’ of one by the other.” Udeani, Inculturation as
Dialogue, 201.
1734He contends that “At the point of encounter there are neither utter ignoramuses nor perfect sages; both
should be trying to learn from one another in humility.” Ibid., 202.

1735Ibid., 202.
1736He expounds that “It is rooted in the incompleteness of human beings, from which, they step forward in a
continuous search which can be carried out only in union with others.” Ibid. This also reminds us of Gabriel
Marcel’s “I hope in you for us”. Ultimately, we hope not in capacity of the human dialogue partners but on the
Absolute Thou who is the most important partner in the dialogue.
1737This means ability “to recognize and discern an indivisible solidarity between human beings everywhere in
the world as children of God… Such critical thinking does not separate itself from action, for the important
thing is the continuing transformation of reality. Inculturation then is to be understood as a continuous
process based on love, humility, faith, hope, critical thinking and action.” Udeani, Inculturation as Dialogue,
202.
304
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
in liturgy and author of the book Liturgy in a Culturally Diverse Community: A Guide
Toward Understanding and Shape A Circle Ever Wider: Inculturating the Liturgy in the
United States, 1738 had underlined during his presentation at the International Eucharistic
Congress held in Cebu (Philippines) in January of 2016: “Human culture needs to be taken
into account in both understanding and celebrating the liturgy. Inculturation involves a
double movement that enriches both the liturgical tradition of the church and local
cultures.”1739 Archbishop Piero Marini, a liturgical expert who had served for a long time
as liturgist in the Vatican during the papacy of Pope John Paul II and as president of the
IEC Pontifical Committee, echoed the point raised by Fr. Francis in the same congress by
saying that “[as] an activity of the entire people, the liturgy has an intrinsic need for
adaptation.”1740
II.3.2.3. Criticisms and Defense on the Use of the Term ‘Inculturation’
Some theologians, like Bishop Joseph Blomjous, criticize the use of the term
‘inculturation’ for several reasons. One of them is because the term seems to suggest that
it is only about a passing on of faith from a particular culture to another culture – a one-
way traffic. In view of this criticism, Bishop Blomjous suggested in 1980 to use the term
‘interculturation’ instead of ‘inculturation’, in the following words, to avoid being
construed simply as mono-direction evangelization process wherein the Christian
message is inserted into the lives of people in a given culture:
“The period 1960-1980 can be considered as the main transition period from the traditional
Mission to the new Mission of the future. It has been characterized as the period of
‘inculturation’, though the better term would be that ‘interculturation’, in order to express that
the process of inculturation must be lived in partnership and mutuality. It seems that we are
now living at the peak of this movement, the critical phase which demands from us a real
decision for profound and courageous reform.”1741
For him, ‘interculturation’ is a better choice of word because it captures the notion of
reciprocity that may be eclipsed in the concept of ‘inculturation.’
Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, exhorted the Asian Bishops on 2-
6 March 1993 to stop using the “artificial and unrealistic” term of ‘inculturation’ because
it “presumes that a faith stripped of culture is transplanted into a religiousity of modern
technological civilization, there is no such thing as faith devoid of culture or culture devoid
of faith.”1742 In lieu of this, he strongly suggested to adapt the concept of ‘inter-culturality’
because this term, for him, underscored the idea of a meeting of two cultures that enriched
rather than destroying the individuality/identity of each. In light of this recommendation,
Ratzinger he is strongly convinced that
“we should talk, no longer about ‘inculturation’, but about meeting of cultures, or – if we have
to use a technical term – about ‘interculturality.’ For ‘inculturation’ presupposes that, as it
1738Cf. Mark R. Francis, Liturgy in a Culturally Diverse Community: A Guide Toward Understanding
(Washington, D.C: Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions, 2012) and Mark R. Francis, Shape A Circle
Ever Wider: Inculturating the Liturgy in the United States (Chicago, Il: Liturgy Training Publications, 2000).
1739Fr. Mark Francis, “Pro-Pinoy Worship,” Cebu Daily News, January 22, 2016,
http://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/82836/pro-pinoy-worship [accessed February 11, 2016].
1740This is taken from translated version of the talk he delivered in Italian. Ibid.
1741Joseph Blomjous, “Development in Mission Thinking and Practice 1959-1980: Inculturation and
Interculturation,” African Eclessial Review 22(1980): 393.

1742Cf. The Union of Catholic Asian News (UCAN), “Cardinal Ratzinger Urges Asian Bishops to Adopt Term
‘Inter-culturality’,” UCANews.com, March 9,1993, http://www.ucanews.com/story-

archive/?post_name=/1993/03/09/cardinal-ratzinger-urges-asian-bishops-to-adopt-term-
interculturality&post_id=42924 [accessed March 27, 2015].
305
SAMBAYANIHAN
were, a culturally naked faith is transferred into a culture that is indifferent from the religious
point of view, so that two agents that were hitherto alien to each other meet and now engage in
a synthesis together. But this depiction is first of all artificial and unreal, because there is no
such thing as a culture-free faith and because – outside of modern technical civilization – there
is no such thing as religion-free culture. But above all one cannot see how two organisms that
are in themselves totally alien to each other should, through a transplantation that starts by
mutilating them both, suddenly become a single living whole.”1743
Ratzinger, therefore, argues that “Only if it is true that all cultures are potentially universal
and have an inner capacity to be open to others can interculturality lead to new and
fruitful forms.”1744
On this note, we remember Shorter who, although we find his definition of
inculturation as lacking,1745 suggests that there are three traits exhibited by inculturation:
1) an ongoing process and is relevant to every country or region where the faith has been
sown;1746 2) Christian faith cannot exist except in a cultural form;1747 and 3) an interaction
and reciprocal assimilation between Christian faith and culture.1748 Inculturation, as
already explained by Arrupe, is about a continuous process of producing or effectuating
‘a new creation’ in the lives of both the evangelized and those who have encountered the
gospel for the first time. Like culture, the process of inculturation is constantly evolving.
It is never static. It does not stop or settle on the first stage of dialogue. It goes on as life
and circumstances continue to develop.
Bishop Francisco Claver, a strong proponent of inculturation and an ardent advocate
of formation of Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Philippines, was at that meeting where
Cardinal Ratzinger addressed the Asian bishops. He confessed in his book The Making of
a Local Church that he did not fully understand what Cardinal Ratzinger was really driving
at, but he noticed that the bishops present in that meeting did not have a hard time
accepting the tough proposal of then Cardinal Ratzinger. He pointed out, however, that he
had an impression that the Cardinal construed ‘inculturation’1749 as something limited to
the initial “contact” between the missionary and the people in the mission areas wherein
the Gospel message is inserted to a particular culture – “an intercultural exchange”.1750
Claver had no problem with the term too but he argued that Benedict XVI’s/Ratzinger’s
notion of interculturality just represents a phase in the entire process of inculturation
and, thus, cannot be considered as a fitting replacement for the concept of inculturation.
Inculturation, for him, takes place in the second moment where “the dialogue between the
hearer who owns the culture and the Holy Spirit who gives the faith” takes place.1751 When
this element is lacking, what takes place is simply either an “indigenization” 1752,
1743Josef Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, trans., Henry Taylor (San
Francisco: Ignatius, 2004), 64.
1744Ibid.
1745Inculturation is defined by Shorter as “the creative and dynamic relationship between the Christian
message and a culture or cultures.” Shorter, Toward a Theology of Inculturation, 11.

1746He argues that when we refer to inculturation “we are not only talking about the first insertion of the
Christian message into a hitherto non-Christian culture or cultures.” Ibid.

1747He underlines that “inculturation [is] a dialogue between a culture and the faith in cultural form.” Ibid.,12.
1748Shorter argues that “Christianity is itself enriched upon entering new cultural phases and regions,
acquiring surplus meaning in loyalty and conformity to its tradition. Ibid., 13.
1749UCA News reported that “The older word ‘inculturation’ was not used once in the final statement of the
fourth FABC general assembly (1986 in Tokyo), but it appears twice in the statement of the fifth FABC general
assembly (1990 in Bandung, Indonesia) and has become routinely used at meetings of Asian bishops in the
past few years.” Cf. UCAN, “Cardinal Ratzinger Urges Asian.”
1750Francisco Claver, S.J., The Making of a Local Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2008), 120, 121.
1751Claver, The Making of a Local Church, 121.
1752According to Chupungco, indigenization “refers to the process of conferring on Christian liturgy a cultural
form that is native to the local community.” Chupungco, Liturgical Inculturation, 14.
306
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
“acculturation”1753 or interculturality. He asserts that the danger of “syncretism” is a

strong possibility when the dialogue remains on the first stage of inculturation, which is
interculturality.1754 Claver made his point clearer by stating that
“even as we say interculturality is only a part of the whole process of inculturation and cannot
hence be proposed to replace the term and fact of inculturation itself, still there is virtue in
highlighting interculturality as an essential part of the inculturative process… What
interculturality demand then is that the preacher-churches be already truly local, know and
acknowledge their ‘localness,’ and when they become missionary they must know too that they
seek to spread the faith to other people and will have to respect their right to become local
churches in turn. And when they do, interculturality will have to take place between the
‘mission-giving’ church and the ‘mission-receiving’ church…In this form of interculturality
there is a mutual enriching, a mutual giving and receiving between the old and young churches
that says much about the maturing of both churches in regard to each other.”1755
Examining both perspectives, we believe that the disagreement between Ratzinger

and Claver, although Ratzinger does not directly address Claver’s position, lies in their
different understanding of inculturation. For Ratzinger, inculturation “presupposes that,
as it were, a culturally naked faith is transferred into a culture that is indifferent from the
religious point of view, so that two agents that were hitherto alien to each other meet and
now engage in a synthesis together.”1756 Claver, on the other hand, understands
inculturation as starting from an encounter of two culturally bound agents that eventually
becomes a direct encounter between the divine and the receiving agent. He does not
comprehend inculturation, in contrast to Ratzinger’s concept of inculturation, as
beginning with an encounter between a faith that is free from any cultural trappings and
a culture that is religiously indifferent. Claver believes that the initial encounter
presupposes cultures and religious traditions incumbent to the dialogue partners.
To illustrate more clearly Claver’s understanding of inculturation he makes use of
the passage from the Gospel of John which is about the encounter of Jesus and the
Samaritan woman (Jn. 4:9-42):1757 1. Encounter of Jesus as a Jew and the woman at the
well as a Samaritan [encounter of two different culture-bound individuals: “The Samaritan
woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’
(Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)” Jn. 4:9]; 2. Direct encounter of
God and the Samaritan woman (The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming”
(who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to
her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” Jn. 4: 25-26)]; 3). Encounter of the
Samaritan woman with her compatriot (Then the woman left her water jar and went back
to the city. She said to the people,” Come and see a man who told me everything I have
ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to
him. Jn. 4:28-30); and 4. The direct assent of the Samaritans (They said to the woman,
“It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves,
and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.” Jn. 4:42).1758
1753Shorter explains that acculturation is an “encounter between one culture and another, or the encounter
between two cultures…on a footing of mutual respect and tolerance… a necessary condition of inculturation.”
Shorter, Toward a Theology of Inculturation, 6-8. See Chupungco, Liturgical Inculturation, 27. See also Anscar
Chupungco, Liturgies of the Future (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stocks, 2006 /Paulist, 1982), 25-28.
1755Ibid., 121-122.
1756Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 64.
1757Claver, in this regard, acknowledges his indebtedness to Herman Hendrickx C.I.C.M. Claver, The Making
of a Local Church, 116.

1758Ibid.
307
SAMBAYANIHAN
Certainly, as the work of evangelization continues, the “four” moments of

inculturation continue to unfold. According to Claver, as it is shown in the narrative above,
‘interculturality’ happens in the first and third moments of the process, while
‘inculturation’ takes place in the second and the fourth. These phases, altogether, account
for the depth and breadth of inculturation. It is not only about the on-going and mutually
enriching dialogue between cultures, but it is also about the ‘encounter’ or the ‘dialogue’
between the Spirit and the particular recipient of the Christian message that goes beyond
the limits of culture.
Claver, as already mentioned above, does not consider the second moment as the
terminus ad quem of inculturation. The process goes on. Inculturation must continue to
the third moment, because a real encounter with the divine cannot simply be contained
to oneself. As the Gospel of Luke 6:45 says: “The good person out of the good treasure of
his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out
of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” When the woman returns to her town
and proclaims to her compatriots (“Come and see someone who told me everything I ever
did! Could this be the Messiah?”) she has become the preacher who comes from the same
cultural background but from a different psychological or spiritual state than her
townsfolk, which makes the people also want to meet Jesus personally. At the end of this
Gospel pericope, her fellow Samaritans exclaimed: “No longer does our faith depend on
your story. We have heard for ourselves, and we know that this really is the Savior of the
World.” In this very moment, a direct encounter between the people and God takes place,
wherein the mediation of the agents is radically reduced.
Within this framework, Claver notes several important issues as far as inculturation
is concerned: 1) promoters of inculturation must avoid falling into the same pitfall
encountered by the Western missionaries in the past wherein the recipients of faith where
“transformed” into either a second-rate or exaggerated copy-cats of the former’s
culture;1759 2) agents of inculturation must always be aware of their “mediating role” (i.e.,
midwives) “who bring about, bring to birth, the salvific dialogue of faith and culture that
their converts will have to do on their own.”;1760 3) “inculturative process is not about
individuals as individuals (taken singly) so much as about a group of individuals as a
community, a people of distinct culture”;1761 and 4) “culture, precisely because it is a
human invention, is always in process and is changing all the time… faith is just dynamic
– it can deepen and strengthen, or grow weak and die out completely. The inculturative
process, hence, will never be perfected, will always in fact be susceptible of more or less,
of growth or decline, in either or both its components.”1762
To complement the Scriptural “metaphor” that Claver has used to express his notion
of inculturation, we suggest making use of passage that comes from the Gospel of
Matthew, which is about the two questions posed by Jesus Christ to his disciples (Mt.
16:13-19). We believe that the first question of Jesus (i.e., “Who do people say the Son of
Man is?”) stands for the first and third moments of the process of inculturation, while the
second question of Jesus (i.e., “Who do you say that I am?”) represents the second and
fourth moments. The first question expresses an encounter of his disciples with other
people who have known Jesus. Thus, it is about a knowledge that is being communicated
from a particular culture to another culture. The second question conveys an idea of a
1759Claver, The Making of a Local Church, 119, 118.

1760Ibid.
1761Ibid., 119.
1762Ibid., 120.
308
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
‘first-hand” experience of him of his disciples. Hence, it is about a direct encounter or

personal dialogue between Jesus and his disciples that is not restricted by any cultural
parameters. When Peter rightly declared Jesus “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living
God” (Mt. 16:16), Jesus immediately replied “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for
this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven” (Mt. 16:17).
Certainly, this narrative expresses the fact that there is no short-cut for inculturation.
One cannot omit the part of mediation that involves other people who also belong to
particular cultures. At the same time, inculturation cannot be limited to this encounter,
no matter how enriching this encounter among different cultures really is. The process of
inculturation must never forget and underestimate the very important aspect wherein a
personal encounter between the Holy Spirit and a particular cultural entity takes place,
which, in the words of Jesus in Mt. 16:17 is “not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but
by my Father in heaven”.
With these two Biblical passages in mind, we argue that the concept of inculturation
must never be abandoned. Certainly, it also cannot stand alone. It should always be
accompanied by the notion of interculturality, as proposed by Pope Benedict
XVI/Ratzinger. But then, again, we should not forget that Ratzinger has also maintained
that “one cannot see how two organism that are in themselves totally alien to each other
should, through a transplantation that starts by mutilating them both, suddenly become
a living whole.”1763 Ratzinger’s argument gives us an impression that inculturation, for
him, is a process of producing a ‘hybrid chimera’ that totally abandons both cultures that
gave birth to it. In contrast to this, Claver’s view can be seen as resonating more with
Chupungco’s notion of inculturation which “does not imperil the nature and values of
Christianity as a revealed religion, nor does it jeopardize human culture as expression of
society’s life and aspirations. Christian worship should not end up being an ingredient of
the local culture, nor should culture be reduced to an ancillary role. The process of
interaction and mutual assimilation brings progress to both; it does not cause mutual
extinction.”1764
II.3.2.4. Inculturation from the Lips of other Theologians
Apart from the views expressed by Ratzinger and Claver regarding the importance
and viability of inculturation, we would like also to provide some snapshots of the different
views held by other theologians on inculturation, such as, the ITC members, Gerard
Arbuckle, Michael Amaladoss, Chibueze Udeani, Catalino Arevalo, James Bretzke,
Cormac Burke, Jose de Mesa, Kosuke Koyama, and Leonardo Mercado. This portion may
not be as exhaustive as the other discussions in this chapter, but we hope that with this
we can provide our readers a wider view of how inculturation is construed and promoted
in the theological community.
First, we can cite how inculturation is understood by the members of the ITC. In
1988, the International Theological Commission explains how inculturation is possible
and therefore must be promoted. It says
“10. Therefore, because it transcends the entire natural and cultural order, the Christian faith
is, on the one hand, compatible with all cultures insofar as they conform to right reason and
good will, and, on the other hand, to an eminent degree, a dynamizing factor of culture. A single
1763Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 64.

1764Chupungco, Liturgical Inculturation, 29.
309
SAMBAYANIHAN
principle explains the totality of relationships between faith and culture: Grace respects nature,
healing in it the wounds of sin, comforting and elevating it. Elevation to the divine life is the
specific finality of grace, but it cannot realize this unless nature is healed and unless elevation
to the supernatural order brings nature, in the way proper to itself, to the plenitude of
perfection.
11. The process of inculturation may be defined as the Church’s efforts to make the message
of Christ penetrate a given sociocultural milieu, calling on the latter to grow according to all its
particular values, as long as these are compatible with the Gospel. The term inculturation
includes the notion of growth, of the mutual enrichment of persons and groups, rendered
possible by the encounter of the Gospel with a social milieu. ‘Inculturation [is] the incarnation
of the Gospel in native cultures and also the introduction of these cultures into the life of the
Church.’”1765
Second, we have Gerald Arbuckle who has said that “Inculturation is a dialectical
interaction between faith and cultures in which these cultures are challenged, affirmed,
and transformed toward the reign of God, and in which faith is likewise challenged,
affirmed, and enhanced by the experience.”1766 Although this argument of Arbuckle seems
to be sound, we feel, however, that placing faith and culture on either side of the spectrum
seems to present an idea of faith that is devoid of any cultural elements or trappings, as
if faith is ‘pure and simple’ disembodied and ahistorical.
Third, we have Michael Amaladoss, a Jesuit theologian who analyzes the present
issue of inculturation in India, who states that
“The process of inculturation is not making much headway in the Church today because it is
mostly seen as the translation and adaptation of a pre-existent “pure” gospel that has already
found privileged and normative expression in Judaic and Gre-Roman cultures. Indigenization
itself is a natural process. People who hear the gospel respond to it spontaneously in their
commitment, reflection, prayer, celebration, and action. This natural process has not been
allowed to happen. Ways of responding and the symbols and gestures used are imposed.
Spontaneity is smothered by a plethora of regulations. A healthy pluralism of peoples and
cultures is not respected under the pretense of preserving unity. Under these circumstances,
talking about inculturation as indigenization cannot go beyond accurate translation and the
addition of some decorative elements exterior to the rite. Even this process is certainly
controlled by people who know nothing of various local cultures and religions. The movement
towards indigenization has come to a stand-till. There is no use of talking about it. Nothing is
going to happen unless there is radical change of conditions. One of these conditions is whether
the Indian Church is going to take seriously its own rights in the matter. That is why I think it
will be more helpful to focus on inculturation as transformation of culture.”1767
In these words, it is obvious that Amaladoss is not satisfied with the way inculturation is
applied in his context and, thus, must be overhauled.
Fourth, we have Chibueze C. Udeani who, like Amaladoss who studies the actual
process of inculturation in a particular context, states: “any inculturation effort dare not
forget that effectiveness will be achieved only when the ‘evangelizers’ and as well ‘those be
evangelized’ find themselves in a system of dialogue: a situation in which each allows
himself/herself to be evangelized by the other. There they exchange their religious
experiences with one another, listen to one another, respect and value their differences,
and recognize in the Word and the Spirit can be encountered in the other.” 1768 This
1765International Theological Commission (ICT), “Faith and Inculturation,” (1988),

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_1988_fede-
inculturazione_en.html [accessed January 23, 2015].
1766Arbuckle, Culture, Inculturation and Theologians, 152. He claims that the “modern definition of culture
does not fit the world Jesus lives in; in fact, the postmodern notion of culture best describes his environment.
There was nothing discrete, homogeneous, and integrating about his cultural world because it was filled with
all kinds of tensions, fragmentation, and subcultural differences.” Ibid.
1767Michael Amaladoss, “Liturgical Inculturation and Postmodern Culture,” East Asian Pastoral Institute 44
(2007), http://www.eapi.org.ph/resources/eapr/east-asian-pastoral-review-2007/volume-44-2007-number-
1/liturgical-inculturation-and-postmodern-culture/ [accessed February 13, 2015].
310
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
position is, in fact, supported by both Ratzinger and Claver who, despite their apparent
disagreement, agree that a mutual enrichment and purification must take place in the
dialogue of two cultures.
Fifth, we can mention Catalino Arevalo, a well-respected theologian in the
Philippines, who asserts that inculturation is vital the life of the local church. He states
that “inculturation is at base the task of a local church in the process of its self-realization
in history.”1769 In agreement with his fellow Filipino Jesuit, Bishop Claver, he asserts the
necessity of direct encounter between Christ and the culturally bound recipient. He
expresses his view and his hope in these words:
“the future search of our theology will center, I believe and I hope, on Jesus the Christ. And,
repeating only what many outstanding theologians today are saying, it will be a theology
constantly renewed by a personal and an ecclesial experience of Christ. The Holy Father said,
in the United States in 1993, “Sometimes even we Catholics have lost or maybe never had the
chance to experience Christ personally; not Christ as mere ‘paradigm’ or ‘value’, but Christ
experienced as the living Lord: he who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
In the years ahead, I believe we will see a rediscovery of Jesus Christ in our Asian theology,
and even within an acknowledged context of religious pluralism in Asia, we will see emerging
— maybe for the first time, maybe in unexpected depth and splendor, and with wonderment,
— the “Asian face of Christ.” In a true sense, the history of theology in Asia, in the Philippines,
has not yet really begun in earnest. Rightly it will begin, in the deep mind and heart, with an
encounter with Jesus Christ.”1770
Sixth, we have James Bretzke who supports the notion of inculturation wherein an
integration of the gospel within a particular culture “does not seek to tear the community’s
culture” or simply including the gospel as an appendix, rather it is making the gospel
relevant to the people.1771 In other words, it is about making the Gospel real in the lives of
the people who are situated in a particular culture.
Seventh, we have Cormac Burke, an Opus Dei priest, who believes that inculturation
is essential to the life of the Church, because the discoveries of the different cultures
enrich the preaching of the gospel and the translation of the message of Christ to all
nations.1772 Inculturation provides a deeper understanding of faith and culture and “a
better expression of liturgical celebrations in the life of the diversified community of the
faithful.”1773
Eighth, we have Jose de Mesa who is of the opinion that inculturation has not fully
taken root in the Philippines. The fact that a lot of people refer to themselves as “ROMANO”
clearly indicates the western origins and expression of Catholicism in the country, for
indeed, it was planted by the Spanish missionaries. He, thus, argues that Filipino
1769Catalino Arevalo, S.J., “Thoughts on Filipino Theology,” Loyola School of Theology,

http://www.lst.edu/academics/landas-archives/532-some-thoughts-on-filipino-theology-cg-arevalo-sj
[accessed December 27, 2014]. Cf. Theological Advisory Commission of the Federation of Asian Bishops’
Conferences (TAC/FABC), Theses on the Local Church: A Theological Reflection in the Asian Context, pub. as
no. 60 of the FABC papers (Hong Kong: FABC Secretary General’s, 1991).
1770Arevalo, “Thoughts on Filipino Theology.” The article above was originally part of an address delivered by
the writer after the Ateneo de Manila University conferred on him a Doctorate in Humanities, honoris causa,
on 30 July 1998. It was later published in Landas 2, no. 2 (1998). Here it appears slightly edited for the web.
1771Jaime T. Bretzke is a Jesuit professor of Moral Theology at the Boston College School of Theology and
Ministry. James Bretzke, “Minjung Theology and Inculturation in the Context of the History of Christianity in
Korea,” East Asian Pastoral Review 28 (1991): http://www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/bretzkesj/MinjungContext.pdf
1772Cormac Burke is professor of Modern Languages and Doctor in Canon Law, as well as a civil lawyer and
member of the Irish Bar. He was ordained a priest of the Opus Dei Prelature in 1955. After thirty years of
pastoral and teaching work in Europe, North America and Africa, Pope John Paul II appointed him a Judge of
the Roman Rota, the High Court of the Church. Cormac Burke, “Inculturation: John Paul II and the Third
World,” East Asian Pastoral Review 32(1995): 277-290.
1773Ibid.
311
SAMBAYANIHAN
Catholicism is still foreign; it is not our own Christianity.1774 This situation, according to
him, calls for culturally defined and culturally embodied inculturation as a theological
response to the unfortunate situation of Philippine Catholicism.1775
This response involves what he refers to as “theological re-rooting”,1776 which is
understood by Kosuke Koyama, who is the ninth theologian that we would like to cite in
this portion, as a “thoughtful attempt to translate the inner meaning of the message of
Jesus Christ from one historical cultural milieu and root into another.”1777 Koyama’s two-
pronged theological program involves the following: 1) opposition to any form of
syncretism; and 2) resistance to what is referred to as “kitchen theology” or veneer
Christianity.1778 What theology needs to do, according to him, is to propagate a theology
that creatively mesh or blend together the “form and meaning of the Gospel message” and
culture wherein the Gospel can served as a prophetic lens to “interpret, challenge and
change that culture and be fully understood by the believers”.1779 For Koyama,
contextualization can only be genuinely attained if it involves an articulation of who Jesus
Christ is in the language that is “culturally appropriate” and a critical rectification of
whatever is found contrary to “what the name of Jesus stands for”1780.
The goal of theological re-rooting, therefore, is a deconstruction of the colonial traces
of the faith which was part and parcel of the introduction of the Catholic faith in the
Philippines. It needs to liberate itself from the “relatively bound formulation” of Christian
faith in order to allow the distinctly Filipino expression and embodiment of the gospel
message.1781 It is, according to de Mesa, the task of Filipino theology today: “bringing the
same message to other people in terms of their own language and culture beginning with
their own cultural values.”1782
Agreeing to the notion of inculturation put forward by several Filipino theologians,
Leonardo Mercado who is the tenth theologian included in our roster, conceives
inculturation not just an external makeover (i.e., a new external dress) but a process that
requires internal changes, which includes divesting oneself of the foreign Christ and
allowing the native Christ to grow and bear fruit from within the Philippine context.1783
The notion of inculturation supported by Claver, de Mesa, Mercado, Koyama and
Bretzke, by way of careful analysis, is in the same cognitive wavelength as Stephen
1774de Mesa, Why Theology is Never Far from Home, 1-3.

1775de Mesa, In Solidarity with the Culture, 34-36.
1776Jose. de Mesa, And God said, “Bahala na”: The Theme of Providence in the Lowland Filipino Context (Quezon
City: Mary Hill School of Theology, 1979).

1777Kosume Koyama, Water Buffalo Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1974), 121.
1778Ibid.
1779Ibid.
1780Ibid., xiii.
1781Cf. De Mesa, And God said: “Bahala na”, 34.
1782Ibid., 20. He calls his theological method as cultural exegesis. He argues that since man is totally immersed
in culture, culture itself becomes a second nature to him. Jose de Mesa, “A Hermeneutics of Appreciation:
Approach and Methodology,” MST Review 4, no. 2 (2006):21-24. He defines cultural exegesis as a
hermeneutical act, which “intends to make explicit the meaning a culture holds.” By cultural exegesis, some
part of the past can be recovered which has some bearing on present questions, issues and needs. Otherwise
such hermeneutic activity becomes irrelevant and out of touch with what is currently going on in the lives of
people if the culture of the people will not be given any consideration. The works of our Filipino theologians
in the process of inculturating theology in the indigenous categories clarify to the Filipino mind not only the
dogmas which is being expressed in Western thoughts but also recovers the rich meaning of the culture itself
that was lost due to colonial brainwashing.
1783Leonardo Mercado, Doing Filipino Theology (Manila: Divine Word, 1997), 67.
312
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
Bevans’s “contextual theology” as a “theological imperative.”1784 This theological

imperative requires, according to Claver, that the primary agents of inculturation are the
natives who own the culture considering that they have the gift of faith received from the
Holy Spirit in baptism. Foreign missionaries, being outsiders in relation to the culture of
the people they are evangelizing, can only initiate the process of inculturation but they
cannot be the primary agents of it. They are like “midwives”, mediating the salvific dialogue
of faith and culture that unfolds through prayer, discernment and dialogue.1785 On this
note, we recall that Yves Congar who, discussing what could be counted as true and false
reform in the Church, states that “a genuine development of the tradition with all that
implies – of a return to deep sources, of discernment and purification, of balance and of a
full spiritual communion and complementarity – all that transcends the possibilities of
one person or even one team. It has to be the work of at least a generation. Better it has
to be the work of the whole people (of the whole body of the church – clergy and faithful
together). In fact, this kind of development under the impulse of prophetic elements can
only be accomplished in communion with the whole church.”1786
II.3.2.5. Inculturation in the Context of Migration: Is it Multiculturality, Interculturality or

Transculturality?
When we elevate the issue of inculturation to the context of migration our discussion
becomes even more complicated, because we are not only talking about how ‘faith’ is being
received in a particular ‘national’ context but, in this regard, how ‘faith’ is being witnessed
in a milieu where multiplicity of cultural and religious traditions is inevitably brought
together in the crosscurrents of contemporary globalization in the countries of destination
of the migrant peoples. This is not a denial, however, of what we have already affirmed
above about culture that it, even in the national or local level, is never homogenous. What
we would like to put forward here is the fact that, in the context of globalized migration,
interaction among diverse cultures is more complex and wide-ranging than in either a
national or local level. We believe that, with how things are in the contemporary globalized
world, people (i.e., scholars, policy-makers, church-leaders, and the like) nowadays
consider this interaction among cultures as a concern of paramount significance.
Contemporary globalization, with its attendant phenomenon of massive migration, has
made the world much smaller wherein encounter among different cultures has become
more commonplace. To live in isolation is no longer practically possible. We are now more
aware than ever that our existence is only made possible by our direct and indirect contact
with others, especially with the level of technological sophistication that people enjoy
nowadays. We cannot but bump into each other, either physically or virtually, every day
or, should we say, every second of our earthly life. One is continuously bombarded and
influenced by different cultures that are tossed around the world via internet or actual
physical travel. Every day, a particular culture evolves, whether significantly or subtly,
because it is in constant contact with other peoples and cultures. Even when one prefers
to be secluded from the world, he or she cannot deny the painful truth that the entire
1784Stephen Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology: Faith and Cultures Series (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002),
21. Bevans asserts that “there is no such thing as “theology”; there is only contextual theology… the attempt
to understand Christian faith in terms of a particular context is really a theological imperative.”
1786Yves Congar, True and False Reform in the Church, trans., Paul Philibert (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical
Press, 2011), Kindle edition, 302.
313
SAMBAYANIHAN
world still impinges on him or her, whether he or she likes or not, because even the clothes
that one wears and everything thar one sees around him or her is a product of particular
cultures or of other people who are endowed with specific cultural capitals.
We know that whenever people move from one place to another, they bring with them
certain things that are considered vital to their human existence: language, ethnicity,
world view, talents, and even their religious backgrounds. We also know that the spread
of a particular religion, like Christianity, is mostly brought about by migration because,
as they cross borders, they bring with them their peculiar manners of comprehending and
witnessing their faith. Thus, whenever we try to understand the dynamics of how people
are changed or influenced by their encounter with other people, we cannot overlook the
aspect of religiosity or spirituality which is part and parcel of any cultural upbringing.
Their religious stance, whether they believe in God or not, will certainly come into play in
their dealings with others and in how they influence or are influenced by others. Hence,
we can say that with migration comes along religious inculturation. On that note, we can
say that it is imperative that we also examine in this doctoral research the dynamics of
interaction as far as religious worldviews are concerned, the problems and promises, the
breadth and limits, the transformative power and threats, etc.
Speaking of the relationship between migration and the spread not only of cultural
but also of religious worldviews, we call to mind Gemma Tulod Cruz, a senior lecturer in
theology at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, who has rightly said that
“Within Christianity the significant presence of migrants, who inevitably have particular
ways of understanding and living the faith, bring not just wonderful gifts but also immense
challenges, especially in the area of inculturation.”1787 Moreover, she contends that
contemporary migration not only enrich but also complicates the issue of inculturation of
faith.1788 According to her, the most obvious forms of inculturation “are done through
liturgy.”1789 She, however, laments that inculturation in the context of migration, amidst
the tension between maintaining identity and assimilating or integrating, has been
superficial or has remained in the external level.1790 Inculturation, based on her
estimation, has not taken a deeper root in the context of migration because of the failure
to consider the fact that “faith or the Gospel is not dealing with only one culture or only
one homogenous group (as it has mostly done in the past) but rather multiple cultures
and extremely heterogenous group(s).”1791 Thus, she surmises that the most appropriate
model for inculturation in this particular context is “interculturality”.1792 In light of this
proposal, Cruz explains that her preference to use the term “interculturality” as opposed
to “interculturation” stems from an understanding of the process of inculturation that is
not “a mere transfer of faith from one culture to another or the simple insertion of the
Christian message into a given culture.”1793 For her, the process needs to factor in the
1787Gemma Tulud Cruz, Toward a Theology of Migration: Social Justice and Religious Experience (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 106.)
1788Ibid., 111.
1789Ibid., 107)
1790She claims that “inculturation chiefly happens in the Eucharistic celebration” and in the area of “popular
piety.” Ibid., 108-109.

1791Ibid., 111. Here, Cruz points out the limitation of Shorter’s definition of inculturation and what is lacking
in Pedro Arrupe’s understanding of the concept as “the incarnation of Christian life and of the Christian
message in a particular context.” Cf. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., “Letter to the Whole Society on Incullturation” Axiala
3(1978): 172. As quoted in Shorter, Toward a Theology of Inculturation, 11.
1792Cruz, Toward a Theology of Migration,113.
1793Ibid., 209-10.
314
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
presence of migrant churches and intercultural relations.1794 Cruz’s notion of

interculturality, however, is not directly linked to Ratzinger’s understanding of what
interculturality entails. There was also no mention whether she is in agreement with
Claver’s proposal or not. What is important for us, as of the moment, is the fact that proper
inculturation in the context of migration, for her, involves a process of interculturality and
not just ‘multiculturality’.1795
According to Cruz, the word “’multicultural’ may mostly refer to a situation where
two or more cultures in a society or to a state of plurality of cultures, thereby capturing
only what is happening on the surface and not necessarily the currents underneath.” 1796
Because of that, Cruz contends that “’multi’ can be just quantitative and descriptive, while
‘inter’ can be both quantitative and qualitative …[and] evaluative.”1797 Agnes Brazal, whose
view on this particular issue can be considered as resonating with that of Cruz’s, claims
that “multiculturalism refers to the policy of peaceful co-existence of different cultural
communities in one nation-state, with neither intention nor vision of interaction to create
a larger community of bonding.1798 “Most versions of multiculturalism,” according to her,
“view cultures, identities, and differences as given through an already authenticated
cultural tradition.”1799
In contrast to multiculturality, ‘interculturality’, which first appeared in the lexicon
of the globalized world in the 1970’s due to the massive migration phenomenon felt in the
Southern and Northern Mediterranean part of Europe, has come to be construed as a
process that involves, according to Brazal, a “creation of spaces for interactions among
diverse cultures, the call for mutual listening and dialogue and a consequent positive
transformation in the view of others.”1800 The prefix ‘inter,’ for Cruz, means ‘between,’
‘among,’ or ‘with’ each other, [but most] importantly …it means ‘mutual’… [Thus, an]
intercultural perspective attends to the interaction and juxtaposition, as well as tension
and resistance when two or more cultures are brought together sometimes organically and
sometimes through violent means.”1801 Theologically speaking, ‘interculturality’ is
generally taken to mean as a process of dialogue, especially among different religions. This
perspective is corroborated by Robert Schreiter who sees interculturality as an “ability to
negotiate or cross a cultural boundary.”1802 In the words of Raimundo Pannikar,
interculturality’s main feature is ‘mutual fecundation’ which characterizes a genuine multi
and cross-cultural encounters.1803 Brazal asserts that “interculturality not only respects
differences but creates a space for interaction of diverse cultural groups within society.”1804
1794Cruz, Toward a Theology of Migration, 209-10.

1795Ibid., 113.
1796Ibid.
1797Ibid., 114.
1798Agnes M. Brazal and Emmanuel S. de Guzman, “Intercultural Church: A Challenge in the Asian Migrant
Context,” in Christianities in Migration: The Global Perspective, eds. Elaine Padilla and Peter C. Phan (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 71-88.
1799Ibid., 81.
1800Ibid. cf. also International Network on Cultural Policy, Annual Ministers Meetings, “Interculturality Moving
Towards a Dialogue among Nation,” INCP-RIPC, http://www.f-

duban.fr/Sitaduban/Master1/Plurinling_USA/plurilinguisme_files/multiculturalism-in28326_1.html
1802Robert Schreiter, “Communication and Interpretation across cultures,” International Review of Mission 85
(1996): 229.
1803Raimund Pannikar, “Religion, Philosophy and Culture,” polylog, http://them.polylog.org/1/fpr.en.htm

1804Brazal and De Guzman, “Intercultural Church,” 81. Cf. also Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, “Hermeneutics and
Politics of Strangers: A Philosophical Contribution on the Challenge of Convivencia in Multicultural Societies,”
315
SAMBAYANIHAN
Thus, it can be said that a more appropriate term for inculturation in the context of
migration is one that express the “‘inter’ perspective” because “it could capture the
experiential and dialogical character of inculturation, particularly multiple layers of
dialogical encounter within and among culture(s) that the Gospel has to engage
individually and collectively in a multiethnic parish.”1805 In short, the prefix inter implies
“mutuality and reciprocity in the relationship with the other.”1806
This notion of ‘inter’, however, must not overlook the “structures of asymmetrical
relations” which were pointed out by Pierre Bourdieu in his “theory of [cultural]
practice”.1807 “Intercultural dynamics”, according to Bourdieu, lies within the ambit of
“power relations” which can be understood in the following equation: “[(habitus) (capital)
+ field)] = practice”.1808 As far as Bourdieu is concerned, habitus is a “system of lasting,
transposable dispositions which, integrating past experiences, functions at every moment
as a matrix of perceptions, appreciations and actions.”1809 Therefore, a habitus, which can
be alternately referred to as “cultural unconscious”, is that which directs a person with
respect to his or her appropriate day to day actions and responses that do not have to be
critically or strictly deliberated or decided.1810 In other words, according to Brazal, habitus
is what “provides them with a ‘feel for the game,’ a practical sense as to what is appropriate
or not in a particular circumstance.”1811 To understand this better, we can use the case of
the migrant people who are not only geographically dispersed due to some serious reasons
but also culturally displaced. In the light of Bourdieus’s construal of what practice is,
which is the end result of the interaction between habitus and capital combined with the
field, the actions or perceptions that will be assumed or taken by the migrant people, to
use the words of Brazal, “will not simply be determined mechanically by their habitus
(cultural unconscious) but is a fruit of the encounter between the habitus and the field
(also called champ or game) or particular social context within which they act. Their
practice will be a strategic response to the new fields within which they now find
themselves.”1812 The context that we are referring to here is certainly not devoid of the
dynamics of asymmetrical power relations. Their practice, therefore, will also depend on
their perceived position in the equation of power. In view of the issue on power relation,
Bourdieu is particularly critical on how “soft” or “symbolic” violence is perpetuated, most
of the time, without being noticed. People lack the awareness of this unfortunate reality
because it has been imbibed by them so deeply which made them accept, almost without
question at all, as “part of everyday social habits” or as a “natural” daily occurrence.1813
“Bourdieu links this violence,” according to Brazal, “to symbolic capital (prestige, honor,
in A Promised Land; A Perilous Journey: Theological Perspectives on Migration, ed. Daniel Groody and
Gioacchino Campese (Notre Dame, IN.: University of Notre Dame, 2008), 219.; Ram Adhar Mall, Intercultural
Philosophy (Lanham, MD.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 9.
1805Brazal and De Guzman, “Intercultural Church,” 114.
1806Ibid., 81.
1807Ibid.
1808Ibid. Cf. also. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (Cambridge, MA.:
Harvard University, 1984), 101.

1809Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA.: Cambridge University,
1977; reprint ed. 1998), 83. Cited in Brazal and De Guzman, “Intercultural Church,” 81.
1810Pierre Bourdieu, “What Makes a Social Class? On the Theoretical and Practical Existence of Groups,”
Berkeley Journal of Sociology 32 (1987): 6, cited by David Schwarz, Culture and Power (Chicago: University of
Chicago, 1997), 153-154.
1811Brazal and De Guzman, Intercultural Church,” 81-82.
1812Ibid. 81.
1813Ibid.
316
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
recognition) accrued to somebody and on the basis of which the person engenders a sense
of duty to or inferiority in others.” 1814
Thus, we have to always bear in mind that genuine “interculturality”, which is also
known as “mutual fecundity”, will only take place in an atmosphere that is conducive for
“mutually empowering relation”.1815 In that way, some necessary alterations may transpire
in what are considered to fall under the category of “objective conditions such as, the
dominant societies’ recognition of other ethnic groups’ cultural capital, as well as, the
latter’s right to increased access to economic capital (e.g. through fair trade relations).”1816
In an equitable condition, interculturality is achievable. And in that way, one can see that,
indeed, it is essentially oriented towards emancipation, either in a global or local level,
from societal structures that oppress and marginalize people.1817
According to Cruz, ‘interculturality’ is more desirable than ‘multiculturality’ because
it grasps “what is in between… attends to the interaction and juxtaposition, as well as
tension and resistance when two or more cultures are brought together sometimes
organically and sometimes through violent means.”1818 ‘Multiculturality,’ for her, is not a
viable option because it mostly refers “to a situation where two or more cultures exist in
a detached manner from each other.”1819 By the same token, Donald Cuccioletta contends
that “Multiculturalism is only the first level, the first rung in the socio-cultural ladder and
not the ultimate goal of society.”1820
There is a suggestion from Wolfgang Welsch, however, that instead of using the term
‘interculturality’ it is better to use ‘transculturality’ for the very reason that, despite the
notions of ‘mutual fecundation’ and “interpenetration’ that the prefix ‘inter’ suggests,
somehow one cannot avoid entertaining the idea of “culture as islands or homogenous
spheres”. Transculturalism, Donald Cuccioletta informs us, first came as a term in 1940
through the works of a “South American scholar Fernando Ortiz.”1821 Cuccioletta relates
that Ortiz’s cognition of transculturalism sprang forth from José Marti’s famous article
“Nuestra America” which was published in 1891 to “put forward the idea that intercultural
mixed peoples (métissage) was the key in legitimizing the American, meaning hemispheric,
identity. Marti referred to the process of métissage (métizos in Latino) as a distinctive trait
of a culture that is founded on the Native population, and all the different immigrant
groups who had come and are still coming to the Americas.”1822 He explains that Marti is
convinced that “the inhabitants of the Americas were biologically and culturally métis and
therefore always part of the dialectic with the other.”1823 He further elucidates that Ortiz
has ploughed through the same course as Marti did in terms of defining transculturalism
because, for him, at least “in its earliest stage” it is seen “as a synthesis of two phases
occurring simultaneously, one being a deculturalization of the past with a métissage with
the present,” whereby distinct peoples and cultures come in contact with each other and
are creatively fused to give birth to a “new common culture”.1824 This accounts for the fact
1814Brazal and De Guzman, Intercultural Church,” 81.

1815Ibid.
1816Ibid.
1817Ibid., 81-82.
1819Ibid., 113.
1820Donald Cuccioletta, “Multiculturalism or Transculturalism: Towards a Cosmopolitan Citizenship,” London
Journal of Canadian Studies 17(2001/2002): 8.

1821Ibid.
1822Ibid.
1823Ibid.
1824Ibid.
317
SAMBAYANIHAN
that, according to Cuccioletta, “one’s identity is not strictly one dimensional (the self) but
is now defined and more importantly recognized in rapport with the other. In other words,
one’s identity is not singular but multiple. As Scarpetta stated earlier ‘Each person is a
mosaic’.”1825 Each configuration, which is a result of transcultural process, is unique.
This, in our assessment, jives with Welsch’s understanding of the term transculturality,
because, for him, what is highlighted in this vocabulary is the process of “mixtures of and
permeation between cultures.”1826 For us, the prefix ‘trans’ is indeed very important
because of the transformation involved in the interaction between and among cultures,
which is also implied in the notion of transdisciplinary as opposed to interdisciplinary
because in the former, continuous collaboration and transformation of all the disciplines
involve take place, while the latter means that, after a collaboration between and among
the disciplines which yield results that can only be had through their mutual and
reciprocal collaboration, they go back to their own separate ways as individual disciplines.
Transculturality, according to Cucioletta, involves a process whereby one sees oneself in
the other that certainly brings about what he refers to as “cosmopolitan citizenship”,
which means understanding oneself as métis or a person possessing multiple cultures at
the same time “and that each human experience and existence is due to the contact with
other, who is reality is like, oneself.”1827 This notion reminds us of the closeness and the
mutuality between the Filipino loob and kapwa that we have explored earlier in this paper.
For Richard Slimbach, “[transculturalism] is rooted in the quest to define shared interests
and common values across cultural and national borders. At its best, it comes to the
forefront in transnational efforts to address consequential global issues such as personal
prejudice, group violence, environmental protection, and human rights.”1828 What this
implies, if we are to understand properly Slimbach’s notion of transcuturalism, is the
realization and appreciation of things that are common despite or amidst the diversity
that we experience in the world, such as experiences and potentials, that we can all share
and enjoy. Doing so will allow us to have a glimpse of “how others make sense of their
world” and also see some “alternative mores and manners, values and visions” because
our horizons are widened by transcultural attitude.1829 It is not just about “mutual
fecundation” that is expressed by the term interculturality, but more than that, it is about
seeing oneself in the other. It is about empathy. It is about a realization that, even before
one becomes aware of his/her own cultural worldview that will enrich and will be enriched
by other cultural frameworks, one’s cultural heritage is already a product of previous and
ongoing intercultural exchanges. It is about an originally métic individual who becomes
more and more métic in the process. Therefore, he suggests the following as necessary
competencies to be had by any transcultural person:
“1. Perspective consciousness: the ability to question constantly the source of one’s cultural
assumptions and ethical judgments, leading to the habit of seeing things through the minds
and hearts of others.
2. Ethnographic skill: the ability to observe carefully social behavior, manage stress, and
establish friendships across cultures, while exploring issues of global significance,
documenting learning, and analyzing data using relevant concepts.
1825Cuccioletta, “Multiculturalism or Transculturalism,” 8.

1826Wolfgang Welsch, “Transculturality: The Puzzling Form of Cultures Today,” in Spaces of Culture: City-
Nation-World, ed. Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash (London: Sage, 1999), 194-213.
1828Richard Slimbach, “Transcolonial Journey,” Messiah College (2014): 206,
http://www.messiah.edu/downloads/download/168/richard_slimbach_article_-_transcultural_journey
1829Ibid., 209.
318
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
3. Global awareness: a basic awareness of transnational conditions and systems, ideologies

and institutions, affecting the quality of life of human and non-human populations, along with
the choices confronting individuals and nations.
4. World learning: direct experience with contrasting political histories, family lifestyles, social
groups, arts, religions, and cultural orientations based on extensive, immersed interaction
within non-English speaking, non-Americanized environments.
5. Foreign language proficiency: a threshold-level facility in the spoken, non-verbal, and written
communication system used by members of at least one other culture.
6. Affective development: the capacity to demonstrate personal qualities and standards “of the
heart” (e.g., empathy, inquisitiveness, initiative, flexibility, humility, sincerity, gentleness,
justice, and joy) within specific intercultural contexts in which one is living and learning.”1830
With these competencies, Cucioletta believes that ““[transcultural] learners can see
themselves as the vanguard of an increasing swath of humanity that must be able to move
in and out of daily contexts where nationalities, languages, ethnicities, and classes
coexist.”1831 Cucioletta points out, however, that to be transcultural “is not a total objective
reality, there has to be a conscious subjective component which must express itself in the
public space, in a democratic fashion without political interference.”1832
If we are to give appropriate Filipino metaphors that essentially capture the notion
of transculturality that we are trying to advance in this paper, they would be the two
favorite Filipino dishes, adobo and pancit, that are cooked in many versions depending on
where and who cooks these dishes. The different flavors tastefully blended (i.e., sweet,
sour, salty) as well as the different ingredients mixed (depending on the region) in every
adobo represent the fusion of different cultures creatively transformed to embody
transculturality. Every region in the Philippines, which is certainly endowed with a fusion
of different cultural influences, has its different take on this well-liked Filipino menu
depending on what ingredients are available in the area, apart from the salt and garlic.
They may taste and look differently but they are lumped under the same rubric of adobo,
whether it uses pork, fish or vegetables.
By the same token, the different kinds of noodles and ingredients used for cooking
the quintessential Filipino pancit represent the countless permutations of transcultural
identities as it serves in one plate a confluence of indigenous, Chinese and European
flairs. Be it canton, lomi, bihon, habhab, palabok, miki and etc…, it is called pancit.
Undoubtedly, pancit, together with adobo, is a gastronomic feast of multiple ingredients
and cultures in one mouth-watering dish, a manifestation of what metissage is, a
meaningful and wonderful marriage of different cultures.
We must be on guard, however, on the tendency to misconstrue the ‘trans’ in
transculturality as pertaining to ‘supra’ or ‘beyond’, meaning regardless of any culture,
which Brazal points out in her book. Keenly aware of the downside in using the term
transculturality, she prefers to “retain the term inteculturality while nuancing its
meaning.”1833 With that, we are convinced that in the context of migration, inculturation
is not only through intercultural process, which we believe is also an important aspect of
inculturation, but, most importantly, through transcultural means. We believe that the
second and the fourth moment of incultruration which we have elucidated earlier is not
just about combining different cultures, but these moments can be seen also as events of
transformation of one’s own culture vis-à-vis other cultures brought about not only by an
encounter of different cultures but by an encounter with the God who brings them to a
1830Slimbach, “Transcolonial Journey,” 206-207.

1831Ibid.,”
211.
1833Brazal and De Guzman, “Intercultural Church,” 81.
319
SAMBAYANIHAN
higher level of integration and manifestation. It involves not only different cultures, but
also the very important role of the God who addresses the people concerned mysteriously
in both mediated and unmediated ways. After all, God is still God. As believers, we are
inclined to think that God continues to be a vital part of the equation. No inculturation
will take place if it is only a process that requires the participation of human beings
endowed with different cultural heritages. If it is an entirely human enterprise, there is no
reason for us to even talk about it because it is precisely about how God or the Person of
Jesus Christ is known by and in a particular culture which entails a unique, but not
solitary, embodiment of Christian faith. Ultimately, the transformation that happens in
the process of inculturation can be attributed to the “intervention” of the God who is both
immanent and transcendent. Inculturation does not only include anthropology but, more
importantly, theology. It may sound pietistic to some, but we believe that, if the latter is
omitted in the equation, inculturation has no meaning at all.
Cruz believes that the issue of inculturation becomes even more germane and urgent
in the context of migration because it is situated in a milieu where multiple encounters
with multiple cultural worldviews are a daily reality. The multiplicity is magnified, and the
event of encounter is intensified. This issue cannot be overlooked, especially because,
according to Cruz, the “new life and vitality in the worship and spirituality” in the host
countries of the migrant people is intensified “by the often difficult situations inherent to
migration, for example, alienation, discrimination, and harsh working conditions.”1834
And, it is our opinion that transculturality, which necessarily implies the notion of
interculturality, is an appriopriate approach in trying to inculturate faith in the context of
migration where encounters and mutual fecundation transpire in a much messier and
more complex atmosphere than in a national or local context.
II.3.3. Towards an Inculturated Liturgy for Filipinos in Diaspora
To begin with, let us reiterate what Cruz has said about inculturation. According to
her, “inculturation is a process whereby pertinent elements of a local culture are
integrated into the texts, rites, symbols, and institutions employed by local churches for
its worship.”1835 Inculturation in the context of contemporary migration transpires
through the influx of immigrants in the countries of destinations like the Western Europe
and North America. These migrant people, according to Gerrie ter Haar, “bring new life
and vitality in the worship and spirituality of their host churches because they reproduce
or exhibit the same dynamic, creative, and celebratory character of religious rituals in
their homeland.”1836 It is true that migration enriches liturgical life in the host countries.
Nevertheless, it is also true that the insertion of different cultural elements brought in by
the migrants complicate the process of inculturation as, according to Cruz, “it intensifies
the desire to affirm one’s identity in the midst of a need and demand to assimilate,
integrate, or create a new identity in the culturally different society and faith
community.”1837
1834Cruz, Toward a Theology of Migration, 107.

1835Ibid.,107. Cf. also Anscar Chupungco, “Liturgical Inculturation,” Handbook for Liturgical Studies II:
Fundamental Liturgy (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998), 339.
1836Cruz, Toward a Theology of Migration, 107. Cf. also Gerrie ter Haar, Halfway to Paradise: African Christians
in Europe (Cardiff: Cardiff Academic, 1998), 92.

320
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
Despite the varied manifestations of inculturation that we witness in the context of

migration, however, some people, like Raul Gómez, think that they remain in the external
or in the superficial level only.1838 “In many cases,” according to Cruz, “this is because the
understanding and practice of inculturation do not fully take into account the fact that
faith of the Gospel is not dealing with only one culture or only one homogeneous group
(as it has mostly done in the past) but rather multiple cultures or extremely heterogeneous
group(s).”1839
Our research has revealed that there are still some who understand inculturation as
an encounter between a perfectly molded Christian faith and a homogenous local culture.
Statements like “the incarnation of Christian life and of the Christian message in a
particular cultural context” 1840 maybe mistakenly construed as expressing an idea of a
monolithic or mono-dimensional local culture. We are aware, as we have already
discussed in the preceeding sections, that using the word ‘culture’ already reveals the
cultural process to which it belongs wherein different people and various elements are
already engaged in a dialogue – a dialogue that is not always experienced as a peaceful
interaction but, at times, as a painful display of aggression because of the different ways
of understanding held by the participants. Indeed, we must never lose sight of the fact of
‘interculturality’ or transculturality, whether in a context of a local Church in the
Philippines or in North America or Western Europe where multiplicity of cultures is more
pronounced.
In view of this condition, Cruz suggests that when we deal with a process of
inculturation in the context of migration and in the spirit of interculturality, or
transculturality, we must “take into account not only the different groups’ complex
(sometimes bitter) histories (past and present) but also the regional, political, and
economic differences – within a culture or across cultures – which could lead different
groups to dissociate from or be indifferent toward one another.” 1841 There are some
considered to be very trivial matters that may derail the effort for intercultural or
transcultural discernement, such as what Peter Phan has observed in the communities of
Asian immigrants in the United States wherein much of the precious energies are spent
in “petty conflicts and quarrels” due to rivalries in church positions or associations and
frictions with pastors perceived to be despotic.1842 The squabbles may have been labelled
by Peter Phan as “petty”, but we believe that, despite their pettiness, they merit a serious
consideration because they are symptoms of a much deeper issue which prevents their
communities to live together meaningfully. Incidents like these, we surmise, give credence
to why Cruz recommends that we carefully study and address the issues that emanate
from the multiplicity of cultural perspectives brought in by the migrant communities in a
particular ecclesiastical community like the parish. These people are willing to fight tooth
and nails, even in the most trivial issues, because they would like to be recognized. They
want to be considered as significant members of the community which, sad to say, denied
1838Raul R. Gomez; “Beyond Sarapes and Maracas: Liturgical Theology in a Hispanic/Latino Context,” Journal
of Hispanic Theology 8, no. 2(2000): 55-71, 56. According to Cruz, “one limitation of the current ways or
strategies with which inculturation is done in churches where there is considerable number of migrants is
that they tend to be superficial or do not go beyond the externals.” Cruz, Toward a Theology of Migration, 111.
1839Cruz, Toward a Theology of Migration, 111. Cf. also footnotes 29 of chapter 5 of the same book.
1840Quoted in Shorter, Toward a Theology of Inculturation, 11. Cf. also Arrupe, “Letter to the Whole Society on
Inculturation,” 172.
1842Phan, “Where We Come From, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going,” 9. This was also mention in Cruz,
Toward a Theology of Migration, 111-112.
321
SAMBAYANIHAN
of them a lot of times. It still happens that the “newcomers” are told to simply follow the
lead of the veteran members of the Church community and refrain from injecting their
elements from their respective cultural heritage to the life and activities of the Church.
“The differences,” according to Cruz, “are usually more pronounced and more problematic
between the minority ethnic ‘guest’ group(s) and the majority or dominant ‘host’ ethnic
group... The situation… often leads to segregation.”1843 What is needed is openness
towards each other and mutual recognition of each other’s contribution to the successful
and meaningful ecclesial life. She, therefore, surmises, that, perhaps, in any attempt to
inculturate faith in an ‘intercultural’ context all stakeholders, which certainly includes
“both new(er) ethnic minority group(s) and old(er) dominant ethnic group,” must
deliberately exert effort “to learn from one another in view of having a richer and more
meaningful faith.”1844
Speaking of the idea of learning from each other or “mutual fecundation”, we recall
Peter Phan who has underscored four very important lessons that American church can
learn from the Asian and Pacific Catholics: 1) “embedded selves” that counters American
individualism; 2) overcoming American consumeristic and materialistic culture through
Asian and Pacific’s traditional simplicity, frugality, deep sense of transcendence and
introspection; 3) tempering American propensity to use arms and violence with the
tradition of nonviolent resistance and harmony; and 4) promoting creative and unitive
plurality and diversity instead of American tendency toward the melting pot conformity. 1845
Having enumerated what Phan’s believes to be the positive contribution of the migrants
from the Asia and the Pacific, we can say that not all of them can be considered as
applicable to the Filipino migrants. We believe that the “embedded selves” that Phan is
talking about in his recommendations is, indeed, spot on because it is what the Filipino
concept of loob-kapwa all about. Another point that can be taken as true, as far as the
Filipino migrants are concerned, is their deep sense of transcendence simply because of
their outward expression of reverence to God through the celebration of sacraments and
popular devotions, and also because of their ‘ordinary’ bahala na faith that embodies their
profound trust in God who continuously accompany them in their journey and who
provides what they truly need in life. We have some doubts, however, if Phan’s claim about
the ‘frugality’ of people from Asia and Pacific can be attributed to the Filipino migrants
because they are generally known for throwing extravagant parties which definitely
include excessive amount of food. In fact, one thing that non-Filipinos remember about
being in a Filipino gathering is the overwhelming presence of food. We also have doubts
whether Phan’s assertion that Asian and Pacific immigrants are generally known for their
non-violent behavior can be applied to the Filipinos in diaspora or not? We are not sure
whether the Filipino notion of pakikisama qualifies as part of the “tradition of non-violent
resistance and harmony”, because at times pakikisama could lead to violence as well,
especially when Filipino migrants feel compelled out of pakikisama to “avenge” a family
1843Cruz adds that “[the] desire of Hispanic parishioners of a church in Texas to have more Masses in Spanish
in church and not at the community center also reflects this segregation, which covers not only parish time
(best Mass times are given to the dominant group) but also space (migrant congregations are relegated to the
basement, community centers, or parish hall for their Masses or religious services).” Cruz, Toward a Theology
of Migration, 112. Cf. also Kathleen Sullivan, “St. Catherine’s Catholic Church: One Church, Parallel
Congregations,” in Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations,
ed. Helen Rose Ebaugh and Janet Saltman Chafetz (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira,2000): 255-289, 264.
1845Cf. Phan, “Where We Come From, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going,” 15-16. Cited in Cruz, Toward
a Theology of Migration, 112-113.
322
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
member or a friend who was violated or wrongfully treated. There are, in fact, accounts of
Filipino migrants who have used deadly weapons or violent means to “resolve” conflicts.1846
Having said all this, we have the impression that Phan still regards Asian and Pacific
Islanders’ culture as homogeneous.
When it comes to what the Asian and Pacific Catholics have learned from the
Americans, Phan has cited “public Catholicism” as one of them, which he believes has
influenced the minority groups to be more active in the “ministry for justice and peace”
instead of over-emphasizing “afterlife and individual salvation”.1847 Another good trait that
the Asian and Pacific migrants have learned from the Americans, according to him, is the
“strong tradition of volunterism and philantrophy”.1848 And, last but not least, Phan
mentions the “consultative, almost democratic style of collaborative ministry that is
exercised in many American parishes… to break away from the more authoritarian and
clericalist model of church [the Asian and Pacific Catholics] have inherited.”1849
Regarding the influence of the American church to the Asian and Pacific Catholics
as pointed out by Phan, we find his first point seemingly self-contradictory, because the
thought of “individual salvation”, for us, does not jive with the “embedded selves” notion
that Phan asserted earlier, which is a characteristic of the Filipino kapwa-loob. Moreover,
we beg to disagree with his second point because, as far as the Filipino migrants are
concerned, the spirit of bayanihan, damayan and malasakit sa kapwa are very much alive
among the Filipino migrants. In fact, according to Stephen Cherry:
“the Filipino American immigrants interviewed suggested that they preferred not to be
recognized for their volunteerism and often disputed traditional labels for their civic
endeavors…Simply put, Filipino American immigrants do not always perceive what they are
doing as volunteering…In fact, looking at the broader picture of American civic life, Filipinos
are giving back to their communities through these acts of volunteerism at rates that far
exceeds that of native-born Americans.”1850
On top of that, we are of the impression that the Church in the Philippines, at least the
CBCP, are very strong and vocal on social and political issues. In fact, the hierarchy in
the Philippines is being criticized, to say the least, because of the seeming political over-
involvement. Regarding his last point, however, we could not agree more for, indeed,
Filipino Catholic migrants, although some have already made significant strides in this
respect, still need to learn to ventilate their grievances in proper fora, to participate actively
and openly in a common discernment and collaborative ministry.
Most of the time this complex process of inculturation in the context of
interculturality or transculturality is observable “in and through the sacraments,”
especially in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.1851 Apart from this, inculturation in
the context of migration is also “practiced”, as rightly observed by Leonardo Mercado even
1846You can also add to this, the escalating number of deaths in the Philippines directly or indirectly related
to the current administration’s war on drugs. I have also heard Filipinos, migrants and not, whose outright
support on the killings of drug dealers and dependents for the sake of or in the name of the nations peace and
progress are so much palpable. Some would even express this with so much passion and anger on their faces.
1847Cf. Phan, “Where We Come From, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going,” 15-16. Cruz, Toward a
Theology of Migration, 112-113.

1848Ibid.
1849Ibid., 112-113.
1850Stephen Cherry, Faith, Family, and Filipino American Community Life (New Brunswick: Rutgers University,
2014), 162-163.
1851Cruz, Toward a Theology of Migration, 106. She adds that “inculturation chiefly happens in the Eucharistic
celebrations…Almost always, however, inculturation is practiced through language. In fact, the presence of
priests and religious who can minister in the immigrants’ mother tongues is often high in the list of priorities
among immigrants.” Ibid., 108) Cf. also Phan, “Where We Come From, 8.
323
SAMBAYANIHAN
in the Philippines,1852 by way of popular piety which is usually performed without ‘official’
sanction from the higher Church authorities.1853 According to Cruz,
“These devotions are commonly expressed through pilgrimages and processions…The second
form involves rites related to the liturgical year, particularly to the Christmas and Lenten
season…Among Filipino-Americans there is the Simbang Gabi, Visita Iglesia, and Salubong …
The third form of popular piety involves institutions and religious objects that are often
connected with the first two forms.”1854
“This type of worship,” as observed by Cruz, “is more intensified and made more exuberant
and dramatic by the often difficult situations inherent to migration,” such as “alienation,
discrimination, and harsh working conditions.”1855 What is interesting in the case of
inculturation in the context of migration is the fact that the religions brought in by the
migrants become, according to Cruz, “a means to deal with or struggle against the
alienating forces embedded in the contemporary migration.”1856 The practice of their
respective religions, indeed, becomes a reliably strong anchor as they navigate through
the treacherous waters of migrant life wherein they continue to negotiate their identities
and search for economic, political, social and cultural safe havens far away from their
native lands. Nevertheless, there is a tendency for this kind of inculturation to be
contained only in the area religious activities which quite often becomes the point of
criticism by other observers because it gives an impression that religion and actual daily
life are mutually exclusive. Thus, inculturation needs to expand its horizon by including
not only dialogue between culture/s and religious practices but also the other aspects of
migrant life. For, indeed, faith must never be detached from the actual circumstances that
surround the lives of the migrants.
Religious traditions “imported” by the migrants to their countries of destination are
manifested not only through the formal religious rituals that they perform, like the Mass
in the case of the Catholics, but also through informal ones, such as popular religiosity
which carry with it, according to Robert Goizueta and Cruz, not only “a series of religious
practices, symbols, narratives, devotions, but also ‘a particular worldview, an
epistemological framework that infuses and defines every aspect of the community’s’
life.”1857 It allows us to have a glimpse of the way of life of the migrants. Given a proper
perspective and leverage, popular piety can become not only a platform for asserting one’s
identity but also a wellspring of liberating power that migrant people could harness and
put into positively productive use as they struggle for justice, peace and harmony.1858 We
say this, because it is not totally unheard of that popular piety is looked down upon as
irrelevant, meaningless and useless undertaking. In this regard, Cuz rightly points out
that
“For theology, this has to do with how, for a long time, popular piety has been associated with
the unlettered masses, magic, superstition, and religious ignorance which had somehow not
been ‘christianized.’ For example, Ernest Henau, “Popular Religiosity and Christian Faith,” in
Popular Religion, 79 says that as a religion that is (1) lived and experienced; (2) not expressed
1852Leonardo Mercado, Filipino Popular Devotions: The Interior Dialogue Between Traditional Religion and
Christianity (Manila: Logos, 2000), 70.
1854Ibid., 109-110.
1855Ibid., 107.
1856Ibid., 114.
1857Ibid., 114-115. Cf. also Roberto Goizueta, “Reflecting on America as a Single Entity: Catholicism and U.S.
Latinos,” in Many Faces, One Church: Cultural Diversity and the American Catholic Experience, ed. Peter Phan
and Diana Hayes (Lanham, MD: Sheed and Ward, 2004), 73.
1858Cf. Virgilio Elizondo, “Popular Religion as Support of Identity based on the Mexican-American Experience
in the U.S.A.,” in Spirituality of the Third World, ed. K.C. Abraham and Bernadetter Mbuy-Beya (New York:
Orbis, 1994): 55-63.
324
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
in formulae and; (3) transmitted by means of other forms, popular religiosity leads to insights
and intuitions which cannot be adequately contained within the framework of formulated logic.
It can therefore, be easily dismissed as subjective and emotive, attributes that are downplayed
inn mainstream theology which is highly rational and logical.”1859
We recall that even in Puebla the Latin-American Bishops had affirmed the ambivalence
perceive to be incumbent to popular piety. Indeed, we cannot deny that. There is a
tendency for popular piety to become an instrument of injustice and destruction by virtue
of its being “tied up with individual and collective identity”. 1860 But, we cannot also
overlook the potential liberative power emanating from the practice of popular piety which
can help the migrants expose and fight the oppressive mechanisms rooted in the Church
and society. “As such,” according to Cruz, “Christian theology must grapple with it by
judging it on its own merits. It must expose and point out various mechanisms of
oppression in Church and society; thereby, critically distinguishing the various ways of
dealing with it so that its liberating potential can be surfaced. Ultimately, popular religion
can give coherence and a sense of direction; it is a central factor in creating and
maintaining individual and collective identity and could even be an expression of
discipleship.”1861 For Orlando Espin, popular piety may be considered as an “epistemology
of suffering” that expresses the religion of the subaltern, whether in the Church or in the
wider society, whose plight has been swept under the rug.1862 He posits that “Latino
popular Catholicism is an effort by the subaltern to explain, justify, and somehow control
social reality that appears too dangerous to confront in terms of and through means other
than the mainly symbolic.”1863 He, however, tries to nuance this position by recognizing
the “problematic tendencies” attendant to this stance emanating from the subaltern, i.e.,
from the perspective of hope of those alienated by the society and the Church. In
connection with our claim that popular piety has a positive role not only in inculturation
of faith but also in struggle for justice, we recall Ricardo Ramirez who considers popular
Catholicism as “a defense and protest against the demands of the dominant culture.” 1864
The Via Crucis, for example, performed by the Mexican-Americans in the neighborhoods
of Chicago becomes a venue for “re-living” the Passion and a “relieving” of the
pains/sufferings brought about by their subaltern status.1865 Therefore, Cruz contends
that inculturation in the context of migration should focus more on “[making] the Gospel
enter into a dialogue with the faith and culture(s) of migrants as these are embedded in
their social-psychological, economic, and political struggles as marginal(ized)
1859Cruz, Toward a Theology of Migration, 210. Cf. also Ernest Henau, “Popular Religiosity and Christian
Faith,” in Popular Religion, ed. Norbert Greinacher and Norbert Mette (London: T&T Clark, 1986), 79.
1860Cruz, citing how Norbert Greinacher and Norbert Mette expounded Puebla 450, rightly point out that “it
can also be the cause of the most profound alienation and oppression. It can hold people in the grip of
irreversible regression and can have pathological and destructive effects.” Cruz, Towards a Theology of
Migration, 210. Cf. Puebla 450 as cited in Norbert Greinacher and Norbert Mett, “Editorial,” in Popular Religion,
eds. Norbert Greinacher and Norbert Mette (London: T&T Clark, 1986), iix-x.
1861Cruz, Towards a Theology of Migration, 210. Cf. Puebla 450 as cited in Greinacher and Mett, “Editorial,”
iix-x.
1862Cruz, Toward a Theology of Migration, 115. Cf. also Orlando Espin, “Popular Religion as an Epistemology
(of Suffering),” Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology 2, no. 2(1994): 55-78.

1863Orlando Espin, The Faith of the People: Theological Reflections on Popular Catholicism (New York: Orbis,
1997), 92.
1864Ricardo Ramirez, “Liturgy from the Mexican-American Perspective,” Worship 51(1997): 296 as quoted in
Timothy Matovina, “Marriage Celebrations in Mexican-American Communities,” Mestizo Worship: A Pastoral

Approach to Liturgical Ministry, ed. Virgilio P. Elizondo and Timothy Matovina (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical
Press, 1998): 93-102, 9.
1865Cf. Karen Mary Davalos, “The Real Way of Praying: The Via Crucis, Mexicano Sacred Space, and the
Architecture of Domination,” in Horizons of the Sacred: Mexican Traditions in U.S. Catholicism, ed. Timothy
Matovina and Gary Riebe-Estrella (New York: Cornell University, 2002), 42.
325
SAMBAYANIHAN
strangers.”1866 With this, we can certainly say that popular religiosity has a beneficial role
in process of inculturation in the context of migration. It can be an instrument for
unleashing the liberative power stored in the migrant ecclesial communities. On that note,
Robert Schreiter comes to mind because he believes that, as cited by Cruz, “the second
decade of globalization calls perhaps for two strands of inculturation, namely those
focused upon identity and those committed to liberation.”1867
Certainly, this issue begs the question of the role of Church hierarchy in sanctioning
or regulating various manifestations of popular piety. We have made it clear earlier in our
second chapter that our present Pope recognizes not only of the importance of taking
seriously the ‘theology of the people”, but also the essential role of popular piety in the
sacramental life of the Church. Cruz, in this regard, believes that nowadays there are clear
indications to believe that, indeed, the merits of popular piety are taken seriously. She
contends that “The fact that… forms of inculturation exist and, to a certain extent, flourish
tells us that the Church hierarchy has the ability to deal with cultural diversity without
imposing a rigid uniformity of practice.”1868 Most of the time, however, what prevents
popular religiosity from being appreciated or inculturation to be practiced fully in the
Church is not the Roman authorities but the pastors or the other local religious
leaders.1869 Speaking of which, the influx of foreign priests to minister in traditionally
“white” parishes, at times, poses a problem in carrying out sound inculturative process.
While their presence is very much appreciated in their new parish communities, those
who have been accustomed to the white western way of living sometimes run in conflict
with these foreign priests who insist on the cultural practices they have been used to in
their respective homelands. These foreign priests who have enjoyed being treated with
reverence in the patriarchal society where they originally came from are met with an
assertive attitude or even of defiance by the veteran members of the parishes and even by
the migrant people who have been used to the democratic way of running the parishes.
But, of course, there are also some good things that come with the introduction of foreign
priests in the ecclesiastical organization of the western Catholic dioceses, such as the
North America and the Western Europe. Their presence or ministry is a promising
prospect for inculturation because, when they are able to uninhibitedly share in a healthy
and welcoming environment, they can be a conduit towards a sustainable integration of
different ways of celebrating and living the faith in the parish communities that they are
involved in. These foreign priests, if they use their position properly and let go of their
counter-productive behaviors and attitude, can be an instruments for unifying
multicultural communities because they are also both insider and outsider. They are
insider in terms of the Catholic faith, but they are outsider in terms of the local customs
and traditions. They can use their liminality in order to bridge the gap among the different
cultural communities involved in their parish communities. They can certainly be
facilitators for integration or for making their respective parishes truly intercultural or
transcultural.1870
Now, when we shift our attention to the issue of inculturation in the context of
Filipino migration in Western Europe, as we have already mentioned at the beginning of
this chapter, we believe that everything that we have said above also analogically applies
to the situation in Western Europe. The masses which are celebrated by the Filipino
1866Cruz, Toward a Theology of Migration, 116. Cf. also Robert Schreiter, “Globalization, Postmodernity and
the New Catholicism,” For All People: Global Theologies in Contexts, ed. Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen, Holger
Law and Peter Lodberg (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 27.
1867Cruz, Toward a Theology of Migration, 116. Cf. also Schreiter, “Globalization,” 27.
1868Ibid.
1869Ibid.
1870Ibid., 119.
326
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
communities in this part of the globe do not exhibit a great departure from the Roman
Rite. At face value, their liturgical celebrations are nothing but celebrations of the
normative Roman Liturgy. Certainly, they have not adapted the inculturated liturgy
proposed by Chupungco, because of its relative “unknowability” and “impracticality”. Only
very few people are aware of the existence of it. Even the Filipino chaplains are not all
aware or in favor of it. Considering the “time-conscious” church congregations that we
have in Europe and in the United States, the Misa ng Bayan cannot be seen as a feasible
option because it usually runs longer than the ordinary Roman liturgy celebrated on
Sundays. In fact, almost everything in the mass in properly timed so not to cause
unnecessary inconvenience to the mass-goers who try to budget their precious time.
People, who are trained to budget their precious time in the West, will never have the
patience to participate in the mass where more elaborate rituals and singing are
considered to be essential parts of the celebrations.
This does not mean, however, that liturgical inculturation has not been done in these
celebrations. They may not be officially sanctioned or approved by the Holy See but they
are genuine liturgical inculturations that are manifestations of the cultures inherited,
acquired and perpetuated by the Filipino migrants. Why do we say inherited? Because
these are aspects of Filipino migrant cultures that they have brought from the motherland.
Acquired, because they are the results of their interaction in the intercultural world that
they live in. Their culture varies from context to context. Perpetuated, because they are
being preserved and promoted by these Filipino migrants like some expressions of Filipino
popular religiosity. A mixture of all these make up the inculturated liturgies that they
celebrate in their respective contexts.
Having participated in these liturgies so many times helped us discern some common
threads that run through all these celebrations. These are the following: the use of Sunday
liturgical ‘programs’ printed in or distributed from the Philippines (i.e., Euchalette,
Sambuhay, and the like) which includes the themes and special intentions used in the
Philippines; the use of liturgical songs composed by Filipinos and popularized in the
Philippines; insertion of some Filipino devotional practices such as Santacruzan,
Salubong, Marian devotions and devotions to the Infant Jesus and the Black Nazarene;
the plethora of thanksgiving and supplicatory intentions in the mass; the use of some
Filipino inspired liturgical vestments and cultural garbs; homilies delivered in Tagalog,
most often injected with Filipino humor and narratives from their diasporic situation and
from real life stories in the Philippines and from their favorite Filipino soap-operas; sign
of peace is going around and greeting everyone who is close to a person either by kissing
on the cheek, shaking hands or simply nodding one’s head.
The challenge now for these Filipino communities in Europe is how to integrate
inculturation even also in other dimensions of their daily migrant life as we have pointed
out earlier. Although, there are some Filipino chaplaincies where it happens that social
issues are being injected in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist whether through symbols
or through the preaching of the priests or through the prayers offered during the prayers
of the faithful. It also happens that a lot of time the chaplaincies also dabble as “job
recruitment agencies” because the chaplains are approached by both the prospective
employers and job seekers, which is usually announced before the congregation is
dismissed after the liturgical celebrations. Part of the inculturation processes done in
these Filipino communities or chaplaincies, are the efforts to educate the Filipino migrants
about their culture/s, rights, responsibilities and privileges in order to empower them and
make them more responsible and productive residents in their host countries and also as
effective evangelizers.
327
SAMBAYANIHAN
II.3.3.1. Ratzinger on Liturgical Development: The Question of Maintaining Essential Unity
In a preface that Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote for Alcuin Reid’s
book he underlined that, indeed, “the Liturgy is regarded as ‘semper reformanda’ so that
in the end it is whatever ‘congregation’ is involved that makes ‘its’ Liturgy, in which it
expresses itself.”1871 While it is true, he, however, reminded the people concerned in
reforming the liturgy that they should not compromise the “inner structural logic of the
‘organism’”.1872 The process of reforming the liturgy necessarily entails a balancing act. It
should be able to properly combine, according to Ratzinger, “openness to development and
continuity with the Tradition”.1873 This means that the “substantial” unity of the liturgy
and “continuity” of “objective liturgical tradition” are properly respected and
maintained.1874 By invoking CCC 1125, he “even warned that ‘even the supreme authority
in the Church may not change the liturgy arbitrarily, but only in the obedience of faith
and with religious respect for the mystery of the liturgy.”1875 He stresses that
“liturgical reform is something different from archaeological excavation, and not all the
developments of a living thing have to be logical in accordance with a rationalistic or historical
standard…Experts and pastors each have their own part to play…The knowledge of scholars is
important, yet it cannot be directly transmuted into the decisions of pastors, for pastors still
have their own responsibilities in listening to the faithful, in accompanying with understanding
those who perform things that help us to celebrate the sacrament with faith today and the
things that do not.”1876
Here we recognize the important role of the sensus fidelium. But then, we ask: how much
listening is really done by the pastors to the ‘ordinary’ members of the congregation and
how much weight we give this to the development of liturgical reform? We ask this
question, because in this foreword Cardinal Ratzinger underscores that “people’s
judgments as to what is pastorally effective are widely divergent, the ‘pastoral’ aspect has
become the point at which ‘creativity’ breaks in, destroying the unity of the Liturgy and
very often confronting us with something deplorably banal.”1877 This statement of Ratzinger
seems to have a negative regard to what ‘ordinary people’ say about their experience in
the liturgy. Their contributions seem to be considered not a positive one but “destructive”
and “deplorably banal”. If that is the case, ultimately, their voice does not matter. In fact,
the penultimate paragraph of this preface insists “If the Liturgy appears first of all as the
workshop for our activity, then what is essential is being forgotten: God. For the Liturgy
is not about us, but about God. Forgetting about God is the most imminent danger of our
age.”1878 This, for us, seems to suggest, in a very cunning way, to silence those who do not
agree with his view by resorting to force majeure (i.e., the higher authority being God). This
means that ultimately ‘ordinary people’ should not meddle in this business, because God
has already ordained what is proper to Liturgy, because anyway it is not about the people
but about God. Of course, we should never remove God from the equation, because it is,
indeed, ultimately about worship to the Divine. Nevertheless, it should not reduce the
anthropological pole to utter insignificance. We should not disregard the importance of
the flesh and blood human beings, which should not be limited only to the experts but
1871Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “Preface,” in The Organic Development of Liturgy, trans. Henry Taylor, ed. Alcuin
Reid, O.S.B. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005), 9.
1872Ibid.
1873Ibid., 10.
1874Ibid.
1875Ibid.
1876Ibid., 12.
1877My italics. Ibid.
1878Ibid., 13.
328
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
should also include every faithful, who perform the acts of worship necessarily within the
bounds of their comprehension and cultural worldviews.
II.3.3.2. Alexander Schmemann’s Liturgical Renewal: Retrieving the Essential Unity of

Theology and Liturgy
Although Schmemann does not come from our “western” tradition, we can gather
some important points that will help us examine our view of the liturgy and its relation to
theology. For one thing, Schmemann’s laments the “chronic” disease that has come upon
the West wherein there is a “rupture” between theological study and liturgical
experience.1879 He has observed that theology has assumed an independent and rational
status that treated worship as an object to be defined and evaluated, instead of a
source.1880 The root cause of this “liturgical crisis”, in his analysis, is the gross
misunderstanding of the “function and place of worship in the Church.”1881 He reminds
those who are concerned that “leitourgia …is the action of the Church itself, or the Church
in actu, it is the very expression of its life. It is not opposed to the non-cultic forms of the
ecclesia, because the ecclesia exists in and through the leitourgia, and its whole life is a
leitourgia.”1882
Following this logic, we can also see that, although he comes from a different
liturgical tradition, he can also provide us some viable perspectives on how to approach
liturgical inculturation. For him, there can be no genuine renewal of the Church without
a rediscovery of “liturgical theology”.1883 Liturgical theology, for him, is “first of all and
above everything else, the attempt to grasp theology revealed in and through the liturgy
itself.”1884 This entails two things: 1) a rediscovery of the eschatology inherent to the
liturgy; 2) and consciousness of the relationship between the ecclesia, the Eucharist, and
the eighth day.1885 Certainly, this assertion is motivated by the notion that, in the words
of Schmemann, “Our Church remains a liturgical Church par excellence not only in the
essence of the uninterruptedness of her ancient tradition of worship, but also because of
the place which worship occupies in the life of the faithful, because of the special love the
faithful have for the church building and its services.”1886 Indeed, we can agree with him
that worship is the “highest and fullest expression” of nature of the Church (i.e., of her
unity and love, of her knowledge of and communion with God).1887
This view sits very well with the Filipino understanding of the relationship between
Church, liturgy and theology. Belita, in a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Faculty
of Theology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 1979, claims that “Filipino
Catholicism is a phenomenon whose concentrated embodiment of the Holy in its structure
is the Mass.”1888 This, we believe, is still true even in the present context of the Church in
1879Alexander Schmemann, “Theology and Liturgical Tradition,” Liturgy and Tradition: Theological Reflections
of Alexander Schmemann, ed., Thomas Fisch (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 2003),10.
1880Ibid., 13.
1881Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 1966),
28.
1882Ibid., 17.
1883Ibid., 4.
1884Ibid., 7; 39.
1885Ibid., 7.
1886Ibid., 27.
1887Ibid., 29.
1888Jaime Belita, “A Filipino Eucharist? A Theological Reflection on the Misa ng Bayang Pilipino in the Light
of Tillichian Sacramentology” (PhD. Dissertation, Faculty of Theology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 1979),
1. Guerrero-Nakpil claims that in the early Filipino Christian history the Filipinos were described as “dark-
skinned persons wearing pants, who attended Mass, paid taxes, obeyed Spanish laws and only went to war
when the government told them.” Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil, The Philippines and the Filipinos (Quezon City:
Vidal, 1977), 23.
329
SAMBAYANIHAN
the Philippines and in the diasporic conditions of the Filipinos in the globalized world for
a great majority of the Filipinos, whether in the country or abroad, still consider their faith
and church-life as being intimately linked with the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. They
may not express it in a sophisticated theological language, but they look at the Sacrament
of the Holy Eucharist as, indeed, the “source and summit [and sacramental expression]
of the life and mission of the Church.”1889 For those who live abroad, participating in the
Mass and belonging to a church community counts as one of the most essential, if not the
most important, aspects of Filipino migrant life. Joaquin Jay Gonzales III, in study of
Filipino migration in all continents of the world, “illustrated how the adaptive spirits of
Filipino migrant faithful through their churches allow them to transcend the acculturative
stress caused by the complexities of migrant life.”1890
Hence, we believe that if we try not only to take into consideration the “narratives”
of the Filipinos in their liminal place as diasporic people but also involve them in the
endeavor to inculturate their liturgies, they will not only appreciate more and further
enhance the celebration of the Holy Mass because they see themselves as genuine
partakers in the celebration but also afford them to act as “soft-power diplomats” and
“accidental” missionaries who spread the faith and introduce their peculiar way of
worshiping in almost 200 countries. People from other national and cultural backgrounds
who come to witness their liturgical celebrations will be inspired to appreciate their
respective Catholic cultures as well, because these Filipino migrants will, in the words of
Gonzales III, “infuse,” wittingly or unwittingly, much-needed social, spiritual, organization
and civic diversity into the multicultural landscape of global cities and communities
supplementing existing ones and replenishing what has been lost.”1891
II.3.3.3. A Cartographic Sketch of the Evolution of the Roman Rite: A Perfect Case of
Liturgical Inculturation
The Second Vatican Council is undoubtedly explicit about its affirmation of the
normativity of the Roman Rite as far as western Catholic Liturgy is concerned. In fact,
Sacrosanctum Concilium, the first document ever produced by this ecumenical council,
has unequivocally endorsed this particular rite as the measuring stick for possible
liturgical adaptations that will be done throughout the Universal Church as a response to
the Council’s call to make all members of the Church participate “fully, consciously and
actively” in the life and liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church. A careful study of the history
of Christian Liturgy, however, reveals that what has been lauded by the Council as the
main features of the Roman Rite (i.e., “soberness and sense”)1892 have not been
consistently maintained as such throughout its complex historical development.
1889Synod of Bishops, The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church: Lineamenta, XI
Ordinary General Assembly XI Ordinary General Assembly (Vatican City: Synod of Bishops., 2004),
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20040528_lineamenta-xi-
assembly_en.html [accessed February 13, 2015].
1890Joaquin Jay Gonzales III, Filipino American Faith in Action: Immigration, Religion and Civic Engagement
(New York and London: New York University, 2009), 182.

1891Gonzales III, Filipino American Faith, 246.
1892These descriptors are derived from an article entitled “The Genius of the Roman Rite” by Edmund Bishop,
which for Keith Pecklers, “forever changed the way historians of the Roman liturgy understand and describe
its unique characteristics – its ‘ethos’.” Cf. Edmund Bishop, “The Genius of the Roman Rite,” in Liturgica
Historica: Papers on the Liturgy and Religious Life of the Western Church (Oxford: Clarendon,1918, 1962), 19
cited in Keith Pecklers, The Genius of the Roman Rite: The Reception and Implementation of the NEW ROMAN
MISSAL (London: Burns and Oates, 2009, 2010 – kindle version), loc. 40. Bishop, as discussed by Pecklers,
“spoke of the Roman penchant for ‘soberness and sense’ which was present in Roman society of the day,
whether in poetry or in philosophy.” Ibid., loc. 147.
330
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
‘Soberness’ here, implies the notions of “brevity” and “certain practicality”.1893 Although
there is a general agreement among the liturgy scholars that the “pure and classical”1894
form of the Roman Rite was refined in the period between the fifth and the eighth
centuries,1895 the fact still remains that a lot of redactions, be it ritualistic, linguistic or
symbolic, had taken place prior, during and subsequent to these centuries. What was
known as the Roman liturgy in the fifth century was “sculpted” through a long process of
accretion, accommodation, substitution and reduction of elements that originated from
various traditional and cultural sources that have come in contact with the pre-fifth
century Roman ecclesial milieu.1896
Between the fifth and the eighth centuries the Christian Church in Rome had
witnessed the emergence of Latin as ‘the’ language of the Roman Rite. Towards the end of
the seventh century, however, this trend had been punctuated, albeit briefly, by the revival
of the use of Greek language in the liturgical celebrations because of the influx of “second
wave of Greek-speaking immigrants” in Rome.1897 As the years progressed, what used to
be known as “simple” and “sober” celebrations of the Roman Rite had incrementally grown
to be more elaborate and verbose in terms of its prayers because of the increasing
influence of the more ostentatious ceremonies that had prevailed in the Roman court.1898
The “simple” and unencumbered symbolic rituals that dominated the Roman liturgical
landscape had become more intricate or extravagant because of the influence form the
north of Alps, mainly emanating from the Gallican liturgy which was marked by “greater
use of incense and more sensual liturgical elements.”1899 In the same period, though, with
the blossoming of the Romance language which was progressively used in the daily
interactions of the people, the Mass, which made Latin as an exclusively “sacral language”,
had become increasingly less accessible or intelligible to the ordinary people. Thus, the
liturgy had become the “private” property of the clerical state.1900 This lacuna, therefore,
resulted into a recourse of the people to popular devotions that allowed them to worship
God in the ways that were within the range of their linguistic and symbolic aptitude.1901
Liturgical mutations, or even upheavals, had lingered even after the seventh century.
The tenth century, in particular, had witnessed a “reverse osmosis” of liturgical tradition
that gave birth to a “hybrid” Roman liturgy – “neither Roman nor Gallican in the strict
sense of the term”– which was introduced by Emperor Otto and successively upheld by
the German popes.1902 As a belated response, Pope Gregory VII endeavored in the eleventh
century to unify western Roman liturgy or to restore the primacy of the Roman Rite under
the authority of the pope to “heal” the Church beset by chaotic diversity and declining
1893Pecklers, The Genius of the Roman Rite, loc. 147.

1894Pecklers qualifies these terms by saying that “’pure’ [indicates] that form which existed at Rome before any
contact with Gallican or Franco-Germanic elements… ‘classic’ because it assimilated the cultural genius of
the Romans of that particular epoch.” Ibid., loc. 145-146.
1895The descriptors “pure and classical” in between quotation marks to indicate that even during this period
a lot of liturgical mutations were happening on the ground. Besides, what historical records provide us are
limited to the papal masses or liturgies. We do not have extant accounts on the nature and structure of other
liturgies celebrated in Rome.
1896If one is interested to know what these are, we recommend him or her to read Pecklers, The Genius of the
Roman Rite, loc. 58-135.

1897Ibid., loc. 124. The Latin liturgical compositions used that time in the Roman liturgy were mainly produced
by Popes Innocent I, Gelasius I, Vigilius and Gregory the Great.

1898Ibid., loc. 177.
1899Ibid., loc., 185-193. A good example of a “more sensual liturgical element” proper to the Gallican liturgy is
the “the anointing of the hands” during the ordination rite which was not originally part of the Roman
Ordination Rite whose symbolic ritual was only limited to the laying on of hands. Cf. Pecklers, The Genius of
the Roman Rite, loc. 193.
1900Ibid., loc.195-198.
1901Ibid., loc.201.
1902Ibid., loc.209-210.
331
SAMBAYANIHAN
relevance.1903 The pontificate, however, only partially succeeded in its project because
various hybrid liturgies had continued to proliferate in the eleventh century and in the
subsequent centuries. The situation was further aggravated by the lack of theological
training of the local clergy who were left in the centers as the popes, together with their
court, gradually moved to the peripheries of the city, apparently, to show the universal
scope of their papacy.1904 Because theological expertise was mainly, if not exclusively,
contained within the walls of the medieval monasteries which were physically and literally
inaccessible to both the local clergy and the laity, all sorts of liturgical misuse or abuse
became a standard fare in Christian liturgical celebrations, which inevitably gave rise to
the Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther and others in the sixteenth century.1905
In order to deal with the challenges posed by the Protestant Reformation that was
collectively gaining ground in the European soil around the sixteenth century, the Roman
Catholic Church convoked a Council in Trent that was dubbed as Counter-
Reformation.1906 Attendant to this Counter-Reformation project was Pope Pius IV’s
establishment of the liturgical commission tasked to study and formulate reform of the
Roman Rite.1907 This commission was carried over and further expanded by the papacy of
Pius V who identified the recovery of the “pristine liturgical style of the Patristic Church”
as its primary aim, together with the solidification and centralization of the pope’s
authority.1908
Everything that had transpired during these centuries, we believe, can be considered
as giving credence to the contention that ‘inculturation’, although considered as a
neologism, is not a new phenomenon. Inculturation, as supported by a lot of theologians,
has been a constant companion of Christianity since its nascent stage until the seventh
century - and onwards. They are unquestionably part of the challenge to the Church, in
every part of history, to adapt to “particular cultural circumstances and needs, producing
a liturgy that exhibits and reflects the cultural ethos of that particular celebrating
people.”1909 The evolution, especially the proliferation of alternative forms, of “Roman”
liturgy certainly posed a threat to the unity of the Roman Catholic Church. The question
of how to maintain the integrity of the Catholic faith amidst variety of liturgy needed to be
seriously considered. As a preventive measure, the Roman Congregation for Sacred
Liturgy was created to ensure unity (i.e., uniformity) and to regulate the celebration of the
western Roman Rite all throughout the Universal Church.1910 The end result,
unfortunately, was “rubricism.”1911 And the year 1588 became a defining moment in the
history of the Roman Catholic Church because from then on and up to the time before the
Second Vatican Council the “Tridentine reform of the Roman Rite” was implemented all
throughout the universal Church.1912 Nevertheless, it is important to note that despite the
Church’s effort to impose strict adherence to what was considered as the normative
liturgy, some liturgical concessions and experimentations were still conducted under the
1903Pecklers, The Genius of the Roman Rite, loc. 213-216. This “restoration project” launched by Gregory VII
included the unsuccessful suppression of the Mozarabic rite. It is curious, however, that this standardization
of liturgy in the West did not lead to the clampdown of the Ambrosian rite and the Liturgy of Benevento.
1904Ibid., loc. 224-231.
1905Ibid., loc. 231-248.
1906Pecklers referred to this Council as an “[attempt] to respond to the critique of the Reformers while at the
same time face squarely the abuses that plagued in the sixteenth-century Catholic Church – including
liturgical abuses – in its celebration of the Roman Rite.” Ibid., loc. 250.
1907Ibid., loc. 251.
1908Ibid., loc. 251-256. This resulted in the normativity of the papal court.
1909Ibid., loc. 127-128.
1910Ibid., loc. 257)
1911According to Pecklers, what was originally a “descriptive” instruction became “obligatory norms.” Ibid., loc.
258-260.
1912Ibid., loc. 268.
332
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
auspices of the Roman Catholic Church, which included the special permission to
celebrate the Ambrosian Rite in Milan, the Mozarabic rite in Spain and the different rites
developed by the religious like one from the Dominican tradition.1913 Of course, it cannot
be denied that the Roman Rite did not absolutely remain the same all throughout the
universal church these four centuries when it was thought to “hold sway... until the
advent of the Second Vatican Council” but, instead, according to Pecklers, “evolved and
changed over the centuries often for pastoral reasons, accommodating and adapting the
cultural needs of the Church.”1914 He, therefore, contends that
“recent appeals to the unchanging Roman Rite that has been in continuous usage until the
Second Vatican Council would appear to be disingenuous. Indeed, while maintaining the
‘substantial unity of the Roman Rite’ as Sacrosanctum Concilium1915 demanded, if we are to
remain consistent with those who have gone before us, the Church must continually work quite
intentionally at contextualizing and incarnating.”1916
That being said, there is no way that we can reconstruct the Roman Rite in its pristine
condition, despite the Council’s instruction to return to it because what we know as the
Roman Rite today is precisely a product of organic accretions and amalgamation of various
elements throughout the colorful history of the Roman Catholic Church.1917 It is, therefore,
unreasonable to refuse to admit that contextualization, adaptation or inculturation has
always been a fundamental pastoral necessity. In fact, Pecklers argues that when we “[fail]
to take into account the ways the Roman Rite has grown organically over time”, we are
committing “liturgical archaeology” for reality tells us that “the liturgy must always be
contextualized to the pastoral needs of the particular age in which it is being
celebrated.”1918
We should not fail to mention at this point as well that, despite the fact that the
‘novus ordo’ is considered to be the normative liturgy by the Vatican II, there are still some
voices of dissent that proliferate within the backyard of the Universal Church, such as the
remarkably influential and “outspoken” group led by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre which
came into being barely seven years after the Constitution of Sacred Liturgy was
promulgated. This group, the Society of St. Pius X or SSPX, adamantly supports the
widespread use of the Tridentine Rite in the Catholic Church. As a movement in the
church, it has been considered a mighty force to be reckoned with, according to Pecklers.
For this reason, Pope John Paul II was compelled to offer a conciliatory overture that
allowed a limited use of the pre-conciliar Missale Romanum which can be found in the two
1913These liturgical experimentations included “communion under both forms in Germany in 1564 and in
Prague in 1573.”
1914Pecklers, The Genius of the Roman Rite, loc. 274. Pecklers contends that “France, for example, refused to
accept the Tridentine liturgical norms of Roman centralization until well into the nineteenth century. And in
neighboring Germany, the Diocese of Munster waited until 1890 to implement the Missal of Pius V – 320 years
after its promulgation.” Ibid., loc. 272.
1915Pecklers affirms that “At the heart of that document was a return to the solid foundations inherent within
the pure and classical Roman Rite, all of which came to be rediscovered in the work of the liturgical movement
and, indeed, the wider movement of Ressourcement Theology.” Pecklers, The Genius of the Roman Rite, 330.
1916Ibid., loc. 274. Cf. also Edward Foley, From Age to Age: How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist
(Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2008). Cf. also Eric Palazzo, A History of Liturgical Books from the Beginning
to the Thirteenth Century (Collegeville: Liturgical/Pueblo, 1998). See also Joanne M. Pierce, “The Evolution of
the Ordo Missae in the early Middle Ages,” in Medieval Liturgy, ed. Lizette Larson-Miller (New York: Garland,
1997), 3-24. See also Matthew Smyth, ‘Ante Altaria’ Les rites antiques de la messe dominicale en Gaul, en
Espagne et en Italie du Nord (Paris: Cerf, 2007). See also Herman A.P. Schmidt, S.J., Liturgie et Langue
Vulgaire: Le problème de la langue liturgique chez le premiers Réformateur et au Concile de Trente (Roma:
Analecta Gregoriana 53, 1950).
1917Keith Pecklers argues that “the myth of the fourth century as the ‘golden age of the catechumenate, or the
fifth to the eight as the ‘golden age’ of the Roman Rite is just that, a myth.” Pecklers, The Genius of the Roman
Rite, loc. 334.
1918Ibid., loc. 335.
333
SAMBAYANIHAN
indults he granted to this movement during his pontificate.1919 This ‘limited’ use, however,
was to become widespread because of Pope Benedict XVI, the immediate successor of Pope
John Paul II, who issued on 7 July 2007 a motu propio called Summorum Pontificum that
gave an unrestricted or ad libitum usage of the Tridentine Rite all throughout the Universal
Church, which from the point of view of Nicola Bux, is a sign that the Church has made
a “step forward” in the agenda of liturgical renewal,1920 which was also seen by
Chupungco, when he was asked during the open forum at the Annual Meeting of
Catechetical Ministers in General Santos City (Philippines) on 7-11 July 2008, as a
glimmer of hope for a possible approval of his proposed Misa ng Bayan. Unfortunately,
true to its description, it has simply remained, 10 years after the motu propio, as a fleeting
spark (i.e., a glimmer) of hope because until now the Misa has been stuck in its ad
experimentum status.
II.3.3.4. Examining the Vatican II Document that Gave Rise to the Issue of Liturgical
Inculturation: The Quest for a Meaningful Balance
Aside from Gaudium et Spes which we have already examined earlier, Vatican II also
produced Sacrosanctum Concilium which is also known as Constitution on the Sacred
Liturgy. This document is seen by some interpreters of the Vatican II as an attempt to find
a via media that would appease the two opposing camps of the Council, i.e., the
progressives and the conservatives, that is why it earned an almost unanimous vote when
it was time for the Council fathers to decide whether to approve the Constitution or not.
On the one hand, to assure the conservative camp that Sacrosanctum Concilium was not
promoting a radical departure from the “time-honored” Roman Latin culture, it affirmed
the normativity of Latin language in the life and liturgy of the Church. 1921 On the other
hand, to the “satisfaction” of the progressive group, it also made clear that a complete
revision of the Roman Catholic Latin liturgy and liturgical books must be undertaken,
which was not just a superficial “cosmetic surgery” of the Tridentine liturgy that had been
hailed for a long time as the ‘official’ Eucharistic liturgy of the Church.1922
Sacrosanctum Concilium strongly affirmed that the paschal mystery of Christ has
always been the heart of Christian liturgy; thus, it cannot be overshadowed or
contradicted by any elements included in the liturgy. Because of this affirmation, there is
a renewed understanding of the relationship between ecclesiology and liturgy or Christian
worship since, as explained by Keith Pecklers, “it is and through the liturgy that the
Christian community is more fully in communion with the mystery of Christ and the
Church, and is more clearly able to make that communion manifest in the world through
the living out of its worship in daily life.”1923 This intimate relationship between
ecclesiology and liturgy clearly emanates from the vision or the notion of the Church as a
sacrament (i.e., as the “mystical body of Christ”) which looks at the liturgy, according to
Sacrosanctum Concilium 10, “[as] the summit toward which the activity of the Church is
directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows.”1924
1919Pecklers, The Genius of the Roman Rite, loc. 464-467.

1920Ibid., loc. 470, 478.
1921Cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 36. The document also upholds that “Translations from the Latin text into
the mother tongue intended for use in the liturgy must be approved by the competent territorial ecclesiastical
authority mentioned above.”
1923Ibid., loc., 362.
1924Sacrosanctum Concilium, 10 continues by saying that “For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all
who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His
334
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
Sacrosanctum Concilium, as far as the celebration of this liturgy is concerned,

explicitly expresses the idea that “legitimate variations and adaptations to different
groups, regions, and peoples, especially in mission lands,” are allowed.1925 And, in fact, it
also mentions that when necessity calls for it, “an even more radical adaptation of the
liturgy” will be allowed or encouraged.1926 After this, the document also underlines that
“decentralization” can be justified because “liturgical matters pertaining to the local
church were best dealt with by episcopal conferences or even by diocesan bishops
themselves.”1927 The bishops are not simply “middle managers or district representatives”
but they are also genuine “empowered shepherds” of their local churches.1928 As
shepherds, they know very well, if they stay as closely as possible to their sheep, what
their flock really needs. They will know also what kind of liturgy they can truly relate to.
But of course, Sacrosanctum Concilium also clearly underlines that “Adaptations
which are judged to be useful or necessary should then be submitted to the Apostolic See,
by whose consent they may be introduced”.1929 This certainly means that the final
arbitration is still reserved to the Congregation for the Divine Worship and the Discipline
of Sacraments which, unfortunately according to Archbishop Pierre Marini, is where most
of the “resistance to the liturgical changes” come from. Marini argues that this
monopolistic tendency exhibited by this very important dicastery of the Holy See is
unfortunately motivated by “fear of losing control” and a “conservative theology” that
distrusts conciliar reforms.1930 To cite an excellent example of this, we recall the February
1964 letter from the French Liturgical Commission which lamented that
“The Council did not decide that the Assemblies would propose this or that concession for the
vernacular to be approved by the Holy See… Neither did the Council state that the bishops’
conferences would submit translations for approval by the Apostolic See, it agreed that the
translations would be approved by the bishops’ conferences, that is all… People are saying that
just two months after its promulgation, that the Constitution is beaten in the breach, that the
decisions made by episcopal assemblies may be effectively neutralized by the Roman Curia,
that the role of the bishops’ assemblies is being undermined at the very moment of its
establishment by the Council, and that the decisions of the Council are being contested even
before the Council has finished.”1931
The picture of DWDS that Marini has painted may be true, but we cannot also
overlook the efforts of Paul VI to present an atmosphere of open-mindedness and courage
amidst the strong tide of conservatism emanating from the aforementioned dicastery by
forming the “International Consilium” headed by Cardinal Lercaro of Bologna (president)
and assisted by Annibale Bugnini as Secretary.1932 The main task of this team was to
revise the existing liturgical books in view of the directives of the Council on which
successive translations into vernaculars by respective regional commissions will be based.
Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord's supper. The liturgy in its turn moves the faithful,
filled with “the paschal sacraments,” to be “one in holiness” (SC, 26); it prays that “they may hold fast in their
lives to what they have grasped by their faith” (Ibid;, 27); “the renewal in the Eucharist of the covenant between
the Lord and man draws the faithful into the compelling love of Christ and sets them on fire. From the liturgy,
therefore, and especially from the Eucharist, as from a font, grace is poured forth upon us; and the
sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God, to which all other activities of the Church are
directed as toward their end, is achieved in the most efficacious possible way.” (Ibid., 10)
1925Ibid., 37 and 38
1926Ibid., 40
1927Pecklers, The Genius of the Roman Rite, loc., 404-405.
1928Ibid., loc. 404-405.
1929Sacrosanctum Concilium, 40.
1930Archbishop Piero Marini, A Challenging Reform: Realizing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal, Realizing the
Vision of the Liturgical Renewal, eds. Mark R. Francis, C.S.V., John R. Page and Keith F. Pecklers, S.J.
(Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2007. 8-170.
1931Cf. The Liturgical Commission of the French Episcopate, “Memorandum by the Liturgical Commission of
the French Episcopate,” 7 February 1964, p.168.

335
SAMBAYANIHAN
Sad to say, however, that the effort of the “Consilium”, and of the episcopal conferences
as well, was hampered because this team led by Lercaro did not see eye to eye with the
Congregation for Divine Worship.1933
Regardless of these upheavals that we have mentioned above, one cannot just deny
that the Constitution of Sacred Liturgy clearly underlines that “active participation” of all
the faithful in the liturgical celebrations is not only encouraged but is needed. The basis
for this is the doctrine of the “People of God” which galvanizes the full and active
participation of every member in the life and liturgy of the Church, which was obviously
nowhere to be found in the theological foundation of the Tridentine Rite.1934 This entails
also their full and active participation in developing or upholding the liturgies celebrated
in the church. Keith Pecklers comments, however, that, as far as the understanding of
‘full, active, participation” is concerned, we should not be “naïve to think that all the
Council bishops were on the same page.”1935 Not everyone bought into the idea of “actuosa
participation”, like Cardinal James McIntyre of Los Angeles who argued that “Active
Participation of the faithful in the Mass is nothing but a distraction.”1936
The idea of “active participation” entails accessibility and comprehensibility of the
liturgy in any given culture. This is, in fact, what inculturation is about. Upon closer
examination of this document, however, we can detect some incompatibility between the
notion of inculturation we are advancing and the emphasis of the document on the notion
of simplicity as a major vehicle for the comprehensibility of the liturgy. 1937 Sacrosanctum
Concilium basically understands “active participation” as only possible when the rites
celebrated or performed by the community maintain the “noble simplicity” that the Roman
Rite has been asserted by the Council to be known for. This means that the liturgical
celebrations must avoid being ostentatious, verbose and repetitious (i.e., they have to be
short, clear and unencumbered), making sure that they are within the grasp of the
people.1938 As a consequence, the rites are expected to shed off superfluous elements or
duplications that were accumulated through time in order to preserve the only substantial
elements of the liturgy.1939Giving too much importance to “simplicity” may be counter-
intuitive. Not everyone appreciates the idea of “noble simplicity”. We must remember that
people practice or express their faith differently. Faith is not in a vacuum; faith is
embodied and historical.
This problem brings to mind Arbuckle who argues that, indeed, “noble simplicity”
cannot be overemphasized or universalized because there are some cultures, like African
and Polynesians cultures that consider repetition as the more powerful way of

1936Ibid., loc. 363. Cf. Xavier Rynne, Vatican Council II ((Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1999), 72.
1937“The rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity. They should be short, clear and free from useless
repetitions. They should within the people’s powers of comprehension, and normally should not require much
explanation.” Sacrosanctum Concilium, 34.
1938Pecklers, The Genius of the Roman Rite, loc. 353, 354.
1939Sacrosanctum Concilium, 21 states: “In order that the Christian people may more certainly derive an
abundance of graces from the sacred liturgy, holy Mother Church desires to undertake with great care a
general restoration of the liturgy itself. For the liturgy is made up of immutable elements divinely instituted,
and of elements subject to change. These not only may but ought to be changed with the passage of time if
they have suffered from the intrusion of anything out of harmony with the inner nature of the liturgy or have
become unsuited to it. In this restoration, both texts and rites should be drawn up so that they express more
clearly the holy things which they signify; the Christian people, so far as possible, should be enabled to
understand them with ease and to take part in them fully, actively, and as befits a community.” Article 50 of
the same document asserts that “the rites are to be simplified, due care being taken to preserve their
substance; elements which, with the passage of time, came to be duplicated, or were added with but little
advantage, are now to be discarded; other elements which have suffered injury through accidents of history
are now to be restored to the vigor which they had in the days of the holy Fathers, as may seem useful or
necessary.”
336
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
communicating meaning. As evidenced by the kind of songs that they love to sing, “noble
simplicity” is not something that appeal to them. At times, they do not only find it
unattractive but also offensive. We cannot simply ignore this fact. Doing so renders
injustice to a great mass, if not the majority, of the Catholic faithful around the globe.
Thus, highlighting the value of “noble simplicity” reveals the Roman cultural values that
are so deeply entrenched in the minds of those who drafted and approved the final form
of Sacrosanctum Concilium, which was given, if not imposed, to the rest of the world as the
norm for any liturgical celebration. Of course, this is tempered by stating that “legitimate
variations and adaptations to different groups, regions and peoples, especially in the
mission countries” as long as “the substantial unity of the Roman rite is preserved.” 1940
This reminds us of the nuanced notion of hegemony that Williams underlined in his
cultural materialism. At the end of the day, every single “variation” must still strictly
adhere to the Roman cultural value of “noble simplicity.” Anything that does not conform
will be regarded as an aberration or as an abuse. Ultimately, it tells us that when it comes
to the liturgical life of all the faithful around the world, everything must be ROMAN, period.
As if it is the only liturgical culture recognized or appreciated by God. As if making
everything “simple” by Roman standard will make the Catholic liturgies more appealing
and accessible to everyone in the Catholic family. Hence, we ask, does it really serve its
purpose of making every single participant in the Catholic liturgies give their “full,
conscious, active” participation?
This question calls to mind Mary Douglas who offers her explicit criticism on the
Council’s emphasis on the “noble simplicity” that must define any Catholic liturgy to be
celebrated within the entire Catholic world. Douglas contends that this liturgical norm
downplays, if not totally disregards, the role of the “language that speaks to the heart”,
which we believe is very important to the Filipinos who, like other Asian cultures, are
known to apprehend reality mostly through intuition and “mystical cognition”
characterized by their pakikiramdam1941 or “emphatic aptitude”1942 (i.e., through feelings,
symbols and myths) as opposed to the perceived attitude of people from the West who
predominantly approach reality through their cerebral and mental aptitude (i.e., intellect

1941Although we have already discussed this Filipino concept in our introductory part, it is noteworthy to
mention here its various meanings outlined by Raj Mansukhani in his article entitled “Pakikiramdam
[Sensitivity to Feelings]: A Critical Analysis”: “1. Pakikiramdam is ‘the capacity for compassion, empathy, and
sympathy’ [Leny Strobel, A New Twist to Filipino American Ecolonization: Aileen Tabio’s Poetry (1998),
http://home.jps.net/~nada/strobel.htm [accessed February 18, 2015]; 2. ‘Pakikiramdam is the pivotal value
of shared inner perception. It refers to heightened awareness and sensitivity’ (Enriquez, From Colonial to
Liberation); 3. ‘Pakikiramdam [is] a covert individual process by which a person tries to feel and understand
the feelings and intentions of another’ [Matarangnon, “Pakiramdam in Filipino Social Interaction,” 4.
Paraphrasing Magtarangnon, Butalid-Echaves (Maya Butalid-Echaves, Cross-cultural Counselling:
Applications to Overseas Filipinos in the Netherlands (1999), http://home.planet.nl/~butal000/M-
thesis/counseling.html [accessed February 18, 2015]) defines pakikiramdam as a ‘heightened awareness and
sensitivity for the other. It is an active and dynamic process involving great care and deliberation, paying
attention to subtle cues and non-verbal behavior, and employing mental role playing (as in ‘if I were in the
other’s situation, how would I feel?’); 5. ‘Simply speaking, pakikiramdam means feeling for another… literally
… pakikiramdam is a request to feel or to be sensitive to. It is a shared feeling, kind of ‘emotional a priori.’
(Matarangnon, “Pakiramdam in Filipino Social Interaction”); 6. Concerning pakikiramdam as a crucial aspect
of research in the social sciences: ‘One essential ability that every researcher must possess, whatever method
he is using, is pakikiramdam, a special kind of sensitivity to cues which will guide him in his interaction with
people in a group, especially with Filipinos who are used to the indirect and non-verbal manner of
communicating feelings and emotions.’ Rogelio Pe-Pua, “Indigenizing the Social Sciences: Achievements in the
Development of Indigenous Social Research Methods,” in Filipino Psychology: Theory, Method and Application
(Manila: Princeton, 1982). Mansukhani, “Pakikiramdam [Sensitivity to Feelings],” 186-187.
1942We have to caution our readers at this point that this rough translation does not capture entirely what is
meant by pakikiramdam because, according to Mansukhani, empathy “is too active and directive” and not as
pervasive as the non-intellectual pakikiramdam. Mansukhani, “Pakikiramdam [Sensitivity to Feelings],” 198-
199.
337
SAMBAYANIHAN
and words). Instead, according to Douglas, the liturgy is reduced to a celebration

dominated by “intellectual understanding through the use of words”.1943 Overstressing the
idea of “noble simplicity”, which is not equal to saying that we do away with “sound
theological and intellectual foundation of liturgy”1944, we believe, betrays the very essence
of any Catholic liturgical celebration that is, in fact, replete with symbols that are
substantially anchored on myths that are considered essential to Catholic identity.
Victor Turner, on his part, contends that the Council’s so-called liturgical reform
reeks of obsolete “structural-functionalist” odor of culture which is constitutive of modern
period.”1945 What the norm tells us is the fact that Catholic liturgy must always reflect the
structure of Roman culture, i.e. “noble simplicity.” At all cost, the ‘substantial unity of the
Roman rite” must be protected, even to the point of rejecting legitimate liturgical
variations.
Certainly, we cannot also discard the valid concern of Pope Benedict XVI who, in
1986 as Cardinal Ratzinger, raised the very serious issue of overemphasizing the
Durkheimian’s1946 view of religion as essentially meant for the “bonding” of the people with
a total disregard to that real aim of the liturgy which is about worshiping the Triune
God.1947 But, then again, we ask the question: who can really say or decide what qualifies
as genuine worship to the Triune God? Is it not true that our worship of the Triune God
is at the same time an opportunity for bonding? Is it not right to regard our worship of the
Triune God also as an event wherein our hearts are touched by the presence of both God
and the community we belong in ways that are appropriate to our cultural structures and
sensibilities?
We must also add here, however, that any attempt to inculturate theology or liturgy
must avoid the temptation to romanticize a particular aspect of a culture or to become
nativist, which may end up favoring only a certain group of people. We must always be
aware that culture is ordinary, dynamic, and evolving. Moreover, we should not forget the
fact that a major culture exists together with the dissenting, alternative and oppositional
voices.
II.3.3.5. The Role of the Laity in Inculturation of Liturgy: The Question of Dialogue and
Participation
Because of the renewed awareness of the active role of the laity in the life of the
Church as affirmed by the Second Vatican Council, people in the contemporary age are
coming to terms with the fact that the tradition/s of the Church, like Church’s liturgical
worship, are transmitted and perpetuated not only by the clergy but by the entire people
of God by virtue of their baptism. Indeed, every baptized person has the privilege and
responsibility to offer his or her fair share in order to ensure that the liturgical celebrations
in the parish communities are alive, relevant and properly passed on to the succeeding
generations. Certainly, this territory is not exclusively reserved for the clergy and the
experts. Of course, this renewed appreciation of the “conscious and active participation”
in the life and liturgy of the Church incumbent in every baptized person, certainly, does
not deny those who belong to the hierarchy of the responsibilities proper to their office.
1943Douglas, Natural Symbol, 4.

1945Victor Turner, “Passages, Margins, and Poverty: Religious Symbols of Communitas,” Worship 46 (1972):
392.
1946Cf. Joseph Ratzinger, The Feast of Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986). Cf. also Tracey Rowland,
Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (Oxford: Oxford University, 2008), 123-43.
338
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
One should be keenly aware that the Church, as it stands today, is neither a democracy
nor an autocracy.
With regards to the issue of whether the Church is a democracy or not, we are
reminded of Peter Taylor Forsyth who contends that the Church should not be regarded
as a democracy because “It is not based on natural right, or natural fraternity, or natural
ideals. It is based on total surrender to an absolute monarch and owner in Christ, which
is not natural and not egoist, and not easy.” 1948 This argument must be taken with an
ample pinch of salt or carefully explained, though, so that proper understanding will be
had. Otherwise, a plethora of misinterpretation will populate the whole theological
discourse on whether the Church is a democracy or not, considering the fact that concrete
human beings, with blemishes and all, are mainly involved in the formulation of Church’s
laws and official teachings. Some, like the reaction of Stan to an online article of Marc
Cortez on why is the Church not a democracy, will lead to a conviction that this statement
of Forsyth is tantamount to endorsing clericalism or hierarchy-centered Christian life.1949
David Fitch, also in an online article, offer us a different take on why the Church is not a
democracy. He contends that
“the model of the New Testament is not hierarchy (or aristocracy) or democracy. It is
pneumatocracy. It is the gifts of the Spirit recognized and empowered to fulfil and lead in certain
gift areas (or we might call them tasks) in mutual submission one to one another under one
Lord the head of all… [The] beginning leadership circle is polycentric, not one singular leader
at the top. It demands of each leader mutual submission, because one person cannot see or
know everything considering the issues of a political body (the church). And this leadership
circle models for the rest of the church how we are all together to operate… The gifted one
always leads out of their giftedness only and then submits to the rest of the body. A
conversation is not leadership. The teacher teaches. The pastor pastors, etc. (1 Cor 12: 8-11;
Rom 12:6). The Lord of the church distributes to each as He determines (1 Cor 12:11). So I
always ask whoever is leading on an issue to a.) talk about what drives their concern and
discernment, b.) make a proposal and then c.) submit it to the rest of us. We discuss, we might
have some other angles on the issue, and make another proposal with slight changes. It
becomes our joint decisions as led by the one with a particular gift. The apostle (are we
engaging!) will generate different issues for concern than the pastor (are we caring for!) than
the teacher (are we heretics!!) than the evangelist (are we reaching these hurting people!!). But
in the end, we together discern the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16).”1950
Having cited a few of the various perspectives on why not to regard the Church as a
democracy, we join our voice with Pecklers in affirming “the fundamental truth that each
member of the Church is called to play an important role in Christ’s mission under the
leadership of bishops, and this is especially evident in the diversity of ministries exercised
within the liturgical assembly.”1951
Despite the promising declarations put forward by Vatican II, however, some
tensions remain, most especially in how different people understand differently what the
phrase “substantial unity of the Roman Rite” really means. People are divided on how to
identify the non-negotiables and the elements that can be subjected to the process of
contextualization, as evidenced by the continued rift between the conservatives and the
progressives in the Catholic Church who have, at times, dragged their “liturgical battles”
to very public fora to the shock of many. “Ironically,” Peckler laments, “the liturgy and
1948PeterTaylor Forsyth, Lectures on the Church and Sacraments (Longmans, Green, 1917), 10-11.
1949Cf. Marc Cortez, “The Church is not a Democracy,” Everyday Theology (June 27, 2013),
http://marccortez.com/2013/06/27/congregational-church-is-not-a-democracy/ [accessed July 12, 2016].
1950Cf. David Fitch, “Not a Hierarchy, Not a Democracy, But a Pneumatocracy: The Church’s True Politics,”
Missio Alliance, (September 13, 2015), http://www.missioalliance.org/not-a-hierarchy-not-a-democracy-but-

a-pneumatocracy-the-church%E2%80%99s-true-politics/ [accessed July 18, 2016].
339
SAMBAYANIHAN
especially the Eucharist – source of our unity – has become the source of our disunity.”1952
But, of course, this is not to discourage people from pursuing a healthy dialogue that
allows the Church to perform an ongoing self-introspection, evaluation, criticism,
appreciation and correction of things that matter most to the life and liturgy of the Church.
II.3.3.6. The Impetus Behind the Misa ng Bayang Filipino: Liturgia Semper Reformanda
Inspired by the Spirit of the Second Vatican Council, Anscar Chupungo, a

Benedictine liturgist who taught in Sant’Anselmo (Rome) and in Maryhill School of
Theology (Quezon City, Philippines) formulated, with the help of some experts from a
number of related disciplines, an inculturated liturgy that he deemed appropriate for the
Church in the Philippines, Misa ng Bayang Filipino, which was approved by the Catholic
Bishops Conference of the Philippines in 1976.1953
Before we tackle the important details pertaining to the Misa ng Bayan, let us briefly
discuss the other known inculturated liturgies sanctioned by the Catholic Church. First,
the Ambrosian Rite. Speaking of which, we would like to mention briefly that the issue of
its origin, whether Roman or Eastern, is still highly debated. It is generally agreed,
however, that this liturgy, which is still used in Milan, cannot be entirely credited to its
namesake. Although Ambrose may have some share in the development of this liturgy, he
was neither the one who introduced nor was he the main proponent of it. His name was
adopted, certainly, because of his fame as the bishop of Milan.1954 Ramis explains that
“Throughout its history this liturgy, which is still used today, has passed through diversed
stages: assimilation of elements of other liturgies, shedding elements inappropriate to the
character of the liturgy, self-conservation before Charlemagne’s attempts of Romanization,
adjustment to the norms of the tridentine liturgical reforms, and those of Vatican II, and the
revision and edition of the Missale Ambrosianum, which has, with limitations, reevaluated the
authenticity of the rite.”1955
Second is the Hispanic Rite. Suffice it to say that it developed originally from the
Iberian Peninsula. This liturgy which is known alternatively as “Hispanic,” “Visigothic,” or
“Mozarabic,” had been in existence since the dawn of Christianity in this portion of the
globe until 1080 when Pope Gregory VII suppressed it. This suppression, however, did not
totally get rid of this liturgy because until the present time it continues to be celebrated
in a number of parishes in Toledo, most especially in the Cathedral, by those who trace
their lineage from the old Mozarabs; hence, the popular nomenclature “Mozarabic rite”.1956
The different names correspond to the different periods wherein this particular liturgy was
celebrated in this area. It is argued that the more appropriate qualifier is ‘Hispanic’
because this liturgy was already practiced during the Roman period. Ramis explains that
Leander, Isidore, Eugenius, Ildefonse and Julian are the people known to be behind the

1953English and Tagalog texts of the said liturgy were published in Chupungco, Towards a Filipino Liturgy, 96-
139. One may also consult Anscar Chupungco, Liturgical Renewal in the Philippines (Quezon City: Maryhill,
1980).
1954Cf. Pietro Borella, Il rito Ambrosiano (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1964); Angelo Paredi, Storia del Rito Ambrosiano
(Milan, Edizioni O.R., 1990); Achille Maria Triacca, “La liturgia Ambrosiana,” AA. VV. Anamnesis 2(1978): 88-
110.
1955Gabriel Ramis, “Liturgical Families in the West,” in Handbook for Liturgical Studies: Introduction to the
Liturgy, ed. Anscar Chupungco (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1997), 28.
1956Jordi Pinell, “Liturgia Hispánica,” in Liturgia: Diccionario de Historia Ecclesiástica de España II (Madrid:
Centro De Pastoral Liturgic, 1972) 1303 -20; id.; Jordi Pinell, “La liturgia Ispanica,” AA. VV. Anamnesis
2(1963): 70-88.
340
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
development and propagation of this liturgy that was “revised and reformed” following the
guidelines of Vatican II.1957
Third is the Zairian liturgy. We must mention that this Missel Romain pour les
diocéses du Zaϊre, a project in the area of inculturation, was given the blessing by the
Congregation for Divine Worship in 1970 and finally approved, of course not without any
problem and controversy, on 30 April 1988.1958 Peter Schineller, a Jesuit theologian who
became a Superior of the Nigerian-Ghanan Mission of the Society of Jesus, expounds on
the nature of this particular liturgy by saying that the
“Music for the Zairean rite draws on traditional African modes rather than European modes,
and involves participation by all with voice, gesture, and occasional processions… there is
frequently a sung dialogue between the presider and the people. Prayer often takes the form of
short acclamations by the presider, and short sung or spoken responses by the entire
congregation… In addition to the vestments that reflect traditional celebrations, rich symbols
of water, fire, and incense are used to heighten the visible, vivid sense of the holy. In the prayers,
not only are the saints invoked, but also the ancestors who led holy lives; we ask them to be
with us. The preparation of the gifts at the offertory includes a procession with dance. The rite
of reconciliation, part of every mass, is heightened in the Zairean liturgy, coming after the
homily and concluding with the sprinkling of the holy water…It is important, too, to realize that
the mass is not celebrated exactly the same way in all parishes but allows and calls for flexibility
and creativity – all intended to let the people, in the best way possible, express the Eucharistic
faith that is in them.”1959
Now that we have introduced to our readers, albeit in a terse fashion only, the other
existing officially approved inculturated liturgies, let us go back to our discussion on Misa
ng Bayan. Unfortunately, as we have already indicated above, until now this Filipino ordo
missae has remained in its ad experimentum stage as far as the Vatican is concerned.
Chupungco argues that this endeavor must not be frowned upon because this is “not a
novelty but fidelity to tradition.”1960 This argument of Chupungco reminds us of what
Alexander Schmemann, a proponent of liturgical theology, has once posited:
“We know of course that worship has passed through a long and complicated development, and
that the contemporary uniformity of liturgical norms in Orthodoxy is comparatively late
phenomenon. The Church has never believed that complete uniformity in ceremonies and
prayers is an obligatory condition of her unity, nor has she ever finally identified her lex orandi
with any particular ‘historical’ type of worship.”1961
Indeed, a cursory survey of the various liturgical expressions that had transpired during
the long history of Christianity will validate Schmemann’s claim that multiplicity of
liturgies is not only true to the Eastern rites but also in the West despite the
predominance of the Roman rite. Inculturation, whether more elaborate or not, has been
a constant companion of Christian faith and not something that can be regarded as an
aberration. It is a usual phenomenon in the Church as we have already demonstrated in
the cartographic sketch on the development of the Roman rite provided earlier in this
paper. In fact, it will not be an exaggeration to say that it is the ‘norm’; it is the true
meaning of “fidelity to tradition” – faithfulness to the tradition of ‘adapting’ to the different
circumstances surrounding Christian faith or of ‘responding’ to the ‘signs of the times.’ 1962
1957Ramis, “Liturgical Families,” 29-30.

1958Cf. Congregation of Divine Worship, “Decree “Zairensium Dioecesium,” Notitiae 264(1988): 457.
1959Peter Schineller, S.J., A Handbook on Inculturation (New York: Paulist, 1990), 92. One can find the text
presenting the “unique” order of the Zairean mass with accompanying explanation in Conférence Épiscopale
du Zaϊre, Rite zaϊrois de la celebration eucharistique, Kinshasa, August 1985, 1-21.
1960Anscar Chupungco, Cultural Adaptation of the Liturgy (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1982), 3.
1961Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology, 20.
1962Cf. Alcuin Reid, O.S.B., The Organic Development of the Liturgy (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005). Cf. also
Alcuin Reid, O.S.B, ed., Sacred Liturgy: The Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church (San
Francisco: Ignatius, 2014). Cf. also Josef Jungmann, S.J., The Early Theology: To the Time of Gregory the
341
SAMBAYANIHAN
Without ‘contextualization’ or ‘inculturation’, not only of doctrines but also of liturgies,

Christian faith would have been obliterated from the face of the earth long time ago.
Perhaps, it would not have even survived the early periods of Christianity. Their liturgies,
constantly renewed, have helped Christianity flourish and spread, i.e., to be ‘Catholic.
Thus, it is not surprising that Chupungco, a liturgist who is well-versed not only in
the structure of Catholic liturgy/ies but also of its complex history, would advocate
liturgical inculturation, especially in the Philippine context. Chupungco, despite the fact
that his first publication on liturgical inculturation in the Philippines carried the title A
Filipino Attempt at Liturgical Indigenization,1963 construes inculturation as a process of
“contextualization”.1964 In this aspect, Chupungco shares the same theological framework
with Stephen Bevans who has written extensively on the topics of mission and culture/s.
Bevans has postulated that inculturation entails an interaction and “dialogue not only
with traditional cultural value, but with social change, new ethnic identities, and the
conflicts that are present as the contemporary phenomenon of globalization encounters
the various peoples of the world.”1965 In other words, inculturation has something to do
with creative contextualization. Chupungco, as if directly addressing Bevans, has
theorized that
“The question of being a Filipino and a Christian boils down to the question of culture, and
must consequently be viewed in the context of the nation’s search for cultural identity. This is
a movement which seeks to rediscover and foster traditional values and rituals which have
shaped the Filipino character for many generations. Through arts, mass media and
nationalistic slogans, a sense of cultural pride has been re-awakened among a people who in
the recent past discredited their own cultural heritage and embraced Western ways and
values.”1966
On this note, we recall Arbuckle whose argument on inculturation was already explained
above. He certainly supports Bevans’s proposition and, by extension, Chupungco’s effort
to provide the Church in the Philippines an ordo missae which directly celebrates Filipino
Catholic sensibilities and cultural peculiarities. Arbuckle, on his part, advocates a more
specific usage of the term ‘inculturation’ than ‘cultural adaptation’ which is, for him,
associated with the approach of the early Catholic missionary who performed their
evangelizing mission together with the agents of colonization. The word ‘inculturation,’
for him, is a better theological jargon because it clearly captures “the evangelical
implications of local church theology.”1967
Going back to our perceived affinity between Chupungco and Schmemann, we argue
that a synoptic analysis of Chupungco’s and Schmemann’s theological standpoints will
enlighten us on why ‘inculturation’ or ‘contextualization’ is a norm and not just an
isolated phenomenon. Their strong arguments on inculturation certainly make us
understand more the meaning of the theological doctrine ecclesia semper reformanda –
Great, trans. Francis Brunner (Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 1959). Cf. also Thomas Fisch, ed., Primary
Readings on the Eucharist (Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2004). Cf. also Anscar Chupungco, OS.B.,
Handbook for Liturgical Studies I: Introduction to the Liturgy (Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1997). Cf. also
Anscar Chupungco, OS.B., Handbook for Liturgical Studies II: Fundamental Liturgy (Minnesota: The Liturgical
Press, 1998). Cf. also Anscar Chupungco, OS.B., Handbook for Liturgical Studies III: The Eucharist (Quezon
City, Philippines: Claretian, 2004/ Liturgical Press, 1999).
1963This was published in Ephemerides Liturgicae. Cf. Chupungco, “A Filipino Attempt at Liturgical
Indigenization.” An assessment of this proposed inculturated liturgy is found in Belita’s doctoral dissertation.
Cf Belita, A Filipino Eucharist?
1964Chupungco states: “If liturgy is to be inculturated, it must also be contextualized.” Chupungco, Liturgical
Inculturation, 21.
1965Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology, 27.
1966Anscar Chupungco, “Filipino Culture and Christian Liturgy,” in Concilium 2 (New York: The Seabury,
1972), 69.
1967Cf. Gerald A. Arbuckle, “Inculturation, Not Adaptation: Time to Change Terminology,” Worship 60/6(1986):
515-520.
342
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
truly, the Church is never static. Thus, preventing the local churches to inculturate their
liturgies, according to Chupungco, is tantamount to stripping the Church of its relevance
to the contemporary lives of the faithful and making liturgy an interesting piece for the
archeological museums.1968 In this regard, we can see that, although they have not
addressed each other directly as theological dialogue partners, Chupungco is on the same
page with Schmemann who has argued that when the Church’s liturgical life is devoid of
any development it suffers “fatal sclerosis.”1969 A healthy Church is not only an ecclesia
semper reformanda, Chupungco surmises, it is also Liturgian semper reformanda.1970
If that is the case, we can also deduce that there should be no finality in the effort to
reform not only the structure of the Church but also of the articulations of the doctrines
of the Church as what theologians have been doing to make the teachings of the Church
more accessible to the people. Without a doubt, this also includes an ongoing renewal of
the liturgy/ies of the Church which has been taken by the faithful as an essential part of
their contextual Christian life. We must be warned, however, that Liturgia semper
reformanda is neither simply about a cheap return to what is primitive or discarded, nor
is it an unmindful and indiscriminate assimilation of emerging cultural forms. Liturgical
inculturation must avoid any form of nativism, romanticism or a mindless absorption of
what is currently an ‘in’ thing. It is about the integration of worship with culture based
on “stable cultural elements which the people can identify as their own.”1971 It is
important to remind us, however, that even ‘stability’ here must not be absolutized,
because there are circumstances that have ‘destabilized’ long-held liturgical elements. It
is authentic when it truly expresses the reality experienced by the people. Hence, it
requires great respect for and “innate sensitivity” to the traditions of the people.1972
Certainly, part of the task is to take into account the evolution of language that, according
to Chupungco, “fully and faithfully reflects the spirit, the genius and the sensitivity and
aspirations of the people.”1973 Ultimately, the success of liturgical inculturation can be
measured by the spontaneous reaction of the people, because it either makes them feel
“at home” or alienated.
On this note, Chupungo makes use of the history of Roman liturgy as a justification
for proposing an inculturated liturgy that speaks and belongs to the Filipino people. He
explains that “The history of the Roman liturgy gives two fine examples of inculturation:
the classical shape which flourished in Rome after the fourth century, and the Franco-
Germanic form which developed during the Carolingian era on the basis of the classical
Roman liturgy. Judging by their language, symbols, and rites, these liturgies belonged
unmistakably to the people for whom they were developed, and whose culture and
traditions they assimilated and re-expressed in cultic categories.”1974
Now, considering the views expressed by Chupungco and Schmemann, the question
of the final arbitration is brought to the fore. Who is the ultimate judge of the soundness
of any liturgical adaptation? Or, do we simply allow relativism to hold its ground?
1968Chupungco claims that “Contextualization is not a thing of the past. It represents the Church’s continuing
concern to be relevant to the contemporary.” Chupungco, Liturgical Inculturation, 21.
1969Although this may sound rather radical, we are inclined to agree with Schmemann when he writes,
“Liturgical life has developed, it has changed its forms. It would not be difficult to show that it is changing
still. The absence of development would be a sign of a fatal sclerosis.” Schmemann, Liturgical Theology, 20.
1970Chupungco, Cultural Adaptation, 87.
1971Ibid., 77.
1972Ibid., 81.
1973Ibid., 84.
1974Chupungco, Liturgies of the Future, 29.
343
SAMBAYANIHAN
II.3.3.6.1. A Further Exploration on Misa ng Bayang Filipino as an Inculturated Liturgy
“The magna carta,” according to Chupungco, of “liturgical flexibility and pluralism in

the western church” is expressed from chapters 37 to 40 of Sacramentum Concilium which
state that “Even in the liturgy, the Church has no wish to impose a rigid uniformity in
matters which do not implicate the faith of the good of the whole community, rather does
she respect and foster the genius and talents of various races and peoples.”1975 These
paragraphs, for him, contain the clear position of Vatican II on how unity in diversity is to
be understood; that is, “Roman in tradition and international in expression.” 1976 The
conditions for this flexibility are certainly laid down in these particular parts of SC. There
is no better theologian to explain this to us, according to Chupungco, than Fr. Annibale
Bugnini who served as the Secretary of Pius XII’s secret liturgical commission and also
the chief architect of the Conciliar liturgical reforms.1977 A synoptic reading of
Sacrosanctum Concilium and Bugnini’s La riforma liturgica which outlines the altiora
principia (basic principles) of reforms promoted by the Council will provide us a better
grasp of what the Council considers as basic principles of renewal, which can be
categorized under two themes: “directive” and “operational”.1978 According to Bugnini, the
first category comprise the paragraphs 7, 10, 14, 23, 26, and 37 of Sacrosanctum
Concilium 1979, while paragraphs 24, 31, 33, 34 and 112 fall under the second category of
basic principles for Conciliar renewal.1980 Against the background of these basic
principles, Chupungco clarifies that “[it] is obvious that some of the altoria principia like
those concerning the chant and the classical shape will have to make allowance for the
diversity of culture and traditions. However, the prospects for genuine liturgies of the
future will depend on how local churches implement these principles.”1981
The present format of the celebration of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist in the
Philippines, despite its popular use, according to Chupungco, “continues to be a foreign
1975Chupungco, Liturgies of the Future, 10-11. Kindly read the entire text of these chapters for more details.
Sacrosanctum Concilium, 37-40.
1977See also Pecklers, The Genius of the Roman Rite, loc. 347, 348. Bugnini, as explained by Pecklers, was seen
as too progressive by the Roman Curia that is why he was relieved of his responsibility as the Secretary of the
Preparatory Commission on 21 October 1962 by Cardinal Arcadio Larraona, a rather conservative canon
lawyer, who was also appointed as Prefect of the Congregation for Sacred Rites. Ibid., loc. 349. “Among other
things, he believed that Bugnini was the main protagonist in the Preparatory Commission’s aversion to Latin
in liturgy.” Ibid., loc. 350. “Bugnini would later be rehabilitated by Pope Paul VI in 1964, when he was named
Secretary of the International Consilium charged with implementing the reforms.” Ibid., loc. 351.
1978Cf. Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy [1948-1975] (Michigan: Liturgical Press, 1990). Cf. Annibale
Bugnini, “Altiora Principia,” La riforma liturgica (Rome: CLV-Edizione Liturgiche, 1983), 50-59. See also A.
Bugnini, “Ordo Missae,” La riforma liturgica [1948-1975] (Rome, 1983): 332-88. See also Annibale Bugnini,
“Rituale Romano,” La riforma liturgica, 566-69. Cf. Adolf Adam, The Liturgical Year: Its History and Its Meaning
after the Reform of Liturgy, trans. J. O’Connell (New York: Pueblo, 1981), 83.
1979“First, ‘the liturgy is considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ’ (Sacrosanctum
Concilium,7. Expressed in other words, the paschal mystery is the heart of every liturgical celebration. Second,
‘the liturgy is the summit toward which activity of the church is directed; at the same time, it is the fount from
which all church’s power flows (Ibid., 10). Third, ‘in the reform and promotion of the liturgy, the full and active
participation by all people is the aim to be considered before all else’ (Ibid.,14). Fourth, ‘the liturgical services
are not private functions, but are celebrations belonging to the church’ (Ibid.,). Fifth, ‘even in the liturgy the
church has no wish to impose a rigid uniformity in matters that do not affect the faith or the good of the whole
community’ (Ibid., 37). And sixth, ‘that sound tradition may be retained and yet the way remains to legitimate
progress, a careful investigation is always to be made into each part of liturgy to be revised’ (Ibid., 23).”
Chupungco, Liturgies of the Future, 12.
1980“These are: the use of the vernacular (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 36, the importance of sacred scripture in
the celebration of the liturgy (Ibid., 24), the catechetical aspect of the liturgical rites and texts (Ibid., 33-34),
the place of chant in liturgical celebrations (Ibid., 112), and the restoration of the classical shape of the Roman
liturgy (Ibid., 21 and 34). Chupungco, Liturgies of the Future, 12.
1981Ibid., 13.
344
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
element in the body of religious practices kept by the vast majority of the faithful”1982 owing
to the inability of the liturgy to truly absorb indigenous traditions.1983 Although we respect
the expert opinion of Chupungco as a leading liturgist in the country, we would like to
take this statement with a grain of salt because we are wondering if this truly reflects the
sentiment of the ordinary Filipino people or it is just an intelligent opinion of the experts.
We are afraid that the issue of liturgical inculturation is simply an interest of the
historians and ‘experts’, which might run the risk of falling into mere archaeology and
romanticism,1984 and not of the liturgical assembly as a whole. This brings to mind William
Bausch, who initiated the liturgical movement in North America as early as 1925, who
was quoted by Alexander Schmemann as saying: “I do not take the liturgical movement to
mean a mere effort toward improvement of religious externals…I have chiefly in mind its
inner meaning, as a spiritual force as the prayer-life of the Church, the mystical body of
Christ, as ultimately the stirring of the Holy Spirit in that body of which Christ is the head
and we the members.”1985 We may have some reservation on Chupungco’s claim;
nevertheless, we cannot deny that his proposals do have merits. Thus, we cannot but
factor his liturgical reflections and recommendations in if we want to pursue our program
of study regarding the feasibility of liturgical inculturation, especially in the context of
Filipino migration. Chupungco was not naïve at all, he admitted that his “project” was met
with some difficulties because it was not at all easy to determine what elements constitute
indigenous culture and what are not.1986 With this, we seem to hear an echo of
Schmemann who once lamented that “[for] the most part, the deeper level of liturgical
reform remains elusive.”1987
Talking about the competent authority in pursuing liturgical inculturation, SC 22
instructs us, that “Regulation of the liturgy depends solely on the authority of the church,
that is, on the Apostolic See and, accordingly as the laws determines, on the bishop. In
virtue of power conceded by the law, the regulation of the liturgy within certain defined
limits belongs also, to various kinds of competent territorial bodies of bishops lawfully
established.”1988 Moreover, Inter Oecumenici clearly states that “The Holy See has the
authority to reform and approve the general liturgical books; to regulate the liturgy in
matters affecting the universal church; to approve or confirm the acta and decisions of
territorial authorities; and to accede to their proposals and requests.”1989

1983Chupungco quickly notes that “though the liturgy has successfully been grafted onto cultures outside its
origin, it has not thereby become indigenous to any of them.” Chupungco, Liturgies of the Future, 16.
1984Bevans warns us that “one drawback of seeking cultural identity as a theological source is the danger of
falling into a kind of cultural romanticism – of basing one’s theology not upon culture as it is today but on
what African theologian John Pobee calls a ‘fossil culture,’ a culture that did exist before colonization but that
after colonization and contact with the western world does not exist except in some people’s romantic
fantasies.” Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology, 25. Cf. also John Pobee, Toward an African Theology
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1979), 44.
1985Thomas Fisch, ed., Liturgy and Tradition: Theological Reflections of Alexander Schmemann (Crestwood, NY:
St Vladimir’s Seminary, 2003), 3. Cf. also William Busch, “The Liturgical Movement,” proceedings of the
Catholic Education Association, Twenty-Second Annual Meeting, June 29-July 2, 1925, Pittsburgh, PA., The
Catholic Education Association Bulletin 22 (1925). Bausch came into contact with the European movement in
year 1911-1913 while in graduate studies at Louvain.
1987Schmemann, “Theology and Liturgical Tradition,” 4.
1988My italics.
1989Cf. International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. (ICEL), Documents on the Liturgy (Collegeville,
MN: The Liturgical Press, 1982), no. 21. Chupungco notes that “A modus presented to the conciliar
commission asked that accomodationes fiant a S. Rituum Congregatione vel a Sancta Sede accomodationes
fiant a S. Rituum Congregatione vel a Sancta Sede. The answer was: Ad memtem ast. 63b, accomodationes
conficiuntur a competenti auctoritate territoriali, actis as Apostolica Ses recongnitis, at adhubentur de iudicio
Ordinarii. Schema, Modi III, p. 13.” Chupungco, Liturgies for the Future, 49.
345
SAMBAYANIHAN
We italicized the word ‘church’ in the quotation above, because we read it as a not-
so-subtle way of silencing those who do not belong to the hierarchy, because final
arbitration lies solely in the hands of the Holy See. This, therefore, raises the issue of
decentralization of power in the Church, which Claver strongly advocates even in the area
of translation of liturgical texts. He says:
“When I was bishop of Malaybalay, I never submitted for approval the translations Father
Cullen did for the Bukidnon… Neither, while bishop of Bontoc-Lagawe, did I do the same for
the various translations our priests did of their respective tribal peoples. For ‘common sense’
(our ‘tribal’ common sense at least!) to me that, since nobody in Rome spoke the languages we
were using, to comply with those instructions about getting approval for our liturgical texts was
not only useless, it was also to commit sin of ‘non-common-sense,’ if there is such a category
of sin.”1990
In this regard, we would like to cite a promising development in the Church in terms
of decentralization is the recent Motu Propio of Pope Francis which came out on 9
September 2017 entitled Magnum Principium which amends canon 383 of the Code of
Canon Law of 1986. This very important document regarding liturgy which is promulgated
by the current Pope clearly states that
“Therefore, in the future can. 838 will read as follows: Can. 838 – §1.) The ordering and guidance
of the sacred liturgy depends solely upon the authority of the Church, namely, that of the
Apostolic See and, as provided by law, that of the diocesan Bishop; 2.) It is for the Apostolic See
to order the sacred liturgy of the universal Church, publish liturgical books, recognize
adaptations approved by the Episcopal Conference according to the norm of law, and exercise
vigilance that liturgical regulations are observed faithfully everywhere; 3.) It pertains to the
Episcopal Conferences to faithfully prepare versions of the liturgical books in vernacular
languages, suitably accommodated within defined limits, and to approve and publish the
liturgical books for the regions for which they are responsible after the confirmation of the
Apostolic See; 4.) Within the limits of his competence, it belongs to the diocesan Bishop to lay
down in the Church entrusted to his care, liturgical regulations which are binding on all.” 1991
This motu propio is an indication of a shift in power in the Catholic Church because it
gives authority to the national conferences of the bishops in the translation of the liturgical
language, which is a departure from Pope John Paul II’s 2001 instruction that underlined
the ‘exclusive’ authority of the Vatican officials to officially decide which translations are
in keeping with the original intent of the Latin liturgical texts.1992
Going back to Claver’s argument on decentralization and inculturation, he offers that
“perhaps common sense is an issue after all that we must face up to in the wider church, not
merely on the matter of liturgical translations but on all other questions touching the
development of the local churches… I spoke… of how we demurred at Cardinal Ratzinger’s
seeming reduction of the problem of inculturation to one of interculturality. But I don’t know if
he will agree with us that in the problems of liturgy that we have been discussing above the
difficulties we have with Rome so far might be precisely one of interculturality; and, more to
the point, that they revolve around the culture of Rome pitted against the cultures of the local
churches.”1993
1990Chupungco, Liturgies for the Future, 158.

1991Cf. Pope Francis, Apostolic Letter in the form of Motu Proprio “Magnum Principium” Quibus nonnulla, in
can. 838 Codicis Iuris Canonici immutantur, 09.09.2017, Holy See Press Office,
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2017/09/09/170909a.html
[accessed September 15, 2017].
1992Cf. Jason Horrowitz, “Francis Shifts Power from Rome with ‘Hugely Important’ Liturgical Reform,” The New
York Times, 09 September 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/09/world/europe/pope-francis-

liturgical-reform.html?mcubz=1 [accessed September 15, 2017]. Cf. also Pope Francis, “Pope Francis Gives
Local Bishops more Responsibility for Mass Translations,” Association of Catholic Priests, 09 September 2017,
https://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2017/09/pope-francis-gives-local-bishops-more-responsibility-
for-mass-translations/ [accessed September 15, 2017].
1993Chupungco, Liturgies for the Future, 158.
346
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
Despite this difficulty, however, Chupungco was never discouraged to carry on his
task of formulating an appropriate liturgy for the Filipino people which included, for him,
“the process of inserting the texts and rites of the liturgy into the framework of the local
culture…. In short, liturgy is inserted into the culture, history, and tradition of the people
among whom the Church dwells.”1994 One does not have to look far in order to find a
veritable inspiration for liturgical inculturation, because, according to Chupungco, it is
best exemplified by none other than the Roman liturgy.1995 According to Chupungco, this
process, as if echoing Schmemann and Bevans, must be “periodically reviewed, revised,
and updated in order to respond ‘to the needs of our own times,’ taking into account of
the ‘modern conditions in which daily life has to be lived.”1996
The Misa ng Bayan, however, at some point, perhaps because of the diminished
interest in inculturation, has stopped being reviewed periodically, revised or updated as
originally suggested by Chupungco. Thus, we ask the question: what happened to the
Spirit that animated those who proposed for a liturgical renewal in the Philippine Church?
Have the proponents lost their creative juices or have reached a dead-end? Hence, we
deem it necessary that a re-appraisal of the said liturgy must be done and see whether it
still responds to the signs of the times of not.
In order to accomplish this task, let us first go back to the original intention of
Chupungco in proposing an inculturated liturgy. According to him, he did not want to
undermine the integrity of the Roman Rite. Therefore, his team made sure that the Misa
ng Bayan “follows the plan of the Roman mass, including the eucharistic prayer.”1997 But,
of course, they did tinker with some parts of the mass which they considered to be open
for revision. Speaking of which, one will not fail to notice in the celebration of this Misa
that some Filipino religious practices are incorporated in the liturgy, especially the
exuberance of the baroque traditions loved by a lot of the Filipinos and the lyrical, almost
melodic, speech pattern found in the Tagalog regions.1998 Chupungco explains that
“The baroque elements can be recognized throughout the celebration, but especially at the
Eucharistic prayer. At the start of the Eucharistic prayer church bells are rung and candles are
lit, and at the end, as the priest raises the consecrated bread and wine, the assembly sings a
Eucharistic doxology while church bells are rung festively… For the Filipino Catholics…the
baroque is a living culture which is deeply ingrained in native religious sentiments and
traditions… As regards the texts, a considerable effort was made to incorporate into the
Eucharistic prayer some of the elements of the Tagalog language, especially idiomatic
expressions and those words and phrases that evoke Filipino values or conjure up images from
daily life. The preface, for instance, is wrapped in typical Filipino modestly or unassuming
behavior in the presence of a person of higher status. It humbly admits that ‘of tongues fail us
when we speak of your power and boundless mercy.’ The Tagalog text has the idiomatic
expression kapos and aming dila (literally, ‘our tongues do not measure up”) which is used to
preface a formal speech to praise and thank a personage.”1999
1994Chupungco, Liturgical Inculturation, 30. Moreover, he asserts that “no historical model typifies
inculturation better than the classical Roman liturgy.” In his book Liturgies for the Future he states that “the
liturgical reform is one of the Vatican II’s unfinished agenda. The local churches must begin where Vatican II
left off. Because of the fluidity of cultural expressions and the growing needs of the local churches, adaptation
will always be on their agenda of liturgical renewal.” Chupungco, Liturgies for the Future, 7.
1995Ibid. In his book Liturgies for the Future he states that “the liturgical reform is one of the Vatican II’s
unfinished agenda. The local churches must begin where Vatican II left off. Because of the fluidity of cultural
expressions and the growing needs of the local churches, adaptation will always be on their agenda of liturgical
renewal.”
1996Chupungco, Liturgies for the Future, 7-8. Cf. Sacramentum Concilium 62, 88, 107, and 110.
1997Sacramentum Concilium, 92.
1998Ibid. He explains that “Unlike the Indian model, which is adapted to the rites and language of the Hindu
religion, and the Zairean, which is shaped largely according to the native cultural patterns, the Misa ng Bayang
Filipino is framed in the Catholic traditional practices, especially of the baroque type, and in a religious
language that developed through four centuries of contact with Christianity.” Chupungco, Liturgies of the
Future, 94.
1999Ibid., 92-93.
347
SAMBAYANIHAN
According to Chupungco, incorporation in the proposed Filipino ordo missae of some

terminologies peculiar to Filipino language (i.e., Tagalog) is justified because there are
some theological jargons used in the Roman liturgy that may not be easily accessible to
the Filipino faithful in terms of conceptual comprehension, such as the concepts of
epiclesis and anamnesis. Hence, to make the Filipinos (i.e., the Tagalog speakers)
appreciate more what ‘transpires’ during the consecratory as well as the communion
epiclesis, he suggested the use of the Tagalog word lukuban which beautifully expresses
the notion of a mother bird who nurtures and keeps her brood safe under her protective
wings.2000 If we are to provide a dynamic English translation of the Tagalog formulation of
epiclesis, according to Chupungco, it will read as follows: “Father, grant us Your Holy
Spirit. May he look upon us with favor and take us lovingly under his wing (lukuban)’”,
which is a prayer, as argued by Chupungco, that provides a “graphic description of the
“vivifying and transforming action of the Holy Spirit on the eucharistic elements and on
the assembly.”2001
To make the concept of anamnesis more relatable or conceptually “palatable” to those
who are speaking Filipino or Tagalog language, he thought it best to use the phrase
“tandang-tanda pa namin” which literally means “we still clearly remember”, as an
introduction to the institution narrative because it captures wonderfully how one recounts
with freshness, fondness and vividness a genuinely momentous event that took place in
the past as if it is being re-lived or actually happening.2002 This phrase certainly allows the
Filipino faithful to enter into the mystery of the ananmesis of the Last Supper which is not
about a simple re-telling of the story of the institution of the Eucharist but giving witness
or re-living of that decisive event or defining moment in the history of our salvation.
Another attempt that is worth noting as far as the Misa is concerned is the
reformulation of the Sanctus that may sound bizarre or funny for the Filipinos, according
to Chupungco, because of the repetition of the word ‘sanctus’ which is not in keeping with
the speech pattern of the Filipinos or the Tagalog language. Instead, he came up with a
compromise solution of retaining the threefold repetition of ‘sanctus’, which is a very
important theological assent to the perfectly holy God, while at the same time
incorporating some theological acclamations familiar to the Filipino faithful, which are
creatively expressed in these words: Banal ka, Poong Maykapal! Banal ang iyong
pangalan! Banal and iyong kaharian! Langit, lupa’y nagpupugay sa iyong kadakilaan (i.e.,
“Holy are you, Almighty Father, holy is your name, holy is your kingdom. Heaven and
earth resound with praise to your glory.)2003
As far as the gestures in the proposed Filipino liturgy are concerned, one notable
innovation is the integration of the “mano po” in the Misa wherein the lectors and offerors
give a specifically Filipino sign of reverence to presider when the lectors greet the presiding
priest before proclaiming the readings and when the offerors have handed to the priest
the offerings for the preparation of the gifts. This particular Filipino custom is done by
kissing the hand or touching one’s forehead on the back of the hand of the elders or those
people who are deemed worthy of one’s respect. Another remarkable insertion of the
Filipino culture in the inculturated liturgy is the “reversed” distribution of the sacred host
which expresses the traditional gesture of Filipino hospitality. This means that the host,
who is in the case of the Filipino liturgy is the presider who is acting in persona Christi,
partakes of the consecrated bread and wine only after everyone has received them just
like what generally happens in typical Filipino banquet when the host of the meal makes
sure that everybody has his/her fill before he/she takes his/her meal. Fr. Francis, a

2001Ibid.
2002Ibid., 93-94.
2003Ibid., 94. Emphasis is mine.
348
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
theologian who got his doctorate in liturgy from the venerable Pontifical Liturgical Institute
in Rome, i.e., Sant’ Anselmo, had underlined in one of the theological conferences held
during the 2016 International Eucharistic Congress in the Philippines that the
introduction of these two gestures in the celebration of the mass could be seen as
exemplifying what genuine dialogue between Church and human culture in the context of
the Eucharistic celebration is about.2004
Other elements of inculturation found in the Misa are manifested in the following:
“At the entrance procession, ‘flower petals may be strewn on the aisle, especially on solemn
occasions.’ (IA). After the entrance song, ‘the priest blessed the people with the processional
cross’ at the same time chanting ‘In the name of the Father…’ (IB). The priest still holds the
cross aloft, ‘while the people sing the doxology to honor the cross and proclaim the paschal
mystery’ (IB). In the penitential act, the people kneel and, after having been exhorted by the
priest to repentance, acknowledge their lowliness and request the priest to intercede for them:
(IC). In response, the priest with outstretched arms prays for them and sprinkles them with
holy water (IC).
In the liturgy of the Word, after the introduction, the priest ‘holds the book of the Sacred
Scripture aloft while the people sing the doxology to honor the Word of God’ (IIA). Then the
lector goes to the priest and makes the gesture of mano-po 2005(IIB). At the prayers of the
faithful, the people kneel (IID).
At the offertory, when the processional song has been sung, ‘one of the offerers presents the
gifts to the priest who thanks the offerers for their generosity’ (IIIA). Each offerer may make the
mano-po to the priest after giving the gifts (IIIA).
After the introduction of the Eucharistic Prayer, the priest lights the paschal candle while the
ministers light the other candles to the accompaniment of the church bells (IIIB). The people
kneel at the narration and ‘at the epiclesis the priest stretches his right hand over the gifts and
toward the people’ (IIIB). The people responds with ‘Lord, have mercy’ after each petition in the
intercessions. At the closing of the Eucharistic Prayer, church bells are rung festively and the
people sing the doxology as the priest raises the paten and the chalice aloft (IIIB).” 2006
In this format, the sign of peace is given after the Gloria and before the Collect.2007 In the
earlier version of this, as examined by Belita, the sign of peace is given just before the
priest gives the blessing and dismissed the people.2008
In Chupungco’s article published in Ephemerides Liturgicae, he declares, as we have
pointed out earlier, that this inculturated liturgy “is in fact the Roman Mass in Filipino
form” that allows the “warmth and exuberance” of the Filipino people to replace the “noble
simplicity” of the Roman liturgy that does remain foreign to most Filipinos who are
typically tropical people.2009 This, in our assessment, goes against basic tenet of Vatican
II’s notion of liturgical renewal which states that the liturgies should be “marked by a
noble simplicity; they should be short, clear and unencumbered by useless repetitions;
they should be within the people’s power of comprehension and as a rule not require much
explanation.” Chupungco, as if echoing Mary Douglas, contends that
“the experience of different local churches, especially in the missions, shows that the restored
simplicity and sobriety of the Roman Liturgy are not valued to the same degree by every people
in the world. For some the Roman trait of simplicity might be no more than a form of
inadequacy, and sobriety a synonym of ritual indigence. For others, these classical qualities
2004Francis, “Pro-Pinoy Worship.”

2005In his footnote, Belita explains that mano-po literally means “the hand, please”. It is a gesture that consists
of either kissing the hand or touching the back of the right hand of an elder or priest on one’s forehead as a
sign of respect. Belita, Filipino Eucharist, 4.
2006This portion is taken from the discussion of Jaime Belita’s doctoral dissertation. Belita, Filipino Eucharist,
3-5.
2007The instruction states: “The people give the sign of peace to one another according to local custom. The
younger ones may make the mano po to their elders, while others may shake hands or make some other
appropriate sign of peace and fellowship.” Cf. Liturgy for the Philippine Conference on New Evangelization
(PCNE), “Blessed are You,” Philippine Conference for New Evangelization II, University of Santo Tomas, Manila,
Philippines, 2014, http://ust1611official.blogspot.be/2014/10/[accessed September 15, 2017].
2008Belita, Filipino Eucharist, 5.
2009Chupungco, “A Filipino attempt at Liturgical Indigenization,” 373.
349
SAMBAYANIHAN
might appear to be not only alien but also archaeological… The refusal to adapt could mean a
rejection of legitimate process.”2010
This proposed inculturated liturgy, however, as we have demonstrated above, has

not been propagated successfully throughout the archipelago and up to now has not
received an official seal of approval from the Holy See since its introduction into the
Philippine liturgical life many decades ago and since it was sent to the Congregation of
Divine Worship in 1991. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church’s official worship has
remained ‘Western’ despite the fact that, according to statistics, out of the approximately
1.2 billion Catholics all throughout the world only 300 million of them are European or
North American.2011 The great majority of the faithful comes from Latin America, Africa
and Asia who continue to celebrate the Roman liturgy as the norm in the Latin Rite Roman
Catholic Church to which they belong. It means to say that, according to Fr. Francis, “[the]
urgency present at the beginning of the liturgical reform to inculturate the liturgy seems
to have dissipated.”2012 But this should not remain as such, because, as Fr. Francis had
strongly emphasized in his speech during the 2016 International Eucharistic Congress
that the need to promote and formulate inculturated liturgies suited for particular
contexts of the local churches is not just a passing fad but a constant mission for the
Church because the Christian faith must be preached and celebrated in “all ages and
nations” and “not tied exclusively and indissolubly to any race or nation.” 2013 This is also
the call of Pope Francis who has been working very hard towards a proper and healthy
decentralization of the Church. For him decentralization entails giving the conferences of
bishops in every nation the chance to take active roles in inculturating the liturgy and in
translating the liturgical books as what Bishop Claver had repeatedly pounded on while
being the bishop of the Malaybalay and Bontoc-Lagawe. For, indeed, the Church’s
catholicity does not mean imposition of rigid uniformity unless it pertains to the “matters
that affect the faith and when it endangers the good of the entire people of God.”
II.3.3.7. Misa ng Bayan, More Than Four Decades After: Is It Still Viable?
Approximately forty-one years after the Misa ng Bayan has been approved by the
CBCP, unfortunately, the celebration of this inculturated liturgy has remained in the
peripheries as isolated liturgical phenomenon. On top of that, the Misa ng Bayan has,
until the present time, not been given a final seal of approval by the Holy See to be officially
celebrated, at least, in the parishes in the Philippines to honor the cultural uniqueness of
the Filipino faithful, which could be the reason why the knowledge and use of it has
remained marginal in the Philippines. Although, we can say that there are several
attempts in some so-called liturgically progressive seminaries, dioceses, and movements
to celebrate the Misa. Thus, it can be said that nowadays only an isolated group of people
knows of its existence. As a consequence, this “alternative” liturgy has not been recently
reviewed, revised or updated as originally suggested by Chupungco who considered
periodical assessment and adaptation as important “phases” in liturgical inculturation.
As far as the reception of the Misa ng Bayan by the Filipino people is concerned, we
can discern from the comments on some internet blogsites that discussed the nature and
viability of this inculturated liturgy that people also have varied perceptions. For example,

2011This is based on findings of Georgetown’s Center for Advanced Research in the Apostolate in 2014. Cf.
Francis, “Pro-Pinoy Worship.”
2012Ibid.
2013Ibid.
350
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
according to Ren Aguila who posted his comment on an online article posted by Pray Tell
on 11 September 2014 that
“Interesting piece–even in my own experience, I hadn’t yet taken part in a Mass celebrated
according to that rite. “However, some of its linguistic legacy has been taken up in the current
Tagalog edition of the Missal (which has not yet been replaced, mercifully, because it is more
faithful to the Latin in a good number of places). The Holy Week rites use a particular kind of
native poetry (five-line verses), used in the oldest devotional texts in the vernacular: a free
adaptation of the Passion story (which includes the history of salvation). The Misa ng Bayang
Pilipino uses this form of poetry extensively in the rite.
Another reason that the rite has not caught on, I suspect, is that it has not yet been adapted
to the country’s other native languages in which the liturgy is celebrated. There are six other
languages other than the Tagalog (which is the basis of Filipino) in which the Bible is published
and the liturgy has been translated.”2014
Jeff Velasco, who responded on the same blogspot, said:

“The Misa ng Bayang Pilipino is not as widely used as it should because its status is still in
limbo. The only inculturated Ordo Missae that was approved by the Holy See is the Zairean
whereas the MBP received neither a recognition or an explicit rejection.
However, since it is approved by the Bishops of the Philippines, it is used from time to time for
special occasions. I do know that when he was still bishop of Imus, Bishop Tagle, now Cardinal-
Archbishop of Manila, would celebrate this during the eve of town fiestas in his former diocese.
That is why he knew how to celebrate it for the PCNE. We also have a parish (the oldest one) in
our Diocese that celebrates this annually on their feast day. I know of several parishes that try
this form from time to time.
Nevertheless, our Missal (Aklat ng Pagmimisa sa Roma) is quite inculturated already in its
language. The antiphons and hymns in the Missal are translated to fit the manner of the
indigenous tones of chanting. The orations also follow the method of dynamic equivalence in
accordance with 1969 instruction Comme le Prevoit. Although what we have right now is the
Roman Mass our people are able to own it because it is celebrated in our people’s vernacular.
Inculturation is operative in the Philippines in many varied ways and in varying degrees: in
ritual language, in liturgical architecture, in music, in popular devotions, and in the way we
conduct our celebrations. Inculturation is very much alive in the Philippines. Sana traditio
legitima progressio (SC 23).”2015
Another person who posted a comment on the issue of Misa ng Bayan is Carlos Antonio
Palad, who had these words to say:
“Speaking as a Filipino: The MSP was written in the 1970’s and features a certain amount of
prolixity and effusiveness that to a great extent has disappeared from the actual vernacular
and way of life of Filipinos. Filipino culture and communication has greatly changed in the last
four decades: it is now far more direct, far more informal, and far more curt. In short: it may
not necessarily reflect Filipino culture more than the current Roman Rite Mass does. I am under
the impression that some priests and liturgists want to “inculturate” the liturgy according to a
romantic notion of Filipino culture and language that has long disappeared from the day-to-
day life of the average, urbanized, modern Filipino. There also seems to be a tendency to equate
“inculturation” with “indigenization”, turning liturgy into an instrument of cultural engineering
that has little to do with the actual culture of the Philippines.
The Philippines has been largely Roman Catholic for more than 400 years. The fact is that the
Roman-Rite Mass has been part and parcel of our culture. The fact that it is “Roman Rite” has
not prevented millions of Filipinos from packing churches every single Sunday. As for the issue
with “traditional instruments” — if these refer to the gong or to old percussion instruments that
have been kept only by tribal groups, then their non-use is not due to any hostility or perceived
“secularism”, but due to the fact that they are not common at all. Most of the songs sung in
Philippine churches are from the Philippine Jesuits, and while these songs do not often use
indigenous instruments, they are certainly “Filipino” — part of what we call “OPM” (Original
Pilipino Music).
I think Westerners tend to underestimate how Westernized the Philippines really is, and how
deeply Hispanic and Americanized its culture and identity is, without ceasing to be uniquely
Filipino.
2014Audrey Seah, “Inculturation in the Philippines,” Pray Tell: Worship, Wit and Wisdom,
http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2014/09/10/inculturation-in-the-philippines/ [accessed July 20,
2016].
2015Ibid.
351
SAMBAYANIHAN
By the way, if there is any real liturgical movement discernible in Filipino churches today, it is
the installation in hundreds of churches and chapels of enormous, richly-gilded, Spanish-style
retablos or altarpieces. Just visit any 3 or 4 churches in Metro Manila and you will run into at
least one of these. Most of these retablos (even in old Spanish-era churches) are not old; most
of them date to the last 10 or 5 years. There is also a renewed appreciation for Hispanic-style
religious imagery for processions and private chapels.”2016
These three people who have expressed their own opinion on the feasibility of the Misa ng
Bayan represent some of the prevailing sentiments of the Filipino people who have some
knowledge on the existence of the inculturated liturgy. Certainly, they do not speak for
the great majority of the people who are totally indifferent or do not even have a clue of
what it is all about or those who choose to be on the far right of the spectrum who do not
have any good words to say about inculturation because they maintain that the only valid
liturgical celebration is the Latin Mass of the ‘novus ordo’ or, more extremely, the
Tridentine Rite.
II.3.3.8. Adaptation of the Misa ng Bayan in the West: The Question of Feasibility
At this point, although it is questionable whether a contextual liturgy done in the

Philippines can be successfully applied as good contextual liturgy in the context of
migration, it is worth mentioning that in some dioceses in the North American region,
there are some reports that the Misa ng Bayan has been celebrated, although we do not
have a solid knowledge of how this was celebrated, like what had been dubbed as the
“eleventh staging of the Misa ng Bayan” at the Saint Anthony of Padua Parish in Baltimore,
Maryland on 10 April 2016.2017 According to this online news “The ‘Misa ng Bayan’”, which
was participated by the Filipino-Americans coming from Metro Baltimore and Metro DC,
“focused attention on the worsening migrant crisis in Europe as organizers expressed
solidarity and support for Pope Francis’ admonition that ‘we are all immigrants’.” 2018 In a
speech given after the Misa was celebrated in this annual event, the co-executive director
of the MHC (Migrant Heritage Commission), Atty. Arnedo Valera, conveyed in the most
poignant way what inculturated celebration of faith is all about, especially in the context
of Filipino migration:
“Two weeks ago, more than two billion Christians in the world observed Lent and celebrated
the Risen Christ during Easter…Yes, our Faith is alive and well. That faith in God is sustaining
billions of people. Today, we celebrate the People’s Mass (Misa ng Bayan) reminding us “to Live
our Faith” by emphasizing migrant our faith in God, and also our responsibility to our fellow
migrant brothers and sisters…Living our Faith means following the example of Jesus – and we
do this by embracing unconditionally the principle of love and taking risks to love all, including
our enemies…We all differ in so many ways. But all of us, wherever we are, have one thing in
common. As Pope Francis constantly reminds, us, we have the same aspirations for ourselves
and our families. All of us want good education, good jobs and a home we can call our own…His
Holiness the Pope also makes another important point — ‘it is important to view migrants not
only on the basis of their status as regular or irregular, but above all as people whose dignity
is to be protected and who are capable of contributing to progress and the general
welfare…Each of us is our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they live’… Our faith is there
with us in the moments of our triumphs, failures, great pleasures and even disappoints and
moments of sorrow…And when we feel we cannot explain life to others and to ourselves and we
lose our families and dear friends in our midst, having this faith is how we are able to carry on.
Our faith is our only hope. Because our life is definite, palpable and real. We live by and through
it… MHC has so many things to thanks for in today’s celebration of Misa ng Bayan. To those
we have served and extended services for the last 11 years, we will always be thankful for the
opportunities given to us to serve you. And for our dedicated volunteers, advisers, their family
members and friends (you know who you are), thank you for your selfless dedication and
2016Seah, “Inculturation in the Philippines.”

2017Cf. Manila Mail US, “‘Misa ng Bayan’ Focuses on Migrants’ Plight, Victims of Terror War,” manilamail.us,
April 15, 2016, http://www.manilamail.us/?p=2180 [accessed July 20, 2016].
2018Ibid.
352
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
sacrifices as you share your talents and resources in ‘Fostering a Culture of Unity and Service’
in Metropolitan Washington D.C. and across the nation, and across two oceans.”2019
II.3.3.9. Catechism for Filipino Catholic (Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines)
on Inculturation: Towards a Theology Centered on the Family, Meal, Kundiman, Bayani,
and the Spirit.
If there is any document issued by the Philippine hierarchy that speaks about
Filipino culture in the most recent past, we can point to the Catechism for Filipino Catholics
(CFC) which was originally published in 1997 by the Episcopal Commission on Catechesis
and Catholic Education (ECCCE) together with Word & Life Publications.2020 This
catechetical book was issued as a response to the challenge of Vatican II to contextualize
or inculturate the doctrines of the Church, because the introduction of this book states
that “Vatican II teaches that Catholics ‘must give expression to this newness of [Christian]
life in their own society and culture and in a manner that is in keeping with the traditions
of their own land”2021 This inculturated catechetical resource is certainly based on the
Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) which was promulgated by Pope John Paul II in
1994 which was meant to be propagated all throughout the world.2022 This document is
also considered as a result of what the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II),
convoked on 20 January - 17 February 1991, had put forward: “[For] Faith to mature in
love, it must be interiorized. Church teachings and practices must be personally
appreciated and appropriated by us, as a people with our own particular culture, with our
own ways of thinking and valuing, Faith must take root in the matrix of our Filipino being
so that we may truly believe and love as Filipinos.2023”
According to this document, Christ’s message is not at all foreign to the Filipino way
of life because Filipinos are natural “bearers” of the virtues of compassion, mercy (care
and forgiveness), faith.2024 Thus, it can be said that when a Filipino faithfully follows the
‘WAY’ of Christ, he/she becomes a more authentic Filipino. Typically, according to this
catechism, there are five traits that we can identify as belonging to a Filipino
person.2025These are following: 1) family-oriented; 2) meal-oriented; 3) kundiman-oriented;
4) bayani-oriented; and 5) spirit-oriented.
This document, then, expounds that Filipinos are typically family-oriented because
“anak-magulang (child-parent) relationship is of primary importance to Filipinos”, which
is extended to other people who are related either by consanguinity or by affinity to the
nuclear family.2026 Thus, it can be said that a normal Filipino life is usually centered
around the family where one feels secure, loved, supported, accompanied and encouraged.
This is the reason why, in the church and in any association of Filipinos, people refer to
each other as tito (uncle), tita (aunt), lolo (grandpa), lola (grandma), kuya (older brother),
and ate (older sister). This means that every member of the church community or
association is not only treated with respect but also seen as a member of the family.
Filipino identity is certainly tied to the family. Only in extreme cases do we find a Filipino
who severs his/her tie to a family. Whether in the country or abroad, he/she will take
time to connect with a family, either by consanguinity or amity.
2019Manila Mail US, “‘Misa ng Bayan.”

2020Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines(CBCP), Catechism for Filipino Catholics (CFC)(Manila:
ECCCE/ Word and Life, 1997).
2021CBCP, CFC, 24.
2022Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana., 1994).
2023CBCP, PCP II, 72.
2024CBCP, CFC, 28.
2025Ibid., 34-52.
2026CBCP, PCP II, 34.
353
SAMBAYANIHAN
This attitude, according to CFC, allows the Filipino to “naturally” embrace Jesus who
is “both the Son of God (Anak ng Amang Diyos) and the Son of Man (Anak ng Tao)” who
“leads us to His Mother Mary (Ina ng Diyos)”.2027 It is not difficult, indeed, for the Filipino
to “welcome” the Almighty Father, Jesus the Brother, and Mary the Mother to his/her
household.
The second cultural trait identified by CFC was the utter significance of a meal to
the Filipinos. One is considered as a “member” of the family when one shares a meal with
them.2028 It can be said that when a Filipino opens his/her door to the guest, he/she
“opens” the table as well. Usually, a Filipino would say to the guest, “tuloy po” (please
come in), and almost immediately he/she will offer the guest, “kain po tayo”, which means
“come eat with us”. Because meal is so central to the Filipinos, rich and poor alike, one
can observe that almost every special occasion is celebrated by them with a meal or a
banquet. Generally, Filipinos love to eat and when they eat, they truly eat with gusto. In
fact, most of them measure the success or the “grandness” of the event by the amount
and the quality of food that was serve. If there is a lechon (roasted pig), the celebration
must be really special.
Now, this fondness for fellowship and food, according to CFC, becomes the
fundamental element why Filipinos are specially drawn to the celebration of the Eucharist
where Jesus is the host (1 Cor. 11:23-26), the honored guest (Mt. 18:20; Rev. 3:20) and
the bread of life (Jn. 6:48-58). “Filipinos,” as affirmed by CFC, “feel naturally ‘at home’ in
breaking bread together with Jesus.”2029
As a third element that defines Filipino cultural identity, CFC mentioned that
“Filipinos are kundiman-oriented.”2030 CFC explains that a “kundiman is a sad Filipino song
about wounded love.”2031This is the reason, we believe, why a lot of Filipinos are drawn to
TV soaps and tend to be melodramatic. According to CFC, “Filipinos are naturally
attracted to heroes sacrificing everything for love”,2032 which is why heroism and
martyrdom are greatly praised by a lot of Filipinos.
We would like to add to this explanation, however, that the kundiman-orientedness
of the Filipinos stems generally from their love of music. In fact, they are proud to claim
that the Philippines is the “karaoke capital” of the world. Every occasion, just like the
“omnipresence” of gastronomic delights, in times of happiness and in times of sadness,
Filipinos would have their karaoke machines ready for use. Everyone is welcome and
encouraged to belt out his/her favorite songs. If people unfamiliar with Filipino culture
are scandalized to know that Filipinos hold vigils while the remains of the dead relative
are exposed for public viewing for extended number of days, they will be shocked to know
that karaoke singing has become increasingly an “essential” part of the Filipino “ritual” of
bereavement. The karaoke machines are available for anyone who wants to sing while
“sitting” on a wake. The song can either be happy or sad.
Because of the fondness of the Filipinos to either singing or music in general, Filipino
psychologists, like Dr. Maria Lourdes Llaneza-Ramos of the Ateneo de Manila University
has introduced the use of harana (serenade) as an alternative to classical approaches to
psychotherapy. We believe in the viability of this approach, because, most Filipinos,
whether they are happy or sad, either sing or listen to music. Music can be considered as
a coping mechanism for them. Generally, it can be said that when Filipinos gather, two
things are almost always present: food and music. In view of this, we believe that it is not
2027CBCP, CFC, 35.

2028Ibid., 37.
2029Ibid., 38.
2030Ibid., 39.
2031Ibid.
2032
Ibid.
354
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
even a mistake to assert that Filipinos apprehend reality better by singing or through a
song. We have observed that most Filipinos, in the country or abroad, feel that the
celebration of the mass is meaningful when there is singing. They feel refreshed and
revitalized when the songs that are sung in the mass remind them of Jesus as “Suffering
Servant” who “reaches [out] to… Filipinos as a healing and forgiving Savior who
understands [their] weakness, [their] failures, [their] feelings of depression, fear and
loneliness.”2033
The fourth item in the roster of cultural traits identified by CFC as essential to
Filipino spirituality was being bayani-oriented.2034 Because of this essential cultural trait,
Filipinos are generally known for their remarkable patience and tolerance. Like what we
have said above about bahala na as an expression of resilience, according to CFC, Filipinos
“will not accept ultimate failure and defeat. [They] tend instinctively to always personalize
any good cause in terms of a leader, especially when its object is to defend the weak and
the oppressed. To protect this innate sense of human dignity, Filipinos are prepared to lay
down even their lives.”2035 This attitude makes them embrace the notion of Christ as both
King and Suffering Servant. For them, Jesus Christ is the ultimate hero and martyr who
was sent by the Father, as an obedient Son, to vanquish everything that hinders the
salvific encounter between God and the human beings. His sacrifice brings about joy and
salvation to all. According to CFC, “He assures us that everything will be alright in the
end.”2036 Christ as the King of all kings has indeed won the battle over evil for us all.
The fifth trait, according to CFC, was the role of the spirits in the life of the Filipino
people (i.e, being spirit-oriented.2037 As we have already elucidated in both the first and the
second chapters of this doctoral project, Filipinos generally see the world as inhabited by
both the mortal and the immortal, the living and the dead, the human and divine. CFC
rightly points out that Filipinos “have deep-seated belief in the supernatural and in all
kinds of spirits dwelling in individual person, places and things. Even in today’s world of
science and technology, Filipinos continue to invoke the spirits in various undertakings,
especially in faith-healings and exorcisms.”2038 This mentality is carried over even in the
celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Filipinos, migrants or not, regularly offer intentions for
their deceased loved ones. It is not, therefore, unusual to see a remarkably long list of
names of the faithful departed to be mentioned in the mass as intentions.
In view of the spirit-orientedness of the Filipinos, CFC explains that
“Jesus the “miracle-worker” who promised to send his Spirit to his disciples to give them new
life (cf. Jn 15:26; 16:7; 13-14), is thus very appealing to us Filipinos. The Holy Spirit, sent by
the Father and the Risen Christ, draws us Filipinos into a community wherein superstition and
enslaving magic are overcome by authentic worship of the Father “in spirit and truth” (cf. Jn
4:23). In Christ’s community, the Church, “to each person the manifestation of the Spirit is
given for the common good” (1 Cor 12:7). This same Spirit, which empowered Jesus the miracle
worker, is active in his disciples, uniting them in the teaching of the apostles, and in community
fellowship of the breaking of bread and prayer through Christ their Lord (LG 13).”2039
Based on our assessment of the way Filipino migrants in Western Europe practice
their faith, we can say that these five essential traits of Filipino religiosity are still very
much alive in them. We even surmise that the reason why most of them continue to hold
on to their faith and to strive to survive amidst the challenges that they face is because
they are endowed with a moral and spiritual core that is fortified by family-orientedness,
2033CBCP, CFC, 39.

2034Ibid.
2035Ibid.
2036Ibid., 42.
2037Ibid., 43.
2038Ibid.
2039Ibid., 44.
355
SAMBAYANIHAN
meal-orientedness, kundiman-orientedness, bayani-orientedness, and spirit-orientedness.

Because these basic orientations are still immanent in the lives of the diasporic Filipinos,
we are convinced that any attempt at inculturation in the context of the Western Europe,
or even in the U.S. and elsewhere, will have take them into serious consideration. In fact,
if we try to deduce, based on our experience of the religious activities of Filipino migrants
in Belgium and in other European countries, we can even say that these five traits are
very much visible.
II.3.3.10. Mary and Filipino Inculturated Faith: The Closer We Get to Mary, The Closer We
Get to Our True Identity
The role of Mary in the lives of the Filipino faithful is so vital that they can be
misconstrued as being more devoted to Mary than to Jesus. It can be said that devotion
to Mary came to the Philippine shores much earlier than to the worship of Jesus. CFC
claims that “[even] before the coming of the Spanish missionaries, there was a small dark
image of the Blessed Virgin, known only as coming ‘from the sea’, venerated on the shores
of Manila Bay. Thus, originated the devotion to the Nuestra Señora de Guia, Our Lady,
Guide of the way, the oldest extant image of Mary in the Philippines.” 2040 Thus, it can be
said that before the Filipinos came to know Jesus, they have already embraced Mary as
their important guide in life. It is interesting to note, at this point, that this same image is
declared by the Philippine hierarchy as the “Patroness of Overseas Filipino Workers”
whose guidance and protection is beseeched by the Filipinos who venture beyond the
shores of the archipelago amidst the perils and challenges of migrant life. Her role is so
essential to the pananampalataya of the ordinary Filipinos in such a way that “typically”
they approach Christ almost automatically “with and through Mary” as evidenced by the
widespread devotions of Mary in the Philippines, such as the Our Lady of Guidance
(Ermita), Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Baclaran), Our lady of Peñafrancia (Bicol), Our Lady
of Manaoag (Pangasinan), Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage (Antipolo), Our Lady of Piat
(Cagayan), Our Lady of Ina Poon Bato (Zambales), etc. It is our conviction that devotions
to her greatly surpasses those of Jesus’.
Filipinos feel that Mary can relate to them, in their struggles and in their successes.
If there is one person who can genuinely understand them, it is Mary. If they need someone
to confide with, they go to Mary. Of course, this does not mean that their love for Jesus is
diminished by their closeness to Mary. They know that Jesus’s role as God and Savior can
never be replaced by anyone, not even of Mary. But, like a Filipino mother who is
considered to be the ilaw (light) of the household who provides guidance and imparts
wisdom to the confused child and the tahanan (the safe haven) who provides care and
comfort to the weary soul, Mary is seen as the spiritual mother of the Filipinos who serves
as an intermediary or an advocate in terms of their relationship with Jesus. Moreover, the
figure of Mary is so cherished by the Filipinos because, in her, they also see the five
characteristics of Filipino faith which we have discussed above. She can be considered as
the epitomé of Filipino spirituality. According to CFC,
“1) the obvious preponderance of Mary’s images and icons in the typical “family altar” of the
Filipino homes both in the country and abroad that strongly attests to her “central” role in the
family-oriented faith of the Filipinos – Mary is not only the mother of Jesus but also the spiritual
mother of the Filipinos; 2) the countless fiestas and pilgrimages in honor of Mary, especially in
the month of May, reveal to us how she is a great part of the meal-orientedness of the Filipinos
; 3) the notable devotion of the Filipinos to the Mater Dolorosa and to the Our Lady of Perpetual
Help which tells us that Mary is considered by the Filipinos as the epitome of the suffering
2040CBCP, CFC, 45. CBCP, PCP II, 153.
356
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
servant and as the most important vessel of God’s mercy; 4) the centrality of Mary’s fiat or her
unflagging commitment to the mission of her Son, Jesus Christ the Savior, which inspires the
Filipino people as they strive to embody the bayani-oriented faith; and 5) her embodiment of
the spirit-oriented faith of the Filipinos exhibited in her openness to the Spirit of God in allowing
herself to be the theotokos, the bearer of God.”2041
Indeed, we can argue that Filipino faith is heavily Marian in essence, which is beautifully
expressed in the words “pueblo amante de Maria – a people in love with Mary.”2042 This is
true, according to CFC 48, because
“Devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Ang Mahal na Birhen, has greatly helped many simple
Filipinos to remain Catholics. Their deep devotion to the Mother of God has been the strongest
force keeping their faith alive (cf. AMB 67). Mary has been and remains the central inspiring
force in bringing about a deeper evangelization of the masses of our people, ‘the safeguard for
the preservation of our Catholic Fatih, and the principle of deeper and fuller evangelization’
(AMB 72-73).”2043
And based on our observation, this great love for Mary is still carried over by the Filipinos
in diaspora who bring with them in their respective ecclesial communities abroad various
Marian devotions originally propagated in the Philippines. They believe that these
devotions, alongside the devotions specifically accorded to Jesus, provide them with a
strong spiritual anchor. At the same time, these devotions serve as a reminder of their
cultural heritages, because these are deemed to be authentically Filipino, despite the fact
that they may have originated elsewhere. Authenticity here is based on the reality that
these devotions have become so ubiquitous in the archipelago and, also, because they
embody, based on our analysis, the five cultural traits identified by CFC. Thus, the more
they practice these devotions, the more they feel their Filipinoness.
In connection with this, CFC has affirmed that the devotion of the Filipinos to the
Infant Jesus, otherwise known to the Filipinos as Sto. Niño, and to the Blessed Virgin or
the Mahal na Birhen expresses the notion of family-centeredness which “reveals
fundamental depths of [their] own self-identity” as Filipinos.2044 Their closeness to Jesus
and Mary allows them to communicate with God the Father without difficulty. They can
address God easily as their Father because they have Mary as their mother and Jesus as
their brother. Their love for Mary and Jesus, we believe, somehow fills in the void that
they feel being thousands of miles away from their immediate families for years. With
them, they have a home away from home.
In relation to the meal-centeredness of the Filipinos, it can be said that with their
devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist, the Word that became flesh in the womb of Mary
through Mary’s obedience and the Bread of Life who performed His first miracle through
Mary’s prompting, Filipinos Catholics, are able to “find meaning in [their] lives and learn
to face the hunger and poverty around [them] in encountering Jesus as Eucharist in our
parish community. ‘Around the table of the Lord,’ [the] Filipino Catholics are drawn by
prayer to share our time, energy and very lives, for the service of our needy brethren and
for the building-up of truly Christian communities of justice, love and healing.2045
Their kundiman-centeredness of Filipinos makes their devotion to the Our Lady of
Sorrow (Mater Dolorosa) and to the Black Nazarene (i.e., the image of a black Jesus who
is presented as painfully carrying His cross) more appealing to them. They feel so much
closeness to Mary and Jesus being, like them, have known so much pain and suffering in
their life, migrant or not. Filipinos feel that they are never alone in their sorrows and
hardship, with the sorrowful Mary and the suffering Jesus on their side. Their company
2041CBCP, CFC, 47.

2042Ibid., 45.
2043Ibid., 48.
2044Ibid., 49.
2045Ibid., 50.
357
SAMBAYANIHAN
assures them that, despite all the struggles that they have to go through as migrant
people, God rescue them from their sufferings. Thus, they find an ally in Jesus and Mary.
They even feel that Jesus and Mary are there to ease the pain that they are feeling. In
connection with this, CFC declares that
“as Filipino Catholics, because we have met Christ the Suffering Servant in his Passion, we can
pray about sin and forgiveness, about justice and reconciliation, about the suffering and
Passion of our own Filipino people today. We have the strength to offer ourselves as ‘bread
broken for the world,’ together with Jesus, because we believe with unshakeable hope that the
Crucified One is Risen from the dead, victorious over sin, death and the world.”2046
Thus, for Filipino migrants, like those who are in the Philippines as well, Jesus is the
epitomé of heroism and martyrdom. Through His suffering and self-sacrifice, Filipinos,
migrants and otherwise, feel that Jesus is their “knight in shining armor” who is every-
ready to lay down His life for them. Putting together the notions of Jesus as the “knight in
shining armor” and Mary as the Mother of Perpetual Help, Filipinos are assured of
protection and security. They may go through some rough times in their lives, but they
hold on to the promise that Jesus and Mary will help them survive and, eventually, enjoy
the bliss of being sons and daughters of God. On that note, CFC has underscored that
“we Catholic Filipinos, resilient as the bamboo (kawayan) and sturdy as the narra, commit
ourselves to Christ, our hero-king, in deep gratitude for the gift of faith and for being
Filipino.”2047
In relation to the spirit-centeredness of Filipino faith, Filipino migrants believe that
the spirits of the Resurrected Jesus and of Mary who is assumed into heaven are very
much present in their day to day life, like a companion in their daily journey. Whenever,
they are alone or lonely they try to console themselves that they keep them company.
Things will be alright, because Jesus and Mary, even as spirits, provide them the
comforting company they need. And more than that, CFC has underlined that
“our world vision as Catholic Filipinos is gradually transformed by Christ’s Spirit-in-the-world
in our Church community. In the depths of the Filipino spirit is a longing for kaayusan, for
order out of chaos, a longing for the life that the creative Spirit of Jesus gives as a gift, a gift
which is likewise a challenge (cf. PCP II 257). Through sacramental encounters with the Risen
Lord, we experience his Spirit’s healing and strengthening power. In Christ’s Spirit, we Catholic
Filipinos, inspired by Mary, the Holy Virgin, our Mother, are confirmed in our witness to Jesus
by our service of our brethren, and our persevering prayer for our beloved dead.”2048
Having said all this, we can argue that Filipino Catholicism is, indeed, about a
pananampalataya to Jesus Christ who is the Brother-Bread-Hero-Servant-King-Saviour.
This pananamplataya is definitely not complete without Mary. Their devotion to Jesus is
always with and through the vital role of Mary who brings the people to the fellowship of
the family of God. Within this familial ambit, the Filipinos feel that they are being
nourished in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist that commemorates the Last Suffer
and the Passion of Jesus Christ in an atmosphere of celebration, in an ambience of a
banquet where everyone is welcome as a brother and a sister. The mass is an experience
of agape that is embodied in the self-sacrificing and redeeming love of the Good Shepherd
who is at the same time the Suffering Servant who invites people to commit themselves in
a profoundly personal way like the “Risen Hero-King.” Thus, Filipino masses are seen as
a gathering of a family where Mary, whose images and icons are conspicuously present in
the sanctuaries of the churches (at times, even placed on top and around the altars), is
given to them as their mother too.2049 If one will try to participate in the masses organized
by the Filipinos in Flanders, he or she will definitely notice that most of their celebrations
2046CBCP, CFC, 51.

2047Ibid., 52.
2048Ibid., 53.
2049Ibid., 54.
358
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
begin with the praying of the rosary and that most of the time their sanctuaries are filled
with Mary’s images, both big and small, apart from the images of Jesus as the Sto. Niño
and the Black Nazarene.
The intimate link between worshipping Jesus Christ and venerating Mary, as far as
the Filipinos are concerned, can also be discerned in the celebration of the Advent season
by the Filipinos. Filipinos have been celebrating the simbang gabi in conjunction with the
observance of Advent. In the season which is primarily focused on the people’s preparation
for the two arrivals of Jesus who is the Messiah, King and Judge of the universe, Filipinos
also give importance to role of Mary as the humble servant who willingly accepted the
mission to be the mother of God. This is a special privilege given by the Holy See to the
Filipino faithful, which is also transported by the Filipino migrants to the parish
communities they belong to elsewhere in the world, which allows the Filipinos to celebrate
dawn and evening masses in honor of Mary. The celebration begins either on the evening
of December 15 or dawn of December 16. It is a nine-day devotion that commemorates
the 9-month pregnancy of Mary wherein the congregation is allowed to lift the ban of
singing the Gloria and the church and its ministers don white liturgical color instead of
purple which is prescribed by the season. Outside simbang gabi, of course, the rubric for
Advent season remains the same. So, the regular masses during those days follow the
usual tone of the season. Simbang gabi is not only an event to honor Mary in the middle
of the Advent season which is supposed to be solely focused on Christ’s coming, but, for
Filipinos, it is also an occasion for enjoying their traditional Filipino delicacies. Thus, it is
closely linked to the meal-orientedness of the Filipinos because after the celebration of the
evening or dawn masses they expect to see traditional Filipino dishes and pastries to be
served for everyone to enjoy. Simbang gabi is, indeed, as occasion for the Filipinos to
celebrate not only their faith in Jesus and their love for Mary but also their cultural
identity via the food that they share after the mass has been offered.
II.3.3.11. How Inculturation is Done in the Context of Filipino Diaspora: An Observation
In this section, we shall be describing how Filipino Catholics celebrate their liturgy
in the U.S. and in Western Europe which we believe to be peculiar manifestations of
inculturation. Thus, we shall also provide in this portion some glimpses of how some
elements deemed to be specifically, but not exclusively, exhibiting Filipino culture/s are
being infused in their celebration of the Holy Eucharist and other religious activities.
Certainly, because we view inculturation against the background of transculturality, we
understand that the process of inculturation carried out by the Filipino faithful in the
western hemisphere necessarily incorporates Asian, European, American and other
cultural elements. What will appear in succeeding discussion regarding inculturation in
the context of Filipino diaspora may not be as dramatic as one would expect it to be.
Inculturation, in the case of Filipino migration, may differ in a significant way from the
proposed Misa ng Bayan. We believe that the process of inculturation does not have to be
earth-shaking or ground-breaking, just like in the evolution of a particular culture. Most
of the time, inculturation is a gradual process wherein some cultural elements slowly
creep into the ordinary practice of faith of the people and into the regular celebration of
liturgical activities. They are progressively and, sometimes, inconspicuously being
absorbed into the liturgical activities until, eventually, they become integral (and official)
part of people’s faith and liturgies. What we would like to see, at the end of this specific
part of the dissertation, is an idea of a possible trajectory for the liturgical inculturation
359
SAMBAYANIHAN
that we envision for the case of the Filipino diaspora in Western Europe, one that is
genuinely intercultural or transcultural.
As we have already mentioned at the outset of this current chapter, the so-called
Filipino masses in Europe do not show any obvious signs that would give people an
impression that they are radically departing from the normativity of the Roman Rite. Only
very few of those masses make use of the proposed Misa ng Bayan. In fact, the incidence
is almost nil, because it is either unknown to them or the inculturated liturgy proposed
by Chupungco is deemed as impractical. For some, it is not feasible at all, especially
because of the “time-conscious” culture in the Europe and in the North America. Thus,
the kind of inculturation that transpires in their context is more organic and subtle.
II.3.3.12. Towards A Liturhiyang Sambayanihan: An Attempt at Liturgical Inculturation in

the Transcultural Context of Filipino Migration
Everything that we have discussed above, from chapter 1 up to the last section of
this chapter, especially our discussions on how cultures and liturgies are creatively
formed, ingenuously made normative or discreetly replaced or deliberately discarded,
brings us to this point where we can entertain the idea of coming up with an inculturated
liturgy that fits, albeit unofficial, the transcultural context of Filipino migrants in Western
Europe. Certainly, what CFC underlined as five fundamental characteristics of Filipino
Catholicity that is essentially a profound devotion to Jesus Christ with and through Mary
will serve as crucial components for an appropriate Filipino liturgical inculturation. These
five traits, we believe, are embodied in the bayanihan theology which we have proposed in
the previous chapter wherein the Filipino ordinary theologians in diaspora articulate their
God-talk as heroic witnesses and agapeic communities who are called and gathered
together to journey as contemporary global missionaries towards a more profound
communion with God and with one another. We see bayanihan theology as a fundamental
element in “imagining” the countless permutations of ‘unofficial but essential’ liturgical
inculturation in the context of transcultural Filipino migration, especially the ideas that
bayanihan, which is an avenue towards a multi-directional or multi-lateral empowerment,
concretely embodies the experience of the Pentecost and the multiplication of loaves and
fish.
As we have already argued earlier, inculturating the liturgy in the context of Filipino
migration does not mean coming up with the same elaborate proposal, such as the Misa
ng Bayan that was advocated by Chupungco. It may follow the same rubric as the
normative Roman liturgy but enhanced by a renewed appreciation of some Filipino
cultural elements as underlined by CFC alongside the renewed understanding of Filipino
theology that centers on the notions of loob-kapwa relationality, bahala na God-talk and
bayanihan spirituality. We are of the opinion that when the liturgical celebrations
organized and participated in by the Filipino migrants are seen as occasions to celebrate
their bayanihan spirit, which affirms not only their bahala na theology and loob-kapwa
relationality but also the five cultural traits underscored by CFC (i.e., centeredness on the
family, meal, kundiman, hero-martyr, and spirit), they will appreciate more the said
religious gatherings. Based on the results of the formation or catechetical formations that
we have facilitated in the Filipino communities found in some of the cities in Western
Europe and in the United States, we can assert that, when they are made to realize how
elements from their culture could help them appreciate more the symbols, words and
gestures used in the liturgy, they become more actively involved in the liturgical
celebrations and they also find the celebrations more meaningful. It would not be wrong
to claim that, when they are able to assume this particular vantage point, samba (worship)
for them also becomes an occasion for bayanihan, an excellent moment of community
360
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
building, heroism and martyrdom. In view of this, we can surmise that the notion of
sambayanihan makes the offering of the bread and wine more meaningful, because they
are more aware of the fact that the bread and the wine, before they arrive at their present
forms, had to go through a “painful” process of being harvested, ground, crushed, purified,
etc. They are able to see beyond the actual appearance of the bread and wine, which
makes them analogically relate these “fruits of the earth and works of human hands” to
their own struggles in life that make them the persons that they are. Like the Body of
Christ, broken and shared to give life to His beloved people, Filipino migrants see
themselves as sacrificial offerings for the benefit of their Christian communities and also
of the people God has entrusted to their care. With this, they appreciate more the meaning
of agapeic love. Bearing the notion of bayanihan in mind, we believe that every liturgical
gathering becomes a more meaningful occasion for the Filipino migrants because they
now regard it as an event where they come together to support one another for betterment
of each one and for the greater glory of God. It now becomes an opportunity to hear each
other’s pleas and to extend a helping hand to others according to one’s charisms. The
words uttered in the prayers of the liturgies, especially in the confiteur, Credo and Pater
Noster become powerfully heartfelt and real because the bayanihan spirit is truly palpable
or alive. They feel that they are truly bound to one another as members of the Family of
God. Thus, they become more open in assisting one another in love and mercy whose
ultimate source is the Eternal Loving Father in Heaven who, ultimately, made Himself
known through the incarnation of His Son, Jesus Christ, who, on His part, offered Himself
as the Supreme Sacrifice on the cross.
After elaborating on our argument that a viable liturgical inculturation in the context
of Filipino diaspora can be had through an infusion of the notion of bayanihan in their
samba, we can claim that Filipino migrants will not only go to mass because they feel that
they are obliged to and that the celebration of mass they are reminded of “home”, but
because they can resonate to what is being celebrated in the liturgy. Apart from this, we
also believe that a possible trajectory of the process of inculturation that can be pursued
by the Filipino migrants themselves and those who minister to them is the re-introduction
of the notions of salu-salo, sanduguan, and tagay which we shall be discussing in the
following sections.
II.3.3.12.1. “Sambayanihan as Salu-Salo”: An Expression of Filipino Unity and Hospitality;

The Hospitality of the Immigrant
Another Filipino cultural trait, which may not be necessarily exclusively Filipino,
that we see as a possible element that can be used for inculturating liturgy in the context
of Filipino diaspora in Western Europe is the notion of salu-salo. This suggestion is
inspired by Leonardo Mercado who asserts that in order to understand how Filipinos
regard the Mass, we must remember that “hospitality is one of the Filipino traits which
always impresses foreign visitors. Filipino hospitality even goes to the extent of lavishness.
The visitor gets the best treatment.”2050 According to Belita, hospitality is a question of life
and death for the Filipinos.2051 Hospitality for Filipinos is more than just welcoming guests
to one’s home. It is about offering the visitor food, even if the food is not enough. The host
is ready to sacrifice his hunger just to offer something to the guest. In this context, it is
not unusual that the first words uttered by Filipinos in welcoming a visitor is “kain tayo”
(roughly translated as “let’s eat”. It can also be in a form of drink, “inom tayo”). 2052

2051Belita,
A Filipino Eucharist, 1.
361
SAMBAYANIHAN
Expected or not, invited or not, a visitor is always welcome to join in the meal if he/she
comes during mealtime.2053 The meal is so central to the Filipinos that we consider it vital
in forging relationship and cementing friendship – salu-salo (a familial meal-sharing).
Interestingly, this practice lies so close to the etymology of ‘companion’ (cum + panis, are
associated in eating). A meal, according to Mercado, “is the pleasure of food and
company.”2054 That is why, generally, Filipinos are willing to share the food that they have,
no matter how scarce it may be, to their guest, even to the point of sacrificing one’s share,
just to make the guest feel welcome. It can even be said that the company of the guest
take precedence. For this reason, the Filipino host makes sure first that everyone has his
or her fill before he or she will eat his or her part.
Speaking of hospitality, we can even add here the proclivity of the Filipino host to
even sacrifice the master bedroom, opting to just sleep either in the sala (living room) or
other less important rooms in the house, just to make the guest feel at home. This gesture
is found to be mind-blowing by people from other cultural background. When we shared
about this peculiar trait of the Filipinos to some of our European and American colleagues
and friends, they could not believe that it is true.
Going back to the issue of meal, we can say that the meal is considered to be a sacred
act by the Filipinos. Because it is sacred, several rules of etiquette are observed by the
people. Briefly, we can mention some of the rubrics pertaining to Filipino meals that are
underlined by Mercado: 1) It is imperative that one wears proper clothes during the meals,
except when it is a picnic or occasions considered to be informal; 2) Pangangalumbaba or
resting one’s chin on the palm of the hand while leaning forward on the table while eating
is considered to be ill-mannered; 3) One should not sing while eating in order not to be
punished by gaba or bad karma.2055
A meal is not only regarded as a sign of friendship and unity among the living, but it
is also a sign of “communion with the Other World.” 2056 At the end of a novena for the
departed (tapos) or on the fortieth day after death, and on the death anniversary of a
departed loved one, big meals are prepared, because, according to Mercado, “veneration
for the departed ancestors has been the core of Filipino religion because the departed are
believed to take interest in the living and also to have intercessory powers with God.”2057
Fiesta is the expression of Filipino hospitality and love for the meal is that expression
par excellence. Although it started as a religious event (i.e., annual patronal feast day
celebrated with Holy Mass and religious procession), fiesta has become for the Filipinos a
family affair (family reunions) and the primary event for strengthening friendship where
the whole town is involved.2058 Mercado surmises that
“It is connected with the Filipino belief in the non-dualism between the sacred and the profane,
with the concept of heaven and eternity, i.e., that the present life is an anticipation of the other
life. It is connected with the symbolism of food. Furthermore, the fiesta is also the symbol of
joy… The fiesta commemorates the past goodness of the Lord, cements the present, and is an
anticipation of the future.”2059
Mercado concludes that the Filipino meal shared in honor of the departed lies very
close to Christ’s commandment to His disciples during the Lord’s Supper. ‘Do this in
memory of me’ (1 Cor. 11, 24).2060 Certainly, the ‘remembrance’ of the Lord exceeds the

2054Ibid.
2055Ibid.
2056Ibid., 178.
2057Ibid.
2058Ibid., 179-180.
2059Ibid., 180-181.
2060Ibid., 185.
362
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
“meals for the departed” because it is about the saving power of God who acted in the
past, as well as acting in the present and in the future.
Speaking about salu-salo, we can also add here the notion of transculturality of
Filipino faith and religious expression, because one can easily see how transcultural
Filipinos are by looking at their plate. Most of the time, when Filipinos eat they put
everything together in one plate, their entrée, their main course, their dessert, etc., which
may shock other people. They do not do it course by course as most Westerners are
accustomed to. Thus, we can say that even in the way they eat, they are already
transcultural, a gastronomic metissage.
In connection with the meaning of the Eucharistic Sacrifice that is being offered in
the context of Filipino diaspora, we believe that Filipinos will appreciate more the mass if
they are made aware of their remarkable hospitality and willingness not only to share his
or her meal to the guest but also to sacrifice one’s share when necessity calls for it. We
surmise that the recommendation of the Chupungco to have the presider take his
communion after everybody has had his or her share, which we have observed as being
done in the International English Speaking parish in the The Hauge wherein the presider
distributes first the consecrated hosts to the people in the sanctuary before he takes his
part, will make the celebration more meaningful to the Filipino participants in the mass.
Aside from this, we believe that the practice of the Filipinos to bring up gifts, not only the
bread and wine, during the preparation of the gifts, which is also being done in almost all
the masses organized by Filipinos in Western Europe and elsewhere in the world, must be
encouraged and propagated. Whatever they have offered may be shared by the
congregation in the fellowship meal that follows every after the celebration of the mass.
Other stuff that are not edible may be given to the members of the community who need
them. It is a wonderful gesture of hospitality and solidarity that extends beyond the
celebration of the mass.
II.3.3.12.2. “Sambayanihan as Sanduguan”: Filipino Gesture of Agreement and

Commitment
Filipino hospitality is not only manifested in sharing a meal with the visitor or
prospective cum+panion, but is also expressed in the openness to expand one’s kinship
through a process called sanduguan/sandugo (blood brotherhood/sisterhood). This term
is rooted in two more basic Filipino words: usa/isa (one) and dugo (blood).2061 Thus,
sanduguan is a solemn practice wherein participants share a drop of their blood in the
cup that everyone will partake of as a sign of forging a strong bond among friends or kin.
As far as the Filipinos are concerned, it is more solemn and inviolable than an ordinary
written contract, because it makes the contracting parties closer than real brothers or
sisters because they do not only share the same cup, but they drink a concoction of each
other’s blood.2062 Thus the idea is not only of sharing (solidarity) but also of
mixing(métissage) is being meaningfully embodied in this gesture.
In the same manner, the Eucharist can be seen by the Filipinos as an event of
sanduguan, because it allows the partakers of the blood of Christ, who shed His blood for
the salvation of everyone, to enter into a solemn commitment to be a ‘martyr’ for God and
for one another.2063 Those who share the same cup of sacrifice become part of the family
of God and, hence, share also in the saving mission of Jesus. By doing so, one also offers
willingly oneself as martyr or a sacrificial offering for the sake of the reign of God. With

2062Ibid.
2063Ibid.
363
SAMBAYANIHAN
the notion of sanduguan profoundly inculcated in the minds of the Filipino migrants, it
would not be impossible to think that, for them, the celebration of the mass will become
truly meaningful and something they find resonance to.
II.3.3.12.3. “Sambayanihan as Tagay”: Sharing the Same Cup of Martyrdom; A Gesture Of

Heroism and Holiness; A Profound Sign of Trust and Unity
Tagay is another Filipino cultural trait that is related to the notion of fellowship or
the act of drinking together. This gesture, we believe, is closely related to the ideas we
have put forward in the preceding section, which are about solidarity and métissage, is
normally understood by the Filipinos as an occasion for fellowship as they enjoy an
alcoholic drink by sharing the one glass that is passed around as each one has a gulp of
the beverage. This is a sign of true solidarity because, with this, they run the risk of
sharing each other’s saliva and bacteria as well. And that is the real test of unity and
trust. They become part of one another as they partake of the same drink from the same
glass that contains also the risky elements that they have to share with one another.
This is precisely the essence of sharing the same chalice in the context of the
celebration of the Holy Mass. By sharing the same cup, we share each other’s life and
suffering. Whenever we do it, we show our willingness and boldness to suffer with one
another as Christ has done for us. This means that we should never shy away from the
all the challenges, sacrifices and risks involved in following the Way of Christ and in being
part of each other’s life. It is our opinion, therefore, that when Filipino migrants see the
sharing of the one chalice of sacrifice in the celebration of the mass against the
background of the Filipino notion of tagay, they will become more aware of their
commitment to Jesus and to one another. Hopefully, they will take more seriously their
roles as disciples of Christ and as members of one family of God. Hopefully, they will
practice genuinely the meaning of co-responsibility, which is the essence of damayan or
bayanihan.
Tagay, for us, symbolically embodies the notion of sambayanihan which we would
like to be celebrated in liturgies of/for Filipinios in diaspora. When they drink from the
same cup, they affirm their solidarity with one another and to everyone. They declare their
commitment to bear each other’s load and to accompany each other in the journey of faith
amidst all the risks, sufferings and pains. Because they share the same “bloodline”
through the sanduguan and the tagay, they can heroically partake of each other’s “life
and death”. The thought of leaving their oral fluid on the cup that they all share as each
one touches his or her lips on the cup, despite the grossness of it and the act of wiping it
with the purificator, can become a powerful symbol of sambayanihan, worshipping as one
people of God whose members show their willingness to sacrifice themselves in solidarity
with one another and in participation to the mission of Christ to redeem the world.
II.3.3.12.4. What can Filipinos Learn from their Contexts in Western Europe
Based on our research and our limited understanding of how faith or religiosity is
being expressed by several Catholic faithful in Western Europe, locals or immigrants, we
can say that proper inculturation in the context of Filipino migration in Western Europe
may include the practice of praying the Pater Noster in different languages at the same
time, each one praying in his or her mother tongue. In this way, they are affirming the
same faith and addressing the same Father in the language they are familiar with. It can
be likened to the experience of Pentecost wherein the same Spirit of God animates
everyone, but the experience is deeply personal. Thus, it is both individual and communal.
364
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
Another thing that we believe to be a positive aspect that Filipino migrants have to
imbibe is the value of punctuality. Contemporary Western Europeans are generally known
for being on time. Time for them is so valuable to be wasted. Filipinos, however, are
infamous for being late, because of their propensity to operate on what they fondly call as
“Filipino time”. We believe that if Filipinos will divest themselves of what is perceived to be
a “bad habit”, which we see as already being assimilated by them, they will appreciate
more the Gospel value of Kairos. They will learn how to consider each time as the
opportune time to be a Christian. They will acquire the attitude of vigilance that every
Christian faithful must have.
In addition to the aforementioned suggestions, we surmise that, perhaps, it is also
good if the value of equality will be embraced by the Filipinos even in the area of liturgical
celebrations. In that way, they will feel more empowered and, hence, more inspired to
participate more actively in their religious gatherings. They will be less passive because
they are aware that everyone matters in the liturgical celebrations, and not just the
presider. Part of this notion of equality is the awareness of everyone in the congregation
is a concelebrant. The main celebrant is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. The priest,
despite his very important role in the celebration of the mass, is properly called as presider
who stands in the middle of the congregation, alongside and in front of, as a minister who
act in persona Christi capitis and in persona ecclesiae.2064
To conclude this portion, we would like to state that the kind of inculturation that
we have in mind requires an integration of elements that are deemed to be specifically
Filipino and those that are emanating from the present milieu of Western European
society. This inculturation is seen as a transcultural endeavor because it is not only about
fusion of several horizons but also about transformation that must be seen as a
continuous process. That is why, we believe that inculturation in the context of Filipino
diaspora in Western Europe needs to assume the state of temporariness. We can say that,
for the Filipinos, it is acceptable that the basic structure of the contemporary Roman Rite
should remain “intact” all throughout the constant and on-going evolution of liturgical
rites. At the same time, it is also profoundly appreciated if, from time to time, these
celebrations will also integrate some essential Filipino cultural elements in the liturgy,
along with other elements coming from their contemporary context in Western Europe. Of
course, the church ministers, who we believe must not be either too conservative or too
progressive, are there to regulate the celebrations and to check whether some abuses are
done or not in the inculturative process. When this is done, Filipino members of the
church congregation, and even those who are coming from other cultural backgrounds,
will experience the celebrations as personally addressing them and truly embodying what
catholicity is about. The kind of transcultural inculturation that we see in the context of
Filipino diaspora is more internal rather than external. What it means is that the Filipino
migrants will look at liturgy with fresh eyes by imbibing the different cultures, of course a
big chunk of those cultures comes from their Filipino background, in their respective
worldviews. With this metanoia that is happening more in the level of attitude rather than
2064Cf.Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 20 November 1947. Cf. also Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, 21 November 1964.
Cf. also Pope Paul VI, Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, Encyclical, 1967. Cf. also John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae,
Apostolic Exhortation, 24 February 1980. Cf. also Holy See, Catechism of the Catholic Church (Second,
“Definitive” Edition), 1997. Cf. also Holy See, Code of Canon Law, 1983, Benedict XVI, Motu Proprio, Omnium
in Mentem, 2009. Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, “Note on the Minister of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the
Sick”, (11 February 2005),
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20050211_unzio
ne-infermi_en.html [accessed June 5, 2015].
365
SAMBAYANIHAN
outward appearances, they experience their liturgies more differently and more
meaningfully.
Conclusion: Inculturation in a Transcultural Milieu: A Migrant Filipino Liturgy in

Western Europe
Our exploration in this current chapter had brought us to various issues

surrounding liturgical inculturation. In order to tease out the pertinent matters (i.e,
concepts and evolutionary processes) concerning culture, we had engaged Raymond
Williams and Daniel Pilario, especially in the unraveling of three major shifts in the
understanding of culture: the Utilitarian, Culturalist and Marxist perspectives. In sorting
out the various views on culture and cultural formation, we also went through the whole
nine yards of assessing what perspectives on culture could hold water. With the help of
Williams, we were enlightened that, although people had been traditionally led to believe
that the notion culture could only be ascribed to what could be considered as belonging
to the perspective or activities reserved for the elite class (i.e., high-culture), culture could
also be seen as a “communal product”. For him, “common culture” could be regarded as
a more viable position regarding culture. Culture pertains to what is actual. It is about
the identity that is ordinarily lived by the people of the society. Thus, the formation of
culture follows the “regular” ebb and flow of particular communities as history unfolds.
But, of course, the issue of ‘power’ cannot be overlooked because hegemony is an
undeniable reality in any cultural formation. Certainly, there are more powerful voices or
elements that have the upper hand in the “definition” of what can be “commonly” held by
the people as a social identity. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that alongside the cultural
mainstream exist some alternative currents which are referred to as either novel
(emerging) or left-over (residual). These voices of dissent that present some constrasting
perspectives to what is considered to be normative may either continue to be consigned to
the fringes or eventually be assimilated to the main cultural current in a manner that is
reminiscent of Gadamer’s notion of “fusion of horizon”2065. The development of culture,
therefore, is a continuous process that entails a community’s participation, knowingly and
unknowingly. It is not only shaped by a select group of individuals who are detached from
the ordinary life of the people. It should factor in the actual experience of the entire
community that continues to be enriched by what transpires in history.
From there, we proceeded to a meticulous scrutiny of the complex notion of
inculturation, especially in the context of Filipino diaspora where the concept of
transculturality is deemed to be an appropriate lens because it evokes the notions not
only of permeation and mutual fecundation but also of change and movement as indicated
by the prefix trans. Using all the concepts examined in this chapter, we then moved on to
a cartographic sketch of the history of Roman Liturgy which we placed against the
background of inculturation. We have argued in this particular section that Roman
Liturgy is a product of a long process of inculturation and originally an expression of the
common culture of the ordinary people. After this, we proceeded to a survey of some of
the positions held by significant theologians who dealt with the issue of liturgical
inculturation, such as Ratzinger, Schmemann, Chupungco and Claver. It was in this
phase where we tried to untangle the intricacy of liturgical inculturation which could be
seen as a balancing act between the importance of being faithful to tradition and of
responding accordingly to the signs of the time. To maintain a meaningful balance between
2065In German it is referred to as Horizontverschmelzung. Although Gadamer focuses more on the horizon of
the text and the reader, we can also adapt this notion to how culture continues to evolve and absorb elements
from other “sources” that exist alongside the “established” culture. Cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and
Method (London and New York: Continuum, 1975, 1989, 1997, 2004, 2006).
366
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
the integrity of Christian tradition and genuine respect to a local cultural tradition,
Ratzinger suggested the concept of “interculturality” which, according to Claver, could be
considered only as an essential but particular phase in the process of inculturation best
exemplified by the Gospel narrative about the encounter of Jesus and the Samaritan
woman. On top of this proposal of Claver, we proposed the two-fold query of Jesus to his
disciples on the way to Jerusalem as a biblical metaphor for inculturation which could be
seen as a continuous response to the inquiry regarding Jesus’ identity. Indeed, an
interplay between mediated and unmediated knowledge helps in the process of
inculturation.
Ultimately, we examined the viability of the proposed Misa ng Bayan in the context
of Filipino diaspora and tried to retrieve some Filipino cultural elements which could be
used as inspirations for a “properly” inculturated Filipino diasporic liturgy, such as the
essential role of Mary, the centrality of unity and hospitality, and the profound symbolisms
of sanduguan, salu-salo, and tagay. All these discussions, combined with the data that we
have gathered from our interviews with the members of the Filipino Catholic migrant
communities in some cities of Belgium, France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy
and Greece, have brought us to a conclusion that an inculturated liturgy in a transcultural
milieu means a creative blend, perhaps not in strictly permanent way, of elements from
cultures that make up the peculiar identity/identities of Filipino Catholic migrant
communities wherever they are geographically and socially located.
Based on the discussions that have transpired in this chapter, we have pointed out
that there are different views on the notion of culture: culture is never estatic. Culture
continues to evolve. In fact, according to Claver, “culture, precisely because it is a human
invention, is always in process and is changing all the time…faith is just as dynamic – it
can deepen and strengthen, or grow weak and die completely. The inculturative process
hence will never be perfected, will always in fact be susceptible of more or less, of growth
and decline in either or both of its components.” 2066 He also rightly points out that “The
human part of the inculturative process, like all things human, will never be free of an
element of sin. And because this is so, it is part of faith to purify culture of whatever is
sinful in its make-up and functioning at any given time. But this has to be done by flesh-
and-blood people at every phase of their faith-life.”2067
We have also argued above that culture is never monolithic or mono-dimensional. It
is always made up of different elements from different sources. Indeed, it is right to assert
that it is a métis. For this reason, Galliardetz argues that “Culture is a dynamic rather
than a static concept…Cultures are always shifting and adapting new contexts and
ongoing engagements and exchanges with other cultures.”2068
Keenly aware of the fact that every culture is a métis and greatly influenced by
complex power dynamics, we argue that, indeed, Filipino culture/s, whether in the
country or in diaspora, is/are always mestizo/ or, in the words of Phan, in the betwixt
and between. It is always situated in a liminal place, a place of creativity and
transformation. Thus, Filipinoness is a métissage, always a transcultural reality.
Genuine or profound liturgical inculturation will only be achieved once the people
who participate in the liturgies have understood in a deeper level what Catholic faith is
within their respective cultural vantage points. They may be attained, as we have been
trying to do in the Filipino Catholic migrant communities we have been ministering to in
Western Europe and in the U.S., through a creative use of Gilbert Ostdiek’s proposed
Liturgical Catechesis which provides a hospitable venue for parishioners to talk about

2067Ibid.
2068Richard R. Gaillardetz, Ecclesiology for a Global Church: A People Called and Sent (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis,
2008), 74.
367
SAMBAYANIHAN
their lives as practitioners of Christian faith, their experience of and insights on the
readings/homilies and the whole celebration of liturgies, and their desires and hopes for
future celebrations. This certainly requires a genuinely open dialogue between/among
academicians, ministers and members of the congregation. Otherwise, inculturation will
only be superficial and will only appear to be an outward show or cosmetic make-over that
has no profound spiritual and theological relevance at all.
Nevertheless, we need to be vigilant in this endeavor so that we avoid falling into the
pitfall of essentialism wherein some cultural elements will be rendered fossilized and
lifeless, no longer conveying their intended message and meaning. On that note, we can
say that whatever recommendations that we have laid down in this chapter as possible
inculturative trajectories must be taken as suggestions only. We certainly need to involve
the people on the ground in the table of discernment. They are the ultimate judge whether
the suggested elements or the recommended theological bases for the inculturation
genuine speak to them or not. They will decide whether the proposals will hold water or
not. We must always bear in mind, according to Galliardetz, that “There is a danger of
cultural romanticism that assumes that all things indigenous are necessarily good and to
be affirmed.”2069 Moreover, we should not also forget, Amaladoss insists, that in the
process of inculturation “We are talking not about inserting the gospel into a culture, but
about a dialogue between a particular cultural formulation of the Christian faith and a
particular local culture. The dialogical model recognizes that the Christian message is
always presented in a particular cultural form.”2070 For indeed, as Galliardetz would put
it, “There is no ‘pure’ gospel that can be understood apart from the various forms in which
it is embodied in culture and language.”2071 He warns us, however, that “The intent is not
to deny the transcendence of the gospel itself, but merely to recognize that no one cultural
form itself captures that transcendence. There is a universal dimension that,
paradoxically, is encountered only in the overlapping particularities of cultural
expressions.”2072 This position certainly agrees with the notion of inculturation that Claver
has proposed which includes the four moments of encounter. Of course, it is also
congruent to our suggestion to use the two-fold question of Jesus regarding His identity.
Both Claver’s and our recommendations underscore the direct communication of the
Divine and the limits of human mediation. Galliardetz, therefore, suggests that “Culture
can be understood both as an integrated reality, a set of shared meanings and values that
bind people together, and as a contested reality constituted by inequities in power and
participation in the social life of a community.”2073
We have already made clear in our discussions above that real living
culture/cultures, as well as mature and healthy faith, continue to evolve. While the
evolution takes place, culture becomes more and more hybrid, more and more
transcultural, more and more ‘catholic’. For indeed, according to Galliardetz,
“Intercultural dialogue sees the catholicity of the church as a dynamic reality.”2074
We have also argued that genuine and fruitful inculturation necessitates a dialogue
with tradition and with those who are perceived to be at fringes. Mark Francis argues that
“The perspectives of our Catholic forebears, the majority of whom were people of a simple yet
profound faith, has often been overlooked or even disdained by those in a position to dominate
the historical record. While we hear of the contribution of popes, bishops, kings, and famous
2069Gaillardetz, Ecclesiology for a Global Church, 70.

2070Ibid., 71. Cf. Michael Amaladoss, Beyond Inculturation: Can the Many Be One? (Delhi: Indian Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1998), 14-17.
2071Gaillardetz, Ecclesiology for a Global Church, 72.
2072Ibid.
2073Ibid.
2074Ibid., 73.
368
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
theologians, it is rare that liturgical histories speak of the majority of Christians, many of whom
were largely uneducated, even illiterate, but who nevertheless passed on to the next generation
the traditions and rituals that sustained their lives of faith.”2075
Thus, it is important that “these ‘nobodies,’ past and present” must be taken into serious
account, according to Mark Francis, “in order to come to grips with the process by which
liturgical inculturation has taken place in the history of the Church and continues to take
place around the world.”2076 On that note, he also underlines the intimate relationship
between liturgy and popular piety. He rightly points out that
“Liturgy and popular religion can be envisioned as two streams flowing alongside each other,
both emptying into the same sea. At times these streams unite, their waters intermingling and
often indistinguishable; at times they flow at quite a distance from each other in channels that
easily demarcate one from the other. Both streams ultimately flow, however, in the same
direction and have the same goal – celebrating the transforming presence of the Holy One in
our midst.”2077
On the basis of what we have discussed above, we can say that there is an intimate
link between inculturation and migration. Because of the movement of the people, either
by trade or because of other reasons that facilitate peoples’ contact with one another,
communities widen their cultural “horizons” by assimilating elements from foreign
“visitors” or new residents. Thus, inculturation is inevitable in the phenomenon of
migration. This means to say that as Filipinos are dispersed in other parts of the globe
and settle in new territories, they will certainly influence the cultures of their host
countries. Even Mark Francis affirms that “The presence of immigrant Catholics in the
traditionally Christian countries in the Global North, most of whom go to church
convinced of the power of prayer to make difference in their lives, is a dimension of
‘popular religion’ that needs to be taken seriously, especially when preparing liturgy in a
multicultural community.”2078
That is precisely the reason why we would like to propose that one of the ways to
come up with an inculturated liturgy appropriate for Filipino Catholic communities in
diaspora is to base it on bayanihan, which, as we have already expounded earlier, speaks
of carrying one house (i.e., Church) by pulling together different resources, capacities and
personalities in the spirit of solidarity and harmony towards one goal which is to bring
people to a better place. This is a collaborative journey of faith towards liberation,
reconciliation and communion – towards heavenly agape. This is certainly based on what
we have gathered from our encounters with the Filipino migrants. They, indeed, reported
that in their communities, they have experienced the spirit of bayanihan which makes
them appreciate more not only their communities but also the celebrations of liturgy. The
notion of bayanihan, in terms of liturgy, means that elements from different cultures may
be incorporated in a profoundly creative and meaningful way wherein the “normative”
Latin rite is given a mestizo/a aura. While following the basic structure of the Roman
liturgy that most, if not all, of the Filipino migrants have grown accustomed to, they also
employ lively and emotionally powerful music mainly composed by the Filipino musicians.
Bayanihan liturgy also includes homilies that are appealing to Filipino sensibility and
sentimentality which can either be delivered by Filipino priests or priests who speak
Filipino language and familiar with Filipino culture, way of worshipping and praying, and
humor. We also mentioned earlier that this inculturation, which is a manifestation of
2075Mark R. Francis, Local Worship, Global Church: Popular Religion and the Liturgy (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical
Press, 2014), 6.
2076Ibid., 7.
2077Ibid., 158.
2078Ibid., 159. For an account on the impact of charismatic Christians in the British Isles emanating from
India please see Krishna Cooper, “Feel the Spirit,” The Tablet 267(2013): 4-5.
369
SAMBAYANIHAN
bayanihan spirituality, necessarily assimilates praiseworthy cultural traits of European

and other cultures. Thus, inculturation truly becomes transcultural. In Filipino parlance,
it becomes genuinely a result of bayanihan.
We can also add here that transcultural inculturation may, at times, include
observance of what is generally accepted as traditional Filipino rites and celebrations
which will then serve as “supplementary” or “auxiliary” rites. Certainly, people will highly
appreciate them. These supplementary or auxiliary rites and celebrations may include the
santracruzan,2079 salubong,2080 the panunuluyan,2081 the cenaculo,2082 the pasyon,2083 the
karakul,2084 the sinulog,2085 and the fluvial/maritime procession in honor of Our Lady of
Peñafrancia, the Patroness of Bicol Region.2086 We can say that, perhaps, the Filipino
inculturated liturgy that may be most feasibly celebrated on a regular basis in the Western
European context would be the “Latin” rite celebration of the mass but will be
characterized predominantly, but not exclusively, by Filipino ministers, congregation,
music, prayer, language and homily. There is no problem welcoming people from other
cultural backgrounds because Filipino people are known for their flexibility, hospitality
and generosity. Of course, Filipino inculturated liturgies cannot be Filipino without the
table fellowship (sharing of Filipino home-cooked meals) that follows immediately after the
mass where people will have a chance to visit with each other, share light moments with
each other through jokes and laughter, sing songs together, exchange ideas, and even
discussing pressing concerns and critical issues as one family.
This does not discount, however, the joy and beauty of being part the community
and liturgical celebrations of the local communities in Western Europe. Although there is
a tendency for some Filipino migrant communities to limit their participation in the so-
called Filipino chaplaincies, there is a sizeable sum of them that integrate and participate
in the larger, more transcultural communities. Their active involvement certainly adds
vibrancy to these communities. We have seen that Filipinos have been actively
participating in the local communities and in the liturgical celebrations in the Dioceses of
Liege, Brussels, Gent, Brugge, Athens, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Paris, Barcelona and
others. These celebrations, indeed, become a venue to honor and celebrate the unique
traits of each one’s cultures and traditions. Events like these make the transcultural
communities and gatherings much richer and more meaningful. It cannot be denied,
however, at times some conflicts arise in these occasions due to the different
temperaments and backgrounds of the participating cultural communities. But we believe
that those instances make them aware that Catholicism is not about uniformity but,
indeed, it is a religion that celebrates unity in diversity. And finding a balance between
these two is always a work in progress. It is never perfectly achieved by human beings.
2079This is the commemoration of how the Consort Queen Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, found the
“true” cross of Jesus.
2080This is a “reenactment” of the encounter of the Resurrected Christ and His mother, Mary, on the day of
Easter wherein a little child playing the role of an angel from heaven literally removes, while singing Regina
Coeli Laetare, the black veil covering the head of the sorrowful mother to symbolize the joy of Eastertide. This
event, then, proceeds to the first mass to be celebrated on that day.
2081A musical reenactment of how Mary and Joseph struggled to find a place for Mary to deliver her baby,
which takes place right before the celebration of the midnight Christmas mass.
2082The Passion play.
2083An inculturated choral recitation/chanting of the Paschal Mystery that begins with the account of Creation.
2084A processional dance that involves the entire community in honor of a patron saint or when processing
into the Church at the beginning of the Eucharistic celebration or during the preparation of the gifts.
2085The reenactment the encounter between the indigenous Filipino people and the Spanish missionaries who
introduced Christian faith with the help of the image of the Holy Infant Jesus that was given as a gift to the
Queen of Cebu.
2086A prayerful procession of boats in the river or in the sea that commemorates the first miracle of the
miraculous image of the Virgin Mary wherein the dog whose blood was used to paint the image came into life
when thrown in the river.
370
FROM MISA NG BAYAN
These communities and celebrations, in complex but wonderful ways, help the Christian
communities, including the host community, to grow in faith as they appreciate the beauty
in each one’s culture and tradition, influencing each other by showing others the richness
of one’s religious heritages. The question of who has the louder voice and the power,
however, must be properly addressed in this regard, because there are instances wherein
the leaders of the host community would insist that, by virtue of them being the host and
original ‘occupants’ of the parish community, they have the sole right to organize how
things are to be done in the parish. There are host communities that are not open to the
contributions of the migrant communities in terms of leadership and liturgical celebration.
In terms of the frequency of the transcultural celebrations of Catholic liturgy
participated in by various cultural communities present in the dioceses in Europe, we can
say that this can be done either on a monthly, bi-monthly or a quarterly basis, depending
on the proximity of the cultural communities to one another. Organizing these, however,
must be balanced also with the opportunity of the different cultural communities to gather
and celebrate liturgies on their own using the language they are most comfortable with,
alongside their unique traits and ways of celebrating liturgies, which can be done either
three times a month, or twice a month, or once a month, depending on the availability of
venues and how organized the cultural chaplaincies are, like the Filipino chaplaincies in
Paris, Brussel, Athens, Rome and the Personal Parish for Filipinos in Barcelona. These
Filipino communities, despite being composed mainly by Filipino migrant church-goers,
also welcome other cultural communities, including their host community, to join them
in the ‘one’ celebration of Catholic Holy Mass. It is important to always remember that we
must not see transcultural communities and liturgies as a ‘melting-pot’ where everything
is dissolved to just one monolithic block.
Maybe, from time to time, we can celebrate the Misa ng Bayan as proposed by
Chupungco on special occasions, such as during the celebration of the Philippine
Independence Day by the Filipinos in diaspora which they usually begin with the
celebration of the Holy Eucharist. Perhaps, it can also be used during Filipino spiritual
congresses, like the annual spiritual congress of Filipino Catholic ministries in Flanders
(Belgium) which was begun in 2015.
371
CHAPTER 4
GATHERING AND SENDING FROM THE MARGINS; FROM ECONOMIC MIGRATION TO

GLOBAL MISSION VIA ECCLESIOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES IN UNION
“The basic communities…will have to develop for the most part out of existing
parishes…This does not exclude the fact that a basic community has its own
pronounced character, gives itself a certain structure and (if you like to use the term)
constitution, and that it really demands from its freely associated members
something which goes completely beyond what a parishioner today has to do for the
ordinary parish…The church of the future will be one built from below by basic
communities as a result of free initiative and association. We should make every effort
not to hold up this development, but to promote it and direct it on the right lines…
The church will exist only by being constantly renewed by a free decision of faith…in
the midst of a secular world…for the church cannot be a real factor in secular history
except as sustained by the faith on the part of human beings…Basic communities
will in fact emerge from below, even though it will be a call from the gospel and the
message of the church coming out of the past.”2087
Karl Rahner, 1974
“[BEC/SCC] answers to a need to rediscover the Church and, in a sense, to re-

enter and renew her from below. Many of our contemporaries find that for them the
Church’s machinery, sometimes the very institution, is a barrier obscuring her deep
and living mystery, which they can find, or find again, only from below, through little
Church cells wherein the mystery is lived directly and with great simplicity.”2088
-Yves Congar, 1957
Introduction: Sambayanihan: A Compelling Missiological Force in Small

Ecclesiological Packages: A Viable Catch-Basin for Historical, Theological, and
Liturgical Streams
I
f there is one specific point where everything that we have discussed above (i.e., trans-
colonial re-writing/re-righting of the Filipino national and migration history,
transdisciplinary articulation of Filipino theology, and transcultural inculturation of
liturgy in the context of Filipino diaspora vis-à-vis globalization) can be coherently tied
together, it is found in our proposal to re-imagine the Filipino Catholic migrant
communities in Western Europe as Basic Ecclesial Communities which we would like to
call as sambayanihan communities. This suggestion to envision the said communities as
sambayanihan is deemed as a response to the signs of the times, specifically in Western
Europe where the “eclipse of God” is profoundly felt and the massive and rapid rise of
globalization is as ubiquitous as it can be. We are convinced that by advocating for the
cultivation of Filipino migrant BECs in Western Europe, which we hope to be as
transcultural/intercultural as possible and to be an inspiration for other cultural
communities, we can offer a possible route to re-shape the landscape of Catholic
ecclesiology which is inevitably intertwined, among others, with the spheres of history,
theology and liturgy. Of course, we are not oblivious of the fact that other cultural
communities can also offer similar and alternative ways of addressing the issue.
2087Karl Rahner, The Shape of the Church to Come (New York: Seabury, 1974), 108-15.
2088Yves M. J. Congar, O.P., Lay People in the Church, trans. D. Attwater (London: Bloomsbury, 1957/1959),
339.
SAMBAYANIHAN
Having said that, let us first recount my experience of globality and my impression
on the impact of Filipino migrant communities in Western Europe as a young seminarian
and, eventually, as an ordained priest pursuing post-graduate studies in Leuven.
As a young Filipino seminarian, I was given the rare privilege of being sent by the
Diocese of Sorsogon (Philippines) to pursue theological studies at the prestigious
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium as part of my training for the priesthood. The
American College at Leuven, which was originally only meant to prepare seminarians from
the dioceses in the U.S. for future priestly ministry within the ecclesiastical territories
covered by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), welcomed me as a
member of their community so I could continue my seminary formation while finishing
the academic requirements for sacerdotal ordination. Being a seminarian of the American
College and, at the same time, pursuing a degree in theology at KU Leuven had given me
so many things to be thankful for. One of those blessings was the rare opportunity of
having to meet people from different parts of the globe. For me, meeting them meant
personal enrichment because by that I came to appreciate the multiple worldviews and
cultural traditions that proliferate in our world, which I must humbly admit was not an
easy thing to undertake because there were a lot of instances where I found not only
harmony among them but also glaring incongruences and conflicts that were difficult to
be reconciled or just simply irreconcilable. Another thing that I count as a blessing was
the opportunity to know up-close-and-personal the Filipino migrant communities in both
the U.S. and Western Europe wherein I became aware of their real joys, sorrows,
successes, failures, hopes and frustrations. I believe that I was fortunate enough to know
them and see what they had contributed to their host countries which I thought was
mostly unrecognized. Thus, when I headed back to the Philippines when my theological
training came to a close, I brought home with me a lot of wonderful stuff which included
a deep appreciation of cultural differences and a profound respect for Filipino overseas
workers.
Few years after my ordination to the priesthood and after being assigned to various
ministries and in various capacities, I was given again a chance to go back to Leuven to
pursue post-graduate study in theology. Going back to Leuven brought back not only fond
memories but also the important lessons that I learned in this institution. Certainly, this
also has become an opportunity for me to get to know more about the Filipino migrant
communities in Western Europe, especially in Belgium, because this time, as a priest, I
have the privilege of accompanying them in their spiritual journey through the masses
that I have celebrated with them and other activities. As a matter of fact, for one year, I
was appointed by the Bishop of Brussels-Mechelen to fill, ad interim, the vacuum at the
Filipino Chaplaincy in Brussels. Being a chaplain to the Filipinos in Brussels has made
my conviction even stronger that the Filipino migrant communities are, indeed, a force to
be reckoned with and that they have a lot of things to give to the Universal Church, despite
the unfortunate things they have experienced and the problematic tendencies that they
have. Thus, this doctoral dissertation is conceived. Surely, the role of the Filipino Catholic
communities in the West can no longer be swept under the rug. They are more than just
active participants in lively church liturgies. They do have a great impact on the area of
ecclesiology which we would like to explore in this chapter.
Having said that, we argue that whatever Stephen Cherry has said about the Filipino
American communities in the U.S., especially in Texas, can also be applied to the Filipino
Catholic migrant communities in Western Europe:
“In general, Filipino Americans, both men and women, like other immigrants from the global
South, have the potential to reshape American Catholicism. …As such Filipino Americans are
374
not only challenging the more liberal and moderate beliefs of their fellow American Catholics
but are challenging the Church itself. Likewise, with a cultural and religious obligation to
protect the sanctity of the family, Filipino immigrants are also making their presence felt as
they continue to engage American society.”2089
In our insertion to the Filipino Catholic migrant communities in Western Europe,

especially in Belgium, we have seen that they do have what it takes to bring about positive
changes in the contemporary landscape of Western European ecclesiology. They do have
the potential to re-shape Western European Catholicism. We see this great potential in
them in a way that is similar to how Bernard Lee appraises the impact of Small Christian
Communities in the United States. Unfortunately, however, Lee’s research work did not
mention anything about the Filipino-American communities. Perhaps, it was just an
oversight? Maybe, he thought that Filipino communities needed not to be mentioned as a
separate entity, because they could blend in very well with the local communities? We
have heard several times very sweeping statements, such as “Filipinos speak English very
well and they have no problem making themselves at home in the predominantly white
congregation”. Conceivably, there is some truth to that, especially because we have
already elaborated in our first chapter how Filipinos behave in United States. They feel
that they are also “white”. Sometimes, even “whiter” than the white Americans themselves.
Because of this, they have probably dissolved into invisibility that theologians like Lee
failed to notice their presence. We can only surmise. Nevertheless, we are still convinced
that the Filipino Catholic migrant communities in the U.S. and in Western Europe can be
considered as a locus theologicus. As such, they also genuinely possess, to borrow the
words of Lee, “a dynamic that gives the church a will and an effective voice in secular
history.”2090 We assume that, by looking at them as comparatively similar to what Basic
Ecclesial Communities are, they can properly inform us of a possible conceptual
framework of and trajectory for contemporary ecclesiology. Small Christian Communities
(SCCs) or Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs), according to Lee, can be viable avenues
for “the transformation of ourselves and our worlds…authentically conducted within a
community, by a community, for the sake of the community.”2091 In these communities,
one can find veritable contact points for “[mutual] critical conversation between
interpretations of faith and interpretations of social worlds within which we live.” 2092
This chapter shall therefore be composed of four major sections that will be dealt
with: 1) How the Basic Ecclesial Community is understood in the Official Teachings of the
Church, such as the documents of the Vatican II, some post-conciliar statements or letters
of the popes, canonical implications of BEC based on the Code of Canon Law, and various
regional declarations of the Church hierarchy; 2) How BECs emerge and flourish in several
parts of the globe; 3) How BECs came to be in the Philippines and how they have fared in
the country amidst the challenges which made them a pastoral priority in the Philippines
as affirmed by PCPII, CFC and other Church documents promulgated by the CBCP; 4) and
How the concept of BEC can be adapted to the Western European context, especially in
2089Cherry, Faith, Family, and Filipino American Community Life, 158.

2090Bernard Lee, The Catholic Experience of Small Christian Communities (New Jersey: Paulist, 2000), 20.
2091Ibid.
2092Ibid.
“In The Analogical Imagination, Tracy’s most systematic work to date, he presents a hermeneutical
understanding of theology, centered on the notion of the classic, which emphasizes interpretation and the
necessarily public character of systematic theology (Todd Breyfogle and Thomas Levergood, “Conversation
with David Tracy,” Cross Currents 44(1994): 301). Tracy had originally intended these two works as the first
installments of a trilogy, to be followed by a work on practical theology, but he never completed this project.”
Wesley Wildman, ed., “David Tracy,” Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western Theology,
http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/bce/tracy.htm [accessed October 10, 2017].
375
SAMBAYANIHAN
the case of the Filipino migrant communities. This chapter may appear as too descriptive
that our readers may wonder what our personal stance regarding the issue at stake?. Our
simple theological position is nothing else but the viability of forming or transforming of
Filipino migrant Catholic communities into something like Basic Ecclesial Communities.
To give our readers a wide perspective on this issue we feel that it is necessary to present
various documents about, perspectives on, and examples of Basic Ecclesial Communities
on which we based our proposal that can be found mostly in the last sections of this
chapter. In the spirit of interculturality or transculturality, the Filipino migrant
communities in Western Europe may learn from the examples of the different BECs and
SCCs that have emerged in the different hemispheres of the world. Definitely, there are
lessons that they can inculturate or adapt to their particular circumstances. They also
need to decide what will and will not work for them. Our recommendations found towards
the last portions of this chapter will elaborate on how Filipino migrant communities can
learn from other BECs/SCCs, which have cited, and develop their own formula for creating
viable Basic Ecclesial Communities in Western Europe.
Thus, what we want to accomplish in this chapter, with all the concepts that we have
been exploring in part 1 and in the first 3 chapters, is to propose a “new” way of looking
at the small Catholic communities formed by the Filipino migrants in the Western
European context as a viable expression of the contemporary Catholic Church that values
trans-coloniality and trans-culturality. We believe that a modified version of the Basic
Ecclesial Communities, which we would like to call as SAMBAYANIHAN COMMUNITIES,
can be one of the viable ways of re-structuring the church in Western Europe. Based on
our assessment, an inculturation or a re-contextualization of this kind of ecclesiology,
which has been seen as prevalent in the southern hemisphere of the globe, will help in
creating ripples of hope in Western Europe where Catholicism has, unfortunately, been
perceived as losing its ground. Inspired by the notion of Eucharistic ecclesiology and
armed with soft-power diplomacy, which is an evangelization approach from below and
within, the sambayanihan communities can become genuine expressions of Christian
communities that embody the notions of weerloze overmarcht and “hospitality of the
stranger”.
In view of this, we would like to suggest that, against the background of
contextualized trans-colonial perspective, which we have already discussed earlier as
“predicated on revolution, movement, and transformation”2093, these Filipino migrant
communities can “remodel” themselves into becoming SAMBAYANIHAN communities [i.e.,
(Sam/isa) oneness, (Samba) worship/religiosity, (Bayan) community, (Bayani)
heroism/martyrdom, and (Bayanihan) collaborative endeavor en via ] which embody the
“dialogic, co-responsible and participative” Church envisioned by the Second Vatican
Council. We perceive this endeavor to be of great significance because the Filipino
migrants in Western Europe are considered to be one of the most active ethnic
communities in the realm of Western European church life. As such, whatever changes
happen to them will have a substantial impact on the church in Western Europe. At this
juncture, we would like to reiterate what we have already said at the outset that we do not
disregard the fact that other communities can and do influence the composition and flow
of Western European ecclesiology. Though interesting and worth pursuing, we are
convinced that including them in our discussions in a substantial fashion is already
beyond the parameters of our current endeavor.
2093See summary of Bowman’s, Trans-Colonial Historiographic.
376
To accomplish this task that we have envisioned, we shall tackle the varied histories
of Basic Ecclesial Communities/Small Christian Communities that sprang up in
numerous parts of the world as a timely response to the signs of the times and to the new
spirit brought about by the Second Vatican Council. In this regard, we shall engage
Francisco Claver whose views on inculturation have been employed in our discussions in
the third chapter of this doctoral project. For him the issue of inculturation is intimately
linked to the issue of building basic ecclesial communities. To enrich our discussion on
BEC/SCC we shall also include in the table of discussion some Filipino theologians
and/proponents of BECs in the Philippines, such as Amado Picardal who is the current
Executive Secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines – Basic Ecclesial
Communities Committee (CBCP-BEC Committee); Manuel Gabriel who is an Associate
Professor in Pastoral Theology at the Loyola School of Studies (Quezon City, Philippines)
and has published a number of books on BEC or BCC; Estella Padilla who, according to
the FACEBOOK account of the “Bukal ng Tipan”, is “the only lay and woman member of
the Office for Theological Concerns of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conference”2094 and
has written extensively in the topic of BEC while being an active promoter of BECs in the
dioceses in the Philippines; and Emmanuel De Guzman who is an alumnus of the KU
Leuven and has published books and articles on BEC while teaching theology courses in
some of the seminaries and theological schools in the Philippine, especially at the St.
Vincent School of Theology (Quezon City, Philippines).
These Filipino resource persons shall be paired with some theologians from Latin
America like Leonardo Boff, Alvaro Barreiro, and Marcello Azevedo. These Latino
theologians have contributed a lot not only in theorizing on the issues of inculturation
and formation of CEBs but also in the actual creation of these alternative communities in
and out of Latin America. The views offered by these Latin American proponents of
BEC/CEB will be enriched by bringing them into dialogue not only with the
aforementioned Filipino theologians but also with Bernard Lee, Ian Fraser and Margaret
Hebblethwaite who offer their informed theological opinions on the formation of
BEC/SCC2095 in the Western context. The name “Small Christian Communities” is taken
to mean as an umbrella term by Healey and Hinton, which may be alternatively called as
SCC (i.e., in the Africa, Asia and North America), or “Comunidades eclesiale de base” (CEB)
in the Latin America which is a name that specifically highlights the notion that it stems
from the grassroots and its main thrust is the liberation of or the “preferential option for
the poor”, or Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC) that is mainly used in the Philippines to
underline the ecclesial character of these communities which is manifested in the most
basic level of the Church, or Basic/Base Christian Community (BCC) in Europe which are
mostly found in the fringes of the either the Protestant or the Catholic Church. These
communities, in whatever name they are called, all represent a “new way of being church,”
an expression which originated in Latin America and adapted in the West, especially in
addressing the issue of secularism.
2094CICM, Bukal ng Tipan,

https://www.facebook.com/278645845482362/photos/pcb.1300234916656778/1300234753323461/?typ
e=3 [accessed June 8, 2016].
2095Cf. Joseph Healey and Jeanne Hinton, eds., Small Christian Communities Today: Capturing the Moment
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005), 7.
377
SAMBAYANIHAN
II.4.1. The Emergence of the Basic Ecclesial Communities: The Fruits of Second
Vatican Council
II.4.1.1. BECs in Official Church Documents: Towards a Concrete Manifestion of Ecclesia

Semper Reformanda
Generally, it is agreed that the “cradle” of Basic Ecclesial Communities is the Latin
America.2096 What began as a response to a “lament” in 1956 was affirmed as a priority
for the Church in Latin America and the Carribean by both the Medellin and Puebla
conferences of the CELAM (Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano) in 1968 and 1979
respectively.2097 Leonardo Boff states, quoting Marins, that these “basic communities”
came to be seen as “’building a living church rather than multiplying material
structures.’”2098 Around this period, several kinds of BECs/SCCs started to be established
also in other parts of the globe.
Before we delve into the varied histories of BECs/SCCs all over the world, however,
we would like to re-visit some Church documents, both universal and local, that we believe
are vital to our understanding of BEC/SCC, in general, and to our proposed concept of
BEC for Filipino migrants, in particular. It is imperative that we situate our discourse in
the context of the official Church teachings on ecclesiology. Otherwise, our proposal will
be in vain. We understand that our contribution must be within the bounds of Catholic
ecclesiology. We need to make sure that no unnecessary radicalism will be pursued in this
venture. Thus, we are compelled to examine whether our notion of BECs agrees with what
is in the mind of the Church, diverges from or goes against it. It is clear to us that our
proposal is meant to contribute in the growth of the Catholic Church in Western Europe
by making use of the presence and participation of the Filipino migrants. It is neither
intended to create communities parallel to the Catholic ecclesial communities nor it is
conceived as presenting a theology contrary to or over and above Catholic ecclesiology.
Hence, the question that we have in mind is: Do we have enough basis within the ambit
of Catholic ecclesiology for contemplating and creating sambayanihan communities? If
yes, how do we go about the conceptual and the practical processes of forming these
communities?
2096In Brazil, according to Leonardo Boff, BECs or “basic church communities” were given birth in 1956 due
to the “lament of one humble woman” who pointed out the serious lack of priests in her community that
prevented them from celebrating important feasts, like Christmas. Dom Agnelo Rossi of Barra do Pirai,
perceiving the seriousness of the crisis, responded by mobilizing lay catechist and training them to become
lay community coordinators who can “do everything a lay person can do in God’s church in current ecclesial
discipline.” Leonardo Boff, Ecclesiognesis: The Base Communities Reinvent the Church, trans. Rober R. Barr
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997), 3. Cf. also Revisita Ecclesiástica Brasileira 17(1975): 731-37.
2097Boff states that “[e]ver since the Medellin conference (1968) this new ecclesial reality has been winning its
citizenship, and today it constitutes, without a doubt, one of the great principles of church renewal worldwide.”
Boff, Ecclesiognesis, 4. Cook, Jr. in an article, mentioned that “The 1979 Puebla Conference (CELAM III) called
the communidades ‘an expression of the church's preferential love for the poor ... the focal point of
evangelization, the motor of liberation.’” Cf. A. William Cook, Jr., “Base Ecclesial Communities: A Study of
Reevangelization and Growth in the Brazilian Catholic Church,”
http://www.internationalbulletin.org/issues/1980-03/1980-03-113-cook.pdf [accessed January 25, 2015].
2098Cook, “Base Ecclesial Communities.” Cf. also José Marins, “Communidades eclesiais de base na América
Latina,” Concilium 104(1975): 27.
378
II.4.1.1.1. BEC and Vatican II: The Microcosm of the People of God
The concept of BEC as such, however, is not explicitly identified or elaborated in the
Vatican documents. Although, some theologians tell us that we can glean from chapter 2
of Lumen Gentium (i.e., On the People of God) some inspirations or basis for arguing that,
indeed, the building of Basic Ecclesial Communities is implied, because it talks about the
three-fold ministry of Christ (i.e., as king, prophet and priest) that all members of the
Church share in common. These tria munera entitle an individual in the Church both the
right and the responsibility to enter into a “dialogic, participative, co-responsible”
relationship with the entire People of God.2099 In LG 13, it is noted that “[all people] are
called to belong to the new People of God.”2100 Thus, the Council, based on this
constitution, recognizes the more active role of the laity in Church-living and Church-
building as the foundation of what Claver asserts as the eight important elements of BECs,
namely: 1) a “community of believers;” 2) from the “grassroots level” 3) with “regular
meetings;” 4) of empowered “lay leadership;” 5) in “common worship;” 6) “communal
discernment;” 7) “community action on its discernment;” 8) and “as and in a
community.”2101 Having said all this, we are convinced that there is, indeed, a basis for
the formation of BECs that can be found in the LG, though not overtly expressed. And we
also agree with Claver that BECs, as implied in LG, must embody the elements we have
enumerated above.
II.4.1.1.2. BEC and Post-Vatican II Papal Documents: A New Way of Being Church
The idea of BEC may not have been treated explicitly or elaborately in the Vatican
documents, but in the succeeding years, especially in Evangelii Nuntiandi (EN 58), which
is an Apostolic Exhortation promulgated by Paul VI in 1975, the formation of Basic
Ecclesial Communities was unequivocally endorsed by this Pope as “a new way of being
Church.” His statement is of great significance because it can be seen as congruent to the
teachings of Vatican II, considering especially that he was the pope who concluded the
Vatican II being the successor of Pope John XXIII who died while the Council was in
progress. This particular document, after recognizing the various manifestations of base
communities, highlights several conditions that must be met by these communities to
qualify as legitimate forms of BEC:
“[these] latter communities will be a place of evangelization, for the benefit of the bigger
communities, especially the individual Churches. And, as we said at the end of the last Synod,
they will be a hope for the universal Church to the extent: that they seek their nourishment in
the Word of God and do not allow themselves to be ensnared by political polarization or
fashionable ideologies, which are ready to exploit their immense human potential; that they
avoid the ever present temptation of systematic protest and a hypercritical attitude, under the
pretext of authenticity and a spirit of collaboration; that they remain firmly attached to the local
Church in which they are inserted, and to the universal Church, thus avoiding the very real
danger of becoming isolated within themselves, then of believing themselves to be the only
authentic Church of Christ, and hence of condemning the other ecclesial communities; that
they maintain a sincere communion with the pastors whom the Lord gives to His Church, and
with the magisterium which the Spirit of Christ has entrusted to these pastors; that they never
look on themselves as the sole beneficiaries or sole agents of evangelization- or even the only
depositaries of the Gospel- but, being aware that the Church is much more vast and diversified,
2099Pope Paul VI, Lumen Gentium (LG), November 21, 1964,

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-
ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html [accessed June 8, 2016].
2100My brackets.
2101Claver, The Making of a Local Church, 89-90.
379
SAMBAYANIHAN
accept the fact that this Church becomes incarnate in other ways than through themselves;
that they constantly grow in missionary consciousness, fervor, commitment and zeal; that they
show themselves to be universal in all things and never sectarian.”2102
Based on our analysis of this text, Paul VI recognizes the great evangelical and
“reformational” potential that BECs can bring to the Church. BECs are, indeed,
ecclesiological locations for renewal and for living out the various gifts of the Holy Spirit
in a meaningful way. Thus, our conviction is that Paul VI, during his pontificate, had
supported the creation of BECs so long as these BECs will endeavor to harness the positive
forces belonging to them and struggle against the temptation to become polarized isolated
inward-looking communities. Should they succeed, they can become veritable agents of
evangelization.
Another post-Vatican II document, Redemptoris Missio, an Encyclical on the
Permanent Validity of the Church’s Missionary Mandate issued by John Paul II in 1990,
recognizes the importance of BECs by stating that “[these] communities are a sign of
vitality within the Church, an instrument of formation and evangelization, and a solid
starting point for a new society based on a ‘civilization of love’” (RM 51).2103 This invaluable
role of the BECs in the life of the Church which was underlined in RM was subsequently
re-affirmed by the same Pontiff in his 1999 post-synodal exhortation entitled Ecclesia in
Asia. In this regard he did not only reiterate his positive valuation of the BEC but, in fact,
articulated his firm resolve to
“encourage the Church in Asia, where possible, to consider these basic communities as a
positive feature of the Church's evangelizing activity. At the same time they will only be truly
effective if—as Pope Paul VI wrote—they live in union with the particular and the universal
Church, in heartfelt communion with the Church's Pastors and the Magisterium, with a
commitment to missionary outreach and without yielding to isolationism or ideological
exploitation. The presence of these small communities does not do away with the established
institutions and structures, which remain necessary for the Church to fulfil her mission” (EA
25).”2104
These statements of John Paul II that we just have cited motivate us in our effort to help
in forming BECs, especially in the context of Filipino diaspora in Western Europe. John
Paul II’s recommendations on how BECs are to be understood persuade us to find ways
of re-structuring the Filipino migrant communities to become not only liturgical or
developmental communities but, most especially, liberational communities within the
existing structures of the Catholic Church.
In the case of Pope Benedict XVI, although there is a noticeable absence of the topic
of BEC in his encyclicals and exhortations, we can say that he had maintained an
appreciative and supportive stance regarding this issue because, in his address to the
Kerala Latin bishops and Andhra Pradesh bishops on 30 May 2011 in Rome, he noted:
“For the Church, the Body of Christ, proclaims the Word of God which is at work in the hearts
of those who believe (cf. I Thes. 2:13) and she grows by constantly hearing, celebrating and
studying that word (cf Verbum Domini, 3). It is a source of satisfaction that the proclamation
of God’s Word is bearing rich spiritual fruit in your local Churches, especially through the
2102Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, December 8, 1975, http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-

vi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-vi_exh_19751208_evangelii-nuntiandi.html [accessed June 8,
2016].
2103Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, December 7, 1990, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-
ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_07121990_redemptoris-missio.html [accessed June 8, 2016].

2104Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia in Asia, November 6, 1999, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-
ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_06111999_ecclesia-in-asia.html [accessed June 8, 2016].
380
spread of Small Christian Communities in which the faithful come together for prayer, reflection
on the Scriptures and fraternal support.”2105
In the same occasion, Pope Benedict XVI, as reported by the Vatican Radio,
“urged that these groups be assisted to be faithful to the sacred Scriptures and the Church’s
apostolic tradition. With regard to the family, Pope Benedict urged that the “domestic churches”
be examples of the mutual love, respect and support which animate human relations at every
level. He said the wider community will greatly benefit if families are attentive to prayer,
meditate on the Scriptures, and participate fully in the sacramental life of the Church.
Acknowledging the many challenges threatening the unity, harmony and sanctity of the family,
the Pope called for a sound catechesis to help nurture the faith life of Christian families.”2106
Despite all these positive endorsements of the Vatican and the abovementioned
popes on BEC as “a new way of being Church,” however, Msgr. Rey Manuel Monsanto
contends that “so far there has been no Vatican document that deals with them ex
professo officially defining what they really are and how they are canonically related to the
universal Church and even to the particular churches in which they exist,”2107 which in
effect continues to be a lacuna; hence, providing plenty of space for various formations,
incarnations and inculturations. We are of the opinion, however, that when the exact
parameters of BECs are ex professo defined, there is a danger to become too
institutionalized to the point of rigidity that the Spirit which animates them will be stifled.
As charismatic communities they are supposed to be provided with guidelines that are not
so strictly demarcated that suppress spontaneity and plurivocity. It is our conviction that
the words “new way” entail the notions of flexibility and constant evolution. That being
said, we see this seemingly unfortunate reality of being not yet given a canonical status
as a blessing because we fear that when the scope and limitations of them are clearly
established, eventually, they may turn out to be fossilized entities unable to breathe new
life to the Church that is supposed to be defined as semper reformanda. Certainly, we are
also not in favor of the idea of just letting these communities be. Laissez-faire is a policy
that we do not recommend. We hope that, one day the canon lawyers will be able to
propose a viable canonical status for the BECs that does not curtail the movement of the
Spirit.
2105Pope Benedict XVI, “Address to Kerala Latin Bishops and Bishops of Andhra Pradesh,” May 30, 2011. Cf.
Small Christian Communities in Mumbai, “Church Documents on SCCs,”
http://www.mumbaiscc.in/sccchurchdocs [accessed June 8, 2016].
2106Vatican Radio, “Pope Addresses Another Group of Indian Bishops,” May 30, 2011,
http://en.radiovaticana.va/storico/2011/05/30/pope_addresses_another_group_of_indian_bishops/in2-
491584 [accessed June 8, 2016].
2107Msgr. Rey Manuel Monsanto reads a paper during the Annual Convention of the Canon Law Society of the
Philippines: “But so far there has been no Vatican document that deals with them ex professo officially defining
what they really are and how they are canonically related to the universal Church and even to the particular
churches in which they exist. Vatican says that they are under the supervision of the “Pontifical Council for
the Laity” as can be seen in no.63 of the council’s document on itself and its tasks (see booklet produced by
the Pontifical Council for the Laity in 2012); but even the booklet does not say much concerning the BECs. In
other words, up to now they have not been given definite official “canonical status” or recognition; neither
have canonical guidelines on them been issued. And they have no canonical precedence with no known
canonical provisions. This is the reason why they have been referred to as “extra-canonical” or “non-canonical”
realities.” Msgr. Rey Manuel Monsanto, “Theologico-Canonical Reflections on BECs,” Paper, Annual
Convention of the Canon Law Society of the Philippines, April 8-11, 2013, Bacolod City,
http://cbcpbec.com/?p=2299 [accessed June 8, 2016].
381
SAMBAYANIHAN
II.4.1.1.3. BEC and FABC: Model of Ecclesiology for Asia
Among the many different issues that the Church in Asia is facing (e.g., how the local
church becomes a genuine agent of evangelization; how to create a fruitful dialogue among
religions, cultures and the poor; how to empower people so as to become active
participants in Church-life and Church-building), BEC is identified as an important area
to be explored and recommended. In a more elaborate way, the FABC document entitled
“The Basic Christian Community in Islamic Country” has enumerated and described some
basic concepts (i.e., the what, the why, the how, and the pros and cons) that must be
seriously considered in the formation of BECs in the non-Christian or Islamic societies.2108
The FABC, therefore, envisions that, in the future, this “new way of being church” will
truly become communities that are made up of “different cultures, races, status,
languages and castes” wherein matters and activities are dealt with in significantly
democratic manner because the members participate in making decisions.2109 It is
important to note that they are not to be conceived as communities that are detached and
have nothing to do with the Universal Church. Our intuition tells us that this possible
problem will be properly addressed by providing appropriate and quality catechesis and
formation. When appropriately conceived and formed, Cardinal Quevedo recommends
BEC as a viable Church model for Asia which he explains in this fashion:
“a) From individualism to community - members of the BECs gradually shed off individualistic
attitudes regarding their faith and religion (God and I), and begin to understand that these have
basic relationships with their neighbors (I-Thou-We-and-God); b) From sacramentalism to
ritualism and integral faith – members of BECs consider and practice their faith beyond the
mere celebration of rituals and sacraments, and are deeply aware of the social implications of
their faith on Christian mission and day to day living; c) From non-involvement to co-
responsibility – in the BECs, church people are impelled by their faith to participate not only
in their own intra-BEC activities but also in the outward reach of Church mission into the
socio-political community, as an imperative of co-responsibility in mission; d) From corporal
works of mercy to justice – BECs are very much aware of the importance of traditional works
of charity, but their faith impels them to do more and, therefore, to act on behalf of justice and
social transformation; and e) From clericalism to lay-centeredness – in the BEC a paradigm
shift takes place regarding the roles of the clergy and religious and the role of the lay people.
The principles of co-responsibility and solidarity determine both the process and the level of
decision-making. A process of ‘de-clericalization,’ and a corresponding ‘lay empowerment,’
takes place in BECs.”2110
We feel compelled to say, at this point, that we are in agreement with Cardinal Quevedo
and we fully support not only his view but also his suggestion to make BEC as a model of
the Church not only in Asia but also in other regions of the globe, such as in Western
Europe. We are convinced that the communitarian spirit being embodied by BEC can be
an antidote to the individualization process that is going in the world today. More and
more people nowadays tend to focus more on individual gain and well-being that they
become indifferent to what is happening around them. They only care about other people
and the world outside when they perceive them to be means for their ends. Perhaps, if
BECs are established within the “Church premises”, people in the church will learn more
the values of solidarity and co-responsibility. We hope that they will contaminate those
outside the church, the people they will encounter in their workplaces and other
2108Cf. FABC, “The Basic Ecclesial Community in an Islamic Country,” FABC Paper 26(1981):1-52,
http://www.fabc.org/fabc papers/fabc_paper_26.pdf [accessed March 12, 2016].
2109Ibid.
2110Cf. FABC, Seventh Plenary Assembly; Workshop Discussion Guide, “Gospel-based Communities Becoming
Agents for Change” January 2000, Hong Kong, http://www.fabc.org/fabc%20papers/fabc_paper_92i.pdf

[accessed June 8, 2016]. Cf. Monsanto, “Theologico-Canonical Reflections.”
382
circumstances, with the same Gospel-inspired attitude. Certainly, we are also in alliance
with Quevedo in believing that BEC formation may also bring about changes in the
Church, such as moving away from sacramentalism or ritualism to a level of worship that
expresses integral faith, abandonment of individualist mentality toward an attitude of
cooperation and mutual fecundity, a maturity that entails going beyond the level of
corporal works of mercy toward concern for justice, and an emancipation that liberates
that people from the clout of clericalism toward a genuine milieu of lay empowerment.
II.4.1.1.4. BEC and Code of Canon Law: Communion of Communities
Unfortunately, there is no definition of BEC, not even a direct reference to it, that
can be extracted from in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. As we already mentioned above,
John Paul II was the one who gave a clearer and more authoritative description of this
“new way of being church” in his encyclical Redemptoris Missio in 1990. According to
Junar de la Victoria, this Pontiff underlined the following ideas: “basic ecclesial
communities are groups of Christians who, at the level of the family or in a similarly
restricted setting, come together for prayer, Scripture reading, catechesis, and discussion
on human and ecclesial problems with a view to a common commitment. These
communities are a sign of vitality within the Church, an instrument of formation and
evangelization, and a solid starting point for a new society based on a ‘civilization of
love’.”2111 This Pope made special mention in this document that, indeed, the BECs have
been showing great signs of progress as “centers of formation and missionary outreach”
which have motivated a considerable number of bishops to make the formation of such
communities as a pastoral priority not only in the diocesan level but also in the level of
Episcopal Conferences. One of the good examples of this is the 1992 PCPII which decreed
that BECs are not only to be introduced in the parishes but must also be taught and
adapted as a structure in the seminaries and religious houses.2112
Perhaps, “canonically” speaking, we can consider Apostolorum successores as a
document that explicitly states a particular way of organizing the BEC, which is “one
practical way of sub-dividing parishes in certain regions.”2113 This provision, based on our
little knowledge of Canon Law and also on the understanding of de la Victoria who is
knowledgeable about church laws, clearly puts the BEC in the ambit of Canon Law, by
extension, because canon 516 §2 recognizes that there are “Other Communities” that
legitimately deserve suitable pastoral care from the bishops depending on their needs and
circumstances.2114 This pastoral care required of the hierarchy is none other than Canon
213, which states that “Christ’s faithful have the right to be assisted by their Pastors from
the spiritual riches of the Church especially by the word and the sacraments.”2115
Certainly, the pastoral care for these “other communities” is within the ambit of the
diocese which is under the care of the diocesan bishop, with the assistance and
2111Junar de la Victoria, “What is GKK or Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC) for Canon Law and What is the
Role of Canon Law for the BEC’s?,” 20 August 2013, http://www.davaocatholicherald.com/2013/08/what-
is-gkk-or-basic-ecclesial-communities-bec-for-canon-law-and-what-is-the-role-of-canon-law-for-the-becs/
[accessed June 8, 2016]. Cf. Redemptorismissio, no. 51. Cf. APAD II, art. 69.”
2112Cf. Redemptoris Missio, no. 51. Cf. Victoria, “What is GKK.”
2113Congregation for Bishops, “Directory for the Pastoral Ministry of Bishops,” Apostolorum Successors,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cbishops/documents/rc_con_cbishops_doc_20040222_
apostolorum-successores_en.html [accessed May 18, 2016].
2114de la Victoria, “What is GKK?”
2115Ibid.
383
SAMBAYANIHAN
cooperation of the parish priests. It is he who makes sure that proper discipline is enforced
in the formation or BECs in the diocese by setting up norms and guidelines on how the
BECs are to be nurtured and propagated according to the circumstances present in that
particular ecclesiastical territory, which admittedly may vary from diocese to diocese.
According to de la Victoria, “Canon law can be an effective instrument by translating into
canonical language the pastoral care of the diocesan bishops for the BEC’s in his own
particular church, as well as for the collaborative BEC pastoral approaches among the
ecclesiastical provinces and regions.”2116 And speaking of which, we recall that Monsignor
Rey Manuel Monsanto had presented a paper during the Annual Convention of the Canon
Law Society of the Philippines in 2013 on this matter.2117 In this paper he underlined some
guidelines on how to regard this phenomenon and how to properly regulate the life and
trajectory of the same. As a conclusion to the paper that he read, Monsanto said the
following words which we consider to be of utmost importance:
“Care must just be taken, however, that the BECs do not tend to be ‘elitist’, thinking that they
are the only ones living or expressing the reality of the Church today; and that they would not
tend to believe that because they are “a new way of being Church” they can make rules and
policies on their own initiative, without following the laws of the Church, especially those
contained in the Code of Canon Law. This process will in the end be detrimental to the Church,
to community life and to the BECs themselves…And care must also be taken that they do not
become or appear to be just another association in the Church with so many minute laws and
regulations, which would go counter to their nature – ‘new way of being Church’.”2118
In our estimation, this statement of Monsanto clearly lays down the trajectory that needs
to be pursued by those who are involved in forming BECs and, also, of those who would
want to help in drawing up both the theological and canonical guidelines for the said
communities. Indeed, he is right is warning that BECs are not supposed to be seen as the
only way of being Church in the contemporary world. BEC is just one among many. He is
also on point in saying that the BECs and their members are still subject to the laws
stipulated in Canon Law. They are endowed with the same rights and responsibilities that
any member of the People of God has. Monsanto reminded those who are concerned that
“Although BECs may not be strictly speaking “canonical” as there are no specific laws in the
Code that talk about them in a particular way, we can say, however, that they are indeed
“canonical”, first, because they are groupings/communities of faithful within the Church and
as such they are in a general way clearly supported, albeit indirectly, by many canons,
especially those on the obligations and rights of the faithful; secondly, as communities within
the Church they, much like all the faithful, whether individual or juridical persons, have to
follow the canons of the Code and all other laws of the Church in all their actuations. Care
has to be taken between “vigorously promoting” them and respecting the “freedom of
conscience” of the faithful and the correct implementation of the laws of the Church. Thirdly,
BECs should not easily impose or issue penalties.”2119
In view of this, he underlined two set of guidelines for BEC: 1) those that specifically deal
with issues of canonical, theological and liturgical nature; and 2) things that are to be
avoided.2120 Like Monsanto, we also hope that, eventually, all the stakeholders – meaning
not only the theologians and the canon lawyers but also the people on the ground - will
collaborate more closely and come up with better guidelines for BECs not only in the local
or national level but, also, in the universal level to facilitate the growth and propagation
2116de la Victoria, “What is GKK?”

2117Cf. Monsanto, “Theologico-Canonical Reflections.”
2118Ibid.
2119Ibid.
2120Ibid.
384
of this “new way” of living as a church, avoiding the pitfalls and harvesting more the
blessings. The guidelines, we reckon, must provide enough wiggle room for the BECs to
explore, discover, harness, and develop their potent force for mission and evangelization.
Certainly, each BEC can offer something unique to the life of the church.
II.4.1.2. BEC and Pope Francis: Towards a New Way of Evangelization and Dialogue
For Pope Francis, the relevance of BECs cannot be underestimated. His message to
the “Participants in the 13th Meeting of Basic Ecclesial Communities in Brazil” was, in
fact, hugely illuminating regarding his appreciation of the enduring relevance of BECs:
“[as] the Document of Aparecida recalled, BECs are an instrument that allows people ‘to attain
greater knowledge of the Word of God, a greater social commitment in the name of the Gospel,
for the birth of new forms of lay service and adult education in the faith’ (n. 178). Recently, in
addressing the whole Church, I wrote that the Basic Communities “bring a new evangelizing
fervour and a new capacity for dialogue with the world whereby the Church is renewed” but, to
do this it is necessary that they do “not lose contact with the rich reality of the local parish and
to participate readily in the overall pastoral activity of the particular Church”.2121
Despite the fact that BECs have remained “undefined” by the Vatican and the CBCP,
we can say that we have some common understanding of what a Basic Ecclesial
Community is and that they are still a viable option for the Church in making itself
relevant to the signs of the times. Thus, we join our voice to his call to give importance to
the building of BECs that exist within the ambit of the local parishes. There is no need to
come up with new structures alongside the parish communities. We only need to tap into
the potential that lies within the structures of the parish churches.
II.4.2. Basic Ecclesial Communities around the World: Similarity and Difference: A
Multi-faceted Ecclesiological Reality
Before we evaluate the feasibility of BECs in the context of Filipino migration, it is

only fitting that we recall some important events and details on how BECs came about in
the Latin America and in other parts of the world. In that way we can become familiar to
the many faces of BECs and the various “lights and shadows” encountered by BEC
promoters, animators and members. The intention of recounting the different expressions
of BECs/SSCs/CEBs that have emerged in the various regions of the globe is not to
establish which is the best but to simply inform our readers of the contextuality of each –
that there are various configurations and raison d'être, that there are different faces and
voices of BECs. This particular portion of the dissertation will be divided into the following
categories: 1) Latin America; 2) Africa; 3) Europe; 4) North America; and 5) Asia, Oceania
and the Pacific. The case of the BECs in the Philippines, however, will be dealt with
separately, because it will be used as our main inspiration for the main purpose of this
chapter which is to propose a particular configuration of BEC in the context of Western
2121Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, no. 29,

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-
ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html [accessed June 13, 2016]. It was also mentioned that “This kind of
integration will prevent them from concentrating only on part of the Gospel or the Church, or becoming
nomads without roots.” Pope Francis, “Message to the Participants in the 13 th Meeting of Basic Ecclesial
Communities in Brazil”, 7-11 January 2014, Juazeiro do Norte, Diocese of Crato,
https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2013/documents/papa-
francesco_20131217_comunita-ecclesiali-base.html [accessed June 13, 2016].
385
SAMBAYANIHAN
Europe that basically makes use of the existing worshipping communities of the Filipino
migrants.
II.4.2.1. CEBs/BECs/SCCs in Latin America: Rising from the Grassroots: The Voice of
Liberation
Although there is no doubt that the existence of small Christian communities can be
traced back to the era when the followers of Jesus’ disciples were forming small house
churches, the contemporary understanding of what CEBs/BECs/SCCs are temporally
attributed to the post-Vatican II Latin American Church. It was mentioned in a book edited
by Healey and Hinton that CEBs/BECs/SCCs became widespread and of utmost
importance to the Church in the Latin American context between the 1950’s and 1970’s.
What started as minor ecclesiological sparks became a full-blown conflagrations in the
wake of the Second Vatican Council. At that time, people were trying to find concrete
means to combat the lamentable social, political and economic turmoil that beset the Latin
American people, especially those in the grassroots. In the light of this quest, CEBs were
propagated in an exponential fashion because they were seen as the most powerful tool in
addressing the “harsh realities of life brought about by economic injustice and the rule of
the oligarchs.”2122 According to Alicia Butkiewiz, as quoted in the book of Healey and
Hinton, “They have not emerged out of great theoretical speeches but rather from the faith
and love of a poor and simple people.”2123 A lot of things has transpired in the Latin
American ecclesiological milieu, including the views on the nature and role CEBs in the
church, but one thing, according to Healey and Hinton, has remained the same: just like
the first Christian communities of the New Testament, “[the] base communities [have
continued to be regarded as ] a humble experience because they represent the reality of
the poor and the marginalized.”2124
II.4.2.1.1. BEC2125 In Brazil: A Unique Manifestation of BEC
It was said in an account given by Leonardo Boff that the first signs of the emergence
of CEBs/BECs in Brazil transpired in Barra do Pirai, a district of Rio de Janeiro. It began
as a “response” to a “lament of one humble old woman” on Christmas eve in 1956.2126 She
complained about the absence of any Catholic liturgical service in her place due to the
unavailability of priests in her parish. Dom Agnelo, prompted by this unfortunate event,
started forming lay coordinators for his communities in Barra do Pirai to address the
“shortage” or “absence” of ordained ministers and to allow life in the Church to continue
by making use of what the lay persons could legitimately perform or offer in the existing
ecclesiastical structure and canonical discipline of Catholic ecclesiology.2127 Having
trained catechists as lay ministers at the disposal of these communities, they began to
gather, on a weekly basis, for religious instructions apart from the daily community prayer
that they would organize for their respective communities. “Massless Sunday” or
“priestless Mass” had become a common site in these communities and building of
2122Healey and Hinton, eds., Small Christian Communities, 9.

2123Ibid.
2124Ibid.
2125In Spanish these communities are called comunidad ecclesial de base (CEB), while in Portuguese, which
is the language spoken in Brazil, it is referred to as comunidade ecclesial de base (CEB).
2126Boff, Ecclesiognesis, 3.
2127Ibid.
386
meeting halls instead of chapels had become a fashion because these were used not just
as venues for “Catholic worship” but also as catechetical centers, livelihood educational
hubs, meeting places for discussing and resolving community related issues, like
economic problems.2128 Out of these communities, several other movements and activities
had developed to address illiteracy, poverty, epidemic, and the like.
What helped galvanize the efforts to establish sustainable CEBs in Brazil was The
Better World Movement that provided renewal programs for both the clergy and the laity,
which became instrumental in persuading the bishops of Brazil to come up with “Brazilian
Bishops’ Conference’s Emergency Plan” and the “First Nationwide Pastoral Plan (1965-
70).”2129 With these plans, the parishes in Brazil had begun to think of themselves as
“composed of various local communities and ‘basic communities’” ministered to and
presided over by their pastors who recognize the important leadership roles and the active
participation of the laity.
From then on, formation of CEBs had become commonplace in this Latin American
country, especially when the 1968 Medellin Conference gave its official stamp of approval
and openly endorsed the endeavor as a priority in the Latin American region. Based on
the perspective of the Medellin Conference, this phenomenon could be considered as
“building a living church rather than multiplying material structures.”2130 What made this
movement more appealing was the assertion of the said conference that “[the] basic
Christian community is the first and fundamental ecclesial nucleus… It is the initial cell
of the ecclesial structure.”2131 Given this view, every member of the CEBs was seen as a
child of God. As such, each one was entitled to experience liberation from any oppressive
structures, such as discrimination and anything that could hinder genuine dialogue,
mutual responsibility, deep communion and equal opportunities for participation. This
could not be taken to mean, however, that these communities were to become communion
of pure saints or “classless societies”. Certainly, the structures of powers were and will
always be present, whether to dominate or to be in solidarity. They were not immune to
conflicts or free from personal interests. They should not be regarded as utopic
communities, because struggles and tensions will continue to be part of human
togetherness.
It is interesting to note that the exponential proliferation of CEBs in Brazil coincided
with the political and social turmoil brought about by the military regime in the 1960’s
when freedom of speech was extremely restricted.2132 The base communities, uncontrolled
by the authorities in Brazil, provided an alternative space for people to ventilate their
2128Boff, Ecclesiognesis, 3.
2129Ibid.,4.
2130Ibid. Cf. Marins, “Comunidades eclesiais,” 27.
2131This was quoted by Hebblethwaite from Pastoral de Conjunto. Cf. Hebblethwaite, Basic is Beautiful: 19. Cf.
also Conference of Latin American Bishops, Pastoral de Conjunto (Document on Joint Pastoral Planning),
Medellin Conference, 1968, no. 10.
2132An article published in the Vatican Insider claims that “The movement gathered most steam in Brazil,
where the industrial revolution was in full swing, domestic immigration and urbanization had taken off, the
city was growing like mad and social services was either poor or non- existent. Basic Ecclesial Communities
sprung up around badly built churches, illegal neighborhoods lacking in public services, areas of land invaded
by mass crowds of people from rural areas. Here the BECs took care of people’s basic needs such as finding
a home, electricity, drinking water, looking after the sewage system and public sanitation in general. BECs in
Brazil spread at a time when the political landscape was marked by a military dictatorship which lasted from
1964 to 1985. They took on social responsibility at a time when political parties were unable to act.” Cf.
Vatican Insider, “Basic Ecclesial Communities Make a Comeback: Representatives will meet in Brazil in the
first week of January,” Vatican Insider: World News, 12 December 2013,
http://www.lastampa.it/2013/12/30/vaticaninsider/eng/world-news/basic-ecclesial-communities-make-
a-comeback-te8QG64FjkFxjdB11XvPpL/pagina.html [accessed February 9, 2016].
387
SAMBAYANIHAN
grievances and to organize and mobilize themselves to oppose the oppressive regime. As a
consequence, numerous members of these “new way of being Church”, together with their
pastors, were incarcerated and tortured, especially in the wake of the Second Vatican
Council when the Church began to openly condemn torture and violation of human
rights.2133 Thus, one can hypothesize that, perhaps, there was a significant correlation
between the harshness of the military-run dictatorship and the rise of CEBs in Brazil.
Understandably, when the military regime was finally overcome in Brazil, the
spotlight was moved away from the CEBs. The more democratic atmosphere offered more
avenues for people, aside from the one provided by CEBs, to voice out grievances. CEBs’
popularity may have waned but, certainly, their significant role in the society has
withstood the test of time because they continue to provide alternative ways in dealing
with social issues that beset the Brazilian population. Indeed, CEBs have paved the way
to organize constructive dialogue among different religions to ensure that the basic rights
of the people are protected and to combat the social, political and economic diseases that
have plagued the country. They continue to thrive as small communities, resisting any
temptation to grow huge, in the rural areas and among the unschooled and low-income
families where “dictatorship” of the clergy is repelled while active and constant
participation of the evangelized laity is treasured and promoted using the see-judge-act
method. Despite the relatively “minor publicity” given to these communities and the less
auspicious treatment accorded by the Latin American episcopate to the CEBs after the
military junta was toppled down in Brazil,2134 the CEBs have never really disappeared from
the scene and have not wavered in affecting people’s lives and effecting positive changes
in the Church and society at large. They have remained steadfast in their effort to educate
the people to regard religion not as an “opium” but as a “weapon” not only to remediate
their sufferings but, most especially, to put an end to injustice.
The papacy of Pope Francis offers a renewed optimism for the CEBs in the Latin
Americas because his Pontificate is unequivocal in its support and confidence in the
importance of these communities in the present world. In fact, in his letter addressed to
the participants of the 13th Meeting of Basic Ecclesial Communities in Brazil, he “invited
everyone to experience it as an encounter of faith and of mission, as missionary disciples
who walk with Jesus, proclaiming and witnessing to the poor the prophecy of a ‘new
heaven and a new earth’”.2135 Pope Francis’ positive appraisal of the role of CEBs/BECs
in the ambit of contemporary ecclesiology has certainly enthused the
promoters/organizers of the said meeting. The support of Pope Francis indicates a
renewed appreciation of the Latin American CEBs/BECs. His words have served as a
confirmation that the meeting, indeed, “will provide a chance for the BECs to reaffirm their
2133Aino Siltala, “Brazil Experience 2014: The Power of Religion in Brazil,” 13 January 2014,
https://brazilexperience2014.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/theme-iii-dnace/ [accessed on May 10, 2016].
2134The Vatican Insider article we mentioned above offers that “Fifteen years later, when the Latin American
Episcopate held its fourth conference in Santo Domingo, the climate had changed significantly. For the first
time there was talk of “new apostolic movements” and the Basic Ecclesial Communities were still mentioned
but with less optimism and more suspicion. There was an air of caution, suspicion, apprehension and concern
in the discussions and reflections of many authoritative figures who took part in the Conference. Many
communities fell victim to ideological and political manipulation. Although BECs were officially recognized as
valid ecclesiastical entities at the meeting in Santo Domingo, emphasis was placed on the risks of these
communities and on the need to establish criteria of ecclesiality. A chapter on apostolic movements appeared
in the concluding document for the first time: ‘It is necessary to accompany the movements in a more defined
process of inculturation, and encourage the formation of movements with a greater Latin American
impression.’” Cf. Vatican Insider, “Basic Ecclesial Communities.”
2135Pope Francis, “Message to the Participants in the 13th Meeting.”
388
role within the Church and define their importance as engines of change within Brazil.”2136
It can be argued that Pope Francis’ enthusiastic endorsement of the CEBs has given the
approximately 80,0000 CEBs presently operating in Brazil a much-needed boost to, once
again, grow both in quantity and quality.2137 The CEBs in Brazil may have been relegated
to the back-burner but they have not vanished into thin air. Even after they have played
their very important role in helping the country transition from military leadership to a
democratic form of government, they have never lost their significance. Their relative
silence cannot be seen as being reduced to utter insignificance. As a matter of fact, Gerry
Proctor reported in 2004 that the participants in the triennial meeting of Latin American
and Carribean CEBs/BECs had affirmed the CEBs/BECs had never ceased being “a force
to be reckoned with” in their respective societies.2138 It was also re-affirmed at the
culmination of this meeting which was held in Aguacalientes (Mexico) that, despite the
ups and downs that these communities have experienced along the way, the CEBs/BECs
have had been, and will continue to be, a great help to the church in its mission to
“reach out to the large mass of Christians who have lost their contact with the parish
community… the BECs of Brazil have already proved themselves to be at the forefront of these
forces of hope in the creation of another possible world. …Despite the fact that the BECs have
been fully recognized by the magisterium as being fully church at the most basic level of
neighborhood, a great majority of the hierarchy sees them as just another movement, one more
option among many that offer themselves today. This is definitely having an impact in the
growth and maturity of the BECs. This is due in large part to the naming of bishops and the
formation of priests with a very different model of the church that forged at the Second Vatican
Council.”2139
It is obvious in this published document that, indeed, the CEBs/BECs are recognized for
their value in the life of the Church. However, this transcription from the said meeting
also underscored the less enthusiastic support, or even an oppositional stance, of the
great majority of the hierarchy who had held a different orientation which had adversely
impacted the advancement and the maturity of the CEBs/BECs in this region.
One of the things that we learned from the Latin American experience of the
CEBs/BECs, which can be adapted to the case of our proposed BECs or sambayanihan
communities in the Western European context, is the fact that BECs thrive more in less
hospitable environments. With the uncongenial circumstances that surround the Filipino
migrants in Western Europe brought about by the negative effects of secularism and
globalism, BECs or sambayanihan communities have the most “conducive” atmosphere
to flourish, especially with the notion of agape, weerloze overmacht and subversive
subservience. Like the CEBs/BECs in Latin America, they can also provide an alternative
way of living life – a life that values the presence of God, solidarity, community, sacrifice,
and the like; a life that rejects the “eclipse” or “death” of God, individualism,
commercialism and hedonism.
2136Vatican Insider, “Basic Ecclesial Communities.”

2137Cf. John J. Crocitti and Monique M. Vallance, eds., Brazil Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Republic,
vol. 1 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO,LLC, 2012), 145.
2138Gerry Proctor, “Analyzing the Present Moment: Latin American BECs in 2004” in Small Christian
Communities Today, eds. Healey and Hinton, 33. For the kindle version which we also consulted this is found
in loc. 610.
2139One of the good fruits of BECs in Latin America, according to this report, is the breakdown of machismo
mentality and empowerment of women who have found their voice to speak up and literally say: “I’m off to the
BEC meeting; your dinner is in the oven.” Proctor, “Analyzing the Present Moment,” 34-35. For kindle version,
loc. 610-624.
389
SAMBAYANIHAN
II.4.2.2. BEC2140/ SCC In Africa: Towards a Concept of the Church as Family
The issue of the growth of BECs/SCCs in the continent of Africa is until now a highly
contested territory because opinions are varied. For this reason, the book Small Christian
Communities Today suggests that it is more worthwhile to do a “solid research diocese by
diocese than country to country”.2141 Until now, there are many ecclesial territories in
Africa where SCCs/BECs are virtually unheard of. SCCs/BECs are widespread and strong
in the regions of South and West Africa, as well as in the French-speaking part of Africa,
where they are seen as
“important pastoral strategy and even a new way of being a communitarian church… [as] faith
sharing/Bible sharing groups [which are considered to be] a means of bridging the gap between
the haves and have-nots. They can be important catalyst for reconciliation and peace…. The
pastoral model of SCC in Africa can help to revitalize parishes and communities in the
West…where the parish is not a “home’ or “community” for people, but only a provider of
services. The religious values in family and community can balance the growing secularization
of Europe and North America.”2142
II.4.2.2.1. Africa and the Lumko Institute
We can gather from the accounts that we examined in this research that the
formation of SCCs in Africa which had begun in the 1960’s cannot be dissociated from the
establishment of the Lumko Institute which, of course, did not materialize without some
hurdles to overcome.2143 Steffen recounts that
“Bishop Rosenthal, the pioneering founder of the Lumko Missiological Institute, believed that
founding such an institute would mean reading the signs of the times. Rome, however, in the
person of Cardinal Giovanni Montini (later Pope Paul VI), withdrew permission to found such a
Missiological Institute for the whole of South Africa fearing that the Propaganda Fide
(Propagation of Faith) Institute in Rome would be left shouldering the financial burden. Bishop
Rosenthal was forced to abandon his plan in 1952 but he continued to look for new possibilities
to revive it… With the Irish Province’s promise to staff the Missiological Institute, it became a
reality in 1962 on a property called Lumko, 13 kilometres east of Lady Frere in Cape Province.
By 1958 Bishop Rosenthal had established a Catechist Training Centre there, which was the
first of its kind in South Africa.”2144
Although, initially, the said institute was focused mainly on the training of the new
missionaries to be deployed in this part of the African continent which included courses
in local language, catechetics, homiletics and anthropology, it eventually shifted its
orientation, with the influence of Father Fritz Lobinger who was one of the two Fidei Donum
priests invited by Bishop Rosenthal to join his staff in 1969 on the basis of pastoral and
academic background, to becoming “an instrument for implementing the new pastoral
vision of ministry” with the establishment of the new Pastoral Department in the
2140Usually BEC is referred to in Africa as Small Christian Communities or SCC. For a more detailed discussion
on the nature and state of SCCS in Africa until 1973 please refer to Marie-France Perrin Jassy, Basic
Community in the African Churches (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1973).
2141SCC Today, 97.
2142Ibid., 96-97.
2143Cf. Paul B. Steffen, S.V.D., “Lumko Institute: Towards Building a Participatory Church,” East Asian
Pastoral Review 51(2011):.109-139. Cf. also Paul B. Steffen, S.V.D., “Lumko Institute: Towards Building a
Participatory Church,” SEDOS Bulletin (2014): 3-17. For related articles please see Christopher Cieslikiewicz,
“Pastoral Involvement of Parish-Based SCCs in Dar es Salaam,” in Small Christian Communities, eds. Healey
and Hinton, 99-105; kindle version, loc. 1627-1744. See also John Vianney Muweesi and Emmanuel
Mwerekande, “SCCs Diocesan Training Team Reaches Out in Uganda,” in Small Christian Communities, eds.
Healey and Hinton, 106-109; kindle version, loc. 1748-1812. See also Alphonce Omolo, “Small Communities
Light Up Neighborhoods in Kisumu,” in Small Christian Communities, eds. Healey and Hinton, 110-114, kindle
version, loc. 1812-1882.
2144Steffen, “Lumko Institute,” 3.
390
institute.2145 With this, Fritz Lobinger together with the other priest invited to be a staff in
the Lumko Institute, Oswald Hirmer, developed a variety of new programs and
departments. They came up with some “awareness programs” whose aim was “to arouse
awareness to the fact that the responsibility of all believers is necessary, and not just the
service of ordained ministers and full-time pastoral workers and of certain ecclesial lay
organizations like the Legion of Mary or the Catholic Women’s Association.” 2146 They also
instituted the Lumko Language Department along with the other departments or centers
concerning the pastoral, biblical, missiological, musical and liturgical aspects. All these
programs and departments were considered as vital elements in the mission of the Lumko
Institute which, according to the 1980 report of the Lumko Institute,
“is to be of assistance to the Church in the work of evangelization in Southern Africa by
providing help in the key areas such as: Christian leadership training, incarnation of the
Christian message in the local cultures and cross cultural communication. Lumko tries to react
quickly to the various needs which arise in building and developing the local Church. In
fulfilling its aim, Lumko does not hesitate to try out new initiatives, take on new tasks and
pioneer new ventures.”2147
One of the defining moments in the history of Lumko Institute came when a new direction
had been taken by those who were running it. In 1973, the focus of the institute shifted
from training of ordained missionaries to training of emergent leaders coming from the
laity and to building small communities of faith. This time the thrust of Lumko is to
awaken in all the members of the Christian community their common vocation for
mission. Mission, from then on, has not been viewed as a monopoly of the priestly class
but as a right and responsibility of everyone in the Church. Thus, the laity has been
“discovered” and has been transformed through the trainings provided by the Institute
into becoming indispensable parts of the evangelizing community, which is the entire
Church, in the contemporary society. With this, the image of the parish as “a community
of communities” has become more prominent. According to Steffen, “The Small Christian
Communities are favored as Neighborhood communities where Christian witness,
solidarity and commitment can be best lived by all members of the church in the
environment where they live.”2148 Certainly, this view was made possible through the re-
instatement of the “original/natural” dignity of the Christian community as a whole as an
agent of evangelization. This approach, based on Steffen’s assessment,
“can be summarized as an ecclesiogenesis approach, an approach where the Word of God is
recognized as the main force which calls people into communion with God and with each other.
From the outreaching and liberating message of the Word of God the Christian community is
born and only by listening and contemplating God’s Word can the community fully discover its
own vocation and the evangelizing mission it has in the world today.”2149
Concretely speaking, Lumko Institute’s contribution to the Universal Church can be

summarized into what Fr. Oswald Hirmer, who eventually became a bishop of Umataa,
South Africa, regards as “impulses.” These impulses are the following: 1) the Lumko
awareness programs that made people realize that, indeed, WE are the Church; 2) making
the Christian communities in the region as genuinely Christ-centered via Gospel sharing;
3) promoting the formation of Small Christian Communities where all the faithful will live
concretely their mission as evangelizers to one another by their actual practice of Christian
faith in daily life among neighbors; 4) allowing people to experience the whole
2145Steffen, “Lumko Institute,” 4.

2146Ibid. 5.
2147Ibid., 9. Cf. also Lumko Institute Report on the Institute’s Aims and Activities in 1980, 1 in Steffen, “Lumko
Institute,” 3.
2148Ibid., 15.
2149Ibid.
391
SAMBAYANIHAN
catechumenate process “not so much as lessons but as common steps forward on the way
of faith” through the sessions embodied in Hirmer’s book “Our Journey Together;” 5)
training the laity for active pastoral service in their parish communities which formed the
candidates “to live their service in the parish with inner conviction, joy, perseverance and
the conviction of being co-responsible for the evangelizing mission of the Church;” and 6)
forming community leaders using the “non-dominating leadership methodology” that
emphasized servanthood.2150
Having said all this, we can surmise that Lumko has had a very special role in the
building of SCCs in the African continent, but certainly we cannot simply give them all
the credits. In fact, Joseph Healey, a noted specialist in Basic Ecclesial Communities,
alternatively known as Small Christian Communities, recounts that
“The very beginning of SCCs in Eastern Africa can be traced back to the parishes of the Luo-
speaking Deanery (especially Nyarombo, Ingri and Masonga Parishes) in North Mara in Musoma
Diocese in northwestern Tanzania in 1966. This began with research on the social structures
and community values of the African Independent Churches among the Luo Ethnic Group. The
first terms used were chama (meaning “small group”) and “small communities of Christians”
(forerunner of SCCs). The Maryknoll missionaries focused on the formation of natural
communities. By 1968 Nyarombo Parish had 20 small communities and five were started in a
nearby parish. During the Seminar Study Year (SSY) in Tanzania in 1969 the concept and
praxis of SCCs that were then called “local Church communities” were first articulated as a
priority in both rural and later urban parishes.
The actual launching of SCCs in DRC goes back to the period 1971-1972 when there was a
confrontation between President Mobutu Sese Seko and the Catholic Church. Mobutu’s
“authenticity” campaign suppressed the missionary institutes and associations. To meet the
crisis the church established the priority of the creation and organization of SCCs. The
pioneering Cardinal Joseph Malula of Kinshasa Archdiocese, DRC stated: “The Living Ecclesial
Communities are slowly becoming the ordinary place of Christian life, with the parish as the
communion of the Living Ecclesial Communities.” This included emphasizing lay ministries and
implementing Vatican II’s theology of laity, ‘the People of God.’”2151
He goes on to say that

“Small Christian Communities developed as a result of putting the communion ecclesiology and
teachings of Vatican II into practice. The founding fathers of AMECEA (Association of Member
Episcopal Conferenced in Eastern Africa) and other Episcopal Conferences in Africa had a
vision that focused on the communion (koinonia) and servie (diakonia) aspects and developed
SCCs as a concrete expression of, and realization of, the Church as Family Model of the Church.
Latin America. Africa and Asia (especially the Philippines) all pioneered the development of a
SCC/BCC/BEC Model of the Church. After considerable research and debate, many specialists
feel that quite independently of one another these three areas of the Catholic Church in the
Global South simultaneously experienced the extraordinary growth of SCCs. Thus, contrary to
some misinformed interpretations, the African experience did not come from Latin America, but
developed on its own. African SCCs have developed mainly as pastoral, parish-based model.”2152
It is mentioned in this article that, during the AMECEA Study Conference held in Nairobi
in 1976, the delegates came to an agreement of using the term “small” instead of “basic”
to steer clear of some undesirable undertones that the latter terminology carries and in
order for the African grassroots communities, as explained by Archbishop Raphael Ndingi,
to carve its own identity independently from their Latin American counterparts which were
2150Steffen,“Lumko Institute,” 11-14.

2151Joseph Healey, “Historical Development of the Small Christian Communities/ Basic Ecclesial Communities
in Africa,” Global Collaborative Website, http://www.smallchristiancommunities.org/africa/africa-
continent/231-historical-development-of-small-christian-communitiesbasic-ecclessial-communities-in-
africa.html [accessed June 8, 2016]. Also published in Klaus Krämer and Klaus Vellguth, eds., “Small
Christian Communities/Basic Ecclesial Communities,” vol.2, Theology of One World series of Mission Aachern
(Quezon City: Claretian, 2013). The German version was published in Klaus Krämer and Klaus Vellguth, eds.,
“Kleine Christliche Gemeinschaften:Impulse für eine zukunftsfähige Kirche,” ThEM2, Theologie der Einen
(Welt, Freiburg: Herder, 2012).
2152Krämer and Vellguth, “Kleine Christliche Gemeinschaften.”
392
perceived to be heavily Marxist in character.2153 This preference can be understood better

against the background of an earlier conference held in December of 1973 wherein it was
generally agreed that “[they] have to insist on building church life and work on Basic
Christian Communities in both rural and urban areas. Church life must be based on the
communities in which everyday life and work take place: those basic and manageable
social groups whose members can experience real inter-personal relationships and feel a
sense of communal belonging, both in living and working.”2154 This thrust is definitely
rooted in their declaration that “[they] are convinced that in these countries of Eastern
Africa it is time for the Church to become truly local, that is, self-ministering, self-
propagating and self-supporting.”2155 The bottom line here is the conviction that, indeed,
SCCs are “simply the most local incarnations of the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic
Church” defined mainly by three characteristics: “self-ministering (self-governing), self-
propagating (self-spreading), and self-supporting (self-reliant and self-sustainable)”.2156
Regarding the present state of SCCs in the AMECEA countries, based on the
commentary posted on the online article of Healey, we can say that there are 120,000
SCCs that exist in the nine countries covered by the AMECEA wherein Kenya is seen as
leading in this effort because of the 45,000 SCCs that it has formed to date.2157 Basically,
these SCCs are parish-based and pastorally oriented which prove to be successful in some
countries but challenging for some, like in Nigeria where SCCs observe or experience an
erratic rise and fall behavior. The Democratic Republic of Congo is registering a very strong
outcome in terms of the formation and flourishing of the SCCs with at least 1,800
communities in the capital city and a lot more in the rural areas surrounding the capital.
It is also noteworthy to mention that South Africa and Zimbabwe are not lagging behind
the race.
What we can learn from the African experience of SCCs/BECs, after having
elaborated on how they have flourished in this continent, is the major role that the
hierarchy played in providing a conducive atmosphere for the burgeoning of SCCs/BECs
in Africa. When there is less opposition coming from the priestly class in encouraging the
laity to take on more active role in organizing the structures and life of the church, people
from the grassroots can be truly empowered. When the hierarchy encourages the laity to
exercise more their rights and responsibilities, the church becomes truly an agapeic
community. Thus, it is our hope that the ecclesiastical leaders in Western Europe will also
be supportive, like those church leaders in Africa who originally came from Western
Europe, in the efforts of the Filipino migrants, as well as of the other migrant communities,
to form parish-based and pastorally-oriented communities that are genuinely striving to
give witness to the values of the Gospel: charity, solidarity, justice, mercy, liberty,
reconciliation, and the like. We can also adapt in the context of Western Europe the three
key characteristics that the stakeholders of SCCs/BECs in the African continent have
underscored: “self-ministering (self-governing), self-propagating (self-spreading), and self-
supporting (self-reliant and self-sustainable)”.2158 However, we would like to make it clear
that the adaptation must be done cautiously, because the notion of self-ministering or
self-governing can be misconstrued as being totally free from the regulation of the church
2153Krämer and Vellguth, “Kleine Christliche Gemeinschaften.”

2154Ibid.
2155Ibid.
2156Ibid.
2157Ibid.
2158Ibid.
393
SAMBAYANIHAN
hierarchy. We do not envision the BECs or sambayanihan communities in Western Europe

to be totally independent and to absolutely undermine the norms of the Catholic Church.
We need to reiterate that they are conceived as parish-based and pastorally-oriented
communities. This means that they exist within the bounds of the Catholic Church, but
they offer some alternative ways of living the church in the contemporary period without
necessarily standing in opposition to or in stark contrast to the Catholic Church. We must
recall that the theology of migration that undergirds this present doctoral research is
about liberation that entails the notion of freedom for and to, and not about the liberation
that entails the notion of freedom from or absolute separation. Certainly, what we have in
mind is a renewal that occurs in the context of the existing parishes in Western Europe.
It is not about creating communities that exist outside the ambit of Catholic parishes. It
is not about pursuing a divergent path. Hence, self-governance simply means giving
proper power to the communities to take the initiative in organizing and to take active role
in sustaining their communities with proper guidance from and coordination with proper
church authorities. Of course, this requires proper trust in the leadership of the laity.
Ultimately, it is about recognizing and putting into good use the charisms given to all the
members of the People of God. It is about solidarity and subsidiarity. It is about unity-in-
diversity. It is about building a “communion of communities”.
II.4.2.3. BECs/SCCs in Europe: Small Communities within the milieu of Ecumenism and
Globalization
Just like in other continents, the BECs/BCCs/SCCs in Europe started to emerge in

the 1960’s and 1970’s. In Italy, for example, a Christian base community has been in
existence within the parochial territory of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls for
more than 40 years now.2159 According to the account of the members of this BCC whose
advocacy has always centered on the relationship between theology and social realities,
“We do not seem, after all, to be isolated. In fact, if not truly in the “hierarchical communion”
delineated by the Code of Canon Law, we feel ourselves part of and reconciled with the wider
communion of so many brothers and sisters in the faith with whom we see ourselves in tune
in research and outlook, and also profoundly linked to the very many Christians throughout
the world who have the grace and responsibility to proclaim themselves disciples of Jesus, who
died and rose again. In fact, we feel ourselves linked with believers in other faiths and with so
many people of goodwill everywhere we seek, day by day, to build peace through justice and
solidarity.”2160
Another base community that emerged in Italy in the 1970’s is the one located in
Pinerola. Paolo Sales recounted that the life of the members of this Christian Base
Community in Pinerola has always centered on the weekly celebration of the Holy
Eucharist.2161 The readings in the weekly Eucharist, since the inauguration of this
community, have always been chosen, instead of simply following those that are selected
by the people who organized the lectionary, by the members of the CBC on which the
homilies are to be based. For this community, listening to each other is of utmost
importance, even in the context of the celebration of the Mass.
2159Cf. BCC Members, “The European BCCs Face Today’s Challenges,” in Healey and Hinton, Small Christian
Communities, 77.
2160Ibid.,79.
2161Paolo Sales, “Italy: Christian Base Community, Pinerola,” trans. Toni Salmonson, in BCC Members, “The
European BCCs,” 79-80.
394
There are other base communities that emerged in Europe around the same time as
the aforementioned communities in Italy. It is interesting to note that despite the parallel
journey of these small Christian communities in Europe (i.e., having the same moment of
existence, and the same theological/ecclesiastical and sociological concerns), they were
oftentimes not aware of the existence of other similar communities. That period in Europe,
according to the book Small Christian Communities Today, was experiencing radical
changes in almost all aspects of life: “The scent of liberation was in the air; it was post-
Vatican II, and also within Europe new political and social alliances were being
formed.”2162
The initial growth of BECs/BCCs/SCCs in the context of Europe, like in other
continents, took place in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. What made the
difference, however, was the fact that these European small Christian communities
“have always had a broad ecumenical dimension… Their relationship with the institutional
church – both Catholic and Protestant – has been to seek a space on the edge ‘that allows
their experience to have its impact.’ Within this space they have over time developed their
own practices, pastoral and liturgical. Within the political context they continue to engage in
critical actions that challenge policies considered unjust or discriminatory.2163
As reported by Franςois Becker, the Secretary General of the European Network

Church on the Move and Coordinator of the Global Council Network, the Base
Communities in Europe are either linked to the parishes or independent. Despite this,
however, there is an existing network among these diverse base communities all over
Europe, and with other “similar” communities around the world, that allows them to meet
periodically on an international scale and also to learn from each other’s best practices
via the information that they share on their common website. According to Becker, these
communities in Europe are commonly characterized by several factors under three
headings: Christian, Base and Community. The Christian element of these communities
was expressed by Becker in these words: “Fraternity that lives within our communities
would be good news for today in line with that of the early Christian communities: ‘See
how they love one another.’ Jesus made community memory by sharing bread and
wine.”2164 As far as the concept of ‘Base’ is concerned, he expounds that in the context of
Europe a “Community strives to be a place of democratic decision” where “[each] member,
according to its possibilities, to where he or she lives, [shares] what he or she has and
what it is for men and women live beyond any exclusion.”2165 He further says that “[this]
is from the basis that our communities are developing a theology for today in the equality
of all the baptized.”2166 What makes them a ‘community’ is the fact that, in the words of
Becker, “we can talk without being judged. We can share our daily lives and together we
seek how to resist oppression. We help each other and learn to live in brother and
sisterhood. The community is open to anyone in search.”2167 All these become possible,
according to a member of one of these communities in Europe, Yves Burdelot, because
they are “[recognizing] and emphasizing first our bonds to our brother and sister and
working to make it live…So, thinking fraternity leads us probably at the top of
2162Healey and Hinton, Small Christian Communities, 71.

2163Ibid. Those in between single quotation marks are words of Cira Castaldo who was interviewed by Ian
Fraser and Margaret Fraser, “Interview with Cira Castaldo,” Naples, Italy, 1984.
2164Franςois Becker, “Report on the Base Communities in Europe,” Small Christian Communities: Global
Collaborative Website, http://smallchristiancommunities.org/europe/france/388-report-on-the-base-

communities-in-europe.html [accessed 1 October 2017].
2165Ibid.
2166Ibid.
2167Ibid.
395
SAMBAYANIHAN
humanization…Utopia, some might say. On the contrary, I believe the supreme

achievement of freedom.”2168 So far, there have been 10 congresses held of Christian Base
Communities in Europe between the years 1983 and 2014.2169
II.4.2.3.1. BEC in France: Living Together Meaningfully Within and Without
F. Becker has mentioned on the website of Small Christian Communities that his own
community in France, the Christian Community in the City (CCc), came into being in
1973.2170 During its inception, this community had a “parish statute” that was duly
recognized by the Local Ordinary of the Diocese of Paris. Nevertheless, when the
ecclesiological atmosphere in France changed, brought about by the “restauration”
movement that crept into the church premises which has been endeavoring to bring back
the more conservative views of pre-Vatican II era, the CCc lost its “parish statute”. The
inhospitable, if not hostile, environment in France towards base communities caused the
demise of several of them in this particular ecclesiastical territory. Some, like the CCc,
have survived the test of time. While some of them have opted, according to Becker, “to
continue their way of being in the spirit described by Mgr. Riobé”, a great majority of them
“disappeared and their members only had loose contact with the Catholic Church.”2171
After this tempestuous phase that led to the dissolution of many base communities in
France that was described by Becker, the members of the CCc have continued their
regular celebrations and meetings as a community. Their membership includes priests,
people who have certain responsibilities in their respective parishes, and some people who
have maintained a certain distance from influence of the hierarchy. Because of wide
variety of ecclesiological orientations held by the various members of the CCc, as reported
by Becker, some members are only obliquely related to the Catholic Church. They can be
loosely linked to the rather general notion of the People of God. Despite this, however, they
can manage to live meaningfully together and “[walk] with Jesus on the track of our
humanization”.2172 With the help of a Jesuit theologian, Joseph Moingt, the members of
the CCc feel that they are on their way towards salvation as they help each other in
deepening their faith and in living out the Gospel daily.
The most recent report that we can gather regarding the presence of BECs in France,
apart from the CCc mentioned by Becker, is the account provided by Malo Tresca on 9
May 2017.2173 According to her, the “rediscovery” at BECs in France can be attributed to
a trip made by some parishioners from Villeneuve-du-Paréage in 2012. In this trip, they
came across Fr. Bertrand de Sentenac who shared with them his experience in Burundi.
According to this priest, his mission in this African country opened his eyes to a reality of
“a vibrant, rejuvenated church borne on the wind of the basic ecclesial communities.”2174
This simple story of Sentenac inspired the parishioners from Villeneuve-du-Paréage to
form in their home parish the “first fraternal community of Christians” wherein the
2168Cf. Yves Burdelot, “Devenir Humain,” La Proposition Chrétienne Aujourd'Hui (np: Le Cerf, 2002). Cited in
Becker, “Report on the Base Communities in Europe.”
2169Ibid.
2170Ibid.
2171Ibid.
2172Ibid.
2173Malo Tresca, “France Rediscovers Basic Christian Communities,” La Croix, 9 May 2017.
https://international.la-croix.com/news/france-rediscovers-basic-christian-communities/5145 [accessed
October 8, 2017].
2174Ibid.
396
members gather once a month to “reflect on passages of the Bible, help prepare mass,
hold vigils for the sick, and organize concerts and children’s show.” 2175 Five years have
already passed and this community has continued to exist and inspire the members to
increasingly be profoundly involved in all aspects of village life.
Based on the report of Tresca, Fr. Sentenac believes that BECs are a sustainable way
of living the church; hence, must be propagated. “Since they are not based solely on the
charisma of a priest officiating in ever broader sectors,” Fr. Sentenac asserts, “they enable
everyone to experience community life, to receive training in groups and to be of service
to others.”2176
What used to be a rarity in France, is now gradually becoming recognized. More and
more dioceses are adapting the notion of BEC. In the same account, Tresca mentions that
Msgr. Jean-Pierre Batut of the Diocese of Blois is contemplating on organizing a “working
group” that will be guided by “non-clericalist” principle. This means that the said group
“will not be a fraternity of priests. It includes all possible vocations…God’s alliance is
incarnated in various facets of life- celibacy, marriage, the ministerial priesthood, religious
life. It is essential to highlight their existence and complementarity.”2177 Msgr. Batut is
convinced that the idea of having a priest at the helm of all aspects of parish life “has had
its day”.2178 It is no longer feasible in this day and age, especially because nowadays the
Church is seen more as an “assembly centered around the Word of God, the Eucharist,
and the concrete exercise of charity”.2179
As far as the Diocese of Sens-Auxerre is concerned, the rationale behind the
organization of BECs emanates from what is perceived as a profound “gap between the
lone Christian, who lives his faith within the family or alone, and the Sunday parish
community.”2180 Prompted by this great lacuna, Msgr. Hervé Giraud endeavors to form
what he refers to as “fraternities”, composed of six to ten members, who will regularly
gather together for prayer, reflection and action. This proposed way of living the church
which “would not conform to a structure that’s too complicated, and even constraining”
will hopefully be sanctioned, according to the report, in the diocesan assembly set in
December of 2017.2181
Definitely, there are still some members in the French ecclesiastical hierarchy that
are either mum about or openly against this particular ecclesiological direction, “due to a
type of fear, of reticence,” according to Fr. Sentenac, “towards reforming and reinventing
the priestly ministry”.2182 Nevertheless, he is hopeful that there is, indeed, a “real
movement of emulation, of effervescence” that is spreading across the dioceses in France
regarding the viability of contextually designed BECs.2183
Regarding the things that we can learn from the French experience of BECs, we can
say that the notion of a non-clericalist structure of parish communities will not only
address the issue regarding the deficiency of priests but also the possibility of harnessing
the different charisms of all the members of the Catholic Church. When Filipino migrants
are educated properly and are made aware of their invaluable role in the life of the church,
2175Tresca, “France Rediscovers.”

2176Ibid.
2177Ibid.
2178Ibid.
2179Ibid.
2180Ibid.
2181Ibid.
2182Ibid.
2183Ibid.
397
SAMBAYANIHAN
they will significantly contribute to the rejuvenation of parish life in Western Europe. Aside
from this, the experience of CCc in France can serve as an inspiration for the kind of BECs
or sambayanihan communities that we have in mind, especially in the area of ecumenical
dialogue. Because these communities also gather together for prayer services that are
open for people from other religious denominations, apart from actively participating in
the liturgy that is officially presided by an ordained minister and specifically designed for
the Catholic faithful, they can be considered as practicable venues for ecumenical
dialogue. In these religious gatherings they can find common grounds for worshipping the
same God and for entering into a meaningful dialogue which will enable them to learn
from one another and to accompany one another. Of course, we are aware that some
tensions might arise from this set-up. However, we believe that tensions should not
discourage the people from finding ways to mend their difference and to help one another
achieve his or her own full potential as a human being created in the likeness of God.
Tensions are a reminder to us that diversity is an existential fact. They cannot be avoided.
They can be creatively united together, although it is easier said than done, in the spirit
of mutual fecundity and metanoia.
II.4.2.3.2. BEC in Great Britain: Towards a Reinvention of the Church
In a compendium produced by Ian Fraser entitled Reinventing Church: Insights from

small Christian communities and reflections on a journey among them, he expressed his
conviction that the “growth and spread of the SCCs” in Great Britain could be traced as
far back as 1938 when the Iona Community in Scotland was founded.2184 Three years after
its foundation, he became a member of Iona Community. The 1940’s became, as far as
his knowledge is concerned, the gestational period of the SCCs in this region as they tried
to galvanize what could become in the future as the essential elements of SCCs in this
part of the world, such as “integrating work and worship, scriptures and society, prayer
and politics, engagements for justice and peace, the economic, the ecumenical and the
environmental.”2185 In the 1950’s the seminal work that had been initiated by the Iona
Community a little more than a decade ago developed into what came to be known as
‘Family Groups’ which were composed of “communities” that had membership coming
from the actual neighborhoods that were deemed right from its inception by the founder
of the Iona Community, Georg MacLeod, as a ‘John the Baptist sign’.2186 It is interesting
to note that Ian Fraser acknowledges the fact that what happened in the UK, meaning the
growth and spread of SCCs, was not an isolated case but was part of what he calls as
worldwide “spontaneous combustion of the Holy Spirit.”2187 Of course, at that time there
was no widespread awareness of this worldwide emergence of the SCCs that happened
between 1950’s and 1960’s. Perhaps, because of the fact that UK has been predominantly
Anglican for several centuries already, it is understandable that the early manifestations
of SCCs in these islands started outside the ambit of the Catholic Church. Although, it
did not remain as such. Eventually, this phenomenon, perhaps in forms that could still
be considered as rudimentary, had slowly crept into the confines of the Catholic dioceses
in this region.
2184Ian Fraser, Reinventing Church: Insights from Small Christian Communities and Reflections on a Journey
Among Them; A Compendium (np: privately printed, 2001), 4.
2185Ibid.
2186Ibid.
2187Ibid., 5. This was also cited by Peter Macdonald, “A Moment of Revitalization: The European Collective of
BCCs,” in Small Christian Communities Today, eds. Healey and Hinton, 73. For related literature please also
see Jim O’Halloran, Small Christian Communities: Vision and Practicalities (Dublin, Columba, 2002).
398
In the early part of the 1980’s, what was dubbed as the ‘Marins team’ came to
England for the first time to share their experiences from the CEBs in the Latin American
context. Although the context of Latin America which was predominantly Catholic differed
from that of the United Kingdom, participants in this forum were able to appreciate what
was shared by the group led by Fr. Jose Marins who was, at that time, a consultant to the
Latin American and Caribbean Bishops Conferences. Generally, the participants had a
positive experience of the meeting. They reportedly came out of it with a new orientation:
one that moves “from doing church to being church and engaging with a reign-of-God
agenda.”2188 Unfortunately, this enthusiasm on the newfound radical re-orientation
reported by those participants did not translate to an impressive result. Perhaps, it had
lost its steam as soon as it hit the road, considering all the challenges that surrounded
the “movement” at that time and the long process involved in it.
In 1990, as recounted by Hinton and Rymer, an agreement was forged
commissioning a local team, composed of Derek Hanscombe, Jeanne Hinton and Peter
Price, to carry on task of nurturing the seed that was planted earlier.2189 This team,
therefore, embarked on a mission that promoted what they called as “New Way of Being
Church.” Fourteen years after the establishment of the team, it is sad to note that, as per
honest evaluation of the team, the results have not been remarkable.
Despite this less optimistic outcome reported by Hinton’s team, we cannot turn a
blind eye towards the fact that around the same time when their evaluation was made
public, the SCCs in the UK, finally, got their formal recognition, especially in the Diocese
of Westminster. This diocese, comprising 214 parishes with memberships coming from 37
different ethnic communities, started in the early years of the first decade of the
millennium to form a team specifically designed to facilitate the renewal programs in the
diocese.2190 According to the team, wherein Stuart Wilson was a member, the SCCs are
essential to this programs for renewal for two reason: “First they do bring about a personal
desire for a deeper life in Christ, and second, they act as a catalyst for a new parish vision
and hopefully a new structure.”2191 Indeed, they are a true manifestation of what the
expression “community of small communities” mean. As a matter of fact, in a speech that
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor delivered during the National Conference of Priests in
England in September of 2002, he said: “I often think these small communities are the
secret for the future of the church… Any strategy for the future must seek to maintain the
parish, perhaps more loosely based, but a parish as a communion of communities. It is
within the parish, seen and developed as a community and within which there are small
communities, that we equip people to evangelize.”2192
Part of the renewal programs undertaken by the Diocese of Westminster has been
the creation of Parish Core Community (PCC) which is composed of the priest, the
pastoral/parish team, and the parishioners.2193 The mission of PCC is to invite and assist
small communities within the parish to be formed as SCCs. It is reported that many of
these PCCs in the diocese showed remarkable progress in their mission but, it cannot also
be denied, that some have been experiencing difficulties in reaping good results. What the
2188Jeanne Hinton and Stephen Rymer, “The Story of Seeds in the United Kingdom,” in Small Christian
Communities Today, eds. Healey and Hinton, 84-85.
2189Hinton and Rymer, “The Story of Seeds,” 85.
2190Stuart Wilson, “’At Your Word, Lord’: Renewal Program in the Diocese of Westminster,’ in Small Christian
Communities Today, eds., Healey and Hinton, 91.

2191Ibid.
2192Cited in Wilson, “At Your Word, Lord”, 91-92.
2193Ibid., 92.
399
SAMBAYANIHAN
PCC does is to provide formation programs that will equip members of the SCCs, normally
composed of 8 to 10 people, to conduct Bible sharing by themselves in the hope that they
will also share with one another their daily experience of God as they continue to face life’s
challenges and successes.
Formation of SCCs in Westminster has not been considered as a waste of energy
because, despite some hurdles that the SCCs have to overcome vis-à-vis the religious
atmosphere in the UK, they have been thriving slowly but surely. The spread, growth, and
maturity of the SCCs in Westminster diocese could not be simply overlooked. As a matter
of fact, Carolyn Butler, a British journalist and theologian, wrote in the Tablet how she
had personally benefitted from the existence of SCCs: “The small groups are powerhouse
of the future parish. They are replacing some of the more traditional groups and providing
the parish with much-needed foot soldiers… There has, in my own life, been a flowering
of faith – all of which was triggered by the AYWL program.”2194
The SCCs, as per assessment of Stuart Wilson, have been instrumental in the
development of new leadership, which does not only include older members of the parishes
but young adults.2195 Thus, he concludes that despite the challenges that contemporary
changes in the world would bring
“I do believe that SCCs are doing something even deeper. Some liturgy groups now begin with
a time of sharing of faith. SCCs are hopefully making the parish remember that Christ is the
head and heart of every activity. It was good to learn from articles in the Tablet how two parishes
were moving towards this model of using faith sharing at the beginning of the meetings of the
finance committees and claiming the AYWL small communities as the inspiration. …Without
small communities 99 percent of our parishes will have no new plan, no new vision.”2196
With these words, we can confidently deduce that, finally, the importance of SCCs
has been recognized by the Catholic hierarchy in the U.K., though a belated one. There
may have been a lot of reasons for the delay, but what is important for us is the fact that,
as of the moment, SCCs are considered as a force to be reckoned with, a viable trajectory
for the Catholic Church in the U.K.
We now ask question: What could be the valuable lesson that we could take from the
UK experience of the SCCs? Perhaps, one of these is the realization that, despite the slow
process of forming viable small Catholic Christian communities in a less conducive
environment like the UK, one must not lose heart and stop striving to build Basic Ecclesial
Communities. As the popular saying goes: It is “better late than never.”2197 Nevertheless,
this should not be used as an excuse for delaying the process. One must not miss an
opportunity to sow the seeds, just like the character in the “Parable of the Sower”. At face-
value, he may have appeared to be a wasteful farmer, sowing seeds even in the most
infertile grounds. But, the truth is, he is hopeful that, even if the soil currently appears to
be barren, one day it will change and become conducive for growth and full fruition. Thus,
we are also hopeful that one day, even if we see a lot of obstacles in re-configuring the
Filipino migrant communities into becoming sambayanihan communities, they will see
better days wherein their contributions, as well as those of the other migrant communities,
will be duly recognized. It is our hope that amidst all the persecution, indifference, and
2194Wilson, “At Your Word, Lord”, 93. Cf. Carolyn Butler, “A Flowering of Faith,” The Tablet 258 (2004):13.
2195Wilson recounts a story of a “young man who started off being opposed to the program, but out of loyalty
to his priest and parish decided to join an SCC. Today he is the leader of the PCC. In East London (an area
that struggles for leaders), a parish has had a ‘new springtime’ in those volunteering to be trained to be
eucharistic ministers and lectors.” Wilson, “At Your Word, Lord”, 93.
2196Ibid., 94-95.
2197This famous phrase is attributed to Matthew Henry, an English clergyman who live between the years
1662-1714.
400
discrimination that they suffer, they will still flourish and affect positively the church and
the society in Western Europe. That being said, we really have to start somewhere no
matter how challenging the circumstances are.
Stuart Wilson has boldly stated that when SCCs are removed from the ecclesiological
equation, only one percent of the stimulus will remain to give direction to the church in
the UK. In the same breath, we can also say that if the ethnic communities behaving like
small Christian communities within the structures of the church in Western Europe will
be plucked out from the equation, such as the proposed Filipino sambayanihan
communities, the parishes in Western Europe will die a natural death sooner than one
thinks. What we perceive as the most feasible ecclesiological course for the Western
European context, which is also affirmed by a lot of theologians and church leaders, is by
way of interculturality or transculturality. It is about strengthening the different ethnic
communities present in the local parishes who now comprise the main bulk of the
parishioners. It is about making them feel truly integrated without subverting their
cultural identities. The “new way of being church” in Western Europe, we believe, values
the importance of welcoming the different ethnic groups to the local parishes by creatively
meshing them together without resorting to a melting-pot mentality that dissolves
everything into a perfect uniformity. There should be enough room for celebrating unique
cultural identities and, at the same time, for forging solidarity. It is about creating ethnic
communities with centers that are burning with culturally expressed faith, but will
borders that are porous enough to allow mutual exchange and growth.
II.4.2.3.3. BEC in Germany: A Legacy of Bible-Centered Small Christian Communities
The saga of the BECs in Germany is undoubtedly an interesting one. If the formation
of BECs/SCCs in the global south erupted with considerable promptness as an aftermath
of the Vatican II, the Council that called for a genuinely participatory church, this
phenomenon came relatively late in the German soil.2198 Although, it can be considered
not as delayed as in the UK. The burgeoning of BECs/SCCs in the Catholic Church of
Germany can be demarcated by two main episodes: 1) the 1980’s; and 2) the 1990’s
onward.
The first of these two can be assigned to what transpired in the 1980’s as inspired
by the Latin American versions of BECs. The small communities that emerged in Germany
at that time, however, were seen as alternative communities outside the structure of the
institutional church. In other words, they behaved like parallel churches. The
development of this kind of communities in Germany was mainly fueled by the disgust or
dissatisfaction of the German faithful on the Church’s administration and ministry. A lot
of people, in that period, did not appreciate anymore the clerically controlled church
2198According to Norbert Mette, “In comparison with other countries in Europe [the development of Basic
Ecclesial Communities] in Germany was on a modest scale. In fact, Basic Ecclesial Communities were formed
relatively late. A considerable influence on the situation in Germany was exerted by the changes taking place
at the time in the Catholic Church in the Netherlands.” Norbert Mette, Der europaische Kontext, Lecture given
at the conference, “In the Modern World? The Church on the Way through History in Basic Ecclesial
Communities,” International Consultations, Aachen, 14-16 December 2010. Cited in Klaus Vellguth, “A Spark
Ignites the Flame – Small Christian Communities in Germany,” in Small Christian Communities (one World
Theology, Volume 2): A Fresh Stimulus for Forward Looking Church, eds. Klaus Krämer and Klaus Vellguth
(Quezon City: Claretian, 2013), 199. Cf. also Franz-Peter Terbatz-van Elst, “Exploring Closeness – Small
Christian Communities as Hubs of Pastoral Care,” ,” in Small Christian Communities (one World Theology,
Volume 2): A Fresh Stimulus for Forward Looking Church, eds. Klaus Krämer and Klaus Vellguth (Quezon City:
Claretian, 2013), 99-112.
401
SAMBAYANIHAN
structure or the “tyranny” of the hierarchy.2199 During this period, a total of 40 BECs were
formed in Germany with a membership that ranged from 18 to 60 years old. 2200 These
communities were mainly organized by the laity who were dramatically moved by the
currents of renewal propelled by the Vatican II amidst the brewing disgruntlement of the
lay faithful on what they perceived as deplorable administrative and ministerial lapses of
the Church in Germany.2201 On that note, Vellguth explains that
“These Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Federal Republic of Germany regarded themselves
initially as personal communities, membership of which rested on a conscious decision in
favour of a Christian life involving greater personal commitment. Their high level of binding
personal commitment was also manifested in the vehement resistance of the Basic Ecclesial
Communities to the pastoral practice of a ‘Church of dependents’ or a ‘service Church’. Instead,
the members of the Basic Ecclesial Communities generally attached importance to political
involvement. Many of their members played an active role in the political disputes over the
NATO double-track missiles decision, the nuclear power plant at Brokdorf and the plans to
build the western runway at Frankfurt Airport.
In addition to the political slant that characterised many of the Basic Ecclesial Communities
they adopted a new approach to the Bible: ‘Small groups get together in an effort to interpret
the Word of God, who topples the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the downtrodden, in
their own specific occupational, family and political settings. […] Basic Ecclesial Communities
endeavour to jointly re-appropriate the Word of God; and in these difficult attempts at re-
appropriation, which in many cases are hindered by the middleclass practice of steering clear
of unfamiliar developments, the members experience what they regard as a key element of living
and working together in a Basic Ecclesial Community.’”2202
Interestingly, these communities, despite not identifying themselves as formally belonging

to the ambit of the institutional parishes in Germany, did not sever their ties to the
Universal Church since, in the words of Vellguth, they “maintained direct, personal
relations with parishes or Basic Ecclesial Communities in countries of the southern
hemisphere.”2203 Thus, it can be said that even if they lost their confidence in the Germany
hierarchy, they remained faithful to the Universal Church by maintaining close contact
with the other Local Churches, especially with the BECs, outside Germany. On top of this,
they also established their communities as spaces for ecumenical dialogue.2204 Hence,
their membership was not only limited to the Catholic faithful but also to those belonging
to other denominations. Given the circumstances, these communities were frowned upon
2199The communities that emerged in the Germany around this time, according to Thomas Seiterich, were
“[groups] and communities… that exist outside the institutional parish structures and beyond the scope of
ecclesiastical law. These groups and communities call themselves ‘Basic Groups’ or ‘Basic Ecclesial
Communities’. They read the Bible, celebrate Communion or the Eucharist, intervene in political conflicts and
make their views heard with an increasing degree of self-confidence among the Church-going public.” Thomas
Seiterich, Die andere Kirche Basisgemeinden in Europa (Wuppertal, 1982), o. cit., 135-148, 135. According to
Klaus Vellguth, these communities were called in several names, such as “Projektgruppe konkrete Theologie
(Lauffen), Laurentius-Konvent (Wethen), Oskar-Romero-Haus (Bonn), Teestubengemeinde (Wurzburg),
Gastkirche (Recklinghausen), KABA (Hannover), Dessauerhausgemeinde (Frankfurt am Main) or simply
Basisgemeinde (Darmstadt,Marburg, Bonn, Wulfshagenerhutten, etc.)”. Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,”
200.
2200Ibid.
2201Seiterich pointed out that population of these communities “come from that section of the population in
which the younger and middle generation has, with the exception of a small minority, turned its back in
disappointment on the churches over the past twenty years.” Seiterich, Basisgemeinden, o. cit., 138. Cited in
Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 201.
2202Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 201. Cf. Seiterich, Basisgemeinden, 143. Cf. Johann Baptist Metz,
“Im Aufbruch zu einer kulturellen polyzentrischen Welt,” in: Zukunftsfähigkeit, Suchbewegungen im

Christentu, hrsg. Franz-Xaver Kaufmann and Johann Baptist Metz (Freiburg,1987), 110-111.
2203Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 201.
2204Vellguth expounds that “The Basic Ecclesial Communities which emerged in Germany at this stage
regarded themselves either as groupings on the fringes of the institutional (Catholic) Church, as non-
denominational groupings or, in some cases, as groups that deliberately wished to form a contrast with the
‘established Church’.” Ibid., 201-202.
402
by some people, especially those in the hierarchy who held traditional views on
ecclesiology. In fact, even some lay members of the Catholic Church in Germany were also
suspicious of the motivations and activities of these communities. Notwithstanding the
negative assessment regarding the status of these communities by some leaders and
members of the Catholic Church in Germany, the then Bishop of the Diocese of Limburg,
Wilhelm Kempf, did not only extend an “olive branch” to these communities but also
positively pointed out the value of this novel movement in the Church. In the spirit of
profound appreciation, he boldly stated that
“There are Christians who feel called upon to give more than what they currently experience in
their parishes in terms of commitment and dedication. However, they also take the message of
the Bible seriously that you cannot be a Christian all on your own. They feel that now, more
than ever before, it is inconceivable to be a Christian and not be part of a community. They,
therefore, gather in small groups and strive to find common ways of living that are in harmony
with the Gospel and the following of Jesus Christ. They hold discussions on the faith and the
Bible, celebrate Mass together, donate a large part of their earnings to the poor and the
persecuted in the Third World, stand up for the defenceless and in some cases also take political
sides. Most of these groups have not been founded by a priest. They have been formed by lay
people acting on their own free will. […] They aim to give a new, more vocal expression to the
radical demands made in the Gospel of mediocre or introverted Christians. They suffer if the
parish does not give them sufficient room to pursue their own initiatives. They criticise the fact
that Christians, and often enough the clergy too, are insensitive to social and political problems.
They are disgusted by the new ‘look after and care for me’ mentality that is to be found among
many members of the Catholic Church.”2205
By courageously expressing his deep appreciation of the BECs in Germany, amidst the
controversies that beset the Catholic world in Germany at that time, Kempf was able to
prevent an impending massive exodus of the Catholic faithful in Germany. 2206 What led to
the “demise” or to the “hibernation mode” of the BECs in Germany, however, was the
resolution or neutralization of social and political grievances of the German people. When
they were finally appeased, struggles died down and the nation went into what could be
referred to as “social cocooning” phase. As a consequence, the BECs in Germany which
were primarily politically active and socially oriented communities started to disintegrate
and died a natural death. There was no reason for them to exist, anymore, because what
held them together, the things that made them busy, had practically become non-existent
or insignificant considering the remarkable positive changes in economic, political, social
aspects of the German society.2207
2205Wilhelm Kempf, Für euch und für alle, Brief des Bischofs von Limburg zur Fastenzeit 1981 an die Gemeinden
des Bistums, besonders an die Fernstehenden, Limburg, 1981.
2206According to Vellguth, “It was thanks to such words of esteem that many Christians active in the Basic
Ecclesial Communities continued to regard themselves as part of the Church and decided not to break off
contacts with other Church circles, which had often become very fragile.” Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the
Flame,” 202.
2207Vellguth recounts that “In the 1980s and 1990s many Basic Ecclesial Communities in Germany revealed
a high level of commitment, although the movement itself never gained the momentum it achieved in some
other European countries. In fact, most of the Basic Ecclesial Communities disbanded after a few years. There
were many reasons for this. The dissolution process was attributed in part to personal conflicts within the
groups, which have a substantial explosive force in personal communities. On the other hand, many Basic
Ecclesial Communities failed to live up to the high ethical expectations they set themselves. Finally, the late
1980s and early 1990s saw the end of the political disputes that had served as a source of identity for many
Basic Ecclesial Communities. The end of the political arguments meant the loss of an important point of focus
and identification for the Basic Ecclesial Communities. Another problem was that the approach adopted by
the Basic Ecclesial Communities came about ‘because of the upheavals in Germany, out of a sense of
frustration and with an idealizing look at the others.’ Moreover, from the 1990s at the latest Germany
underwent a phase of social cocooning that was less conducive to the political involvement experienced the
late 1970s and early 1980s, favoring a return to familiar structures instead.” Ibid., 203. Cf. Bernd Lutz, “Small
Christian Communities – ein weltweites, aber sehr heterogenes Phänomen,” Pastoraltheologische Informationen
26, no. 1(2006): 1, 22-37, 23. Cf. also Matthias Horx, Trendbuch (Berlin: ralfs-buecherkiste, 1996), 1.
403
SAMBAYANIHAN
After a period of lull, BECs in Germany, like a phoenix, started to rise from their
ashes at the dawn of the third millennium. Thus, the second episode BEC formation in
Germany can be assigned to the years between 1990 and the present. If the first one was
influenced by the phenomenon in Latin America, the main impetus for the second era of
BEC formation in Germany were the Lumko and AsIPA approaches coming from Africa
and Asia, respectively. The main reasons for the reemergence of BECs on the German soil,
according to Vellguth, are the challenges posed by the ever-widening territories covered
by pastoral units in Germany and a renewed interest on SCCs that have flourished in
Africa and Asia that were perceived to be viable social forms for the local Church in
Germany.2208 This period has been clearly marked by a series of meetings, bench-marking
activities, workshops, symposia and expert seminars organized by German ecclesiastical
authorities in collaboration with Lumko and AsIPA. During these events, discussions,
conceptualizations, planning and evaluations on the nature, composition, configuration
and trajectory of what versions of BECs/SCCs are appropriate for the German context/s
have been conducted.2209 This newfound motivation to establish BECs in Germany was
rightly expressed by Norbert Mette in these words: “A look at other regions within the
universal Church can give cause for hope and provide confirmation that there are other
ways of proceeding.”2210 Against this background, Bible-sharing, a device that had been
utilized in Africa and Asia, was considered to be a very powerful vehicle for the formation
of BECs in Germany. The “re-discovery” of the indispensable role of the Bible in the life of
German BECs is not surprising at all, because this country has played a very important
role, through a reformation led by Martin Luther, in establishing the importance of giving
ordinary people access to the Scriptures. Thus, bible-sharing in the context of the German
BECs is highly appreciated. It was, indeed, deemed to bring about the much-needed
revitalization process for the dioceses in Germany. According to Hennecke,
“Whereas Bible study groups and Bible methods very often – and justifiably – rely on the
superior skills of the person leading the group […], the point of Bible sharing is to experience
the practical updating and full expression of the truth of the Council, which stems from the
fundamental equality and dignity of all who have been baptised – a dignity which can also be
interpreted as meaning that all are called upon equally to listen to God’s Word.”2211
In a diocesan synod held in 1989 in the Diocese of Hildesheim, it was underscored that a
vital element of the “New Way of Being Church” is the effort to “a self-realization of the
Church and self-evangelization” wherein “Bible-sharing proved to be a practical way of
appreciating what God wants for the Church today.”2212
2208Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 203-204.

2209Cf.Lutz, “Small Christian Communities,” 22-37. Cf. also Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 203-235.
2210Norbert Mette, “Die Situation der Gemeindepastoral in Deutschland,” in Zukunftsfähige Gemeinde, hrsg.
Gregor von Fürstenberg, Norbert Nagler, Klaus Vellguth (München: Ein Werkbuch mit Impulsen aus den
Jungen Kirchen, 2003), o. cit. 12. Cited in Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 207.
2211Christian Hennecke, “Mehr und anders als man denkt: Small Christian Communities,” in Small Christian
Communities verstehen, Ein Weg, Kirche mit den Menschen zu sein, idem. ed. (Würzburg ,2009), 21. Alexander
Foitzik, “Neue Formen gemeindlichen Lebens, Ein Gesprach mit Regens Christian Hennecke uber
Kirchenbilder,” Herder Korrespondenz 64, no. 4(2010): 180. Cited in Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,”
205.
2212Matthias Kaune and Christian Hennecke, “Mehr als Bibel-Teilen, Auf dem Weg zu einer ‘Kirche in der
Nachbarschaft’ im Bistum Hildesheim,” Anzeiger für die Seelsorge 115, no. 9(2006):16. Translation was
provided by Vellguth in Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 205. As stated in the book Gemeinschaft im
Wort which was published in 1999 in Germany, “In actual fact, Bible-sharing is the spiritual foundation of
the Small Christian Communities. Where Bible-sharing is conducted properly, it turns a Small Christian
Community into a ‘mystagogical community’, whose members help each other to grasp the secret of Christ’s
presence in their midst.” Cf. Oswald Hirmer, “Small Christian Communities, Ein starkes Werkzeug zur inneren
Reform der Kirche,” Anzeiger für die Seelsorge 115, no. 9(2006): 21.
404
These different fora of discernment have been generously supported by missio in

terms of finances, logistics and manpower. Missio has been collaborating closely with some
German dioceses for several decades now. These events have employed high-profile
proponents of BECs/SCCs from both inside and outside the country, especially those who
have been involved in the LUMKO Institutes in Africa and the AsIPA2213 in Asia. One of
them was Oswald Hirmer who was invited by missio in 1990 to facilitate the seminars
organized for acquiring knowledge on Bible-sharing in Germany.2214 In 2001, Fritz
Lobinger and Oswald Hirmer were asked to collaborate together in providing courses on
“biblical spirituality” as part of the seminars on SCCs conducted in several dioceses in
Germany. In 2002, Thomas Vijay and Agnes Chawadi were imported from India in 2002
to share about the experience of BECS/SCCs in Asia. In that same year, Dieter Tewese
who was invited to share about his AsIPA experience in the Diocese of Onasbrück. In
2003, Sister Tsifiwa who has been a member of the Lumko Institute situated in South
Africa was invited to participate in the workshops on small Christian communities in some
of the dioceses in Germany, especially in the Diocese of Würzburg. Apart from inviting
resource persons from outside the country to provide the people in Germany the necessary
skills and knowledge for BEC formation, some were also sent to Asia in order to acquire
some needed know-how for creating feasible BECs in Germany, such as Norbert Nagler
and Armin Ehl who were sent to Thailand by missio to Thailand for the Second AsIPA
General Assembly in October of 20002215 and Werner Meyer zum Farwig who was sent to
India and Sri Lanka in 2001.2216
In some of these gatherings on BECs and SCCs the issue of whether to adapt or not
“Basic Ecclesial Communities” as an appropriate nomenclature for the communities in
Germany was seriously considered, because they wanted to be distinguished from the
Latin American CEBs which were perceived to be flowing along the negative stream of
2213According to Vellguth, “The AsIPA programme […] addresses the pastoral and spiritual needs in the
communities and forms viable basic ecclesial structures. The pastoral strength of the AsIPA approach resides
in the dovetailing of spirituality and community building; it convincingly implements the communion
ecclesiology. The different cultural context notwithstanding, this concept also offers a vision for local churches
in Germany.” Klaus Vellguth, Antrag zur Etablierung eines Projekts (Small Christian Communities),
unpublished document (Aachen, 1999). Quoted in Klaus Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 207.
2214Cf. Norbert Nagler, “Spiritualitat und Gemeindebildung – eine neue Art Kirche zu sein,” Lebendige Seelsorge
56, no. 4(2005): 211-218.

2215According to Vellguth, “During this conference Oswald Hirmer stressed that Small Christian Communities
focus on Christ and made it clear that the practice of Gospel-sharing is just one way of placing Christ at the
heart of the community or the Church. This line of argument was taken up shortly afterwards by Ottmar
Fuchs, who wrote the following about the connection between a focus on the Bible and a focus on Christ:
‘References to the Bible and references to Christ belong together in these communities. First of all, Christ is
positioned at the center. He is given a presence so that he can be experienced as the person who speaks to
the faithful through the biblical texts. The faithful regard their own interpretations of the texts as an answer
to this word. There is no discussion of the texts; instead they become the medium for the encounter with
Christ.’” Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 208. Cf. Oswald Hirmer, “AsIPA, A Tool for Implementing Our
Vision of Church as a Co-Responsible Community of Brothers and Sisters,” AsIPA General Assembly II, A New
Way of Being Church in the New Millennium, Taipei, 2002, 26-31. Cf. Norbet Nagler, “Meditation in
Gemeinschaft, Bibel- und Leben-Teilen als Gemeinde am Ort,” Anzeiger fur die Seelsorge 114, nos. 7/8(2004):
18-23. Cf. Ottmar Fuchs, “Immer noch: Neue Impulse aus der Weltkirche,” in: in Zukunftsfähige Gemeinde,
hrsg. Fürstenberg, Nagler, and Vellguth, o. cit. 17-27, 25.
2216Meyer zum Farwig reported upon his arrival from the said journey to Asia that ““The Small Christian
Communities offer the experience of a special spirituality. It is based on the Word of God, the communion in
Christ and a common responsibility to look after each other. […] We would need to inculturate AsIPA into the
European cultural environment. That is the challenge we face. As our hosts frequently pointed out, this can
only be done step by step and with a great deal of patience.” Norbert Nagler and W. Meyer zum Farwig, Auf
eine neue Weise Kirche sein, in Zukunftsfähige Gemeinde, hrsg. Fürstenberg, Nagler and Vellguth, o. cit., 130f.
Cited in Klaus Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 209.
405
SAMBAYANIHAN
“liberation theology” which was linked to Marxism.2217 They also clarified in these fora that
“in contrast to the numerous Basic Ecclesial Communities that had been formed in
Germany in the 1980s, the new wave of base communities in Germany were not interested
in setting up an ‘alternative Church’. These communities regarded themselves much more
as an integral part of the Catholic Church or as part of the parish in which the Eucharist
was celebrated in communion.”2218 As such, it was understood, according to Emeis, that
“The smaller communities must consciously seek communion with each other. This
distinguishes them from self-contained circles of friends or groups of like-minded people
devoted to the common pursuit of certain pleasures. By bringing together kindred spirits,
smaller communities always run the risk of supporting or even reinforcing differences and
distinctions between people. The community, however, should by its very nature be a sign of
the power of the faith that brings together what is different and reconciles what has been rent
asunder. The larger community, which assembles on Sunday for the Lord’s Supper, is also the
place for those who live their faith in family and society without any involvement in a group.”2219
Hence, it can be inferred that the new vision set for the base communities in
Germany starting from the decade before the new millennium was, indeed, very promising.
Unfortunately, despite the BIG ideas2220 that were formulated and the BIG hopes2221 that
transpired during the fora and gatherings organized by the interested parties, the ideas
and the hopes have so far remained in the level of theory, perhaps because of the so-called
German rigor and precision, and maybe also because of the ‘cautiousness’ that they had
painfully learned from the “horrors” of the “first wave of BECs” in Germany. Until now,
what have existed in Germany are not actual living communities but, unfortunately, are
wonderful concepts discussed in the countless meetings, workshops, symposia, expert
seminars and the like.2222 The myriad of “bible-sharing groups” organized in Germany that
were originally meant to provide fertile breeding grounds for BECs/SCCs within
parameters of the German Church have not successfully given birth to full-blown vibrant
Basic Ecclesial Communities. According to Vellguth, “It turned out that the initiative led
to the strengthening of Bible study groups rather than to the building of Small Christian
Communities. ‘It is apparently very difficult to convey the inner connection between Bible-
2217Cf. The workbook of the same name “Zukunftsfahige Gemeinde” published in 2003. For an interesting
discussion on liberation theology vis-à-vis the institutional church, especially on the role of BECs as a “New
Way of Being Church” within the orbit of the Universal Church, we recommend Leonardo Boff, Church:
Charism and Power; Liberation Theology and the Institutional Church, trans. John W. Diercksmeler (Eugen,
OR: Wipf & Stock, 1985, 2011). Cf. also Leonardo Boff, “Notification on the book ‘Church: Charism and
Power’,” Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19850311_notif-
boff_en.html [accessed December 27, 2016].
2218Klaus Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 214.
2219Dieter Emeis, Realistische Treue zur Vision der Gemeinde, in Zukunftsfähige Gemeinde, hrsg. Gregor von
Fürstenberg, Norbert Nagler and Klaus Vellguth (München: Don-Bosco-Verlag, 2003), 15.
2220Vellguth relates that the Würzburg Synod asserted that “Small Christian Communities transform the
Church from a hierarchically structured system into a service-based system. Klaus Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites
the Flame,” 216. For more details on this, see Dieter Tewes, “Kirche in der Nachbarschaft. Von AsIPA zu
Kleinen Christlichen Gemeinschaften in Deutschland – Erfahrungen im Bistum Osnabrück,” Lebendige
Seelsorge 56, no.4(2005): op. cit., 229. Cf. Michael Wustenberg, “Small Christian Communities, Kraftvolle
Zukunftsperspektive der Kirche als Familie,” Anzeiger für die Seelsorge 118, no. 10(2009):8.
2221It was asserted that “For the German dioceses and parishes, which in the present circumstances are
seeking pastoral prospects for the future, AsIPA offers a special opportunity to counter the threat of exclusively
structural thinking by supporting the congregations in their search for a sound spiritual basis and
accompanying them effectively down this road.” Cf. AsIPA, Working Group on Spirituality and Community
Building, Minutes of the Meeting, 14 September 2000, Aachen 2000.
2222Cf. Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 204-235. Cf. also Terbatz-van Elst, “Exploring Closeness,” 99-
112.
406
sharing and sharing services in the parish.’”2223 This claim of Vellguth was corroborated
by Dieter Tewes who affirmed that “these groups were more interested in doing something
for their own spirituality and less focused on the community.”2224 Out of the many Bible-
sharing groups in the parishes located within the Diocese of Onasbrück, only one has
succeeded to transform itself to become a concrete German version of BEC.2225
Thus, after analyzing the data that we have unearthed in this research project, we
can surmise that since 1990, in Germany, the formation of BECs has been successful as
far as theory is concerned. But, when it comes to actual presence of BECs in the parishes
or dioceses, the success rate is practically negligible. We may be wrong in our assessment,
but we suspect that among the many reasons why BECs have not become a tangible reality
in Germany, despite everything that the German hierarchy has done, in collaboration with
missio, the culprit for the “absence” of actual BECs in Germany is a classic case of “over-
thinking”. Is it perhaps a case of “more talk less work”? We are of the opinion that more
energy was actually poured in to the intellectual discussions rather than to actual
formation of BECs.
Nevertheless, if we are to be asked what could the Filipino migrant BECs learn from
the German experience of BEC formation, the first thing that we could say is the centrality
of the Scriptures in the life of the BECs. In our assessment, most of the Filipino faithful,
migrants or not, are not familiar with the Bible. Most of them are not even aware of the
basic structure and content of the Bible. That is why, they are easily swayed, and even
duped, by those people who claim to know the Bible by heart. Because of ignorance, they
simply swallow everything hook-line-and-sinker. So, they change religion just because
they are impressed by those people belonging to other religions who could spontaneously
spit out verses from the Bible, even if these verses are used incorrectly. They even blame
the leaders of the Catholic Church for letting them remain ignorant of the Scriptures.
Perhaps, this is not just an isolated case for the Filipinos, but it is also true for other
nationalities and ethnicities. What we would like to say, however, is the importance of
educating the Catholic faithful, including the Filipino migrants, in terms of the Bible.
When they have full access to the Scriptures, when they know how to properly read and
relate the message of the Bible to their daily experience, they will hopefully grow more in
their appreciation of their faith and of their mission to their base communities and to
other communities. Of course, we should also make sure that there is proper guidance
from those who are more knowledgeable in the area of biblical studies. We emphasize the
adjective ‘proper’ because the purpose of the guidance is to facilitate the understanding of
the message and not to restrict the understanding of it. We believe that, even if the bible
scholars and the ordained ministers are more knowledgeable than the ordinary faithful in
terms of the Scriptures, they do not have the monopoly of the Scriptures. They could also
learn a lot from the ordinary practitioners and interpreters of faith. What is truly needed
2223Klaus Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,” 213. Cf. Alexander Foitzik, “Kirche in der Nachbarschaft,
Impulse aus der Weltkirche zur Gemeindeerneuerung,” Herder Korrespondenz 60, no. 9(2006): 467.
2224Tewes claimed that ““Each of these groups had a ‘genetic code’ that was incapable of change later on. We
found out that the groups who were prepared to embrace a process of change ultimately disintegrated.” Dieter
Tewes, conversation on 30 May 2012. Cf. Dieter Tewes, “Kirche unter den Menschen, Small Christian
Communities in gro.en pastoralen Strukturen,” Unsere Seelsorge 3(2011): 51. The same findings were also
gathered in the Archdiocese of Hamburg. For this, kindly refer to Ludmilla Leittersdorf-Wrobel, “Small
Christian Communities in Deutschland, Eine andere Art, Kirche vor Ort zu leben,” missio konkret 1(2007): 14.
Quotation was provided in Klaus Vellguth, “A Spark Ignites the Flame,”213.
2225We should not fail to mention here that the Bukal ng Tipan of the Philippines has been collaborating with
the dioceses of Hildesheim, Limburg, Paderborn and Onasbrück. For more information on this, please see
CICM, Bukal ng Tipan.
407
SAMBAYANIHAN
is the atmosphere of openness to learn from one another wherein the so-called “experts”
do not impose their views on the ordinary interpreters, but simply serve as “lighthouses”
that provide proper orientation to those who are trying to find their way in the challenging
voyage towards understanding the Scriptures and living out of their faith.
II.4.2.4. BEC in North America/U.S.A.: A Post-Vatican Experience of Togetherness and

Belongingness
Based on the study conducted by Bernard Lee and company, Small Christian
Communities started to be recognized as such within the ambit of the U.S. Catholic
Church in the early 1980s.2226 Prior to this decade, different kinds of small groups had
been in existence in the United States of America. Most of these communities are still in
existence today. These communities (i.e., “solidarities, Catholic Action, Christian Family
Movement, Legion of Mary, Cursillo, and Marriage Encounter”) have been formed for the
purpose of nurturing and propagating faith.2227 Apart from these communities,
“underground churches” had also begun to flourish in the years following the Second
Vatican Council.2228 These so-called underground churches, although not exactly the same
as the modern-day SCCs in the United States of America, could be seen as related to the
latter. In other words, there are some striking similarities that one can observe between
the two. Both their members are composed of people who are generally in search for a
venue or forum to exercise genuine “active participation” as called for by Vatican II. Both
“modalities” of a Christian community have members who want, as part of their Christian
vocation, to be sincerely committed to the Church and to the larger society as well. One
of the remarkable achievements of the so-called underground churches was the
publication, albeit experimental in nature, of some Eucharistic prayers used in the mass.
It came to be called as the ‘Underground Mass Book’.2229 Lee points out that some of these
underground churches served as the precursors to some extant SCCs in the United States
of America.2230 In other words, some present-day SCCs in the U.S. are offshoots of these
post-Vatican II underground churches.
In the early days of the SCCs in the U.S., there was only one literature that served
as a report regarding the formation of small communities in this part of the globe. It was
a bi-monthly publication called the Gathering which was owned by the National Catholic
Reporter.2231 With no other printed sources of information pertaining to the nascent period
of SCCs in the U.S., Lee and Michael Cowan were forced to rely on the oral accounts of
the original members of the SCCs in the 1980’s when they collaborated on a project
concerning the presence of SCCs in the United States. The result of their investigation
was later published under the title of Dangerous Memories.2232 Fortunately, in the years
that followed, more materials could be had, especially with the creation of a national
2226Lee, The Catholic Experience, 11. An invaluable resource on the history, theology and pastoral direction
and implementation of SCCs in the diocese in the U.S. is the book Small Christian Communities: A Vision of
Hope for the 21st Century revised and expanded version. Cf. Thomas A. Kleissler, Margo A. LeBert and Mary
C. McGuinness, Small Christin Communities: A Vision for Hope for the 21 st Century (New York/Mahwah, N.J.:
Paulist, 2003).
2227Ibid., 12.
2228Ibid.
2229Ibid.
2230Ibid.
2231This was made possible through the initiative of Sheed and Ward. Lee, The Catholic Experience, 11.
2232The study was conducted between 1984-1986. Kleissler, LeBert and McGuinness, Small Christian
Communities, 12.
408
network of Small Christian Communities in North America. This national network has
been, since its inception, organizing annual conventions and also producing important
literature regarding SCCs in the U.S., such as the Buena Vista. Based on the information
gathered by Lee and his collaborators, the national network has, from the very beginning,
been propelled by the RENEW program which was a brainchild of Msgr. Tom Kleisser and
his colleagues.2233 This program, was designed by Kleisser and his team to facilitate
spiritual renewal and skills updating of the Catholic parishes in the United States. As of
the present, this “approach” has remained actively and directly involved in the existing
SCCs in the U.S. by offering them resources and programs that would help them grow
both in quality and in quantity.
Apart from the SCCs that are primarily fueled by the RENEW program, there are also
some SCCs in the U.S. that are largely inspired by the community formed by Fr.
Baranowski in the Diocese of Detroit.2234 As a pastoral priority in his parish, Baranowski
considered SCC “not just [as] another program supported by a parish” but as “a model for
the restructuring of a parish into a community of communities. As such, it should not be
conceived as “a larger unit that is broken down into small church communities” but
instead as one that is “built up out of small church communities.”2235 In this framework,
the parish becomes a place where new kinds of collaborative leadership can be
nurtured.2236 This alternative vision of the parish church in the U.S., despite its limited
application in this North American country, is still considered to be a viable trajectory for
the parishes in the United States.
At the dawn of the 3rd millennium, two international theological consultations
regarding the Small Christian Communities in the United States had been conducted
wherein representatives from the five continents of the world were gathered at the
University of Notre Dame through the effort of Rev. Robert Pelton, C.S.C. 2237 These
international consultations can be seen as a proof that SCCs are still regarded to be an
important aspect of church life in the U.S., despite the fact that they are not considered
to be the top priority in this ecclesiastical region. It was uncovered by the research project
conducted by Lee,
“that the experience of community and relationships is one of the most satisfying aspects of
SCC membership. The need for community is linked with strong spiritual hungers, and the
SCC brings them together. ‘It’s one thing to hear the Word of God.’ Comments a community
member, ‘but to be able to talk about it, and share about it, and how it applies to your daily life
among your peers. It’s so different. It’s more life-giving, more enriching.’”2238
On that note, we can say that formation of SCCs can counter the “culture of individualism”
that has been gripping the United States of American which was already observed by
Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830’s when he visited the country.2239 Thus, it has been part
and parcel of the social fabric of the U.S. for centuries now. Ironically, however, while the
2233Lee, The Catholic Experience, 11.

2234Cf. Arthur Baranowski, Creating Small Faith Communities: A Plan for Restructuring the Parish and
Renewing Catholic Life, rev. ed. (Ohio: St. Anthony Messenger, 1993).
2235Ibid.
2236Lee confesses that “While no parish has succeeded in bringing all members into SCCs, enough sometimes
join to affect the texture of parish life.” Ibid., 11.

2237Ibid., 15.
2238Ibid., 9.
2239For Tocqueville, “Individualism” is “a calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate
himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends; with this little society
formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy
in America (Garden City: Doubleday, 1969), 506. Cited in the larger society. Cf. Bernard Lee, The Catholic
Experience, 8.
409
SAMBAYANIHAN
American people value so much their “private space”, they also “hunger for community”.
Individualism has, indeed, brought about the “culture of loneliness” in this country. The
SCCs are, therefore, perceived as an antidote for individualism. They are vehicles to
combat loneliness because they promote the value of togetherness and belongingness.
Kleisser has affirmed that, indeed, “This sense of belonging is sustained over long periods
of time through Small Christian communities.” 2240 So, we can say that SCCs can help in
pulling the people out of loneliness by encouraging them to “make commitments necessary
for community.”2241 This brings to mind Pope Benedict XVI who spoke about the urgency
of Christians’ response to the malaise of individualism:
“In our day, all too often marked by incentives to individualism, it is more necessary than ever
that Christians offer the witness of a solidarity that crosses every border to build a world in
which all feel welcomed and respected. Those who carry out this mission personally or as a
community sow the seeds of authentic love, love that sets the heart free and brings everywhere
that joy ‘that no one can take away’ because it comes from the Lord.”2242
Thus, for Lee, even if the “small Christian communities (SCCs) are not, in any simple way,
the future of the Catholic Church, there is probably no future that will not find itself
shaped by their worldwide emergence. That the new church will almost surely have a place
for them because they will have made a place for themselves.”2243 Moreover, he also states
that “SCCs are perhaps maturing into still another new story, one called ‘contemporary
Catholic life’… SCCs are places where Catholics make Catholic meaning together from
which they choose to live their lives.”2244
As of the publication of Lee’s book, approximately 37,0002245 of SCCs have been
reported to exist in the United States. The SCCs in many dioceses in the U.S. have over a
million members. Unfortunately, there are no recent statistical reports on the SCCs in the
U.S. to verify whether they have grown or diminished. But what is clear to us it that,
according to the report of Lee in 2000,
“SCCs helps us think that perhaps parishes in a future church will not imagine that they break
the parish down into small Christian communities, but, like the early church, build the parish
up out of small Christian communities… To become a real community, some genuine sense of
responsibility must be located with the community… What comes through clearly for many
SCC members is that their relationship with the church is being reshaped… SCCs also seem
to be both an expression and instrument of greater acculturation of Catholicism to U.S.
culture… For most SCCs, these groups replace the extended family or ethnic enclave of an
earlier time as a mechanism for transmitting and maintaining faith… As we have seen,
members of small Christian communities attend to their internal needs, and are also learning
to look beyond so that they can be centers of meaning not only for the immediate lived
2240Moreover, according to Kleisser et al., “offering the richness of sacramental life and of Catholic tradition,
parish life has the additional capacity to respond to these needs through the development of Small Christian
communities where a greater sense of belonging can be felt, where people who know one another can better
care of one another. In addition those who are searching for a fuller faith life and a greater sense of the
transcendent God find support, insight, and encouragement in these small community relationships.” Kleisser
et al., Small Christian Communities.19.
2241Lee, The Catholic Experience, 9.
2242Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Members of the Assembly of Organizations for Aid to the Eastern
Churches (ROACO), 23 June 2005.

2243Lee, The Catholic Experience, 3-4.
2244Ibid., 6.
2245These SCCs are generally categorized by Lee into four sub-groups: 1) The GSC or the Broad General Type
of SCCs that comprise the 65% of all the SCCs in the U.S. (approximate 24, 000 as of 2000); 2) The
Hispanic/Latino Communities that constitute approximately 20 percent of SCCs in the U.S. (i.e., 7, 500
communities); 3) Charismatic Communities that number at least 4, 800 all throughout the country (i.e., 13
%); and 4) CTA/ECC or Call to Action and Eucharist Centered Communities which are a small fraction of the
entire SCCs in the U.S. (i.e., about 100. Despite not being directly connected to the parish, these CTA/ECCs
regularly celebrate the Eucharist when they gather. Cf. Lee, The Catholic Experience, 32-37.
410
experience, but for the church and, in some limited but real ways, centers of meanings for the
world through the church.”2246
SCCs’ contribution” to the Church in the United States, therefore, cannot be simply
ignored. No matter how marginal they are vis-à-vis a population of an approximately 60
million Catholics in the U.S., they are still considered alternative ways of living the Church
in the U.S. for the third millennium.2247 The American bishops have affirmed that
formation of SCCs looks promising because
“Small Church communities do not only foster the faith of individuals, they are living cells
which build up the body of Christ. They are to be signs and instruments of unity. As basic units
of the parish, they serve to increase the corporate life and mission of the parish by sharing in
its life, generously, with their talents and support.”2248
Thus, the authors of Small Christian Communities: A Vision of Hope for the 21st Century
unequivocally declared the importance of locating the SCCs within the ambit of the
parishes. When SCCs are “under the guidance of the pastors and bishops,” according to
them, “they have the capacity to enliven the church in its worship and its mission of
proclaiming the reign of God.”2249 It was underlined in the book that “[it] is imperative and
absolutely necessary if small Christian communities are to become an acknowledged,
valuable, and integral part of Church life.”2250 Why? Because, if we truly understand what
the Church documents tell us (i.e., Dogmatic Constitution on the Church which calls for a
Church as a People of God who come together share a harmonious community of disciples;
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World which unambiguously
underscored “integration of all life and holistic spiritual responsibility”; and Rite of
Christian Initiation of Adults which behooves the faithful to view Christian life as a journey
towards a continuous process of conversion and maturity), we will see that they all find
their most meaningful and concrete expressions in how SCCs live their lives.2251 As far as
the Catholic Church in the U.S. is concerned, therefore, parish-based SCCs, when they
are established properly and nurtured in a healthy manner, are deemed to be a genuine
vehicle for renewal and evangelization. Pope John Paul II recommended that the Church
in the American soil must embark on a journey of renewal in the 21 st century that takes
into serious consideration the notion of the parish as “a community of communities” for,
according to him, “[it] seems timely there to form ecclesial communities that allows for
true human relationships.”2252
After describing the SCCs that emerged in the U.S.’s ecclesiological soil, we can say
that, even if the Filipinos, in general, are considered to be more communitarian than
individualist, the SCCs in the U.S. can still teach them something because they re-affirm
the value of community and togetherness. Thus, the SCCs in the U.S. can help strengthen
the resolve of the Filipino migrants to preserve and to spread the spirit of bayanihan.
Western Europe is no stranger to individualist thinking and living. In fact, there are
some studies that prove that Western European countries, as opposed to some countries
in the so-called Global South, are tending towards individualism rather than
communitarianism. These studies also show that there is a positive correlation between
2246Lee, The Catholic Experience, 144-147.

2247Ibid., 146.
2248United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Called and Gifted for the Third Millennium: Reflections of the
U.S. Bishops on the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity and the Fifteenth
Anniversary of Called and Gifted (Washington, DC: USCCB, 1995), 11.
2249Kleisser et al., Small Christian Communities, 26.
2250Ibid., 44.
2251Ibid.
2252Pope John Paul II, Ecclesia in America: Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation (Vatican: January 22, 1999), 41.
411
SAMBAYANIHAN
individualism and industrialism or economic development.2253 What these studies do not

show, however, are the horrifying repercussions of individualism, such as the high rate of
incidence of depression, suicide, and the like.
In our research, we have encountered some Filipino migrants who subscribe to the
individualist way of life. Some of them are even folding-back to a rather solipsistic
behavior. They are convinced that they have to cast off their communitarian way of
thinking so that they will be able to climb up the economic ladder. They are convinced
that they should focus more on their individual welfare than on others, if they want to be
truly happy. Hence, some of them are tempted to aggressively protect their “personal
space” to the point of being anti-social and even anti-Filipino. Some of them do not want
to be identified as and with the Filipinos.
We are of the opinion, however, that if Filipino migrants form BECs, they will be able
to fight against the temptation of individualism. They will hopefully appreciate the fact
that life is more than just about economic well-being. Hopefully, they will embrace the fact
that progress must be holistic and not just narrowly focused on the financial aspect. It is
about the total well-being of the person. And this kind of well-being can be achieved in
the spirit of togetherness which is what Basic Ecclesial Communities are offering to their
members. It is the same value that bayanihan spirituality upholds. Christian faith is all
about this. Yes, it is about being personal. But it is not about individualism. It is about
being a person in the midst of a community. It is about, paradoxically, being personal and
communal at the same time. We should not forget that God is in the midst of a community
gathered in Jesus’ name.
II.4.2.5. BECs/SCCs in Asia, Oceania and Pacific: Microcosm of the Church
Based on the widespread presence of small Christian communities in this part of the
globe, it can be said that BECs/SCCs are undoubtedly vibrant and effective. There has
been a strong coordination among all BECs/SCCs in Asia since the establishment of the
AsIPA (Asian Integral Pastoral Approach) and because of that their presence is quite
conspicuous and their influence is strongly felt. What brings together the varied
expressions of BECs/SCCs in this region into a harmonious collaborative endeavor,
according to the book Small Christian Communities Today, “is a clear understanding that
they are about the transformation of church and society. Another is methodology. It is not
only the goal that connects, but also the manner of working towards that goal.”2254 That
being said, the authors of the aforementioned book are agreed that “Asia/Oceania is a
microcosm of the [stories of the BECs/SCCs all over the world].”2255
2253Cf. Harry C. Triandis, Individualism and Collectivism (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995). An article written by
Westbrook et al, although originally intended for studying the different cultural perspectives on disabilities,
reveals that there is a significant correlation between individualism and industrialization. Cf. also Mary T.
Westbrook, Varoe Legge, and Mark Pennay, “Attitudes towards Disabilities in a Multicultural Society,” Social
Science & Medicine, 36 (5)1993, 615-623.
2254SCC Today, 115.
2255Ibid.
412
II.4.2.5.1. BEC/SMALL Christian Communities in India: Towards an Evangelized and

Evangelizing Communities of Faith2256
As far as the formal formation of BECs or Small Christian Communities (SSC) in

India is concerned, we can safely state that it came relatively late, as compared to the ones
in Latin America, Africa and the Philippines, for it had to wait until the later part of the
1970’s before they could formally establish them. Although, we can say that SCCs are not
an overnight phenomenon in this region because they have been in the gestational period
for a long time prior to the period identified as their actual formation in India. What
occasioned the blossoming of the SSCs in India were the “ecclesial awakening” brought
about by the Second Vatican Council and the growing climate of maturity in social
consciousness not only among the Indian clergy but also among the laity. And if we are to
identify an important figure in the history of SCCs in India, we can point to Fr.
Amalorpayadas who, in 1969, organized a seminar that became a trigger point for a
renewal of the Church in the Indian context which called for a more participatory church
life.
The first dioceses to respond to this challenge were Kottar and Trivandrum for the
very reason that a number of their clergy strongly felt the immediate need to address
directly the issues that the poor fisher folks were facing that time, considering that they
comprised the majority of the members of these two southern dioceses. Part of this
response was the formation of SCCs in these dioceses spearheaded by Frs. C. Amirtha
and M.J. Edwin in 1978. In the case of the Diocese of Kottar, Fr. Edwin divided the Parish
of Kodimanai into eighteen small groups which became the SCCs. He did this in order for
the people in the parish to work closely together in resolving some socio-political issues
they were facing at that moment. After this incident in Kodimanai, other parishes, not
only in the Diocese of Kottar but also in some other parts of the country, followed suit.
They started forming SCC in India as part of the campaign to promote active lay
participation in the church. In 1990, a committee dubbed as The Christian Life 2000 was
organized by Bishop Susa Pakiam of the Trivandrum diocese. With the assistance of this
committee, Bishop Pakiam wrote a pastoral letter in 1991 addressed to all the parishes in
his diocese urging them to make the formation of SCCs a pastoral priority on which their
pastoral ministry should be based. From then on, the SCCs, like a contagious disease,
had spread to other dioceses in India like Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,
Mangalore, Bijan, West Bengal, Delhi and so forth and so on. Most of the SCCs in India
had initially employed the Lumko method that originated in Africa spearheaded by Bishop
John Baptist Rosentahl, SAC.2257
On the official website of the SSCs in India, the NST, one can peruse the nature and
the trajectory of the SCCs in this region. It says that
“Historically speaking, since the SCCs emerged as a response to the pastoral needs of local
churches, they are truly churches at the grass roots level. Since they are ways of decentralization
of the parish (RM 51) to foster deeper fellowship and witnessing within the local context, SCCs
are referred to as a communion of communities. They are called the New Way of Being Church
since they bring the church to the neighborhood to where people live and interact daily and
invite people to experience the power of the Kingdom present in their midst through allowing
2256This portion is heavily based on Small Christian Communities (SCC) in India, “The Pioneers of SCCs in
India, ” DIIPA Newsletter 10 no. 3, July 2009. http://sccind.org/home/inner/15 [accessed June 8, 2016]. Cf.
also Times of India, “SCCs can Transform Societies, Ucan India, http://www.ucanindia.in/news/-Small-
Christian-Communities/tag [accessed June 8, 2016].
2257Steffen, S.V.D., “Lumko Institute: Towards Building a Participatory Church,” 109. Cf. also Steffen, “Lumko
Institute,” 3.
413
SAMBAYANIHAN
the Word of God to enlighten their hearts and minds and respond together in love. From being
anonymous and inactive Christians, SCCs help to transform them to become active and
evangelizing communities locally.”2258
Thus, we can conclude that BECs or SCCs in India are considered to be the New Way of
Being Church where lay people are deemed to be actively participating in the daily life of
the Church traditionally monopolized by the ordained ministry. In and through these
ecclesial communities they came out from their anonymity and inactivity to become
genuinely evangelized and evangelizing agents. Knowing the ecclesiastical landscape in
India, however, makes us think about the feasibility of this proposal. This is certainly not
a walk in the park. This will be an uphill battle, especially for the laity. But, we cannot
also underestimate the power of the Spirit to inspire both the clergy and the laity to
genuinely find ways to bridge the differences and work together for active participation of
all members of the church. Therefore, we hope that people from either side of the spectrum
will collaborate genuinely towards complementarity and active participation. Bishop Bosco
of Mumbai rightly points out that
“Today in Mumbai nobody challenges the importance of SCCs anymore. There are still priests,
clergy and laity who resist the movement either because they are not yet convinced or because
of the work involved; but everyone accepts the importance of this work in practice. Today, in
the archdiocese, most priests are involved in SCCs in one way or the other; so also hundreds
of religious women and thousands of lay people. All the three bishops are very supportive. All
this is a change from where we started.
At the moment, in Mumbai, the SCCs spanning the whole archdiocese are like a huge machine,
constantly in need of attention - a drop of oil here, tightening a screw there, replacing worn out
parts. There are many and constant interventions I have to make to keep the whole machinery
going. It is my hope and prayer after my retirement (three years hence) there will be many
others to keep this work going. Recently the archdiocese has appointed, for the first time, an
Assistant Director for SCCs. They have also replaced the Promoter to SCCs with a new
incumbent. The back bone of this on-going project are the quarterly reports that come into our
office three times a year, that makes us aware of the vast panorama, I call it a ‘kaleidoscope’ of
thousands of varied activities all over the archdiocese, organized by the almost two thousand
communities that we have.
My hope for the future is that the SCCs will grow in strength, will involve more and more
bishops, priests, religious and laity and will move from Small Christian Communities to Small
Human Communities so that we can contribute in a powerful way to national integration.
SCC reminds us that the Eucharist is not only to be celebrated in Church but to be lived in
every part of the parish. We must carry the Eucharistic Mystery from the Church to our
neighbourhoods. We must work to wipe the tear from every eye and to bring the smile to every
face.”2259
Certainly, he attributes the success of the SCCs in India to the inspiration set by the
numerous universal and regional ecclesiastical policy statements issued in the recent
past, such as the Papal exhortations ‘Christifideles Laici’, Redemptoris Missio, the FABC
Bandung Conference of 1990 and the 1992 CBCI meeting at Pune which made SCCs the
policy for India.
Although it is still an ideal that SCCs in India are striving to achieve, we can say that
the Filipino migrant BECs in Western Europe can also learn to appreciate what genuine
collaboration between the clergy and laity is about. It is obvious that a significant number
of Filipino faithful still considers church life as primarily the business of the ordained
ministers. Apart from this, there is still a big fraction of the Filipino faithful, whether
abroad or in the Philippines, who consider their faith to be centered on the priests. Their
loyalty is not to the church but to the priest that they like. It is not unusual for them to
form “fans club” around a particular ordained minister, perhaps because of the amiability
2258Small Christian Communities in India, “History of SCCs,” The Official Website of the NST of SCCs in India
(CBCI), http://www.sccind.org/home/inner/22 [accessed on June 8, 2016].
2259Cf. SCC in India, “The Pioneers of SCCs in India.”
414
of the priest or because of the eloquence of the priest. So, when the priest is transferred
to another parish, they also move to where their favorite priest is assigned. If they decide
to stay in their original parish, they compare the new priest with the former and endlessly
complain about their perceived deficiencies of the latter. Thus, we believe that the
trajectory that the Church in India would like to follow, as far as BECs/SCCs are
concerned, will help the Filipino migrants re-discover their God-given right to actively
participate in the life of the church. The church is not just about the clergy. The church
is about everyone who is called by God to be part of God’s family. The church is about
giving each one his or her fair share in the life and activities of the People of God. We hope
that, once people are able to appreciate their dignity as a member of God’s family, they
will have a proper appreciation of the role of the ordained ministers in the church and not
“idolize” them. They will still respect the clergy without making it the be-all-and-end-all of
church life. Hopefully, they will continue to offer their heartfelt and humble service to the
church regardless of who the priests are in their respective parishes. Hopefully, with the
BECs in place, their loyalty will be to the church and not to the priest.
II.4.2.5.2. BEC in South Korea: Communities Arising from and Sustained by the Grassroots
Even before the actual establishment of Small Christian Communities in South

Korea which came as a response to the “identity crisis” that hit this ecclesiastical region,
numerous small communities called “Ban Gatherings” have been thriving in South Korea
beginning in the 1970.2260 The word “ban” in Korean literally means “neighborhood.” That
is why these communities, which can be thought of as precursors to the real Small
Christian Communities in South Korea, were understood to be groups comprised of 40-
50 families that were found in the same neighborhood. They were divided as such
primarily for the purpose of convenience and efficiency as far as pastoral administration
was concerned. This was obviously part of the much-criticized preoccupation of the
Church in South Korea which, according Daesup Kim, “focused mainly on the
management or organization of the faith and the supplying of meeting places for them.” 2261
Clearly, because of this lopsided motivation, this scheme was not able to cope with the
sudden upsurge of membership seen in the 1980’s and address the crisis of identity which
had been brewing in this part of the globe. These small communities were certainly not
seen in the light of the Second Vatican Council’s notion of Church as koinonia (LG, 26) or
“communion of communities”.2262
In 1992, an auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul, Bishop
Peter Kang, posed some serious questions about the state and possible trajectory of the
Church in Korea. His questions served as trigger points for the Catholic Church in South
Korea to redefine itself which led to the establishment of Small Christian Communities.
Bishop Kang queried:
“Is our church maturing enough internally while it is rapidly increasing outwardly? Is the
Catholic Church in South Korea good as it stands? Is the present condition of the Korean
2260Cf. Daesup Kim, S.T.D, “The Church as Communion in Small Christian Communities (SCCs) in South
Korea” (unpublished dissertation, Catholic University of America, 2011), footnote no. 3; p. 6.
2261Kim, “SCCs in South Korea,” 6.
2262Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some
Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion,” Origins 22, no. 7 (1992): 108-12, no. 3. It states, thus,
the concept of communion (koinonia), which appears with a certain prominence in the texts of the Second
Vatican Council, is very suitable for expressing the core of the Mystery of the Church, and can certainly be a
key for the renewal of Catholic ecclesiology.” Ibid., no. 1.
415
SAMBAYANIHAN
Catholic Church an acceptable condition for the Church? What is the desirable direction for
the Korean Catholic Church to pursue?”2263
His inquiry, therefore, served as a clarion call for the Church in South Korea which was
described in a 1985 survey as “mainly centered on sacramental obligations such as the
observance of Sunday Mass and it was excessively individualized in parish life with no
feeling of community among the faithful nor solidarity with one’s neighbors”. 2264 Bishop
Kang, moved by what transpired in the 1990 FABC meeting, took the bold step of
recommending to the Catholic Church in South Korea the formation of Small Christian
Communities in this ecclesiastical jurisdiction.2265 This was seen as a breakthrough
because the Catholic Church in South Korea at that time had been experiencing
stagnation or deterioration because, as expounded by Kim in his dissertation,
“In this hierarchical system, the lay faithful in huge parishes did not take part in the lay
apostolate voluntarily and actively. Rather, they were forced to remain as passive objects in a
Church excessively dependent on the clergy. Some even found it difficult to understand the
proper status of the laity in the Church; instead, they were satisfied with a passive and isolated
status. Pastors, on the other hand, were unable to give spiritual advice to individual
parishioners through personal meetings. They failed to do what Pope John Paul II subsequently
urged, namely to ‘devise new and effective ways of shepherding the faithful’ so that everyone
truly would feel part of the parish and part of the universal People of God. Pastors merely
assumed a position as administrators or supervisors in the Church.”2266
It can be inferred from the statement of Kim that an overhaul was, indeed, needed for the
Church in South Korea. And this ecclesiological renewal necessarily included the
formation of Small Christian Communities in South Korea which was recommended by
the delegates to FABC assemblies. After a tedious process of communal discernment, the
delegates agreed that “a new way of being Church” needed to be established in Asia. This
“new way” could be “best embodied and expressed in the theological understanding of the
Church as a communion of communities and as a participatory reality.”2267 It was agreed
in the FABC assemblies that the Church in Asia must adapt a worldview wherein the term
“communities” necessarily pertains to the “ecclesial communities at the grassroots level”
which may take the form of small “Christian communities, neighborhood groups, basic
ecclesial communities, and covenant communities.”2268 These communities, as
understood by the FABC delegates, were characterized by the centrality of “[praying and
sharing] together of the Gospel of Jesus, living it in their daily lives as they support one
another and work together, united as they are in one mind and heart”2269 as they operate
2263Peter Wooil Kang, “한국 천주교 소공동체 도입에 대한 성찰 [A Reflection on the Introduction of SCCs in the
Korean Catholic Church],” 2004 소공동체 심포지움 전국모임 후속자료집 [Additional Sources of the National
Meeting of Small Christian Communities in 2004], ed. Administrative Office for Evangelization (Seoul:
Administrative Office for Evangelization, 2004), 15-16. Cited in Kim, SCCs in South Korea, 6-7.
2264The Committee for the Pastoral Council of the Korean Catholic Church, 200 주년기념사목회의
사회조사보고서 [A Social Survey Report of the Committee in the Bicentennial Anniversary of the Korean Catholic
Church] (Seoul: The Committee for the Pastoral Council of the Korean Catholic Church, 1985), 355-57.
2265Kim, “SCCs in South Korea,” 8-9.
2266Ibid. Cf. Pope John Paul II, “Apostolic Exhortation, Acta Apostolicae Sedis,” Ecclesia in Asia 92(2000): 449-
528, no. 25.

2267Kim, “SCCs in South Korea,” 11. “The Church in Asia will have to be a communion of communities, where
laity, religious and clergy recognize and accept each other as sisters and brothers.” Cf. FABC, “Statement of
the Fifth Plenary Assembly of the FABC in 1990,” For All the Peoples of Asia, 287-89.
2268Kim, “SCCs in South Korea,” 11. Cf. FABC, “Statement of the Fifth Plenary Assembly,” 287.
2269Ibid., 287.
416
in small units or levels as compared to the parish in order to open up a more fundamental
and profound ecclesial encounter of the faithful amidst the realities of daily life.2270
In conjunction with FABC’s notion of ‘communities’, the Asian bishops also put a
special emphasis on the notion of a participatory Church which was undoubtedly an echo
of the Second Vatican Council. One of the documents produced by FABC unequivocally
expressed their unanimous theological standpoint wherein the Church in Asia would be
regarded as “a participatory Church where the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to all the
faithful – lay, religious and cleric alike – are recognized and activated, so that the Church
may be built up and its mission realized.”2271 In this framework, the members of the
Church are not seen as unrelated strangers who happen to bump into each other on
Sundays for the liturgy but as ‘neighbors’ who assist one another, journey with each other
and care for each other as they share the Gospel and break the Eucharistic Bread literally
and figuratively in their daily life ad intra and ad extra.2272
Convinced of this thrust of the FABC, therefore, the archbishop of Seoul invited the
faithful in his diocese through a pastoral letter he issued in 1992 to embark on a journey
towards a church renewal. He, therefore, stated that
“We are taking a journey to find the ideal form of community which early Christians showed in
their desire to live truly in Christ. We are to begin the journey of renewal in order to achieve
internally and externally an evangelizing community, that is, a community which offers hope
and attractiveness to people through the proclamation of the Gospel by words and acts and
through the unification of the faithful in communion and service according to the teaching of
Christ.”2273
Thus, the mission to establish SCCs as conceived by the FABC had been inaugurated in
South Korea. It finally received a stamp of approval which was significantly influenced by
the two FABC discussion papers prepared by Fr. Hirmer on the theology of SCC.2274 It is
important to note at this point, however, that Fr. Hirmer, for some reasons unbeknownst
to us, did not categorically use the term ‘Small Christian Communities’; although it was
implied in his ruminations that what he had in mind was the African model of SCCs that
was distinct from that of the Latin American BECs. On that note, we can say that the
model of the Church adapted in South Korea was characterized by the following: “a) the
faithful gather in their neighborhood away from the parish building; b) they make Gospel-
2270Cf. Pedro S. de Achútegui, Asian Colloquium on Ministries in the Church, Hong Kong, February 27-March
5, 1977 (Manila, Ateneo de Manila University, 1977), 76.
2271Cf. FABC, “Statement of the Fifth Plenary Assembly,” 287.
2272Daesup Kim explains that “the Church is a community of authentic participation in which all the faithful
share in the mission of God’s people in the Church and in the world, and the lay faithful share in their own
way the priestly, prophetic, and kingly office of Christ. In other words, the participation of the laity in the
mission of the Church ad extra is indispensable…Simply put, the Church is to be a participatory Church in
which the lay faithful, taking their proper role in the mission and the ministry of the Church, truly become
members of the People of God and witnesses to Christ.” Kim, “SCCs in South Korea,” 12. Cf. FABC, “Statement
of the First Bishops’ Institute for the Lay Apostolate,” For All the Peoples of Asia (1984): 237. Cf. also FABC,
“Message of the Fourth Bishops’ Institute for the Lay Apostolate,” For All the Peoples of Asia (1988): 297. Cf.
also Internal Congress on Mission, “Basic Christian Communities and Local Ministries,” For All the Peoples of
Asia (1979): 150-51.
2273StephenCardinal Kim, “1992 사목교서 [1992 Pastoral Letter],” 68-69.
2274Cf.Oswald Hirmer, “Alternative Ways of Being Church in the Asia of the 1990s,” FABC Paper (Taiwan,
1999), 12-14. For more details on the role of Hirmer in the formation of SCCs in South Korea, we refer our
readers to Daesup Kim, “SCCs in South Korea,” 21-22. Cf. Administrative Office for Evangelization, 사목을
위한 성서의 사용 [Use of the Bible for Ministry] (Seoul: Seoul Archdiocese, 1993), 16-68. Cf. also Hirmer,
Alternative Ways of Being Church in the Asia of the 1990s, 14-17. Cf. also Fritz Lobinger, Building Small
Christian Communities, Training for Community Ministries (Delmenville, South Africa: Lumko Missiological
Institute, 1981), 7.
417
SAMBAYANIHAN
sharing their spiritual basis; c) they carry out the mission of the Church; and d) they are
united with the parish, and so with the universal Church.”2275
The establishment of SCCs/BECs in the dioceses belonging to South Korea may not
have been an instant hit considering the oppositions and the indifference of some
members of the clergy. In fact, it was not only the ordained ministers that posed as a
hindrance to the establishment of SCCs in South Korea but also the laity who were not in
favor of the idea of SCC. Nevertheless, through time, the importance of forming SCCs in
this ecclesiastical territory had slowly been appreciated.2276 In a nutshell, we can say that
the positive impact of SCCs in South Korea is threefold: 1) “recovery of the value of the
Word” because the people, especially the laity themselves, have found a renewed access
to the Word of God through the regular Bible-sharing in their respective communities as
they reflect on the relevance of the Good News in their daily life;2277 2) greater appreciation
of community life as the laity become more active in their participation and generous in
fulfilling their responsibilities in their community made possible by a regular “sharing of
their personal faith life as well as meditating on the Gospel;”2278 and 3) according to
Daesup Kim, “in Korean SCCs the spirit of evangelization is clearly stressed in the process
of preparing for baptism and in the process of re-evangelization.”2279 These were made
possible by imbibing the mentality that the SCCs were genuine gatherings of neighbors.
In these neighborhood communities, members took turns in hosting the regular Gospel-
sharing of their respective communities to “obtain spiritual nourishment and mutual
encouragement in faith.”2280 At the same time, they also actively participated in the
mission to “offer service to their neighbors who need help in various ways”.2281 While they
offered themselves for the well-being of their respective SSCs, they remained committed
to the parish and they also maintained a strong link with other SCCs.
It is important to note at this point, however, that some pockets of the South Korean
laity have remained so dependent on the clergy despite the emancipatory spirit that the
Vatican II and the FABC have given to the Church in Asia. According to Daesup Kim, “In
the Korean Catholic Church, even though the lay faithful are increasingly aware of their
autonomous role in the Church and their co-responsible participation in Church ministry,
the tendency to depend on the clergy is still found in most parishes. This tendency
undoubtedly has had an effect on the SCC movement.”2282
The kind of SCCs that have emerged in South Korea bear some semblances to those
that are established in Latin America and in Africa. Despite the similarities, however, there
are some features that can be considered as unique to the South Korean SCCs. These
2275Kim, “SCCs in South Korea,” 21. Cf. Administrative Office for Evangelization, 공동체를 향하여 [Toward
Community], 38-41.
2276Kim recounts that “As for pastors, they have now begun to recognize the value of SCCs in their parishes.
Some have experienced the revitalization of their parish, an increase in the number of catechumens, and the
spontaneous attendance of the lay faithful at the Eucharist due to the activity of the SCCs. Most of all, the lay
faithful themselves have activated their ministry in SCCs and have come to realize their responsibility for
evangelization, and have a greater awareness that they are subjects in the Church. They have experienced an
active role in the parish and they have been encouraged to share in the common task of the Church in local
society.” Kim, “SCCs in South Korea,” 28-29.
2277Ibid.
2278Ibid., 30.
2279Ibid., 32.
2280Ibid., 33.
2281Ibid., 34.
2282Ibid., footnote 139, p. 58.
418
similarities and dissimilarities, according to Daesup Kim, can be observed in the following
instances:
While Ban Gatherings have the potential to become SCCs, they differ from SCCs in the area of
Gospel-sharing and, more importantly, the communion of the lay faithful in the communities.
In the early stage of implementing SCCs in South Korea, the Lumko Institute in South Africa
played a catalytic role. Therefore, the overall appearance of SCCs in South Korea is similar to
that in South Africa. The characteristics of SCCs in South Korea, however, are different from
those in South Africa in terms of localization and inculturation. Moreover, the pastoral aim of
SCCs in South Korea is mainly directed to the inner renewal of the Church as expressed in the
activation of faith life, the enhancement of the lay apostolate in the Church, and evangelization
through communities, with minimal socio-cultural conscientization or education of the lay
faithful. While SCCs in South Korea started ‘from above,’ from guideline-documents and plans
for pastoral planning, BECs in Latin America emerged ‘from the bottom up,’ from the grassroots
of pastoral practice, from the struggle of the oppressed poor. In the context of oppressive
violence, it was in BECs that the Church’s preferential option for the poor began to be effectively
realized and that the faithful were given a real opportunity to work with commitment for the
transformation of the world.”2283
The uniqueness of the SCCs in South Korea does not come as a surprise at all, considering
the fact that they, like any other SCCs or BECs, are animated and sustained by the Spirit
who “blows however, wherever and whenever it will”. Indeed, every SCC is a “singular”
instance of the Holy Spirit’s power.
What is remarkable about the SCCs in South Korea is the fact that, as of 2010, there
was a significant increase of the number of SCCs in the dioceses of South Korea. From
61, 400 in 2003 the number went up to 64, 340 in 2010.2284 This means that 2,940 more
SCCs were established in a matter of 7 years. Kim, therefore, concludes that
“It can be generally said that SCCs in South Korea have promoted communion in the Church,
especially in terms of the maturity of faith through the practice of Gospel-sharing, the friendlier
communion among the parishioners, the more active participation of the laity in the parish,
and an awareness of evangelization in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, there are still some
issues to be resolved and points to be developed, such as finding a truly inculturated model for
the SCCs and proper methods of Gospel-sharing and of lay spirituality fitting for the Korean
environment, developing participative leadership and enhancing the role of lay women, and
fostering a fruitful relationship between various parish groups and SCCs. Among these,
creating an inculturated model for the SCCs seems very crucial and urgent, because only such
a model can actually assume the ethos and pathos of Korean Catholics, and then play a
catalytic and elementary role for the development of a truly local Church in South Korea.”2285
After describing what happened in South Korea, as far as the BECs or SCCs are
concerned, we can say that a significant lesson that the sambayanihan communities that
we envision for the Filipino migrants in Western Europe can learn is about the importance
of remaining faithful not only to one’s small/base community but to the parish as well.
There is a tendency for some Filipino communities to isolate themselves from the parish
structure. Some tend to be inward-looking. Therefore, instead of becoming genuine
members of “communion of communities”, they end up belonging to cultural and
ecclesiastical ghettoes. Some of them limit their participation only to the small
communities. They do not bother to get involved in the life of the parish. It is enough for

2284Daesup Kim noted in footnote no. 141 that In fact, as of 2010 “there is no single report containing the
present statistics on SCCs. The above data was obtained from personal calls to the office of SCCs in each
diocese. Wonju Diocese and Andong Diocese did not have data on the number of SCCs. After calling directly
to several parish offices in both dioceses, I estimated the numbers following a method of statistical analysis.
Unfortunately, A Statistical Survey Report of the Korean Catholic Church issued by the Catholic Bishops’
Conference of Korea does not have a section on SCCs, even though the number of participants in other
associations such as Cursillos, Legion of Mary, M.B.W., and M.E. are indicated.” Cf. The Catholic Bishops’
Conference of Korea, 교세 통계표 [A Statistical Survey Report of the Korean Catholic Church]. Kim, “SCCs in
South Korea,” 58.
419
SAMBAYANIHAN
them that they are allowed use the parish facilities once a month to celebrate their so-
called Filipino mass with an invited Filipino priest. Outside of that, there is no involvement
in wider community. They do not even participate regularly in the Sunday liturgies of the
parish. They justify their “un-involvement” by saying that the masses celebrated by the
locals are either boring or depressing, because only very few, and most of them are elderly,
attend these church services. Hence, instead of enlivening the already struggling parish
communities, they contribute more to the demise of these communities by not sharing
their time, talent and treasure to their respective parish communities.
But, of course, we also need to look into the openness of the local members of the
parish communities. It is not unknown that some of the “original” members of the parish
communities in Western Europe are xenophobic and are not open to the “new ways” that
the migrant communities bring in to the Western European parishes.
Certainly, it is not an easy task to integrate meaningfully into the local parishes in
Western Europe. But, it is not impossible. If Filipinos will capitalize on their being métis
and on their subversive subservience, they will be able to break the glass ceiling and
contribute significantly in the life of the local parishes in Western Europe. Therefore, we
believe that the Filipino Catholic communities can learn from the South Korean SCCs how
to balance one’s commitment to both the ad intra and ad extra mission of every Catholic
faithful.
II.4.2.5.3. BEC in Australia: A Story of Pastoral Restructuring
The formation of Basic Ecclesial Communities or Small Christian Communities in

Australia is also a relatively new phenomenon. The Archdiocese of Adelaide is considered
to be the pioneer in the establishment of BECs/SCCs in Australia through the initiative
of Archbishop Leonard Faulkner. In 1994, he made BEC as an essential part of Adelaide’s
diocesan vision. With this, he called on the priests in his diocese to help him “set up an
infrastructure of small pastoral units, by neighborhood or country town, analogous to the
way a diocese is structured into parishes” that will be known as Basic Ecclesial
Communities.2286 These communities were not conceived to replace the parishes but,
instead, were seen as small district communities organized under the leadership of the
pastors. As such, they were regarded as a continuation of the entire parish life which must
be centered on the Sunday Eucharist along with other activities in their respective
parishes.2287 The archbishop was well aware of the issue of contextuality. For that reason,
he made clear that each parish could carry out the task of forming BECs/SCCs in its own
pace and way, depending on the size and the local culture of the parish communities. But
certainly, he did not doubt at all that moving towards the direction of BEC formation was
the most fitting response to the signs of the times.2288 These communities, as clarified by
2286Bob Wilkinson, “Adelaide’s Basic Ecclesial Communities Project [The pastoral restructuring of parishes],”
Australasian Catholic Record 73, no. 4(1996): 448,
http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=970504414;res=IELAPA>ISSN: 0727-3215 [accessed
June 8, 2016]. For related readings please see also Irene Wilson, “Project Linkup: A Model of Adult Initiation
in Australia,” in Small Christian Communities Today, eds. Healey and Hinton, 129-134; kindle version, loc.
2088-2184. See also John Dacey, “Action and Reflection at the Heart of SCCs in Australia,” in Small Christian
Communities Today, eds. Healey and Hinton, 135-141; kindle version, loc. 2197-2311.
2287According to Wilkinson, “also under the priest's ministry of unity, between the life of the parish and the
life of the family there is developing the intermediate life of the district BEC. Regardless of their church
observance, all the 150 or so Catholic households in each BEC district belong to that BEC, just as the
Catholics within the parish's boundaries belong.” Wilkinson, “Adelaide’s BECs,” 448.
2288Wilkinson cited in his article what seems to be the actual words of Archbishop Faulkner, which says: “I
believe that the world-wide emergence of BECs is the work of the Holy Spirit in our time, a gift of God to the
Church For this reason, they have a central place in the diocesan vision and I encourage parishes to move
towards them as a long-term orientation and ‘preferred way’ for our local church.” Ibid.
420
Faulkner, were not be confused with some organizations or communities that were already
in place in his diocese, such as the very popular Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and the
RCIA. Although these groups remain to be vital to the life of the Church, they cannot be
considered as BECs, because the latter is not a specialized group but
“the Church in a local area within a parish. It is a local church community following the way of
Jesus, listening to His word, animated by His Spirit and directed to his mission. Its concerns
are as wide as the missionary concerns of the church. It is a permanent community which is
open to and involved with, all the Catholics in a local area. It reaches out beyond the Catholic
community to the issues that touch the lives of people in a local area... It is a community of
diverse people, built up through the practice of warm and open friendship, in the spirit of Jesus
himself.”2289
Within two years, the archdiocese had seen a considerable development in terms of
the willingness of the people to assist their Local Ordinary in establishing BECs because
a quarter of the members of the diocese offered their committed service for the propagation
of BECs. Of course, there was no drastic or phenomenal changes that took place in this
period, but it could be safely assumed that things had developed in a modestly steady
process. The relatively slow process can be attributed to the fact that the theological
concept of the BECs or SCCs was not easily digestible for the Catholic faithful who had
been so used to leave the “church stuff” to the Fathers and the Sisters. According to
Wilkinson,
“The idea came from a long Adelaide history of lay movements in the YCW style based on small
groups practising the Review of Life, as it is called, in which people study their lives in the light
of the Gospel to discover God's call in the everyday. The method is widely abbreviated (and the
process of discernment rather sold short) as See-Judge-Act. But it turned out that the form of
organisations which people join did not transfer simply to a parish, which has a more complex
and universal mission.”2290
As part of the program set up by the archdiocese, Archbishop Faulkner, upon the
recommendation of Wilkinson et al, enlisted the “service” of Fr. Jose Marins and two
religious sisters from Latin America. According to Wilkinson, this delegation that was sent
by the Latin American bishops
“limited themselves to an invitation to us to look up and have compassion on the multitude. At
no stage did they burden us with details of Latin American practice or methods or presume to
promote any ideas of what action was appropriate for Australia. What they did was introduce
our conscience to a ‘solar system’ of pastoral analysis.”2291
At present, the success rate of BEC formation in Adelaide or in Australia, in general,

may not be impressively high, as Wilkinson humbly confesses. There is no denying that
the process of church renewal in Australia is a slow one. Nevertheless, Wilkinson remains
hopeful that one day the Church in Australia will see the flourishing of BECs/SCCs within
2289Wilkinson, “Adelaide’s BECs,” 449-450.

2290Ibid.,449.
2291It was recounted by Wilkinson that “Marins suggested that around the world, parish pastoral energy
usually goes in getting some of the 20% (the Mass-goers) to join the one per cent (active responsibilities). He
wondered if the 80%, the non-Mass goers, would still be there in one or two generations, unless we found a
way to include them in church community more fully, more consciously and more actively. In our later
reflections on their visit, we recognized that the 80% of Catholics remote from their church's community life
are not problem people, they are not distant from God or hostile to the church for the great part. Rarely have
they left the church in the sense of disaffiliating. Maybe we at Mass have left them. Their love and struggle
and search in families and work is the work of the Holy Spirit, the bulk of the Church's resource, 80% of
Christ that we may have left for lack of pastoral imagination. Was it not Laurence who pointed to the poor as
the treasure of the Church? Our treasure, our closest poor and our greatest need if we are to be saved as a
whole church community, lies in our own people with whom we have lost pastoral touch.” Wilkinson,
“Adelaide’s BECs,” 452-53.
421
SAMBAYANIHAN
the parameters of their ecclesiastical territory. He does not believe that their endeavor will
just end up in futility. He is convinced that they are “pouring the foundations of a great
edifice”.2292 And doing so, entails a lot of hard work and patience. The end-goal of having
vibrant BECs in Adelaide may not be close at hand, but, according to him, “there is enough
witness of things old and new coming from our store, enough to give us heart that this is
God’s work.”2293
In our opinion, the Filipino migrant BECs in Western Europe could learn from the
Australian understanding of BEC/SCC the importance of distinguishing between the BEC
and the mandated organizations. The latter has the tendency to be exclusive and trans-
parochial. The BEC is a community that belongs to a particular parish community and
does not consider itself as an association of selected few who are bound by a special
charism or requirement. The BEC/SCC is open to everyone who wants to participate
actively in the life of the church. Thus, mindful of what Bishop Claver had said about the
relationship between the BECs and mandated organizations, members of mandated
organizations may join particular BECs/SCCs and contribute to the well-being of their
respective BECs/SCCs. When these mandated organizations possess the basic traits of
the BEC, such as non-exclusivity, active participation, dialogical relationship, and co-
responsibility, they may also be referred to as BECs or, perhaps, SCCs. Thus, we would
like to present this option to the Filipino migrant communities in Western Europe. And
we believe that they can contribute more to the church in this region by regarding
themselves not only as members of mandated organizations but as active members of
BECs.
II.4.3. The Emergence and Sustainability of BEC in the Philippines: Communion of

Communities
In the Philippines, the BECs came into being also as a response to the challenge of
the Second Vatican Council that called for a “dialogic, participative, co-responsible”
Church.2294 Although officially identified as such in the Mindanao-Sulu Pastoral
Conference in 1971,2295 they were already in existence, albeit in rudimentary forms, in
some parts of Mindanao and Negros through the efforts of some foreign missionaries. 2296
2292Wilkinson, “Adelaide’s BECs,” 456.

2293Ibid.,
452.
2294The then chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines – Episcopal Commission on Basic
Ecclesial Community (CBCP-BEC), Bishop George Rimando, D.D., affirms that the formation of BECs in the
Philippine coincided with the ecclesiology of Vatican II, which were “prophetically perceived by both Yves
Congar (1950’s) and Karl Rahner. Congar.” He, therefore, quotes in his talk Congar who once said: the
“movement of small communities: ‘answers to a need to rediscover the Church and, in a sense, to re-enter
and renew her from below. Many of our contemporaries find that for them the Church’s machinery, sometimes
the very institution, is a barrier obscuring her deep and living mystery, which they can find, or find again,
only from below, through little Church cells wherein the mystery is lived directly and with great simplicity.’”.
Cf. Bishop George Rimando, D.D., “Brief History of the Development of the Basic Ecclesial Communities in
the Philippines and the Ecclesiological Foundation of Basic Ecclesial Communities,” National BEC National
Meeting of Diocesan Directors of Liturgy, 11-14 August 2014, www.davaocatholicherald.com/.../final-of-the-
final-bgbr-talk-as-of-aug-82014.docx [accessed June 1, 2016]. Cf. also Congar, Lay People in the Church, 339.
Rahner, on his part, envisioned the arrival of “base communities” Church. Cf. Rahner, The Shape of the
Church, 108-15.
2295This Mindanao-Sulu Conference of 1971 was convened by Archbishop Lino Gonzaga of the Archdiocese of
Zamboanga. In the succeeding discussions we shall refer to this conference as MSPC.

2296Picardal, one of the key proponents in building Basic Ecclesial communities in the Philippines offers in his
report on September 3, 2011 to the Asian BEC Conference in Taipei that “In the late 1960s, immediately after
Vatican II, foreign missionaries in the frontier mission areas in Mindanao and Negros formed the first BECs.”
Amado L. Picardal, CSsR., “Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Philippines: A Reception and Realization of
422
Speaking of which, the late Bishop Joseph W. Ragan of the then Prelature of Tagum shared
about the Philippines’ indebtedness to the these foreign missionaries. He humbly admitted
that
“Well, I think the best success we have is our Fathers (Maryknoll and diocesan priests) started
these small Christian communities in every parish. These are all well organized and can really
take care of themselves. It strengthens the people’s faith, because they have their own Services
on Sunday and during the week. Usually visiting ministers give them communion. They are
quite strong and united; they take care of their own problems. I think that’s the best thing we
did. I think we were about one of the first dioceses in the whole Philippines to start those
communities.”2297
The Philippine BECs, although in some ways have been formed with some semblance
to the Latin American understanding of the CEB,2298 took shape, understandably,
according to the unique socio-politico-cultural climate of the Philippines. Some people
who have studied the emergence of BECs in the Philippines believe that the propagation
of BECs in the Philippines was facilitated by the “Cursillos de Cristianidad” and “Barangay
Sang Birhen” which were already established in some parts of the archipelago around
1940’s by the Missionaries of Quebec or the PME Fathers.2299
Just like the CELAM meetings that recognized and promoted the importance of
CEBs, MSPC, for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church in the Philippines,
also gave its seal of approval to the formation of BECs in Mindanao and Sulu, hoping that
the Church in the Philippines would be renewed according to the thrust of Vatican II.
Bishop Rimando recalled that, indeed,
“The Maryknollers’ initiative of establishing BECs was strengthened by the creation of the
Mindanao-Sulu Pastoral Conferences (MSPCs). Though it is a pastoral forum in nature, MSPCs
spearheaded the emergence of BECs in Mindanao-Sulu. MSPC I was held in 1971, with the
theme on the Church in Mindanao and Sulu – worshipping, teaching, and serving communities.
MSPC II (1974) followed it through with the theme, self-nourishing, self-sustaining, and self-
governing communities. So with MSPC III in 1977 there is the same thrust. MSPCs I, II, and III
gave a great impetus to the building of BECs. They also paved the way to the active involvement
of the laity into the mainstream of the mission of evangelization.” 2300
The formation of BECs in the Philippines, undoubtedly, had some influence from the CEBs
in Latin America.2301 That piece of information cannot be simply swept under the rug. But,
of course, the BECs in the Philippines exhibited some other characteristics that were not
present in their Latin American counterparts. On this note, Bishop Francsico Claver, an
the Vatican II Vision of a Renewed Church,” CBCP-BEC, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=277 [accessed January 25,
2015]. Bishop George Rimando, in a talk he gave on BEC, concurs that “[its] early beginnings can be traced
in the late 1960s soon after Vatican II. The Maryknoll Missionaries in the then Prelature of Tagum (now
Diocese of Tagum) saw the need to respond to the faith life of their flock, especially under the auspices of
Vatican II’s call for renewal in the Church. The Maryknollers did not, however, start from scratch. Their
predecessors, the Foreign Missionaries of Quebec or P.M.E. Fathers had been opening parishes and
establishing small communities in the villages throughout the province of Davao.” Cf. Rimando, “Brief
History,” 1.
2297Cf. James H. Kroeger, MM, Remembering our Bishop, Joseph W. Regan, M.M. (Quezon City: Claretian,
1998),39-40. Cf also George B. Rimando, “History of the BECs in the Diocese of Tagum: a Never Ending
Journey.”
2298According to Hebbelthwaite, “The basic ecclesial community is the cell of the Church. This was said at the
great meeting of the Latin American bishops at the Meddelin in 1968.” Margaret Hebbelthwaite, Basic is
Beautiful: Basic Ecclesial Communities from Third World to First World (London: Fount, 1993), 19.
2299Cf. Pasquale T. Giordano, SJ and Heidi K. Gloria, “The Christianization of Davao: A Commemorative Issue
of the 50th Anniversary of the PME Fathers in Davao,” Tambara 4(1987): 1-122.
2300Rimando, “Brief History,” 2.
2301To find out how they are similar and dissimilar kindly refer to Boff, Ecclesiogenesis. Cf. also Marcello
Azevedo, Basic Ecclesial Communities in Brazil :The Challenge of a New Way of Being Church, trans. John
Drury (Washington: Georgetown University, 1987).
423
SAMBAYANIHAN
active participant in the 1971 MSPC and one of the champions of BEC formation in the
country, rightly pointed out that
“Like the man who heard the word ‘prose’ for the first time and was delighted to discover that
he had been, without knowing it, speaking it all his life, we too in Mindanao-Sulu woke up one
day and realized that what we had been doing in the dioceses of the region all along since 1971
was actually what the Latin Americans were calling Communidades de Base – small, basic
(Christian) communities. In fact, we also realized that any church community that tried making
itself into a dialogic, participative and co-responsible community was quite automatically
forming itself into Basic Ecclesial Community.”2302
There was a clear indication that Vatican II bolstered the formation of the BECs in
the Philippines in the same manner that the renewal in Latin America was propelled by
the aforementioned Council. It must be mentioned also at this point that this monumental
“gift” of the MSPC was not only influenced by CELAM but also inspired by “All-India
Conference of 1968”, which can be considered as a “Pentecostal event for the Indian
Church”.2303 This gathering of bishops, priests, religious and laity from all the dioceses in
the Mindanao and Sulu regions resulted in a unanimous vote to: 1. train lay ministers for
the service of communities in the context of barrio chapels; and 2. intensify effort to
minister in the context of indigenous communities in the Mindanao-Sulu region where
“Muslim independence movement” was gaining the upper hand.2304 This program formally
“gave birth”2305 to BECs in Mindanao and Sulu, which have spread throughout the
archipelago in the succeeding years in different forms and in different names. Like a
brush-fire, formation of BECs in the Philippines picked up its momentum very quickly
that dioceses outside the Mindanao-Sulu region, such as in the Visayan and Luzon groups
of islands, began to build their own brand of BECs. This rapid proliferation of BECs in the
country took place between the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. As already mentioned earlier,
various kinds of BECs flourished in other parts of Philippines because only a handful few
followed the exact same pastoral direction of the Mindanao/Sulu-based communities. A
good example of this variation is the track adapted by the National Secretariat for Social
Action. In 1978, this secretariat, otherwise known as CBCP-NASSA, pursued a direction
that mainly focused on community organizing, which gave priority to the developmental
and transformative mission of the BECs in the Philippines. Because of this approach, the
BECs attracted some cause-oriented or ideological groups that saw the BECs as ideal
venues to advance their own agenda, which later became the catalyst for the untimely
demise of the BCC-CO ‘model’ of BECs in the Philippines. Why? Because they started to
be seen by the government, especially during the time of Martial Law in the Philippines
under the presidency of the late Ferdinand Marcos, as harboring members of the left-

2303Ibid., 33. This 1968 conference in India was convened so that the India Church together can reflect on
their responsibility to actualize the thrusts of VAT II and come up with concrete programs to breathe life to
the letters, challenges and promises of the Second Vatican Council. As a parenthetical remark, Claver states
that Archbishop Gonzaga, as the president of the CBCP, earlier proposed a nationwide pastoral conference for
the same purpose but his fellow bishops in the national bishops’ conference were not enthusiastic about it.
In contrast to this lukewarm reception in the national level, the bishops of the regions of Mindanao and Sulu
welcomed the idea of this gathering with so much anticipation and appreciation. Cf. Claver, The Making of a
Local Church, 34.
2304Ibid., 35. According to Claver, this twofold project of the MSPC is in essence only one: “care for the neglected
portions of the church in the poverty-ridden rural areas and the equally neglected classes of Philippine society,
our indigenous peoples.” Ibid.
2305We intentionally put this in parentheses because we are convinced that they were already in their germinal
existence prior to this formal declaration of the conference’s thrust as intimated by Claver. Hence, in this
conference this project was simply affirmed and formalized.
424
leaning groups.2306 It can be surmised that this unfortunate turn of events was occasioned
by some divergences2307 in terms of ideology within the BECs that proliferated in the
country and, also, because of the apparent discontinuity of funds coming from the
abroad.2308 It can be argued, however, that the BECs did not completely vanish into thin
air, because some, especially those that did not fully embrace the “community organizing”
strand, still persisted in some pockets of the country. When the atmosphere became
favorable again, the BECs started to stage their comeback on the Philippine ecclesiastical
scene. Picardal rightly points out that
“After the fall of the Marcos regime and the restoration of democracy, it became easier to build
up BECs and to engage in social action. There were BECs in San Fernando, Bukidnon that
successfully waged a campaign against logging that led to the imposition of a total log ban in
the province by President Corazon Aquino in 1989. Other BECs in Zamboanga were involved
in anti-logging, anti-mining and anti-dam campaigns. Around this period there were BECs in
North Cotabato and Negros affected by the armed conflict between government forces and the
New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas declared zones of peace. There were also some BECs that
revived or initiated livelihood projects, cooperatives and sustainable agriculture.”2309
Thus, it can be said that there was a revival or resurgence of BECs in the Philippines in
the years after the dictatorial regime of President Marcos ended. What galvanized the
important role of BECs in the Philippines was the Second Plenary Council of the
Philippines or PCPII which was convened in 1991. This council declared the Church in
the Philippines as the “Church of the Poor” and made BEC formation as an official pastoral
priority according to the Vatican II’s vision of the renewed Church. What PCPII had
declared as a priority was, then, further affirmed by FABC.
For us to understand better the emergence and importance of the BECs in the
Philippines, let us examine some official Church documents that speak about the BECs
in the Philippines, like the Second Plenary Council that we have mentioned in the
preceding paragraph.
II.4.3.1 BEC and Plenary Council of the Philippines II: A Pastoral Priority
The Church in the Philippines, through the acts and decrees of the Second Plenary
Council of the Philippines, has declared the building of BECs as a pastoral priority in
1991. In five instances, this document highlights its understanding of BEC. According to
article 137 of PCP II, “Our vision of the Church as communion, participation and mission,
about the Church as priestly, prophetic and kingly people, and a Church of the poor, that
is a renewed Church, is today finding expression in one ecclesial movement, that is the
2306Majority of the BECs that were under the “radar of suspicion” of the government at that time were those
communities that were referred to as Basic Christian Community – Community Organizing (BCC-CO) which
were thought of as sympathizers and propagators of the ideology and political agenda of the Communist Party
of the Philippines (CPP) and the National Democratic Front (NDF) that were considered to be enemies of the
state. A dime a dozen of BEC practitioners (leaders and members, including some bishops) were arrested,
harassed and murdered for being suspected as espousing the CPP and NDF ideologies.
2307The period of the 1980’s had seen a variety of BECs based on the “traditional’ classifications, such as
liturgical, development and liberational. What came to be known as BCC-CO had leaned towards the more
militant or liberational model of BEC, while the Basic Ecclesial Community – Service Office and other BECs
supported by the MSPC, being more conservative or traditional, had tended towards the liturgical strand of
BECs. Because the BCC-CO embodied the more militant version of the BEC, it naturally raised suspicion
among people, especially the government agencies responsible for curbing the spread of political ideologies
promoted by the NDF and CPP.
2308Cf. CBCP, Creating a Culture of Sustainability for BEC (Manila: CBCP BEC Desk, 2008), 125. Cf. also
Rimando, “Brief History,” 2-3.

2309Fr. Amado Picardal, “The Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Philippines: Recent Developments and
Trends,” CBCP BEC, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=397 [accessed June 8, 2016].
425
SAMBAYANIHAN
movement to foster Basic Ecclesial Communities.”2310 This was further expounded by this
document in article 138 by saying that “They are small communities of Christians, usually
of families, who gather around the Word of God and the Eucharist. These communities
are united to their pastors but are ministered to regularly by lay leaders. The members
know each other by name and share not only the Word of God and the Eucharist but also
their concerns both material and spiritual. They have a strong sense of belongingness and
of responsibility for one another.”2311 This means that these communities, according to
article 139, are “[usually] emerging at the grassroots among poor farmers and workers,
Basic Ecclesial Communities consciously strive to integrate their faith and their daily life.
They are guided and encouraged by regular catechesis. Poverty and their faith urge their
members towards solidarity with one another, action for justice, and towards a vibrant
celebration of life in the liturgy.”2312 Furthermore, as understood by the participants of the
said Council and as stated in article 109, “Basic Ecclesial Communities under various
names and forms – BCCs, small Christian communities, covenant communities – must be
vigorously promoted for the full living of the Christian vocation in both urban and rural
areas.”2313 Thus, in article 110, the “Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines
(CBCP) is to issue an official statement on BECs, on their nature and functions as
recognized by the Church, making it clear that they are not simply another organization.
This official statement of the CBCP shall be, among other things, for the proper orienting
of priests and seminarians. Training for work with BECs shall be made part of seminary
formation.”2314 It is clear in these statements that BEC is, indeed, a priority for the Church
in the Philippines. It is equally obvious, however, that these statements are very general
and nothing specific is being said about how the BECs are to be organized, structured or
directed. This lacuna can either be taken to mean as providing a space for creativity or a
stumbling block. This apparent “silence” on how the BECs are to be governed and
regulated in a more or less uniform style has become an opportunity for forming genuinely
inculturated BECs. It cannot be denied, however, that this “silence” has sometimes
spawned various excesses in parochial policies concerning BECs. It is not unheard of that
discriminatory policies have been created by either the pastors or the BECs leaders due
to the lack of concrete guidelines provided by the Acts and Decrees of PCPII.2315
Despite the absence of a straightforward instruction on how to govern and regulate
BECs in the Philippines, however, we can still gather the important characteristics of
BECs that must be propagated in the Philippines. As demonstrated by the parts of PCPII
document that we have cited above, we can say that it is clear that the PCP II wants to
make sure that in every BEC the prophetic, priestly and kingly ministries of every
Christian person are nurtured and practiced. Therefore, the BECs in the Philippines are
expected to foster a strong sense of unity and solidarity among each member of the BEC,
among the different BECs, and with their pastors. In other words, they are to live in the
spirit of communion where they experience belongingness and exercise co-responsibility.
To ensure that belongingness and co-responsibility are observed and nurtured in these
communities, it is necessary that the Word of God is regularly shared in each BEC, and
sound catechism is given to the members of the BECs. By doing so, the BECs can become
2310CBCP, PCP II.

2311Ibid.
2312Ibid.
2313Ibid.
2314Ibid.
2315For
a more detailed discussion on this apparent “lacuna legis”, please read Cf. Monsanto, “Theologico-
Canonical Reflections on BEC.”
426
truly prophetic, witnessing and evangelizing communities. As priestly people or members

of worshipping communities of faith, it is of utmost importance that they regard the
celebration of the Holy Eucharist as central and vital to their Christian life. The Eucharist
must be seen as the source of the spirit that moves them to strive for justice and social
transformation. It should also be the event that pulls together the fruits of their daily
endeavors as an offering to God. In other words, it should be the source and summit of
their Christian life. If all things are properly observed in the BECs, they can be said to
truly embody the thrust of the Church in the Philippines which is to be a Church of the
Poor.
We need to mention, at this juncture, that ten years after the PCP II, in 2001, the
National Pastoral Consultation on Church Renewal (NPCCR), which was convened to
evaluate the fruits of PCP II, came up with a conclusion that nothing significant had been
done in the span of ten years as far as the formation of BECs in the Philippines was
concerned.2316 As a response to the findings of NPCCR, a national gathering for BEC was
convened in 2002. One of the fruits of this meeting was the creation of a BEC desk under
the umbrella of the CBCP, which only materialized in 2005. By then, the national
gathering was already convened through the sponsorship of CBCP-BEC whose first
chairman was Orlando Cardinal Quevedo. From then on, a national gathering has been
successively organized by the CBCP-BEC (2008, 2011, 2013).2317 As part of the celebration
of the 50th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, a huge national
gathering of those involved in the formation and sustaining of the BECs in the Philippines
was held in Manila on November 11-14, 2015. On November 27-30, 2017, another meeting
was held in the Philippines in observance of the forthcoming 500 th anniversary of
evangelization in the Philippines wherein the year is declared to be the “Year of the Parish
as Communion of Communities.”2318 The theme of the gathering was “Forming BECs as
Agents of Communion, Participation, and Mission”.2319 The communities referred to in this
meeting, certainly, included not only the BECs but also the covenant communities and
parish-based faith communities. These regular gatherings of the BEC practitioners in the
country, according to Rimando, testify to the fact that after 2001 there are some notable
2316According to Bishop Claver, as reported by Rimando, there were three other events that contributed to the
growth of the BECs in the Philippines. “One, the Rural Congress of 1967 held in Cagayan de Oro City which
challenged the church ‘to go to the barrios.’ This led to giving importance of building BECs in the rural areas;
second, the Declaration of Martial Law in 1972 and its aftermath which galvanized the social awareness of
the BECs in issues of justice and peace; and third, a certain Canon lawyer Francois Houtart of Louvain
University, Belgium introduced structural analysis in a seminar in Baguio in 1975 which was used by BECs
in understanding their situation.” George Rimando, “Brief History,” 3. Cf. also Gavino Mendoza, ed. Church of
the People: The Basic Christian Community Experience in the Philippines, Manila, Bishops-Businessmen’s
Conference on Human Development, 1988.
2317A report of Picardal on the CBCP-BEC website reads: “The number of dioceses that have adopted the
formation of BECs as a pastoral priority has increased through the years. In 2002, there were 51 dioceses
that participated in the BEC national assembly in Cebu. In 2005, there were 65 dioceses that sent delegates
to the BEC national assembly. In 2008, there were 67 participating dioceses out of a total of 85 dioceses.
Although, attendance of diocesan delegates in National Assemblies cannot be used as an accurate gauge for
determining whether the BECs are regarded as pastoral priority by these dioceses, this can be used as an
indicator.” Cf. Amado Picardal, “The BEC in the Philippines,” CBCP-BEC, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=397
2318Cf. Fr. Amado Picardal, “Letter on May 4, 2017,” CBCP BEC, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=4209 [accessed June
18, 2017].
2319The meeting was held in Tagbilaran City of the Province of Bohol, Philippines. Cf. CBCP-BEC, “2017: Year
pf the Parish as Communion Communities,” National Gathering of Diocesan BEC Directors and Coordinators,
Tagbilaran City, 30 November 2015, http://cbcpbec.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/YPCC-Poster-
complete-Version5.jpg [accessed 5 December 2017].
427
SAMBAYANIHAN
successes in the formation of the BECs in the Philippines which was made a pastoral
priority of the PCP II.2320
It is interesting to note at this point what Picardal reported on the website of the
CBCP-BEC regarding the growth of the BECs in the Philippines, which was based on a
survey conducted prior to the 2008 BEC National Assembly.2321 It was stated that, out of
the responses coming from 40 dioceses in the Philippines, 93% of them had started BEC-
based programs in their respective dioceses that addressed the issue of poverty (i.e., “IGP,
livelihood projects, microfinance, small-enterprise development, cooperatives, feeding
program” and the like).2322 Fifty one per cent (51%) of them had come up with programs
that promote justice and peace-building.2323 Forty nine per cent (49%) had developed
programs that respond to the issues not only of ecology in general but more specifically
on sustainable agriculture and waste management.2324 Forty one per cent (41%) had
provided programs addressing the issue of health in the level of BEC and 39% of them
had made political education available to the members of the BECs.2325 Twenty per cent
(20%) had been successful in finding ways to afford the members of the BECs programs
that will develop skills and capabilities necessary not only for survival but for bettering
themselves.2326 Out of the 40 dioceses, 12% of them had given the BECs projects that are
considered to be sectoral in nature.2327 Picardal acknowledges the fact that these figures
do not accurately reflect the real engagement of each BEC in the country, because the
data were collected mainly from the pilot parishes/BECs in the country which are
supported by the NASSA. Thus, he admits that “there could still be a big gap between this
vision and the reality of among many of the BECs.”2328
To make the vision of PCP II a concrete reality, several pastoral leaders in the
Philippines have come up with some methodological approaches or practical tips on how
to go about forming and sustaining BECs in the country. Among the many proponents of
BEC formation in the Philippines, there were three sisters from the Philippine Province of
the Daughters of Charity (i.e., Julma Neo, Ma. Teresa Mueda, and Heidi Villareal) who
published a book which can be considered as a “tool” for building sustainable BECs in the
Philippines based on PCP II. We are convinced that their contribution is of great
significance, because they give us some practical tips on how to go about the task of
forming and sustaining BECs in the Philippines. Of course, their contribution cannot be
taken as THE ONLY one that we can use, but it is unquestionably helpful. Let us, then,
lay down in the following paragraphs what we believe to be of special significance to our
present endeavor.
According to Neo et al., “BEC is process not result oriented…The process includes a
methodology… [that] has the elements of ‘action-reflection in faith – action’. Structures in
the BEC are a response to needs…Instead of being predetermined, structures must be
allowed to evolve according to particular situations.”2329 They also suggested that
“[formation] in the BEC is particularly geared towards deepening the sense of community,
2320Rimando, “Brief History,” 3.

2321 Cf. Picardal, “The BEC in the Philippines.”
2322Ibid.
2323Ibid.
2324Ibid.
2325Ibid.
2326Ibid.
2327Ibid.
2328Ibid.
2329Julma Neo, D.C., Ma. Teresa Mueda, D.C. and Heidi Villareal, D.C., Towards a New Way of Being Church
Today (Philippines: Claretian, 1995), 3-4.
428
social consciousness and faith development.”2330 “In the BEC formation,” according to
them, “the process is equally important as the content.”2331 Furthermore, they underlined
that BEC formation “must address the total life needs of the members/community as well
as contextualized. In this way, BEC becomes a most effective avenue for the inculturation
of the faith.”2332 According to them
“Like the proverbial ‘new wine in new wineskins’, the church needs to be renewed in its vision,
mission, spirituality, processes/methods, programs and structures so that it can be for
suffering humanity today a credible sign of the kingdom, to be ‘on earth the seed and the
beginning of that kingdom’ (LG 5). The BEC by embodying these elements of renewal is truly a
‘new way of being church’… Growth in the spirituality of the members is one of the hopeful
signs generated by the BECs. For many this entails a shift from an ‘old spirituality’ that was
‘privatistic’ (God-an-me) and devotion-centered to a ‘new spirituality’ marked by: integration of
faith in the Lord and works for justice; integration of popular religiosity and social concerns;
shift from personal piety to more communal celebrations of the faith; more attentive reading of
Scriptures as God’s living word; and commitment to the church and its mission in the midst of
poverty, deprivation and persecution.”2333
They also affirmed that “[a] heightened sense of community is also developed among the
members. Relationships are enhanced through working together (‘bayanihan’), sharing,
mutual support and animation. Solidarity begins to be fostered with the larger community
and even with people of other faiths. Participation in decision-making and co-
responsibility for their ‘total life’ become guiding principles for the community.” 2334 They
also said that
“[a] shift in people’s understanding of the church is one of the most significant changes often
effected by the BEC: the shift from an ‘old church’ that was hierarchical, with an almost
exclusively ‘spiritual’ mission and that was identified with the rich and powerful to a ‘new
church’ that is a community of disciples at the service of the kingdom, responsive to the total
life needs of the people among whom it has taken roots, committed to the development and
liberation of the poor as part of her mission.”2335
BECs are to become vehicles for personal and communal growth. Thus, the genuineness
of a BEC can only be observed if members change their “values and attitudes from
individualism and passivity to involvement and solidarity.”2336 This metanoia entails that
each member will become a responsible steward of the manifold gifts that God has
bestowed upon the earth. Responsible stewardship, of course, goes hand-in-hand with
care for our common habitat or the environment. Moreover, it also involves “preferential
love for the more vulnerable members of the community.”2337 This conversion also requires
that the members will have a growing “awareness and knowledge of the faith, Scriptures,
church and mission, Christian life today, [and] contemporary situation (local, national,
global)”.2338 It is also necessary, according to Neo and her co-authors, that members of the
BECs are given the know-how for “community building” which entails “critical thinking,
decision-making, dialogue, non-violent resolution of conflicts, animating communities,
team word, etc.”2339 When these are put into place, the BECs will most likely grow and
bear fruits according to the Spirit of the Vatican II and the vision of PCPII.
2330Neo et al., Towards a New Way of Being Church Today, 4.

2331Ibid., 5.
2332Ibid., 5-6.
2333Ibid., 9-10.
2334Ibid., 10.
2335Ibid., 10-11.
2336Ibid., 11.
2337Ibid., 5-6.
2338Ibid.
2339Ibid.
429
SAMBAYANIHAN
As a conclusion to this section, we would like to say that amidst the seemingly
cyclical waxing and waning of the BECs in the Philippines, it is clear that, from the
perspective of those who drafted the Acts and Decrees of PCP II, formation of these
communities is an indispensable trajectory that the Church in Philippines must pursue.
The recent developments in the ecclesiastical milieu of the Philippines, such as the
regular national meetings of BEC stakeholders and geometric increase of the number of
BECs all throughout the archipelago, are a strong testimony to the growing interest and
involvement of the Christian faithful in the Philippines, both the clergy and the laity, in
making the church truly a dialogic, participative and co-responsible one. Certainly, there
is still a lot of things to be done. But, at least, there are already some tangible positive
results of BECs that can convince people that, indeed, formation of BEC is a viable way
of living the church in the Philippines.
II.4.3.2. BEC and Catechism for Filipino Catholics: Centers of and for Christian Formation
and Contemporary Mission
The notion of BEC that was discussed in PCP II was taken up and further explained
in the Catechism for Filipino Catholics. In article 1427 it was mentioned that
“Filipino Catholics need to see that the Church’s Mission and all her Ministries are directly for
the service of the Kingdom. Besides the primary task of evangelization through preaching the
Word, this service means establishing communities, local Churches, and forming Basic
Ecclesial Communities which become centers for Christian formation and missionary outreach
(RM 51). By incarnating the Gospel in the Filipino culture, these BECs also become means for
effectively spreading Gospel values, and for bringing out the eschatological dimension of daily
life. Finally, dialogue with our Filipino and Asian brothers and sisters of other religions is an
important part of the Filipino Catholic’s evangelizing mission (PCP II 104-8,137-40).2340
There is no trace of ambiguity in this paragraph as far as the indispensability of the BECs
in the Philippines is concerned. What the CFC hopes to accomplish, which is inculturated
evangelization that will make Filipinos understand and appreciate more profoundly their
Christian faith without losing their cultural identity/identities, can be facilitated by the
establishment of BECs in the Philippines. This is unequivocally clear in CFC 1406 which
states that, as a major theme of PCP II, “The Christian Faith must take root in the matrix
of our Filipino being so that we may truly believe and love as Filipino” 2341 and “We have
to raise up more and more Filipino evangelizers in a Filipino way.”2342 In the same breath,
CFC reminds us that Filipinos are inheritors of a
“long history of very sharp and colorful religious experience” that spans from the pre-Christian
era “through the centuries of Spanish Christian evangelization, to the American Protestant
influx in the Commonwealth era, and the Japanese occupation during World War II, right up
past Vatican II’s “Second Pentecost,” to “People Power” and today’s “Basic Christian
Communities,” and the 2nd Plenary Council of the Philippines… Our understanding and love
of Jesus Christ has been colored by our personal and national historical experiences of pain
and struggle, of victory and celebration. Our faith in Jesus is marked by our deep devotion to
Mary, his Mother, and our Mother and Model. All these experiences have somehow defined and
clarified our unique identity as persons, as Christians, as Filipinos, as a nation.”2343
In other words, when BECs are properly formed according to the Gospel values that will
not only enhance whatever is laudable in the culture/s of the Filipinos but also purify the
counter-productive or problematic elements in them, they will become powerful vehicles
2340CBCP, CFC, 1427. My italics.

2341Ibid., 1406, Cf. CBCP, PCP II, 72 and 208.
2342Ibid., 210.
2343CBCP, CFC, 31 Cf. CBCP, PCP II, 32.
430
in promoting the Gospel in the Philippine society and in combating the debilitating disease
of individualism, and also relativism, that has crept into the contemporary society because
the formation of these small communities make people interact more with one another as
they share the Word of God and their stories regularly and as they celebrate together the
Eucharist that make them feel that they belong to and are responsible for one another as
members of the Family of God.2344 Their support for one another and their solidarity with
other communities will be an effective communication or a strong testimony of the Gospel
that will encourage them to hope and continuously strive for a better society; thereby,
counteracting the spread of unbelief which has been has plagued the contemporary
society.2345 Amidst the aforementioned threats to the Church in the Philippines the CFC,
echoing the call of PCP II, recommends the formation of BECs as a viable pastoral
response.2346 For the CFC, BECs will encourage people to move out of self-centeredness.
In addition to this, the BECs will inspire the Filipino faithful to embody genuine piety and
actual witness of the Gospel, especially when these BECs are founded upon the image of
the “household or family of God”, which was envisioned by PCP II. 2347 When people who
belong to the BECs treat each other as a member of a family, sharing with each other
genuine love and concern, treating each other with respect and understanding, they
become true embodiments of the Church as the Body of Christ. According to the CFC, “It
is where Christian conscience is formed, and Christian prayer and worship is nurtured
and integrated. The family, nuclear or extended, is “a true foundation for Basic Ecclesial
Communities… a model of relationships in the Church. For the plan of God is that all
should form one family, and the Church is the household of God where all call upon and
obey the will of the same Father through the Holy Spirit” (PCP II 21-22).”2348
CFC, as a genuinely inculturated church teaching, has also given a substantial
treatment on the role of Mary in the faith of the Filipino people which we have already
expounded in the first chapter. Under several headings (i.e., “Mary, Model of the New
Creation;” “Mary, Daughter, Mother and Model of the Church;” “Mary, Model of Faith;”
and the like), she is presented in this particular church document as someone who
epitomizes Filipino spirituality and who can be emulated by every Filipino faithful. It may
not have been explicitly mentioned in CFC, but we believe that implied in this document
is Mary’s role in the formation of BECs in the Philippines which has become a pastoral
priority for the Church in the Philippines dubbed as “Church of the Poor.”
And on this note, we recall Julma Neo et al who, in their book about Basic Ecclesial
Communities in the Philippines, have rightly pointed out that, since Filipino religiosity is
recognized as profoundly Marian,
“[if] Mary has to be relevant to today’s Filipino Christians tasked with the urgent mission of
evangelization and social transformation, Marian theology must critique the traditional image
of Mary that presents her as sweet and uncomplaining… Mary must be retrieved from her
wrappings in order to discover a woman resolute and strong, one who dared to trust God’s
word, and audaciously accepted His invitation to participate in the greatest adventure of all:
the salvation of humanity.”2349
To make Marian devotion relevant today entails basic shifts from a simple notion of
“maternity” to a notion of genuine “discipleship” which involves moving from simply
2344For more details on this please see CBCP, CFC, 151-154.

2345Descriptions on the “new” religious climate in the Philippines are discussed as length in CBCP, CFC, 172.
2346Ibid., 173, 792-795.
2347CBCP, CFC, 1375.
2348Ibid.
2349Neo et al, Towards a New Way of Being Church Today, 305.
431
SAMBAYANIHAN
honoring Mary as Mother of God “to imitating her as a disciple of Jesus”. 2350 This means
that the Filipino Christian faithful have to migrate from mere observance of Marian
devotions to an unwavering commitment to partake in a Christian mission because “[true]
devotion to Mary demands a corresponding commitment to the transformation of the
world.”2351 It also entails a change of orientation “from docile submission to passionate
action” which is about giving flesh to Mary in daily life, “making her real and concrete
again”.2352 Neo et al also suggested that the “shift” involves the recovery of “the gift of the
feminine element in the Church; the re-appropriation and appreciation of the gifts of
nurturance, healing and compassion long depreciated in a highly patriarchal society.”2353
If we are to state in a nutshell what the CFC tells us about the BECs in the
Philippines, we can say that they have to be inculturated, they have to strive to become a
genuine family of God, and they have to be inspired by Mary who is not only the Mother
of Jesus but also a genuine disciple. Indeed, it is necessary that they graduate from simply
regarding Mary as an object for devotion and piety and move towards a genuine
imbuement of Marian spirituality of discipleship defined by “passionate action”,
“nurturance”, “compassion”, and “healing”.
II.4.3.3 The Image of the BECs in the Philippines at Present: Towards a Dialogical,
Participative and Co-responsible Church
Having discussed the two Church documents that specifically touched upon the role
of the BECs in the Philippines, we can now safely conclude that indeed BECs, as Claver
rightly points out, are “worshipping communities of faith-discernment-action at the lowest
level of the church that try, in a participatory way and under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit, to put life and faith together into an integrated whole.”2354 This definition of Claver
underlines the important role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the BECs and the irreplaceable
significance of discernment. He distinguishes BECs from other religious organizations and
church groups by identifying them as “non-exclusive communities ‘at the lowest level of
the church’”, which may not be true to other aforementioned groups that tend to be
exclusive and selective.2355 Moreover, he believes that BECs are conducted in a
“participatory way”.2356 He is quick to note, however, that other church groups can count
themselves as sharers in the BECs tradition if they believe that these two elements are
present in them as well. Inspired by the Vatican II, Claver suggests that BECs can be
referred to as “small communities that form themselves into dialogic, participative, and
co-responsible church congregations.”2357 Certainly, what differentiates it from the Parish
communities is its smallness.
Based on a conclusion made by the research conducted by the National Secretariat
of Social Action in 1995 which gathered ninety-nine different names of BECs, there are
basically three modalities of the BECs in the Philippines which earlier pointed out as
beginning to develop during the 1980’s: “liturgical, developmental, and liberational.”2358
Liturgical BEC, as the name suggests, puts more priority on the liturgical life that is
2350Neo et al., Towards a New Way of Being Church Today, 305.

2351Ibid.,306.
2352Ibid.
2353Ibid., 307.
2355Ibid.
2356Ibid.
2357Ibid.
2358Ibid., 92.
432
expressed in the community’s faithful and active participation in liturgical activities.

Developmental BEC, while maintaining the centrality of the community’s worship, tries to
respond as well to the challenges posed by economic problems experienced by the
community. It tries to empower its members by allowing them to own their stories and
encouraging them to take active role in remediating their unfortunate circumstances.
Liberational BEC, while making sure that the liturgical and developmental aspects are not
neglected, takes on a higher vocation of conscientizing the people addressing the more
profound concerns of the society (i.e., “more political aspects of life”).2359 Claver views these
typologies in an incremental fashion. He considers the liberational type as the highest
mode of BEC’s existence since it also embodies both the liturgical and development
elements.2360 With these three taxonomies of BECs, a myriad of shapes and forms of BECs
emerged in the Philippines.
One of various configurations of BECs in the Philippines is the chapel-centered
communities that are comprised of 30 to 200 families that are mainly found in the rural
areas and some pockets of the urban areas in the island of Mindanao. Their communities
are organized according to the structure of their “barrio/barangay” chapels where they
normally hold their community gatherings or activities. Some of the BECs found in the
Philippines further subdivide the chapel communities into smaller and more manageable
groupings, such as neighborhood cells usually composed of 8-15 families or households
for each cell. Thus, the chapels are considered to be a network of different cells, which
regularly come together in the homes of the members, by rotation, during the days of the
week and, as one big community of different cells, celebrate the Holy Eucharist together
in their common social and liturgical space, the barrio chapel, either on a monthly or bi-
monthly basis, depending on the availability of the priests in their home parish. In
contrast to this barrio BECs, those that are found in the urban places, especially the ones
in the big cities, are gathered together for their regular celebration of the Mass, because
of the absence of venues big enough to accommodate the entire community, in either side-
streets, school quadrangles, barangay halls, and public covered basketball courts. In their
case, instead of considering the bigger community as the BEC, the “cells” themselves
which are ordinarily composed of 8-15 members are considered as the BECs.2361
A relatively recent development in the area of BEC formation in the country,
according to Picardal, is the growing trend of enlisting the service of part-time volunteers
instead of hiring full-time professional BEC animators.2362 A good number of them come
from the ‘retired sector’ who are happily receiving their pensions, and have so many time
to share with the ecclesial communities. This is considered to be a positive development
because it makes the vision of both Vatican II and PCP II a reality, which is to make
everyone participate actively in the life and worship of the Church where they can all fulfill
their missionary vocation.
It is hoped that, once everyone becomes actively involved in the business of BEC in
the Philippines, people will not only be concerned as a church on the liturgical aspect of
church life but also in other important aspects of human life, such as economics and
politics. This, therefore, calls to mind what Emmanuel De Guzman has written regarding
the political implications of the BECs in the Philippines, which says:

2360Ibid.,93.
2361Picardal, “The BEC in the Philippines.”
2362Ibid.
433
SAMBAYANIHAN
“The Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (1991) teaches that it is the responsibility of the
whole People of God, the Church as a community of disciples, to participate in the
transformation of the political order of society as intrinsic to the demands of the Gospel and
integral to the Church’s task of evangelization. Especially when moral and Gospel values are at
stake, both clergy and laity are called upon to get involved in the area of politics in order to
promote human dignity, justice, charity, and the common good. In particular, the laity are
urged to participate actively, and lead as well, in the renewing of politics in accordance with the
values and the Spirit of Jesus. The Council identifies some principles that may guide the laity’s
political involvements: the pursuit of the common good, the defense and promotion of justice,
the spirit of service, a love of preference for the poor, and the empowering of people to be carried
out as a process and as a goal of political activity.”2363
Of course, we cannot consider the role of the ordained ministers as superfluous. The laity,
certainly, needs the support of the members of the clerical state. The clergy and the laity
need to be on the same page for the BECs to viably exist. That is why, a good number of
seminaries and formation houses in the Philippines now, apart from including the BEC in
their theological courses, are also incorporating BEC-oriented modules and activities in
their formation programs. Some even go as far as actually organizing the seminary
communities according to the BEC-cells structure wherein the members of the seminary
communities can genuinely live what BEC is all about. Thus, the thrust of promoting
BECs in their respective dioceses will hopefully not only remain as a lip-service but a
reality because even in the communities where they prepare future pastors BEC is already
lived or practiced. Apart from this, the seminarians are also given the opportunity to know
the life of BECs in a more personal way by letting them live and work in actual parish-
based BECs. In effect, they become more equipped in their mission to build, organize,
nurture and evangelize the BECs who are not only objects of evangelization but the
subjects themselves.
Not only the seminarians are educated in the area of BEC formation but also the
ordained ministers are also given some necessary programs to ensure that BEC formation
in the country will be appreciated and promoted by the parish priests. In that way, the
tension is minimized and the working relationship among the different actors in the
establishment of BECs will become smoother and more conducive for collaborative effort.
We can also mention here that even female religious orders have taken steps to include
the concept of BECs in the structures of their formation, especially in the postulancy,
novitiate and juniorate levels.
Because of all these developments, we can assert that the prospect of BEC formation
in the Philippines looks optimistic. Picardal can confidently and rightly say that
“These are the trends and developments that are happening regarding BECs in the Philippines.
In spite of the pessimism of some who think that BECs are either dead or have failed to grow,
these trends are indeed encouraging. They are the signs of hope. Like light, salt and leaven,
BECs even in their smallness are making a difference. They are growing slowly, accompanied
by the Holy Spirit. They are “creative minorities” who are living as genuine communities of
disciples of Christ, proclaiming the good news and witnessing to it, and transforming the
Church and Philippine society. Like the kingdom of God, they are already but not yet’ reality.
They are dream that is in the process of becoming a reality.”2364
2363Emmanuel De Guzman, “Come Near, Stand in the Center! Reflections on the Political Dimensions of the
Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Philippines,” CBCP-BEC, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=139 [accessed June 8,
2016]. Also available in http://becsphil.tripod.com/bec-politics.htm [accessed June 8, 2016].
2364Picardal, “The BEC in the Philippines.”
434
Having said that, Picardal argues that the BECs in the Philippines are now moving towards
becoming genuine “agents of communion, participation and communion”.2365 There are,
indeed, clear indications that members of the BECs in the Philippines have learned to
appreciate the gift of one another through their regular bible-sharing and other common
activities. Their sense of belongingness and co-responsibility are more palpable now as
compared to the early days of BEC formation in the Philippines. Although, admittedly
those are areas that the members will have to continuously work on. We can also mention
that, nowadays, more and more members of the BECs are genuinely treating each other
as members of one’s family. They are doing their best to treat others in the spirit of
friendship, service and love. They are learning not to be inward-looking or ghettoes that
are indifferent toward others. In the banquets or agapes that they celebrate during the
fiestas they hold in honor of their patron saints, even in their common meals, they express
the values of friendship, generosity, participation, and unity.2366 In these event, they
exhibit in their own humble way what the Eucharist is all about. Whenever they
generously share with one another not only their treasure but also their time and talent,
they truly embody the essence of communion. They become the responsible stewards that
Jesus had identified in the parables. As stewards they share their lives together, which
also means participating actively in whatever activity or concerns that they have as
communities of disciples who are doing their best to fulfill the threefold munera that they
have received through their baptism: prophet, priest, and king. According to Picardal,
“This is the prophetic mission—of proclaiming and giving witness to the Word of God, the Good
News, as well denouncing the manifestation of evil in society. This is the priestly mission—
through active participation in the liturgical celebration. This is the kingly/servant mission—
of working for the kingdom, for justice, peace and the integrity of creation. This is a mission of
social transformation.”2367
And, certainly, this social transformation begins from the grassroots, from the small
communities of Christians who are trying to live out Christian values in their own little
ways. For sure, they are not perfect. They try to embody the Gospel in faltering ways, but
there is hope that with the BECs already in place, the call of Pope Francis to strive in
making the Church as “Communities of Missionary Disciples” is slowly becoming a
reality.2368 De Guzman ascertains that
“the BECs do not pretend that they are perfect, even as sociological communities, and much
less as faith communities. They do not present themselves as having a complete understanding
of society, of life and of faith, and neither do they claim to have all the answers to the problems
of human life, nor are they only possible means of liberation. In a more positive light, however,
the BECs see themselves as always in the process of becoming, a people on the road, a pilgrim
church seeking to make the reign of God a reality in their lives and communities. This is the
reason why they insist on the continuing education and organization of their communities.
They also recognize the importance of relating with other BECs and grassroots organizations in
order to broaden their share of social transformation.”2369
2365Amado Picardal, “Basic Ecclesial Communities: Agents of Communion, Participation and Mission,” CBCP-
BEC, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=3346 [accessed May 31, 2017]. Also available in
http://www.cbcpnews.com/cbcpnews/?p=87065 [accessed May 31, 2017].
2366Jose Mario Francisco rightly points out that “[because] basic church communities structure themselves
more like a circle rather than a pyramid, this structural change tends to spread to the other social structures
affecting the people's lives. Once the people experience true equality and participation in church structures,
whether this be on the level of the small cell or the entire diocese, then they will no longer be content to being
passive victims of socio-political, economic and cultural systems.” José Maria Francisco, S.J., “Two Currents
of Filipino Christianity II,” Landas 2(1988): 191.
2367Picardal, “Basic Ecclesial Communities
2368Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium.
2369De Guzman, “Come Near, Stand in the Center.”
435
SAMBAYANIHAN
Indeed, there is no doubt that, despite their limitations, the BECs in the Philippines are
fertile grounds for participation, communion and mission.2370 Truly, according to De
Guzman, “The BECs is not a dream anymore; it is a reality of trials and breakthroughs,
successes and joys, as well as mistakes and disappointments.”2371
The fruits of BEC-formation in the Philippines are, indeed, significantly felt at the
present moment within the shores of the archipelago. Even in the political aspect of
contemporary Filipino life, the BECs are also becoming conduits of change. Although, we
need to nuance this claim because there is an apparent confusion between the generic
meaning of politics and the particular meaning of partisan politics. De Guzman rightly
points out that “while the BECs are generally critical of the political situation in their
villages and in the country, they are cautious of getting involved in ‘politics.’” 2372 It has
happened several times that the word ‘politics’ is reduced to the business of partisan
politics. A lot of times people forget that, in general, politics pertains to whatever belongs
to the public realm. Thus, it includes issues that are moral, social, economic, etc.
One of the “existential reasons”, according to De Guzman, why there is a definitional
mix-up between generic politics and partisan politics is the fact that, at times, the military,
backed up by the government, treats those who are suspected of inciting “activity of
resistance” with violence in order to suppress them.2373 People who have experienced strong
intimidation from both the Left and Right have been so terrorized and traumatized that they
simply cringe in fear and shut up. They end up being stifled. Hence, they are prevented
from confronting directly the unjust system that oppresses the people in the grassroots.
De Guzman also names cynicism as one of the hindrances for people to be involved in
politics.2374 A lot of people seem to have lost their hopes in the future of political life in the
Philippines considering how ugly and dirty partisan politics is being played out in the
country and how everything seems to be reduced to what goes on in the partisan political
arena. For many people, involvement in the political sphere is such a futile undertaking.
Another factor that De Guzman underscores as a reason for people’s “indifference” towards
politics is the idea that to be involved in issues that are political in nature will simply pave
the way towards division and disharmony.2375 It is something that Filipinos try to avoid
considering the fact that they value community and personal relationship a lot. These
three, De Guzman surmises, drag down the efforts of a lot of BECs to go full-steam in their
social and political advocacies.2376 Perhaps, the few exceptions that exist are the BECs that
are located in some parts of Mindanao and western Visayas, and those that are considered
to be “sectoral-type” BECs.2377
But, even amidst this consternation we cannot deny that BECs have given birth to
genuine political actors not only in the Church but also in the larger society as well.
Through the BECS, people have found their voice. They have been emboldened to bring
their social concerns to the knowledge of the relevant or concerned authorities. Through
the BECs, people have rediscovered their potential to influence Church and society. They
can now demand to both the church and civil authorities to take a hard look at their
unfortunate situations. They have become a force to be reckoned with. Empowered
2370Picardal,
“Basic Ecclesial Communities.”
2372Ibid.
2373Ibid.
2374Ibid.
2375Ibid.
2376Ibid.
2377Ibid.
436
members of the BECs can no longer be ignored. The activities of the BECs in the country,
however, reveal that they are not short of being political. In the words of De Guzman, “they
are political in a deeper and perhaps in a more genuine sense than what is commonly
understood under politics insofar as they are committed to the communitarian aspect of
the polis (the city), to the well-being of the people and welfare of the community.”2378
Bishop Julio Labayen, however, clarifies that although the BECs are political
communities, they are “basically Church”.2379 Thus, definitely, they are different from the
people’s movements which are basically “secular” in nature.2380 This means to say that,
although both the BECs and the people’s movements may involve in issues concerning
politics, they do not share the same motivation or dynamism. Although, there is also a
possibility, in fact it really happens, that the same Christians who belong to the BECs are
also the same exact people who are involved in these secular movements, which can, of
course, be a source of serious bewilderment. Thus, it can happen that either the people’s
movements will coopt the BEC or the BEC will try to subdue the people’s movements in a
counter-productive way which is reminiscent of the undesirable tendency of the
Christendom to dominate and control the world.
Going back to the proper political intervention done by the BECs in the Philippines,
De Guzman has identified three different ways wherein it is manifested. These three ways
are, according to him, inspired by the triple munera of the Church.
First, according to De Guzman, “BECs are vehicles for increasing the social awareness
of the people, especially as regards their intrinsic human dignity and rights.”2381 In view of
this, De Guzman states that
“As prophetic communities, they are moving towards becoming witnesses to the living Gospel,
especially in denouncing injustices and violence and at the same time in proclaiming the good
things that facilitate the total development of the human person. The BECs can maintain its
relevance not simply as a social and political forum, but also in providing a space for
encountering and celebrating God’s liberating presence. As discerning communities of faith,
they can criticize or legitimize the actions of people's movements in the light of the Gospel
values.”2382
Second, De Guzman claims that “BECs [do] help in awakening the innate and liberating
potential of the religiousness of the people.”2383 He argues that “As priestly communities,
the BECs can help match the people's prayers for wholeness in their liturgies, symbols,
and worship gatherings with decisive action that are life-giving rather than death-dealing.
They can be the loci for affirming the transcendent and deeply spiritual, something people’s
movements may have overlooked or considered peripheral in the task of social
transformation.”2384
Third, according to De Guzman, “by virtue of their kingly mission, the BECs create
structures of leadership which are guided by participatory ethic and service for the common

2379Bishop Julio X. Labayen, To Be the Church of the Poor, ed. Denis Murphy (Manila: Communication
Foundation for Asia, 1986), 51.
2380Ibid.
2382Ibid.
2383Ibid.
2384Ibid. It was admitted by the Philippine ecumenical delegation during the to the Third Asian Theological
Conference convened in Suanbo, Korea on 3-8 July of 1989 that “Our assessment of pastoral and theological
work and methodologies showed that we had overemphasized the political and economic dimensions of the
people’s life, glossing over the cultural and religious. We saw that if our perspective was to be genuinely critical
and holistic, we had to know where people were at in terms of their religiosity.” Carlos Abesamis et al., “A
Philippine Search for a Liberation Spirituality,” Kalinangan 10, no. 1(1990): 24.
437
SAMBAYANIHAN
good.”2385 In this regard, he points out that “The transformation of social structures and
the collective psyche of the people must go hand in hand. The structures that the BECs
construct can help in the reorientation of values of the people and facilitate their
involvement in the area of decision-making. At the same time, the BECs can be reminders
to secular groups for social change of the importance of pluralism and the
multidimensionality of human life.”2386 This brings to mind Otto Maduro who has offered
his own two-cents on the flaws of ideologically oriented groups who espoused Marxist
reductionist political views.2387
Thus, it can be said that BECs are blazing the trails for new “maze-ways” towards
genuine “holistic healing” that our “broken and wounded world” greatly needs, because
they open our senses to new worldviews and new behavioral configurations.2388 We are
adapting here the notion of “maze-ways” which was originally explored by Anthony Wallace
and further developed by Barbara Hargrove. This particular term is understood by Wallace
as the changes that occur when children learn new things which eventually become
incorporated in their adult life.2389 For Hardgrove, this concept refers to the major
transformation in the world, specifically in the realm of culture, which steers people
towards new ways of understanding themselves, their lives, their world and their
histories.2390 The local church is being renewed by these BECs, which are basically
communities of faith, by redirecting it towards greater sensitivity and responsibility vis-à-
vis the concerns and hopes of those that are marginalized, abused and discriminated
against. What makes the BECs desirable for the people from the grassroots is the fact that
being part of these communities allows them to tap into their God-given religiosity that
serves as a well-spring for creatively finding ways to address whatever concerns they have
in real life. These communities serve as powerful stimuli for giving witness to Christian love
that paves the way towards a transformation of the world and a liberation of the people
from the dehumanizing conditions that they suffer in the present age.
Everything that we have discussed so far regarding the BECs in the Philippines, past
and present, brings us to what Marins has said about BEC. In his writings, he has
underlined that this concept means
“the Church at its most basic, local level from which the diocesan and the universal Church
emerges, the locus where the Church is alive as the first-fruit, the visible mediation and the
sacrament of the Kingdom of God – a process which has already begun and yet has still to reach
the state of final consummation. The BEC is perceived as the dynamic reality of an evangelical,
liberating and prophetic community option preferentially for the poor, and therefore becoming
new model of Church and a seed for the growth of a new model of society…The BEC is not an
end in itself; otherwise it would cease to be leaven; it would cease to be Church and would
become merely a sect. The goal of the BEC is the extension of the Kingdom of God. It is not a
place of quiet, isolate refuge, but rather for deepening and intensifying faith and
commitment.”2391
He has also reminded those involved in BEC formation that “[it] is always wise not to take
oneself too seriously – not to think of that the BEC are the solution to all our problems
2385De Guzman, “Come Near, Stand in the Center.” Cf. Otto Maduro, “The Desacralization of Marxism within
Latin American Liberation Theology,” Social Compass 35(1988): 384.
2386Maduro, “The Desacralization of Marxism,” 384.
2387Ibid.
2388De Guzman, “Come Near, Stand in the Center.” Cf. also Barbara Hardgrove, “Religion, Development, and
Changing Paradigm,” Sociological Analysis 49(1988): 33-48, especially 45-46.

2389Cf. Anthony Wallace, “Revitalization Movements,” American Anthropology 58(1956): 264-281.
2390Cf. Barbara Hardgrove, “Religion, Development, and Changing Paradigm,” Sociological Analysis 49(1988):
33-48, especially 45-46.

2391José Marins et al., The Church from the Roots: Basic Ecclesial Communities (Quezon City: Claretians, 1983,
1997), 10.
438
and that without them nothing else can be done…One has to accept with a certain degree
of humor the errors and deficiencies that appear along the way.”2392
Of course, we should not overlook the importance of having a viable formation process
for BECs to ensure that these communities are inspired and guided accordingly by the
Spirit in their mission which is, according to Sr. Fe Mendoza, “simply to be in love.”2393 She
contends that “[formation] to anything less demanding than this loving is to squander our
BECs away!”2394 Thus, she suggests that Lonergan’s insight on the development of the
human person can be a valid perspective on formation, even for BEC, “for all times and
cultures because it is founded on a constant – the normative structure of human
consciousness, that consciousness by which we are the image of God, and the very same
structure of the human consciousness of Jesus.”2395 In a presentation that she gave to
2004 Symposium on BEC spearheaded by the Philippine Association of Catholic
Missiologists, she identified at least three panels of “sustainable formation”: “The first is
on the formation of the authentic individual, the child and the adult, the potential member
of a BEC. The second panel is on the formation of the authentic community, the family and
the neighborhood, the potential BEC. The third is on the redemptive mission of Christian
community, of which the BEC is a basic unit.”2396 What she wanted to convey in using this
three panels was the truth-claim that “[as] a community, the Church is an achievement of
common Christian meaning. Its central common meaning is redemption through self-
sacrificing love actualized in the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This
common precious memory inspires fidelity to the four transcendental precepts and a leap
to the fifth: Be in love.”2397 The precepts that are considered by Lonergan to be
transcendental are “attentiveness, intelligence, responsibility, and love.”2398 Fulfillment of
these precepts makes the human person authentic. According to Lonergan,
“unauthenticity is realized by any single act of inattention, obtuseness, unreasonableness,
irresponsibility…authenticity is reached only by long sustained fidelity to the
transcendental precepts.”2399
This view, we believe, is corroborated by Marina Obal Altarejos who had argued in a
dissertation she submitted to the Radboud University of Nijmegen on Filipino Basic
Ecclesial Community that Lonergan’s insights on the “spirituality of authentic loving” can
help us form genuine Basic Ecclesial Communities which we would like to cite in a rather
substantial way. She claims that
“Spirituality as lived authenticity is embodied by those who are ‘ready to deliberate and judge
and decide and act with the easy freedom of those that do all good because they are in love.’
The Spirit of love must move and impel us to be attentive to the needs and the struggles of the
victims of history, to understand more the root caused and effects of such needs and struggles,
and to relate creatively and appropriately to our radically historical world through reasonable
judgments and responsible decisions, the fruits of which are deeds of justice, solidarity,
kindness and compassion. And this is possible only if one acts of knowing and feeling are
2392Marins et al., The Church from the Roots, x.

2393Sr. Fe Mendoza, R.G.S., “Formation of the Basic Ecclesial Community as an Authentic Community,”
Landas 18, no. 2(2004): 282. See also Fe Terecita Mendoza, “Basic Ecclesial Communities: Authentic
Formation and Interreligious Dialogue: A Lonerganian Perspective” (doctoral dissertation, Gregorian
University, 2001).
2394Ibid., 282.
2395Ibid., 270.
2396Ibid., 269.
2397Ibid., 281.
2398Ibid., 278.
2399Bernard Lonergan, S.J., “Dialectic of Authority,” in A Third Collection: Papers by Bernard J. F. Lonergan
SJ, ed. Frederick Crowe (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1985), 5-12, 8. Cited in Mendoza, “Formation of the
Basic Ecclesial Community,” 278.
439
SAMBAYANIHAN
translated into doing, where our knowledge of facts is sublated towards the knowledge of values
and we, then, enact those values... The point of departure for every pastoral project is not an
analysis of the sociological facts but an intuition of those movements of the Spirit which gives
rise to a community of joy and peace, and a willingness to serve. Lonergan would argue that
‘for the one who has the eyes of faith and of love the world appears as that place where the
presence of God is manifested in inviting us creatures to freely rescue good out of evil and
therefore to express something of the divine within the obscure happenings of history.’”2400
II.4.4. Application: Tapping into the Well-Spring of Filipino Trans-colonial and

Transcultural Migrant Ecclesial Communities: Sambayanihan
“The Church in Western Europe has played a remarkable role in the story of
Christianity. At present time, however, that church is in great need of new energy
and vision…We need to reexamine again our understanding of what it means to be
church and renew the patterns of community around which we share the life of the
people of God. This will not be the work of a single moment but the task of a
generation… the pattern for this re-shaping needs to be from the local congregation
outwards rather than beginning with the denomination, national church or larger
unit. Within the local congregation, I have argued, with others, for the recovery of the
small missionary community as the basic template for the life of the Christian
congregations.”2401
- Steven Croft, 2002
Before we proceed to our discussion on how the concept of BEC can be feasibly
adapted to the context of Filipino migration in Western Europe, we would like to put this
endeavor in a proper perspective by citing what Marins had said about Basic Ecclesial
Communities. For Marins et al., “BEC is not an isolated fact… rather a ‘sacramental’ event
within a global process of renewal and the introduction of a new style (model) of Church
life... The BEC, being the level of the Church most integrated into the life of the ordinary
people, is the most vital dimension of this process, its key element, its symbol and its
yardstick.”2402 Furthermore he contended that
“The BEC is not a protest group…The BEC emerges from the Church’s pastoral activity and not
in opposition to it… [It] is not a messianic group. The BEC can – and should – be prophetic and
bring forth prophets. But it does not present itself as the only possible means of salvation, nor
does it expound the view that it wants to establish an earthly and enduring kingdom (different
from the Kingdom of God)… The BEC is not a natural community… [It] is not confined to any
one culture, people, race, language or family. Any one of these aspects, however, can provide a
valid starting point for the formation of BEC… The BEC is not simply a discussion group, prayer
group or service group… It exists to be Church, that is to say, to assume all the essential
ecclesial functions and activities – although it does not necessarily express the totality of all
those characteristics at any one given moment… The BEC is not an apostolic movement nor a
pious association… on the other hand, is called to live out all the aspects of Church – its
complete spirituality and mission… is fundamentally a gathering of the faithful at the
grassroots level… The BEC is not a miraculous formula for combatting all the evils of society
and the Church… The BEC, as a basic level of Church, re-evaluates and reinterprets the
Church’s way of being and acting… The BEC is a pilgrim Church, with all the limitations and
sins that this implies… The ‘apostles’ will constantly have to evaluate their actions and revise
their pastoral plans in accordance with the group’s capacities, and in the light of everyday
experience.”2403
Bearing in mind everything that Marins had said in a nutshell about what BEC is
and is not, we can now theorize on a possibility of cultivating Basic Ecclesial Communities
2400Marina Obal Altarejos, Filipino Basic Ecclesial Community Between Limitation and Self-Transcendence
(Quezon City: Obraku Imprenta, 2007), 289. Cf. Lonergan, Method in Theology, 107. Carlo Maria Martini,
“Bernard Lonergan at the Service of the Church,” Theological Studies 66(2005): 517-526, 525.
2401Steven Croft, Transforming Communities: Re-imagining the Church for the 21 st Century (Great Britain:
Darton, Longman and Todd, 2002), 200-201.

2402Marins et al., The Church from the Roots, 11.
2403Ibid.,12-13.
440
in the Western European context that we see as emanating from the existing Filipino
Catholic migrant communities in this part of the world. The substantial accounts that we
have laid down above regarding the different expressions BECs/SCCs which have
sprouted in the different regions of the world in the wake of the Second Vatican Council
will serve as our inspiration to conceptualize “a new way of being church” within the milieu
of Western Europe where globalization and its attendant issues (i.e., multiculturality, neo-
colonialism, secularization, xenophobia, nationalism, eclipse of God” 2404, etc.) are
profoundly felt.
Certainly, this endeavor shall be seen against the background of everything that we
have tackled in the preceding chapters which might have appeared to our readers as
pointless meanderings. To give a provisional nomenclature to the kind of ecclesial
communities that we envision for the Filipino migrants in Western Europe, we choose the
specially minted compound word sambayanihan because it expresses the notion of a
pilgrim church that embodies oneness, worship, community, heroism/martyrdom and
agapeic collaboration in one nomenclature. Our notion of sambayanihan also implies the
ideas embedded in trans-coloniality and trans-culturality because this neologism suggests
that such a community carries with it the complex and colorful histories of the Filipino
people who have their own way of interpreting what transpired in history, a unique way
of speaking about God and their religious experiences (bahala na and bayahnihan
ordinary theology, a peculiar approach in celebrating liturgies (i.e., the issue of
inculturation), and a distinctive manner of organizing and structuring their faith
communities. With this proposal, we would like to offer our assistance in making the
Filipino Catholic migrant communities in Western Europe fully appreciate their
missionary potential. It is our hope that, once they learn to embrace their vocation as
modern-day missionaries, they will move out of their “invisibility”. From simply playing
auxiliary roles, they can hopefully take on more active and significant roles in both the
societal and ecclesial milieus in Western Europe. Hopefully, they can claim their rightful
seats in the communal discernment needed for the Western European local churches
today in order to respond accordingly to the signs of the times.
Backed up by the ruminations of Marins, Claver and De Guzman on the “essence”
of BEC, we can confidently contend that, when Filipino Catholic migrant communities are
given a legitimate status as sambayanihan communities, they will gain a significant
leverage to become an inspiration to other cultural communities in bringing about “new
evangelization”. “New Evangelization”, for us, is about spreading the Good News and
quickening the “reign” of God’s kingdom of love, justice and mercy. It is an evangelical or
a missionary approach that includes genuine listening to all peoples, especially those in
the grassroots, and promotion of active participation of every member of the Church in all
its nooks and crannies. Of course, we do not sell the notion of sambayanihan as the
panacea to all the problems that the Church in the west is facing, such as the radically
dwindling population of the regular church-goers. Suffice it to say that we are keenly
aware of the intricacies of the matter.
To further argue for the feasibility of establishing sambayanihan communities in
Western Europe, we can call to mind what we have mentioned earlier regarding the status
of the BECs in Western Europe as reported by Franςois Becker. We can confidently assert
2404“Buber based this expression from Biblical concept of hester panim which originally meant the act whereby
God hides or conceals God’s face in order to punish those who have not been obedient to God’s will. Buber
adapted this notion of concealment, eclipse of God, to refer to the contemporary condition wherein intimacy
with God have been destroyed by modern life and pedagogy of several philosophers or scholars.” Martin Buber,
Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton
University, 1952, 2016).
441
SAMBAYANIHAN
that there is a tangible hope for our proposal. There has been a precedence in the
formation of communities form the grassroots in the very recent history of the Western
Europe that makes this region’s “soil” arable, in other words, conducive for the cultivation
of Filipino migrant BECs or sambayanihan communities which we shall tackle later in
this chapter. If these communities that we have in mind will coordinate with those
members of the network and collaborate closely with their host parishes, they will certainly
make a dent in the mission of the Church to constantly renew itself.
Thus, this proposal certainly calls for a more open reception of the Filipino migrant
communities, as well as other ethnic communities, in the context of Western Europe.
Noted liturgist, Mark Francis, reminds us that “[the] presence of immigrant Catholics in
the traditionally Christian countries in the Global North, most of whom go to church
convinced of the power of prayer to make difference in their lives, is a dimension of
‘popular religion’ that needs to be taken seriously, especially when preparing liturgy in a
multicultural community.”2405 Despite this important insight shared by Mark Francis
regarding the role of the migrant communities, however, the number of people in the
church who truly appreciate the contribution of the migrant people is quite marginal.
There are significant instances, however, when migrant communities still have difficulty
penetrating or fully integrating into the Western European parish communities. They are
either relegated to the fringes of the local ecclesial communities by simply allowing them
to use the church facilities as long as they do not disturb the “normal” structure, schedule
and dynamics of the local community, or, they are unfairly absorbed as “second-class”
members of the parish community who cannot do anything else but to respect the status
quo. At times, migrant communities are contemptuously regarded as less theologically
sophisticated because of their simple faith. It is also not unusual that they looked down
upon as liturgically primitive because of their popular religiosity. There are also significant
instances where the cultural and religious traditions of the migrant people are seen as
incompatible with local cultural and religious practices; hence, are immediately eschewed
or suppressed. In other words, they do not have a place in the West.
Of course, we cannot overlook the many occasions wherein genuine hospitality is
accorded to the migrant communities by the local ecclesial communities in Western
Europe, especially to the Filipinos who are regarded as remarkably religious and generally
seen as a “model minority”. There are parishes, like the one in Gent, where an appreciation
of the different cultural elements brought in by the various migrant communities is truly
felt by the congregation. There are some things, however, that the pastor in Gent
incorporates in their Sunday liturgy which may be frowned upon by other people,
especially the awkwardly banal translations of the prayers in the mass. Regardless of the
fact that this pastor has probably pushed the envelope a little bit too far, we cannot but
applaud him in his effort to creatively pull together in a meaningful way the different
cultural communities present in his parish. Certainly, there is still a lot of things to be
done in this parish. There are still a lot of areas to be improved. Nevertheless, his initiative
is already commendable. We just hope that eventually this community will be able to find
the best way to celebrate the gift of interculturality/transculturality without trivializing
the essential elements of the Eucharist and without sacrificing the uniqueness of each
cultural community.
The occurrences of hospitality or creative integration of various cultural communities
in Western Europe, such as the one in Gent, cannot overshadow, though, the regrettable
2405Francis, Local Worship, Global Church, 159. For an account on the impact of charismatic Christians in the
British Isles emanating from India please see Cooper, “Feel the Spirit,” 4-5.
442
cases wherein a good number of white European pastors in Western Europe still
adamantly refuse to accept the idea of letting cultural elements from the migrant
communities to be absorbed into the “mainstream” of the churches in Western Europe,
be it liturgical or ecclesiological. Many of them remain unmoved by the call to take
inculturation seriously. They do not want to change the status quo. Thus, Gemma Tulod-
Cruz is correct to point out that, “[in] certain cases it is not so much the Roman authorities
but priests and other local religious leaders themselves who pose problems on
inculturation.”2406
We know that pastors have an important responsibility to ensure that no excesses
or abuses may occur when people try to celebrate inculturated liturgies in any given parish
community, but it is another story when they get in the way towards a creation and
promotion of genuinely sound inculturation in today’s Catholic parishes where the
presence of various ethnic communities is an undeniable reality, be it in Western Europe
or in other areas of the Universal Church. We must not be oblivious, as we have already
expounded in the third chapter of this doctoral dissertation and as Mark Francis has
rightly pointed out, that Catholic liturgy “has been influenced by the various cultural
contexts within which it developed.”2407 The sad reality, however, is that some people
would still obstinately defend with tooth and nails the idea that proper Catholic liturgy
must not tamper into the integrity of the Roman liturgy – strictly maintaining every aspect
of it.
Some would also insist that the only way to celebrate Catholic liturgy is through a
strict observance of how it is done by the locals. Migrant communities would simply have
to do what the “Romans” do – swallowing everything hook-line-and-sinker. Sad to say, an
inculturation that allows reception of cultural elements from the migrant communities is
still not generally accepted in the Western European churches despite the undeniable fact
that majority of the church congregations now in this part of the world is composed of the
migrants/foreigners and only a small fraction of them comprise the stereotypical white
locals. It is true that the “remnants” of white western Catholics still maintain the upper-
hand in terms of making important decisions in the parish communities. This unfortunate
reality is clearly illustrated by what Tulod-Cruz has shared in the following anecdote:
“The words of the pastor… on inter-ethnic celebrations and relations sound patronizing. Asked
on the separate celebrations of immigrants’ national saints’ day he says ‘I am tolerant. As long
as they don’t get in my way and we can fit them into the schedule, they are always welcome.’
The priest goes on to say that ‘they need to keep out of each other’s way’ while acknowledging
the fact that ‘tensions exists between the Anglos and the rest and the Anglos don’t realize that
they are dominant. Parish Council members are almost all Anglo and they are insensitive.”2408
Thus, she suggests that what is needed is not just the promotion of a more profound
“cultural sensitivity but also parity through more inclusive membership in key
organizational structures of the parish, e.g. parish council.”2409
Going back to our proposal, we envision that by recognizing the great potential of
sambayanihan communities, together with other migrant Catholic communities, an
experience of a “new Pentecost” – a new way of enlivening the Church in the West – will
most likely take place. When sambayanihan communities are cultivated in the Western
European landscape, a sort of reformanda in the ecclesia will happen from below and
within. It is a renewal from below because they are ordinary workers (most of them are in
2406Cruz, Towards a Theology of Migration, 118.

2407Francis, Local Worship, Global Church, 161.
2408Ibid., 120.
2409Ibid.,161.
443
SAMBAYANIHAN
the service industry – domestic helpers, factory workers and hotel service providers) and
they are lay people led by lay people. It is also a renewal from within because they are
already part of the contemporary Western society, whether we like it or not. Their cultures
and traditions have, in one way or another, penetrated the Western European society
despite the denial of some. It is certainly about a movement from within because the
presence of several diaspora faith communities, as rightly pointed out by Fernandez,
reveals that “[the] once missionized Christians of the global South are already in the
heartland of the global North either joining established congregations or organizing their
own. Diaspora churches are challenging the church to new ways of understanding itself
and its calling in the world. They are posing an opportunity for the church to reimagine
what it means to be truly worldwide and truly catholic.”2410 It is also from within because
they are part and parcel of the Christian tradition which undoubtedly defines, despite the
opposition of some, the Western European societies. In this reformation, the Filipino
migrant communities are re-imagined from simply being communities of economic
migrants to becoming “evangelized and evangelizing” communities of faith while they
negotiate their spaces within the complex and, at time, unfairly discriminating waters of
contemporary ecclesiology. For the Filipino migrant communities to contribute
meaningfully to the reformanda that we have in mind, it is necessary that these
communities will tap into the wellspring of weerloze overmacht2411 – the power that is
ironically coming from “weakness” - a unique brand of Catholic faith that is non-
condescending and non-imposing. In other words, they will capitalize on their “soft-
power”2412 evangelical mechanism as they invite other communities to simply “come and
see.”
This renewal of the church in Western European setting involving the formation of
BECs of Filipino migrant communities brings to mind what the Working Group on
Spirituality and Community in Germany has said about the inspiration that the
BECs/SCCs will bring to the Church in Germany: “For the German dioceses and parishes,
which in the present circumstances are seeking pastoral prospects for the future, AsIPA
offers a special opportunity to counter the threat of exclusively structural thinking by
supporting the congregations in their search for a sound spiritual basis and accompanying
them effectively down this road.”2413 This statement is, in a way, corroborated by Cardinal
Quevedo who told the participants of the Third AsIPA General Assembly in 2003 that the
BECs/SCCs will undoubtedly breathe new life to the Church, especially in the secularized
societies, because they present new pastoral avenues that “bring Christians together in a
network.”2414
In promoting sambayanihan communities in Western Europe, we can expect that the
usual flow of life in the parishes will be disrupted. This may be inconvenient for the locals,
especially to those who have been ardently maintaining the status quo or the “traditional
ways” of doing and organizing things.2415 Upheavals among the different stakeholders of
the church in Western Europe may occur, because the locals may invoke their “natural
right” to control the course and the dynamism of the church despite their drastically
2410Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Border, 222-23.

2411Cf. Schilebeeckx, “Overweginen ronds Gods,” 381.
2412This concept is credited to Joseph Nye who introduced it in the 1990’s which is the opposite of “hard
power” (coercion). “Soft power” is a non-coercive ability to influence others through attraction or appeal Cf.
Joseph Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990).
2413Cf. AsIPA, Working Group on Spirituality.
2414Cf. Oscar Quevedo, “SCCs/BCCs, Empowering People to Serve,” lecture, the Third AsIPA General
Assembly, 4 September 2003, Seoul.

2415‘Traditional’ here is understood as those long-standing practices in the parishes in the Western European
context that the local communities are so accustomed to. Tradition may vary from context to context.
444
dwindling population, while the “newcomers” will also assert, sometimes in ways that are
outrageous, their own views. We hope, however, that the sambayanihan communities, as
they are deemed to embody the Filipino “adobo-like” or “pancit-like” hybrid spirituality
and worldview, may serve as a beacon light in finding mature, productive, respectful and
viable ways to bridge the cultural gaps – to uphold the value of unity-in-diversity. Of
course, struggles and disagreements will continue to emerge along the way, because there
will always be gaps that will remain unbridgeable and must be accepted as such. No
communities, let alone human individuals, can be perfectly in synch. The sambayanihan
communities, because they are seen as imbibing trans-coloniality and trans-culturality,
can straddle between various cultural sensitivities and practices at the same time. Hence,
they are a feasible starting point towards an attainment of genuine catholicity in context
of Western Europe. We hope that this will pave a way towards a revitalized Church life in
Western Europe marked by a beautiful and colorful canvas of a transcultural Church -
one that celebrates universality, which is the true essence of catholicity. With the
contribution of the sambayanihan communities, we hope to see a church in Western
Europe that is less white and more transcultural and transcolonial. This does not mean,
however, that other cultural communities will simply have to copy what the sambayanihan
communities will do. Other cultural communities are also encouraged to cultivate their
own brand of ecclesial communities and to contribute generously to the renewal and
growth of the Catholic Church. Sambayanihan communities are simply meant to create
ripples and inspire other communities to make Church life in Western Europe alive again.
Sambayanihan communities can lead the way towards a more transcolonial and
transcultural church in Western Europe by embodying the dialogic, co-responsible, and
participative character of Basic Ecclesial Communities as we have elaborated in the
preceding sections of this chapter. Members of the sambayanihan communities may only
be recognized as genuine partners in dialogue when each one is given a leverage to share
his/her own stories and views on life and faith. We know that a very important aspect of
dialogue, Pope Francis and other church authorities have reminded us, is listening.
Bishop Claver had rightly pointed out that “if there is a proclaiming, there must be a
listening. And the proclaimers are not exempt from listening.”2416 In the potential
sambayanihan communities, the art of listening must be valued by everyone. It is
necessary that they allow each one to share his or her own thoughts and sentiments. This
is of utmost importance if we want the sambayanihan communities to be truly catholic.
Even if the Catholic Church is not a democracy, it is necessary that everyone is given a
chance to say his/her piece. On that note, we are reminded of what Mark Francis has said
about paying attention to various perspectives in the Catholic Church, which also includes
listening to what people in the past had said:
“The perspectives of our Catholic forebears, the majority of whom were people of a simple yet
profound faith, has often been overlooked or even disdained by those in a position to dominate
the historical record. While we hear of the contribution of popes, bishops, kings, and famous
theologians, it is rare that liturgical histories speak of the majority of Christians, many of whom
were largely uneducated, even illiterate, but who nevertheless passed on to the next generation
the traditions and rituals that sustained their lives of faith.”2417
As we have observed in Filipino migrant communities in Western Europe, probably

because of the encouraging atmosphere of dialogue that they have experienced in Western
Europe, the members have learned to speak up and to chime in the meaningful exchange
of views not only with their fellow members but also with the priests and other
representatives of the hierarchy. Having sambayanihan communities in their proper

445
SAMBAYANIHAN
places will provide an invaluable platform for the articulation of ordinary theology of the
people, especially the diasporic communities like the Filipino migrants. They will be given
a leverage to make their ordinary theology be heard by the hierarchy. Hopefully, their
humble but significant theological views will enrich the hierarchy’s and the professional
theologians’ view of theology and would make their teaching more sound and practical.
Hopefully, the theological articulations of the so-called experts will become more relevant
to the ordinary theologians or to the ordinary practitioners of Christian faith. In other
words, listening carefully to the God-talk of the ordinary people will help them to “smell
like the sheep”. According to Claver “correlative to teaching is learning… the Spirit still
speaks not only through the teaching part of the Church but also through the learning
one.”2418
The atmosphere of dialogue will also allow them to be responsible for one another as
they become aware of each other’s stories of struggles, successes, sadness and happiness.
It is not impossible for them to relate to one another as they see some similarities to their
stories. They will feel that they are all in one boat – together in one journey. So, they will
most likely help each other. They will learn to become each other’s keeper. This is highly
probable, because the Filipino psyche, as we have already elaborated earlier, is anchored
in the relationality of the loob and kapwa, which is concretely expressed by bayanihan.
This, then, brings us to what Claver has said about co-responsibility:
“If every believer is truly graced with the dignity of a son or daughter of God, and that especially,
in the life of faith of the community, it has to be recognized and respected in the one great task
of the church of proclaiming the faith of the Gospel in word and act – and proclaiming it as a
community. Hence we have to make much of the responsibility of each one in this regard, and
encourage and support its rightful exercise.”2419
We believe that, intimately connected to this, is the cultivation of the participative outlook
in community life and in liturgical celebrations. Because there is a healthy atmosphere of
dialogue and co-responsibility, people are motivated to participate actively – each giving
his/her fair share of time, talent and treasure. According to Claver,
“The dialogue of faith is not going to consist merely in the exchange of pious thoughts and
sentiments, however good and necessary these may be, but must burst forth into action,
produce fruits in acts. We are not talking only of acts of worship or individual morality but of
acts in which the community participated precisely as community and for the good of the
community. Thus, social issues, political and economic problems, other secular areas of living
that impinge on the life of faith of the community – these are all legitimate fields of concern for
the community’s discernment and action.”2420
These three are important elements in our proposed sambayanihan communities because,
according to Claver,
“Dialogue means that the people who are the objects of change must become the subjects of
change themselves – they have to talk among themselves, share ideas of how to go about
projects of change, and this presupposes that they are acknowledged and treated as thinking
subjects, able to articulate their ideas for consideration by the whole body. Participation begins
with the exchange of ideas in dialogue and goes on to community decisions and actions in
which all share in the effort to attain the change sought, empowering people to act for
themselves. Co-responsibility is in the owning of both process and results by the participants
in the change project, a fact which make the change, if successfully brought about, all the more
secure and lasting.”2421
Moreover,

2419Ibid., 134.
2420Ibid., 13-3-34.
2421Ibid., 172.
446
“The three ideas reflect in a very real way the deepest aspect of communion, namely, its
founding in love of the trinitarian community. Thus, dialogue is an effort at discerning where
lies wisdom in the community’s deliberations, and wisdom is of the Spirit…Participation, on
the other hand, is a profound mirroring and replication of the participation in humanity that
is the Incarnation of Christ. In the participatory community, people share of themselves in their
actions with one another in the manner of Christ himself, the one par excellence for others. And
lastly, co-responsibility partakes of the work of creation that we attribute to the Father to whom
we pay homage for all the great things he has done for us. In sharing responsibility for the acts
of community, we become creators like him. (Co-responsibility is our answer to the question
Cain asked in the Garden of Eden, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’)”2422
Certainly, in our immersion to the different “religious” migrant communities in Western

Europe, we have seen all these three characteristics of BECs (dialogic, co-responsible and
participative) truly taking place. Of course, this is not say that these communities are
perfect. They are as imperfect as any person or Church community in the world is. They
have their share of disagreements and bickering. They also experience falling-out. But we
believe that the members, like in any other ecclesial communities, try their best to live out
their Christian faith and to build a genuinely dialogical, participatory, and co-responsible
ecclesial community despite their human foibles. They try to maintain the communication
lines open in the best way they know, not only to fellow Filipinos but also to other ethnic
groups, Church leaders and ministers, and to the wider world. They try to perform their
roles in their respective communities and in their liturgical celebrations as generously and
faithfully as they can, for the sake of the Church and of the society at large. They also do
their best in providing shelter and financial aid, sometimes even jobs, to those who need
one. In their own humble way, they also share their resources to the downtrodden in the
Philippines, especially those afflicted by natural calamities and man-made tragedies.
Although, it is not always noticed, they also extend their help to those who need them in
their host countries.
For the sambayanihan communities to become the mature ecclesial communities
that we envision for the Western European context, it is necessary that they not only
imbibe the liturgical and developmental typologies of the BECs, but also, and most
especially, the liberational one. The current configuration of Filipino Catholic migrant
communities in Western Europe exhibits strongly their liturgical thrust because they are
usually formed out of the need to celebrate mass and other liturgies that they consider to
be essential to their Christian life. Apart from this, as we have already mentioned in the
preceding paragraph, Filipino migrant communities have also engaged in activities that
are developmental in nature. Their generosity is, indeed, admirable. Several authors that
we have mentioned above testify to the bayanihan spirit that the migrant Filipino
communities have exhibited both in their country of origin and their host countries.
Although there are some indications that Filipino migrant communities have already
involved themselves in more serious social and political issues, as elaborated by Gonzales
III and Stephen Cherry, we believe that the liberative aspect of BEC still needs to be
emphasized. Once they are able to “migrate” to what is referred to as the liberative stage,
which creatively incorporates in it the liturgical and developmental traits, they can
certainly be recognized as genuine Basic Ecclesial Communities of Filipino migrants in
Western Europe.
Having said all this, let us now dissect each concept embedded in the word
sambayanihan so we can see whether the communities that we have in mind truly
represent a dialogic, co-responsible and participative church that faithfully fulfill the tria
munera shared by Jesus Christ to each baptized Christian: priestly, prophetic and kingly
ministries. We contend that this particular adaption of the BEC involving the Filipino
migrant communities in Western Europe shall embody also the three typologies of BEC
447
SAMBAYANIHAN
identified by Claver (i.e., liturgical, developmental, and liberation), especially in the words
samba, bayani, and bayanihan. Hopefully, this proposal will assist in a discovery of a
viable way to address the issues of globalization and its attendant phenomena, especially
the “eclipse of God” and the “homelessness” felt by people in Western Europe in the
present time.
On that note, we would like to conclude this section by calling to mind the salient
points regarding the BECs that Margaret Hebblethwaite has identified in her book
because we believe they are pertinent to our proposal to form BECs or sambayanihan
communities in the context of Western Europe. In the first chapter of her book on Base
Communities, she has underlined that as a “basic cell of the Church”, a BEC is
“small”.2423 It means that a certain BEC is a gathering of the church that is quantifiably
smaller than a parish. It is a more basic gathering of the members of the parish. It is part
of the entire parish community. The BEC does not exist outside the structure of the
parish. For Hebblethwaite, BEC is not only applicable to a particular culture but it is for
all cultures.2424 Even if every culture can adapt the structure of BEC, however, people
should expect that there will be a variety of manifestations of BEC depending on the
culture or subculture of a particular group that formed a BEC. Uniformity must not be
expected. There is beauty in plurality. According to Hebblethwaite, BEC is for everyone in
the Church.2425 Thus, anybody who wants to be part of the BEC is welcome. Claver
distinguishes BEC from the mandated organization by saying that BEC is characterized
by non-exclusivity. And because it is open for everyone, the individual is being valued,
according to Hebblethwaite.2426 Of course, one should not expect that a BEC is perfect.
Ups and downs are part and parcel of the process of building a BEC because it composed
of ordinary people,2427 who are not immune to the challenges of the world. Amidst the
struggles that each BEC faces, it is important that it never loses sight of its communion
with the universal church.2428 This means that the BEC is not inward-looking. It does not
only exist within the parish structure, but it also remains in contact and in collaboration
with the wider ecclesiastical sphere. While maintaining its unity with the entire Catholic
Church, it should make sure that its eucharistic reality is upheld. 2429 In other words, the
centrality of the Holy Eucharist is maintained. A particular BEC community must always
strive to celebrate the Holy Eucharist, because the Eucharist is not only the irreplaceable
source of life for every Catholic Christian but also the inimitable summit wherein the fruits
of the daily endeavor of a Catholic Christian must be offered in thanksgiving to the
unmatched and boundless magnanimity of God. She also pointed out that a BEC “is
about bringing together faith and life”.2430 Hence, a BEC is a location wherein faith is
expressed in concrete terms because the members of the BEC, as a community, endeavors
to live their faith vis-à-vis the challenge of everyday life. It is where the virtues of faith,
hope, and charity are tested on a daily basis. Their God-talk becomes alive in the BEC. It
is the place where they practice love and sharing.2431 It is the venue where they exercise
martyrdom because it is where they need to give witness to their faith, to the truth of the
Gospel, day in and day out – in season and out of season.2432 It is where they live their
2423Margaret Hebblethwaite, Base Communities: An Introduction (England: Geoffrey Chapman, 1993), 8-9.
2424Ibid., 10-14.
2425Ibid., 15 -20.
2426Ibid., 20-22.
2427Ibid., 23-29.
2428Ibid., 29-32.
2429Ibid., 33-42.
2430Ibid., 44-49.
2431Ibid., 49-53.
2432Ibid., 53-60.
448
permanent mission to be evangelized and to be evangelizers at the same time.2433 What

will fuel their mission, of course, is their contextual reading of the Bible and Church
tradition,2434 as well as their celebrations and the religious symbols that they embrace as
a community of faith.2435 For her BEC “is about the base of the society – the poor”2436 and
“the base of the Church – the laity.”2437 The privileged status of the poor, according to
Hebblethwaite, does not necessarily negate the place of the rich, because, for her, “option
for the poor included everyone, both rich and poor.”2438 Certainly, an affirmation of culture
and history is an important part of this.2439 Just like any community of the faithful,
equality2440 is of paramount importance to the BEC, but this does not mean uniformity
because “people are called for different ministries”2441 and “each has a place in the
hierarchy and unity of ministry”2442 where “pastoral agents” are recognized as “essential
leaven.”2443
II.4.4.1. Sambayanihan as One – Unity in Diversity
We have noted earlier that the Philippines is described by David Joel Steinberg as
singular yet plural at the same time because it is a nation that is an archipelago which is
imbued by multiple layers and versions of culture and history.2444 This reality of the
Filipino nation can be used as a metaphor for the notion of oneness that we ascribe to the
sambayanihan communities in the Western European ecclesiological milieu which is
conveyed by sam – a derivative of the Tagalog isa that literally means ‘one’. We contend
that all the concepts entrenched in the neologism hinges upon this most important word
‘isa’ because, without it, everything else loses its significance. Without the notion of
oneness, samba (worship), which expresses the relationship (unity or oneness) between
the human and the Divine, cannot be thought of or even take place. This is also true for
bayan (community) because a community cannot be conceived or will not exist without a
unifying factor. The smallest unit of a community will not even exist without something
that binds them together. Such a requisite is also applicable to a parish community, even
to a city or a nation. The concept of bayani (hero-martyr) can only be understood properly
within a framework of oneness. It is about a link or unity to something or someone believed
to be so valuable that motivates a person to offer oneself as a sacrifice, whether literally
or figuratively. Otherwise, it is nothing but pure madness. Oneness is also a key ingredient
in bayanihan (journeying and collaborating together as one community). Without a
common cause or concern that unites people together, companionship cannot even be
imagined. Thus, sambayanihan as a concept can only be meaningful if it is rooted in the
idea of oneness.
On that note, we would like to explicate that, as far as sambayanihan is concerned,
oneness is construed in three different but intimately related senses or level. The first and
the most basic notion of oneness is anchored in the oneness of the Three Divine Persons
2433Hebblethwaite, Base Communities, 60-63.

2434Ibid., 63-71.
2435Ibid., 72-76.
2436Ibid., 77-116.
2437Ibid., 117-140.
2438Ibid., 86 – 91.
2439Ibid., 108-116.
2440Ibid., 126-129.
2441Ibid., 131-133.
2442Ibid., 135-138.
2443Ibid., 140-141.
2444Cf. Steinberg, The Philippines.
449
SAMBAYANIHAN
whose perichoresis2445 is the most excellent and most compelling image of unity-in-
diversity. Based on the concept of the Trinity, the second sphere of oneness pertains to
the notion of ecclesiality which is understood as the oneness of the People of God who are
called to be one – becoming members of the Family of God. The third level of oneness that
is implied by sam within the framework of sambayanihan concerns the issue of
ecumenism.
II.4.4.1.1. “Sam” as Inspired by Trinitarian Love
We can say that sam expresses the idea that the BEC that we perceive to arise from
the vibrant communities of Filipino migrants will not be considered as such without
latching itself on the mystery of the Trinity, to be more precise, on the LOVE that is the
very essence of God and the energy that flows between the Father and the Son and spills
over to every creature that God has created. When they are gathered together as one
community, they are simply reflecting, even in its faintest appearance, God’s image and
God’s love which brings to mind Leonardo Boff who has boldly declared that
“Such a church, inspired by the communion of the Trinity would be characterized by a more
equitable sharing of sacred power, by dialogue, by openness to all the charisma granted to the
members of the community, by the disappearance of all types of discrimination especially those
originating in patriarchalism and machismo, by its permanent search for a consensus to be
built upon through the organized participation of all its members.”2446
For Anne Carr, this image of the Church as an appropriation of the Trinity is reflected in
the interconnectedness that makes the reign of justice and liberation possible, which we
hope to be imbibed by the sambayanihan communities:
“The mystery of God as Trinity, as final and perfect sociality, embodies those qualities of
mutuality, reciprocity, cooperation, unity, peace in genuine diversity that are feminist ideals
and goals derived from the inclusivity of the gospel message. The final symbol of the God as
Trinity thus provides women with an image and concept of God that entails qualities that make
God truly worthy of imitation, worthy of the call to radical discipleship that is inherent in Jesus’
message.”2447
Specifically in relation to the SCCs or BECs, Ian Fraser has said that “[the] body of Christ
is called to illustrate on earth that reconciled diversity and mutual strengthening which
comes from its Trinitarian source.2448 “In earthly terms,” according to Fraser, unity-in-
diversity means that a church
“does not gloss over the existence of awkward differences in traditions and cultural perceptions,
in distinctive ways of thinking and doing, in varied political and religious stances. A Church
2445The concept of perichoresis is etymologically derived from two Greek word: peri which means ‘around’ and
chorein which connotes the idea of “containing something”, “making a room for”, and “moving forward”. In
Latin, it is translated as circumincessio, which is a compound word that brings together the notions of circum
(around) and incedere (to approach, to step, or to go). The noun in Greek was first used by Maximus Confessor
and, in the contemporary time, is picked up, among others, by Jürgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf, John
Zizioulas, and C. Baxter Kruger. The Latin terminology was first used by Burgundio of Pisa. Emmanuel
Durand, La périchorèse des personnes divines: immanence mutuelle – réciprocité et communio (Paris: Cerf,
2005), 409 . Cf. also Lane G. Tipton, “The Function of Perichoresis and the Divine Incomprehensibility,”
Westminster Theological Journal 64(2002). Cf. also David J. Engelsma, Trinity and Covenant (np.:Reformed
Free Publishing Association, 2006). Cf. also Ephraim Chambers, ed. Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of
Arts and Sciences, 1st ed (np.: Ephraim Chambers, 1728). Cf. also Slobodan Stamatovic, “The Meaning of
Perichoresis”, Open Theology 2(2016): 303-326,
http://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/opth.2016.2.issue-1/opth-2016-0026/opth-2016-0026.xml
2446Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, trans. Paul Burns (Oregon: Wipf & Stock,1988), 23.
2447Anne Carr, Transforming Grace. Christian Tradition and Women’s Experience (San Francisco: Harper,
1990),156-7.
2448Fraser, Reinventing Church, 229.
450
which roots itself in the life of the Trinity will not duck truth questions in order to preserve
unity… Rather it will provide evidence before the whole world that the unity we have ‘in Christ’
is deep and substantive enough to allow us to face one another openly and humbly regarding
the things on which we are divided, to work them through so that all concerned are mutually
instructed, to come to honest findings and follow them out however diverse our judgments, and
in all this process to stay together. Where people refuse to face up to the truth question…
Christian community is absent.”2449
The sambayanihan communities are, indeed, called to mirror Trinitarian love in the best
way they can. When, in their own humble way, they strive to forge strong bonds of love
that will allow them to experience belongingness and to venture together in a common
pilgrimage whereby their differences are not seen as a dividing factor but an element that
enriches their community life, they approximate the unifying love of God. When they have
the courage and the generosity to speak straight but with utmost respect towards each
other to resolve whatever misunderstanding they have, they can be seen as inspired by
the Spirit of God and as trying to live asymptotically the Gospel of love. We say
asymptotically, because we are aware that the attainment of the flawless expression of
love and of the perfect balance of unity and diversity is never possible. It only belongs to
the Trinitarian God who lovingly and willingly shares God’s unifying love to the people
who are gathered in the name of Jesus Christ. Fraser rightly points out that “[we]
understand it only fragmentarily.”2450 Composed of imperfect human beings, the
BECs/SCCs or the sambayanihan communities, therefore, have the permanent vocation
to strive to approach that Divine unity and love as closely as possible. Part of their mission
to be a sacramental body of Christ is to be in constant pilgrimage, to be always on the way
towards perfection, to stand in the space of the already but not yet. It is a continuous
challenge that the sambayanihan communities have to abide by. Thus, sambayanihan
communities must come to terms with the reality that their pilgrimage is long and
arduous.
The full fruition of the sambayanihan communities may not come soon. It may take
a while. Nevertheless, it is important that people in Western Europe will see some sparks
of God’s unifying love embodied by the sambayanihan communities while they try to live
as a community of humble and generous hearts, despite their human foibles, so they can
be instruments of hope for others. We should recall that earlier we already argued that
great revolutions are brought about not by the singular and sudden burst of conflagration
but by the minute but continuous sparks on the pan. What is important is that, in this
interim time, people will have a glimpse of heaven, albeit infinitesimal and brief, in the
lives of the members of the sambayanihan communities.
II.4.4.1.2. “Sam” as Ecclesial Communion
The second connotation of sam can be seen against the background of John
Zizioulas’s notion of ecclesial communion which is essentially anchored in God’s very
being. According to him,
“In the first place, ecclesial being is bound to the very being of God. From the fact that a human
being is a member of the Church, he becomes an ‘image of God’…he takes on God’s ‘way of
being’. This way of being is not a moral attainment, something that man accomplishes. It is a
way of relationship with the world, with other people and with God, an event of communion, and
that is why it cannot be realized as the achievement of an individual, but only as an ecclesial
fact.”2451
2449Fraser,Reinventing Church, 230-31.

2450Ibid.,
231.
2451John D. Zizioloulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, New York:
St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 1985), 15.
451
SAMBAYANIHAN
We can, therefore, say that ecclesial communities like the sambayanihan communities
that we have in mind, if they are genuinely driven by God’s power of love, will come
together as a community indefatigably striving to expresses love and devotion to God. In
their commitment to live as a community, amidst the challenges thrown to their path,
they shall strive to enrich each other, to learn from each other, and to love each other to
the best way that they know and can - despite the limitations set by their respective
human contexts.
If they are able to maintain that bond of love in their respective communities, and if
the Spirit of God is the genuine source of it, they will radiate that love to other
communities. They will certainly form a viable communion of various communities:
“Communion of local Churches (universal, regional, national); Communion of parish
communities (within the diocese); Communion of BECs and other faith communities
(within the parish); Communion of families/domestic churches (BECs, neighborhood and
family groupings)”2452. When a particular sambayanihan community withdraws from the
loving communion of communities, it means that there is something wrong with it.
Perhaps, it has already failed to be inspired by the unifying love of God. When a
sambayanihan community severs its ties to the wider community, it loses its character of
ecclesiality. The variety of charism and configurations of ecclesial communities must not
be a reason to stand alone, to be isolated from the Universal Church. A sambayanihan
community only exists as such when it enriches and is enriched by the entire Church.
II.4.4.1.3. Sam as Openness and Non-Exclusivity
Apart from the notions of Trinitarian love and ecclesial communion, our idea of
oneness also entails openness and non-exclusivity. Thus, we envision the sambayanihan
communities to be a venue for hospitality. Oneness is seen in the hospitality of the Filipino
migrant communities to welcome others, especially fellow strangers, to share a space with
them for telling stories and for worshipping and praising God. The notion of hospitality
that we attach to the sambayanihan communities necessarily entails ecumenism.
Although we do not subscribe to everything that Fraser has said about BEC, we are on
the same page with him regarding the view on BEC’s role in the area of ecumenism. He
once said that BECs “are ecumenical in both senses of the word – their concern is the
unity of all humanity in fulfilling God’s purpose for life; and within that, participation in
the larger church they move into, while appreciating the denominational roots from which
they have grown.”2453 We understand the place of sambayanihan communities in the
sphere of ecumenism in this way: while the BECs initiated by the Filipinos in Western
Europe maintain their rootedness in the Catholic Church, they do not close their doors
towards a genuine encounter with people from other religious affiliations who would like
to experience community life where dialogue, participation and co-responsibility are being
practiced and cultivated. In their regular gatherings, which include praise and worship
and lectio divina, they create an open and conducive space for expressing one’s
gratefulness and supplications, and also for reflecting about how the Scriptures enlighten
their daily life and how their daily life gives witness to the truth of the Scriptures.
Ecumenism, as an area where sambayanihan communities can meaningfully
participate in, is seen as propelled by intersubjective bond of the loob and kapwa which
we have already explored in chapter 2. Certainly, the ultimate source of the bond between
the loob an kapwa, the real force behind the ecumenism, is the mystery of God’s
2452Amado Picardal, CSsR, “Communion of Communities: Ecclesiological Perspectives,” CBCP News,

http://www.cbcpnews.com/cbcpnews/?p=87326 [accessed June 8, 2016].
2453Fraser, Reinventing Church, 232.
452
perichoresis – the pakikipagkapwa par excellence. Because the Filipinos are thought to be
reared in an atmosphere of pakikipagkapwa, it is not unimaginable or impossible for them
to appreciate and propagate an atmosphere of oneness where there is openness and
solidarity towards others, especially fellow strangers – creating a space for dialogue,
participation and co-responsibility not only among the immediate members of their
sambayanihan communities but also beyond. Thus, it is about oneness ad intra and ad
extra.
To sum up everything that we have said above about sam, firstly, we can say that for
sambayanihan communities to truly represent a piece of the Catholic Church, they have
to be anchored in the unity of the Trinitarian God. They need to be able to creatively pull
together the diversity of God’s gift without undermining the uniqueness of each one.
Secondly, it is important that they belong to the communion of communities. The moment
they isolate themselves from the wider community and from other communities, they
cease to be a true embodiment of the Catholic Church. Thirdly, they need to maintain the
atmosphere of ecumenism where they exhibit openness and non-exclusivity. The moment
they shut the doors for a meaningful conversation and common discernment with others,
such as their fellow-migrants who may or may not come from other religious affiliations,
they lose their role as instruments of unity-in-diversity. Certainly, the sambayanihan
communities, as we have already expounded above, will never perfectly embody the sam
that we have in mind. They are all imbued with imperfections and human foibles. There
will always be moments of failure and success. What is essential, therefore, is that they
continuously strive to remain open to God’s grace of humility, generosity, charity,
steadfast, and the like. With God’s grace, they will, in their own humble way, become a
vessel of love and unity.
II.4.4.2. Sambayanihan as an Occasion of Samba: A Venue and an Event of Inculturated

Worship
As we have observed in our immersion to the different Filipino migrant communities

in Western Europe, Filipino Catholic communities, as well as those from other religious
affiliations, are primarily gathered together to offer praise and worship to God whom they
have experienced as a generous provider and a constant companion and guide in their
respective journeys in life. It is evident that their worship/liturgy is an expression of
“bahala na” faith (pananampalataya) and ordinary theology – a profound gratitude and
recognition of the Kagandahang-Loob ng Diyos (Goodwill of God) and an expression of
pakikipagkapwa (neighborliness) and utang na loob (debt of gratitude) which is revealed
in their patotoo or testimonies/faith-sharing wherein they thank God for being in solidarity
with them (bayanihan) because God continues to hear their pleas and has never ceased
to come to their aid, even if at times God’s help does not come as promptly as they wish it
could be. This thought brings to mind Fernandez who has said that
“The church embodies liturgically the hope that it has received from the resurrected Christ in
and through the work of the Spirit in its invocations, hymns, confession and forgiveness,
petitions, proclamation of the Word, offering of lives and fruits of labor and sending forth…
When the congregation in worship calls the people to offer their lives and gifts, the congregation
offers them for the realization of the reign of God. When the worshipping congregation sends
forth the gathered community to go out into the world, the congregation is sent forth to live in
hope.”2454
Samba is an important factor in almost every Filipino Catholic community

gathering, even in the most mundane activities that they have, like birthdays,
453
SAMBAYANIHAN
anniversaries, excursions, camping and fishing. If there is an opportunity to begin these

events with the celebration of the Holy Mass, they would certainly do it. And if ever that
is not feasible, they will try to get a priest or a religious leader to offer a prayer for them
and for the success of their gathering. This, in our view, is an indication of how samba is
deeply entrenched in the Filipino way of life.
Speaking of samba in the context of sambayanihan communities, we believe that the
kind of worship that will transpire in these communities will definitely be expressed in an
inculturated way. We know that worship is expressed differently by different culture,
despite the Roman structure and content of the Catholic liturgy. Whether we accept it or
not, inculturation of faith and worship is an undeniable existential fact. And in the case
of the sambayanihan communities, it is expected that their liturgies will incorporate
various elements: Roman, Filipino, the culture of their host country, and the culture of
other minorities present in their current country of residence. Inculturation in the context
of sambayanihan, as we have elucidated earlier, entails the four moments identified by
Claver which are based on the Biblical narrative about the encounter between Jesus and
the Samaritan woman. Supplementing the “metaphor” of inculturation used by Claver, we
also offer the two-fold inquiry regarding Jesus’ identity that He posed to his disciples on
their way to Jerusalem. Because sambayanihan communites will continue to live in the
midst of the crosscurrents of cultures, they will have to constantly deal with the question
of who Jesus really is for them on a daily basis. Their dynamic knowledge or
understanding of Jesus’ identity filtered through multiple cultural encounters in the
crucible of globalization will influence the shape and structure of their public worship
which will understandably be unofficial and temporary alongside and underneath the
official liturgies sanctioned by competent church authorities. On that note, we believe that
our proposed sambayanihan communities can be viable vehicles for meaningful
inculturation in a transcultural perspective. What they bring to the parish communities
in Western Europe, their ordinary theologies and their peculiar expressions of praise and
worship, otherwise known as popular religiosity, will contribute to the ongoing or dynamic
process of inculturation which has a global significance.
It is not impossible to imagine this scenario because, first, we know for a fact that
migration has played an important role in the development of Catholic liturgy. Second, we
cannot deny the fact that the real instruments of liturgical inculturation, although
overlooked most of the time, are the ordinary practitioners of faith and worship. The role
of the competent church authorities, which have overshadowed the significant role of the
ordinary people, is to simply put an official stamp on what elements are accepted or not.
But, before that formal sanctioning, people had already enjoyed using those elements in
their regular worship. Mark Francis reminds us that “It needs to be said that these people,
these ‘nobodies,’ past and present have to be taken into account in order to come to grips
with the process by which liturgical inculturation has taken place in the history of the
Church and continues to take place around the world.”2455 Moreover, he makes it clear
that
“[in] looking at the liturgy from the perspective of popular piety, we will be especially attentive
to both public and personal meanings of worship in different eras and in different cultures.
This is not to say that the normative, official meaning ascribed to liturgy by the Church is
unimportant. But it is on the level of public meaning, shared by the plebs sancta Dei, “the holy,
common people of God,” that will be of most interest to us, since it points to the interface
between faith and culture – the fertile ground that brings forth real inculturation.”2456
Using the exact words of John Paul II, he also contends that

2456Ibid., 11.
454
“Genuine forms of popular piety, expressed in a multitude of different ways, derive from the
faith and, therefore, must be valued and promoted. Such authentic expressions of popular piety
are not at odds with the centrality of the Sacred Liturgy. Rather, in promoting the faith of the
people, who regard popular piety as a natural religious expression, they predispose the people
for the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries.”2457
Of course, issues regarding syncretism will arise even in the case of sambayanihan
communities’ involvement in the inculturative process of theology and liturgy in Western
Europe. According to Mark Francis, “syncretism is often directed at the Christians in the
‘younger churches’ of Africa and Asia”.2458 But, he rightly points out that “it is important
to realize that this phenomenon has been present throughout the history of Christianity
– in Europe as well as in other areas of the world.”2459 Thus, it is not only unique to the
so-called “younger churches.” We must say that the sambayanihan communities are not
immune to this “liturgical malady” as well.
There are times, however, when things are unfairly judged, or haphazard conclusions
are drawn, especially if the outsider does not have the necessary knowledge to understand
a particular person or a particular culture. What may appear as syncretism may express
a profound inculturative meaning to the practitioners of faith. Mark Francis explains that
there are two levels of meaning as far as the liturgy is concerned: the public and the
personal. “The public level of meaning in the liturgy, according to him, “is that which is
commonly understood by the people gathered. It may indeed be the same as the official
meaning, but it is here that cultural context often intervenes to complicate matters.” 2460
“In addition to having official and public meanings,” he supplies that “the liturgy also
communicates on a personal level. Each person present at the celebration has a particular
history of interaction with the liturgical symbols connected with his or her particular
experience… The personal level of meaning serves to explain the emotional resonance and
omnipresence of an image.”2461 Thus, we can understand why, despite the fact that
Filipino masses celebrated in Western Europe appear to be very similar to the Roman Rite,
the Filipino migrants still feel that the so-called Filipino masses are different and
personally speak to them.
Fernandez has said that “The eucharist is not only a liturgy of the remembrance of
Jesus’ passion; it is also a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. In fact, it is through the lens
of the resurrection that we are re-membering the dis-membered and celebrating the hope
of healing and wholeness.”2462 We say that, for the Filipino migrants, the eucharist is an
anamnesis not only of Jesus’ passion and resurrection, but also of their struggles and
successes. When they celebrate it together with their fellow Filipinos and fellow migrants,
and when they celebrate it in a language that they understand, the eucharist becomes
truly alive. They feel more the power of the eucharist as an event of healing and wholeness.
That explains why they still prefer the so-called Filipino mass over other similar
celebrations of the Roman Rite. And, of course, their notion of Filipino mass is also
different from the Filipino masses celebrated in the Philippines.
We strongly believe that what takes place in the liturgical celebrations of the Filipino
migrant communities involves a transcultural inculturative process which we have already
illustrated in the second chapter of our dissertation. This process certainly incorporates
not only the several cultural religious and cultural elements they have picked up along
2457Francis, Local Worship, Global Church, 11. Cf. Pope John Paul II, Address to the Congregation of Divine
Worship and Discipline of the Sacrament, promulgation of Directory on Popular Religion and the Liturgy,
December 2001.
2459Ibid.
2460Ibid., 9.
2461Ibid., 10.
2462Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Border, 342.
455
SAMBAYANIHAN
the way but also the ‘ordinary theology’ of the Filipino migrants who are straddling
between several “worlds” as they make sense of their life as people in diaspora who are
tied to their Motherland and finding “home” in their host countries amidst experiences of
boons and banes.
II.4.4.3. Sambayanihan as an Expression of Bayan: A Community of Faith; a

Contemporary Manifestation of the “People of God”
To begin with, we would like to illustrate how the compound word ‘sambayanihan’
conveys the idea of ecclesiology or ecclesiality. It bears the same connotation as the
expression ‘People of God’. For us, the words sam (one) and bayan (community, town or
nation), which are the two words found in sambayanihan, can be also construed as a
Filipino expression of the Greek ekklesia (called out to be together as One People of God).
When we put together sam and bayan, the idea that is being evoked is “unity of the
community”. And what makes possible that phenomenon is the element of samba
(worship) which is also formed when the sam and bayan are combined. We suggest that a
proper way of understanding the relationship between sam, samba, and bayan is by
looking at them together through the prism of the intersubjectivity of loob and kapwa
which we have already elaborated earlier as rooted in the image of thte Triune God – the
most profound mystery of the kagandahang-loob and pakikipagpkapwa. Hence, what
gathers them together as one community (i.e., to be sam) is no other than their faith in
God which they express in one common worship (i.e, samba). They are gathered together
as one community to worship the Triune God who created them and continues to
accompany and sustain them.
In their own little way, these sambayanihan communities are envisioned to embody
what Vatican II has affirmed in Lumen Gentium as the notion of the People of God in its
most basic form. As a microcosm of the Church, the People of God, they are seen as
recognizing the stewardship of a legitimate Church authority even if they are organized by
the people from the grassroots (i.e., ordinary Filipino migrants) and are regularly led by
the Filipino laity. The independence that they enjoy as BECs does not preclude “sub-
mission” to Christ who is also represented by competent Church leaders. Proper dialogue
and collaboration, despite foreseeable and unforeseeable incongruities, can help produce
a healthy atmosphere for building a church that strives to be an instrument of the reign
of the kingdom of love, justice and mercy.
When sam and bayan are put together to form one word, aside from the notion of
ecclesiology/ecclesiality that we have expounded above, the idea of the intimate
relationship between the church and the home country is also put forward. When Filipino
migrant communities are gathered together to express their common faith in God,
especially within the premises of the church buildings, they feel that they are transported
back to their home country, the Philippines. Their being together as one worshipping
community reminds them of “home”. This claim was verified by the members of the
different Filipino communities we visited in view of this doctoral research. Indeed, the
church is their “home away from home”. Their “homesickness” is “healed” whenever they
go to church, especially when they participate in the so-called Filipino mass. Their longing
for their motherland is “satiated” by being part of the community of faith and the parish.
The Church, indeed, becomes a bridge between homeland and their new home in the host
country.
As a diasporized community of faith that finds a “home away from home” in the
Church and in Her liturgical celebrations, a sambayanihan community is not only seen
as a link to one’s homeland but also as a potential venue for creating an “alternative
community” vis-à-vis a more market-driven and individually-oriented world in the “belly
456
of the Empire”. In that way, a sambayanihan community exhibits the same characteristic
as the early Christian communities which, according to Eleazar Fernandez,
“were communities diasporized by the Roman Empire, and the contemporary church continues
to be shaped by imperializing powers…and the global predatory market Empire. …Even as the
early Christian diaspora communities were a product of Roman Empire order, they also stood
in opposition to the empire of their time – many times using and mimicking imperial logic while
at the same time subverting it. The early Christian diaspora communities were ‘alternative
communities’ (ekklēsiai) vis-à-vis the Roman Empire.”2463
A sambayanihan community is liminal. It is a location of the limen. In the limen, the

members of the sambayanihan find not only a space of marginality but also a place for
great possibilities. One of the “blessings in disguise” of the liminal place “is its power to
generate communitas”.2464 A communitas, according to Lee, is a milieu where “an
egalitarian and intimate communion between two or more human beings who completely
respect and accept each other in all their otherness” takes place.2465 Communitas is
nothing else but an embodiment of ‘loving communion’.2466 To illustrate more clearly this
communitas or the event of ‘loving communion’, Lee uses the scriptural passage that
depicts the encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus. In this encounter, Lee believes that
all human boundaries were being traversed. According to Lee, “Jesus met Zacchaeus in
their mutual liminality, and experienced communitas. To be more accurate, Zacchaeus
experienced a loving communion with God in Jesus. In and through this loving
communion with God in Jesus, Zacchaeus experienced an unconditional acceptance and
forgiveness by that God and became a new man.”2467 This is the kind of encounter that we
envision for any sambayanihan community in Western Europe, an encounter where
unconditional love and exemplary hospitality are made manifest. In that way, a
sambayanihan community truly becomes an “alternative community.” From the
experience of liminality of the members of the sambayanihan community, we hope that
they will learn to offer genuine respect to human right and to accept the uniqueness of
each one, because they themselves are strangers and have also experienced being
marginalized.
This hope or vision resonates to Claver’s notion of BEC. He believes that the “ultimate
basis of the power of people formed into BECs… is nothing else but human dignity. ”2468
This can be discerned in how they come together to pray as one community, in how
communal and consensual are the decisions and actions that they come up with, and in
how participation is equitably distributed among them that benefits everyone in their
community. That being said, we can surmise that communitas or the ‘loving communion’,
although Claver did not use these expressions, is understood by him to be intimately
linked with the centrality of human dignity. And for that to be faithfully observed by the
members of the BEC, or a sambayanihan community, it is important that the BEC and its
members assume a “religiosity” that is, according to him, “critically conscious, reflective,
and discerning”.2469 Thus, it is necessary that in the BEC, to borrow Claver’s words, “[the]
religious principles on which they are based are not accepted blindly, unquestioningly.

2465Ibid., 70.
2466Ibid.
2467Ibid., 71.
2469Ibid., 97.
457
SAMBAYANIHAN
This kind of critical and conscious religiosity is at the heart and center of authentic BECs.
And it adds much to life and growth of the community’s sensus fidei.”2470
Having said all that, we posit that the sambayanihan communities that we envision
for Western Europe harmoniously bring together the important arguments of Lee,
Fernandez and Claver on how Filipino ecclesial communities or BECs can offer an
alternative way of living a communal life, a life of communitas or ‘loving communion’.
By re-imagining the Filipino Catholic migrant communities as BECs or
sambayanihan communities, a new vision is being developed – a vision that encompasses
both religious and cultural points of view. It is a vision that fosters not only active
participation of the Filipino migrants in various liturgies of the Catholic Church, but also
a “critical sense”. It is a vision of a church where worship and church-life are not only
made vibrant and heartfelt but also one that allows them to articulate what they truly feel
and want. It is a vision of a church that genuinely promotes respectful dialogue, active
participation, unconditional hospitality and exemplary solidarity.2471 What will make this
possible are the essential activities that any BECs or sambayanihan communities must
have. Active involvement or participation of the members of the BECs or sambayanihan
communities in the regular bible-sharing (e.g., communal lectio divina) and pastoral
planning is a must.2472
Speaking of pastoral planning, we believe that, temporarily or permanently, the BECs
or sambayanihan communities can adapt the five-fold methodology proposed by AsIPA.
This methodology, which Claver considers to be an effective tool in bringing about genuine
fruitfulness of and in the BECs, includes “analysis of the situation,” “theological
reflection,” “decision-making,” “action,” and “evaluation.”2473 One should take care that all
these are done in a manner that is dialogical, in an atmosphere that is participatory and
a way that is co-responsible. When all these are observed religiously, according to Claver,
tangible effects may be felt by the BECs or the sambayanihan communities. And these
effects, according to him, include “vision-formation, decision-making, power-building,
sense of dignity, and conscious religiosity” that are equitably shared by all members of
the BECs.2474 That being said, we recall that Claver has also underlined that
“if the action is to be at all effective, the decision for it has to be communal. Of great
significance in the process of decision-making… [is] in the give and take for the common
good, the nurturing of the will to act communally, and indeed from a strong motivation and
spirit of faith… In this common will to act on their problems, in the acting itself, the BECs
soon realize that they can achieve things by themselves without having to rely all the time
(as was their wont in the past) on traditional elites in the church and in society at large,
being led by them, following their orders.”2475
With that, they truly become a microcosm of the Church. Each BEC or sambayanihan
community becomes a genuine Christian community gathered together as one for liturgy,
bible-sharing, communal discernment, and collaborative action because of their common
faith in Christ. As such, a particular sambayanihan community truly embodies the notion
of sambayan – a people of God united by their common faith and worship. Being a
sambayan, a Filipino BEC in Western Europe exemplifies the message of a very popular
Filipino offertory song “Isang Pagkain, Isang Katawan, Isang Bayan”. The song goes like
this:

2471Ibid., 96.
2472Ibid., 94.
2473Ibid., 83-84.
2474Ibid., 95-96.
2475Ibid., 96.
458
“Katulad ng mga butil na tinitipon/ Upang maging tinapay na nagbibigay buhay/ Kami nawa’y
matipon din at maging bayan Mong giliw.// Iisang Panginoon, iisang katawan/ Isang bayan,
isang lahi/ Sayo’y nagpupugay.// Katulad din ng mga ubas/ Na piniga at naging alak/ Sino
mang uminom nito/ May buhay na walang hanggan/ Kami nawa’y maging sangkap/ Sa pagbuo
nitong bayang liyag.///”2476
The offertory song which we have just quoted above provides us a clear visual
representation of how individual members of the sambayanihan communities serve as
ingredients for the building of the God’s beloved nation. A sambayanihan community,
indeed, can be seen as humble but profound manifestation of the Universal Church in a
smaller scale. Like the Church, the formation of a sambayanihan community can be
likened to how the harvested grains of wheat are refined and made into the Eucharistic
breads that represent the Body of Christ in an integral way, both individually and
collectively. They are also like a bunch of grapes that are crushed and fermented to become
wine whose substance will change into the Blood of Christ. Like the grains gathered
together to become a life-giving bread, the Filipino migrants in Western Europe are
gathered together to be part of the God’s beloved people whose vocation and mission is to
cultivate and spread ‘loving communion’ in everywhere we go, because we only have one
God, we are just one body, we belong to the one holy nation of God, and we share only
one Divine heritage. By being such a community, the members give praise to God. Like
pressed grapes that become wine, the Filipino migrants in Western Europe who have
sacrificed themselves for the sake of their loved-ones become key ingredients in forming
the beloved ekklesia of God who shares in Christ passion and resurrection, who
propagates compassion and salvation.
Based on what we have elaborated so far regarding the meaning of sam + bayan, we
are convinced that it is vital that we also bring into the picture the notion of the “new
catholicity” as theorized by Schreiter because it speaks about the church in the
contemporary world. In a book entitled “The New Catholicity”, he has underlined that
“[living] in a globalized world, where time and space have been compressed, where those
who have and those who have not are driven further apart, a truly intercultural way of
doing theology between the global and the local is required of us. And a vision of a new
catholicity can guide us to it.”2477 What characterize “new catholicity”, according to him,
are the “wholeness of inclusion” and the “fullness of faith” which certainly take into serious
consideration how communication and intercultural exchange transpire in the context of
the contemporary global world.2478
Wholeness, in Schreiter’s “updated version” of catholicity, entails “[the] ability to
come together yet acknowledge real and legitimate difference, and the commitment to
struggle with centrifugal forces pressing down upon cultures.”2479 To honor and accept
difference, while making sure that the notion of culture is properly decentered, means
that one should view all cultures as being blessed by the revelation of the same Word of
God according to their respective cultural frameworks which should allow them to enter
into dialogue with one another meaningfully despite the genuine differences that they
2476This song was composed by Lucio San Pedro. We translate it to English as “Like grains gathered together/
To become a living bread / We are also gathered together/ To be Your beloved people.// One Lord,/ one body
/ One nation/ One race / who gives glory to Your name.// Just like grapes / Pressed to become wine/ Whoever
drinks it/ Shall have eternal life/ May we all become component parts/ In building in Your beloved
nation.///.”
2477Schreiter, The New Catholicity, 133.
2478Ibid., 132.
2479Ibid., 130.
459
SAMBAYANIHAN
discover in each other. 2480 For this reason, it is imperative that, in the context of “new
catholicity” which we see as essentially tied to our proposal to re-imagine Western
European ecclesiology involving the Filipino migrant communities, the notion and process
of inculturation must be adequately considered and cultivated.2481 Calling to mind what
we have already extensively tackled in chapter three, one must make sure that attention
is not only carefully given to the integrity of the “speaker” but also, equally, to the
“hearer”.2482 Echoing Peter Schineller, Schreiter describes the proper attitude needed in
this venture as “seeking hidden treasures.”2483
Apart from this, Schreiter also believes that wholeness involves “an awareness of the
fragmented and partial experience of culture by so many peoples throughout the
world.”2484 This undeniable reality, according to Schreiter, is accompanied by “the
experience of loss through forced migration” and also “the sense of risk and contingency
in a world threatened ecologically and in other ways” which “contribute to this fragmented
sense of culture.”2485 In connection with this, he contends that although the notion of new
catholicity entails an aspiration for an attainment of “integral wholeness”, such an
undertaking must not lose sight of the hard truth that this ideal can only be approached
asymptotically because no culture can achieve the level of perfect holism. 2486 Even a
particular dominant culture that appears to be integrally whole, is punctuated by
inconsistencies and voices of dissent.
In addition to Schreiter’s recommendation we would like to factor in the awareness,
as we have already elaborated earlier in chapter 3, of the facticity of “asymmetries of
power”.2487 When we talk about the “new catholicity” we must not only be cognizant of the
fact of fragmentariness and partiality but also of the reality that some cultures are more
dominant than others. Thus, the church in the context of “new catholicity” is compelled
to “show a greater sensitivity to the asymmetries in the communication process” 2488 and
a greater presence at the peripheries. On top of that, a renewed attentiveness is called for
regarding the chasm between those “who profit and enjoy the fruits of the globalization
process and those who are excluded and oppressed by it.” 2489 As we have already noted
earlier, this discrepancy is not only between the so-called North and South, but also
present within the premises of what is conveniently called as the “first-world”. The
boundaries found in the middle of the economically advanced countries gravely imperil
those who belong to the so-called “fourth-world.”
Regarding the issue of fullness implied in Schreiter’s notion of “new catholicity”,
which he also understands as pertaining to “orthodoxy”, he underlines the need for careful
attention to how the “message” is received.2490 A consistent “miscarriage” of the message
should reveal not so much the inability of the receiver, which may be attributed to the
one’s “capacity or sincerity”, but more importantly to the manner in which the message is
transmitted by the speaker.2491 Aside from the question of transmission, Schreiter also

2481Ibid.
2482Ibid.
2483Ibid., 279.
2484Ibid., 129.
2485Ibid.
2486Ibid.
2487Ibid.
2488Ibid.
2489Ibid., 130.
2490Ibid.
2491Ibid.
460
raises the issue of “indeterminacy” as far as fullness is concerned because of the

plurivocity of codes and signifiers used in the process of communication. Instead of
looking at indeterminacy as a negative attribute, it can be regarded as a positive aspect,
because it allows variety of expressions that make the message comprehensible for a
variety of cultural perspectives.2492 He asserts that “[while] indeterminacy may initially
offend dogmatic sensibilities, it should not be so shocking when we recall that the center
of the Christian message is not a proposition but a narrative: the story of the passion,
death and resurrection of Jesus.”2493 With this understanding, we appreciate the fact that
Christian message, which is naturally narrative in its very core, does prosper in an
atmosphere of indeterminacy that gives rise to a variety of versions that suit the
idiosyncrasies of different cultures and eras; hence, infinitely relatable. Another important
aspect of fullness in view of the new catholicity, is one that involves having a renewed
understanding of teloi which, according to Schreiter, means proclaiming the Good News
in context: “a new humanity, genuine peace, reconciliation as a new creation.”2494
Combining the ideas of wholeness and fullness under the rubric of new catholicity,
in our opinion, calls for an intercultural hermeneutics of the notion of sam – bayan, one
nation of God, which must be characterized by intense or thorough communal
conversation because, according to Schreiter, “meaning resides ultimately in the social
judgment of the interaction between the interlocutors in the intercultural communication
event.”2495 This hermeneutical endeavor brings to mind Fernandez who has argued that
the church in the context of migration “[opens] new possibilities of relationship and
categories and by allowing freedom and fluidity…open to mixtures and fusions and new
configurations and the emergent, which is quite threatening to our well-guarded, following
Michel Foucault, ‘order of things’.”2496 In order to do that, of course, one must bear in
mind the importance of reflexivity and listening. Like what we have already expounded in
chapter 2 regarding the exhortation of Pope Francis to the leaders of the Church and to
those who are involved in the “craft” of theology, it is imperative in the idea of “new
catholicity” that the hearers are not only evangelized by the speakers but also the latter is
evangelized by the former. The hearers must be given chance to exercise their potential to
become, as Schreiter would put it, “subjects of their own history in the act of
evangelization.”2497 They must be empowered to speak for themselves and to the experts
and the authorities of the church. Their vocation is to be evangelized and to evangelize at
the same time. Speaking of which, we contend that sambayanihan communities can
become viable platforms for “reverse evangelization” where the “speakers” will learn from
the “hearers”. They will become instruments for an establishment of a community of the
People of God where everyone is given a chance to participate actively in a meaningful
dialogue where everyone becomes responsible for one another. On that note, we are
reminded of what Eleazar Fernandez says about Pentecost as a metaphor for migration.
“What usually comes to mind when people hear or read about the Pentecost story is the ‘miracle
of the tongue’: the speaking of many languages. Whenever diaspora people are, so are many
languages present. In this regard, diaspora has been an agent of the Pentecostal ‘miracle of the
tongue’. The Pentecost, however, is not primarily a ‘miracle of the tongue.’ More than that, it is
a ‘miracle of the ear.’ If we read the account with care (Acts 2:6 – 12), we find that it is about a

2493Ibid.
2494Ibid. This is clearly elaborated by Robert Schreiter, “Mission as a Model of Reconciliation” Neue Zeitschrist
für Missionwissenschaft 52, no. 4 (1996): 243 – 50.
2495Schreiter, The New Catholicity,132.
2496Ibid. Cf. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage,
1973).
2497Ibid.
461
SAMBAYANIHAN
miracle of hearing, of understanding and, therefore, of caring and building a just, abundant,
colorful and sustainable tomorrow.”2498
This is of great importance, because according to Miroslav Volf: “Concurrence of

theologically and culturally closed views often reinforces the mutual exclusion of
conflicting views, rather than enriching them.”2499 Diaspora-hybridity, according to
Fernandez, avoids this pitfall that Volf points out because it “has prepared the soil” that
minimizes the emergence of “wall-building” or “the annihilation of the other”.2500 What it
offers instead are “the conditions for … a church that embodies…plural reality, and… a
church that embodies the vision of the Pentecost.”2501 This kind of church, which we
believe is present in the sambayanihan communities, “offers a starting point and a way
toward the development of what Hannah Arendt calls an ‘enlarged way of thinking’.” 2502
There is no doubt, according to Fernandez, that “[diaspora] has now diaporized the
Christian faith.”2503 For, indeed, the ‘ordinary theology’ that they articulate, the
inculturated liturgy that they celebrate and the kind of ecclesial configuration that they
embody bring in new energy, new reality and new trajectory for the universal church. Their
presence certainly transforms the landscape of the Catholic Church. Fernandez is
convinced that “[they] are making an impact not only on the demographics of Christian
congregations but also the religious practices. At the same time, diaspora faith
communities are leading the church to new forms of trans-glocal (transnational or
transcontinental) exchanges, encounters, linkages, and partnerships.”2504 In a diaspora
faith community, like the sambayanihan, “[religious] practices from the country of origin
also find their way into the new location,” as we have already elaborated in chapter 3,
“and, not surprisingly, undergo the” transculturally inculturated “process of
appropriation” whereby elements from the native land and from other cultures
encountered in the country of destination are creatively fused together.2505 Corollary to
this are the “various forms of social projects and social activism” that emerge in the trans-
glocal context of migration where diaspora-hybrid churches are located.2506
To make sure that the image of the church in diaspora, like the sambayanihan
communities we are proposing in this doctoral project, do not end up as “exclusive ethnic
enclaves or cultural ghettos” it is important to “recover and embrace the identity of the
stranger for the church not as a temporary condition… but as a permanent posture.”2507
A retrieval of this metaphor in its positive sense vis-à-vis the identity and the narrative of
the church in diaspora is imperative because, according to Fernandez, “[the]
stranger/alien is crucial for our liberation from our narrow worldviews, stereotypes and
prejudices; we need more doses of the unfamiliar, the strange, and the discomforting to
help us move into different ways of thinking, dwelling, and acting… ‘being a stranger
[alien] in the right way’.”2508 Fernandez, however, points out that “[our] biggest challenge
in the era of global market is that we have a church that has become so much at home
(naturalized) with the dominant culture that it has lost its prophetic edge. We have a
2498Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Borders, 216. Cf, Eric Law, The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb: A
Spirituality of Leadership in a Multicultural Community (St. Louis: Chalice,1993), 45-51.
2499Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 211.

2501Ibid.
2502Ibid. Cf. Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Viking,
1968), 221. Cf. also Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 212.

2504Ibid., 223.
2505Ibid.
2506Ibid.
2507Ibid., 225.
2508Ibid., 225. Cf. Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 39 -40.
462
church that has lost its identity as a stranger and has become a ‘friend’ to the reigning
social arrangement. …It is, indeed, a difficult challenge to convert the strange to
something positive and liberating; nonetheless, it is a challenge that we must take, for the
church’s integrity is judged in relations to how it deals with the strangers in our midst.”2509
Thus, the meaning of sambayan that is entrenched in the sambayanihan communities is
about a gathering of the Filipino migrants as a community of faith where liminality,
hybridity, hospitality, wholeness, and fullness are propagated. It is a locus of trans-
colonial and transcultural linkages that bridge the bring contact God and people, people
and people, church and nation (i.e., both home-country and host country).
On top of everything that we have said above, one should not overlook the importance
of “orthopraxis” because it is true that “action speaks louder than words.” Concrete action
necessarily gives credence to how the message will be received. The veracity or weight of
the message relies more on the “practicing” and less on the “preaching”. Of course, there
should also be no oversight in terms of how the issues of “sameness” and “difference” are
creatively held in a balance. It is certainly an unceasing process of negotiation.2510
Thus, we hope that all the aforementioned elements of a sambayan will be faithfully
embodied, not perfectly of course, by the sambayanihan communities in Western Europe.
We hope that in their humble and imperfect ways, they may be able to give people a
genuine glimpse of what being a People of God truly means.
II.4.4.4. Sambayanihan as Breeding Ground for Bayani Spirituality: a Testimony of

Martyrdom or Christian Heroism
Sambayanihan is deemed to be a gathering of heroes (i.e., bayani) because the

Filipinos migrants are hailed in the Philippines as the new or modern-day heroes. They
are referred to as such because, by seeking jobs abroad, they sacrifice themselves for the
well-being of their families back home. Hence, they are heroes for their respective families.
Consequently, because of the remittances that they send back home, they also become
heroes for their country, the Philippines. The money that they pump in to the Philippines
helps keep afloat the country’s economy. Thus, they are also, as we have already explained
earlier in this doctoral research, trumpeted as the country’s contemporary national
heroes. Their services and contribution to the economy of their host countries also help
maintain an economic equilibrium in these countries. In that way, they are also heroes
for their host countries. Their heroism can also be understood in the religious sense as
martyrdom. They are heroes and martyrs because they are giving witness to what
selflessness and agapeic love is all about in their humble ways because they offer their
lives for their families and motherland. Thus, the meaning of bayani that is embedded in
sambayanihan carries both the idea of heroism and martyrdom. Their “self-sacrificing”
love fueled by their pananampalataya that is essentially rooted in the intimacy of the loob
and kapwa and expressed in the utterance of bahala na, which may be frowned upon in
a society that has valued “independence” and “self-fulfillment”, can become a vehicle not
only for heroism but, most especially, for martyrdom. It is a vehicle for martyrdom
because, through their sacrifice, they give witness to the love of God whose greatest
expression is found in the sacrifice of Christ. Thus, they give witness to an alternative way
of living vis-à-vis a world that is heavily marked by consumerism, individualism and
secularism. When Filipino migrants gather together as a community they do not only
2509Volf,
Exclusion and Embrace, 25-26.
2510Schreiter insists that the tensive balance of unity in diversity must be maintained because “[while]
attending to the requisites of intercultural communication (the negotiation of difference), a requirement of a
new catholicity is attending to cross-cultural communication (the negotiation of sameness) as well.” Schreiter,
The New Catholicity, 132.
463
SAMBAYANIHAN
worship God but they also bring with them their prayers of supplication and thanksgiving
so that they may never lose heart in continuously offering themselves as a sacrifice for
their families, and consequently their country. Their coming together is, thus, imbued
with narratives of heroism and martyrdom. That being said, we are reminded of a popular
Filipino religious song that is inspired by or loosely based on the Letter of St. Paul to the
Romans 14:7-9. We believe that the narratives of the Filipino migrants, which are stories
of heroism and martyrdom, are exemplified by this song:
“Walang sinuman ang nabubuhay, para sa sarili lamang/ Walang sinuman ang namamatay,
para sa sarili lamang.// Tayong lahat ay may pananagutan sa isa't isa/ Tayong lahat ay tinipon
ng diyos/ Na kapiling niya.// Sa ating pag mamahalan at panglilingkod/ Kay kanino man/
Tayo ay magdadala ng balita na kaligtasan.// Sabay sabay mag aawitan/ Ang mga bansa/
Tayo tinuring na panginoon/ Bilang mga anak.”2511
The narratives of the Filipino migrants whom we consider as members of the proposed
sambayanihan communities in Western Europe tell us about their experience of solidarity
and mutual accountability. Their narratives inform us that solidarity and mutual
accountability are a reality for most Filipinos. We believe that what makes their possible
proclivity towards these praiseworthy traits is their rootedness in the intersubjectivity of
the loob and kapwa which we have already expounded earlier. In the context of
sambayanihan, it is hoped that the members will genuinely feel that everyone is, indeed,
called and gathered by God to be a member of the one nation or family under the
Fatherhood/Motherhood of God. By being part of God’s loving family, they become bayani
who embody the spirit of co-responsibility in the name of love and service. Their simple
practice of faith and their wholehearted and dedicated service to the Church and others
will make them martyrs of God’s unbounded love. As martyrs, they serve as an inspiration
to faithful to effectively communicate the message of the love, justice and mercy to a world
that has been so marred by hatred, distrust and division, as well as by marginalization
and domination. In the midst of secularism and individualism, they become shining
examples of religiosity and communitarian love. As such, they become modern-day
missionaries in their countries of destination. Their simple practice of faith, a faith deeply
imbued by heroism and martyrdom, they touch people’s lives in wherever they find
themselves in.
Apart from solidarity and mutual accountability, we can also include as aspects of
Filipino heroism and martyrdom their notable hospitality and resilience. We believe that
their hospitality exemplifies both heroism and martyrdom, because their hospitality
entails sacrificing one’s convenience in order to make room for the guests or others. They
willingly offer even their own food and their own bed to make the guest feel truly welcome
and at home. It is about self-sacrifice and generosity. Moreover, it gives us a glimpse of
God’s self-sacrificing and generous love. We are also convinced that their resilience
embodies both heroism and martyrdom. By their bahala na attitude, they do not simply
give up. They continue to hope and find ways to rise above the unfortunate situations they
find themselves in. Heroes do not simply give in to adversities. They continue to struggle,
even when their lives or their own well-being are at stake, because they want to experience
a better tomorrow for them and for the people they care about. They are martyrs because,
by doing so, they become living examples of fortitude and of profound faith in Divine
2511We can translate the lyrics to English in this way: “No one lives for himself / No one dies for himself. //
We are all responsible for one another / We are all gathered by God / To be with Him /// In our love and
service / For others / Let us bring news of salvation.// All the nations shall sing together/. The Lord has
regarded all of us His children.///” The verses from the NRSV of the Bible read as follows: “We do not live to
ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so
then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that
he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”
464
Providence. We have to state, however, that their heroism and martyrdom are not
something they plan to achieve or consciously do. They are just praiseworthy
consequences of their will to take care of their families and to hold on to God’s mercy and
benevolence. As we have already mentioned earlier, the Filipino migrants can be
considered as “accidental” heroes and martyrs. That is why they are hailed as the bagong
bayani. In other words, they are the “newly” found heroes and martyrs. Their lives give
new form to what we traditionally know as heroism and martyrdom.
On that note, we recall that Gonzales III has explained that a “‘Bagong Bayani’ is a
person or organization who has used Filipino soft power to influence minds, spirits and
hearts in the countries they now live in. There new heroes have distinguished themselves
in their occupations and have been selfless in working for the welfare of their country,
their countrymen, their church and humanity as a whole.” 2512 Speaking of being a bayani,
this role becomes possible for Filipino migrants not only because of what they do to their
families back home and what they contribute to the Philippine economy, but also because
of their contribution to their host countries and the attitude they bring with them. 2513
According to Gonzales III,
“Generally Filipino migrants, as global workers, are valued for their respectful English
communication skills (marunong makiusap), responsible (responsable), cheerful disposition
(masayahin), industriousness (sipag), ability to blend in and be a team player (marunong
makisama at lumaro), creative abilities (maabilidad), easily trained or taught (madaling turuan),
as well as their can-do (kaya natin ito) and never-say-never (susubukan ko po) attitudes, among
others.”2514
He also contends that they are, indeed, heroes in their countries of destination because
“The high performing economies of Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, United Kingdom, and
Italy would not be possible without double-income productivity from families. Filipino
migrants in these countries provide the necessary child care and household cleaning to
allow mothers and fathers to both seek gainful employment.”2515 This means to say that
their humble service help the economies of countries of destination. If they are removed
from the equation, the economies of the aforementioned countries will definitely be
massively affected. Gonzales III laments that “Missing in the official reports from the State
Department are the stories of how Filipino and Filipino migrants in the U.S. influence both
the Philippine and American economies significantly, particularly how they are presently
‘colonizing’ San Francisco and many other major U.S. cities… Their economic power is
immense.”2516 We are of the conviction that this is also true in the case of the Filipino
migrants in Western Europe. Their contribution to the economy of Western Europe is also
undervalued simply because most of them are silently working as domestic helpers.
Certainly, as we have already argued above, they are not only “accidental heroes”
who happen to have a great impact on their country of origin and on their countries of
destination. They are also “accidental martyrs” of faith in the contemporary world as they
show people in their host countries their remarkable religious faith. Of course, this is not
saying that they are perfect and can all be canonized as saints. That is certainly ridiculous.
Although, framed in a rather problematic sentence, Gonzales states that Filipino migrants
make their influence felt not only in the economic realm but also in the religious or ecclesial
spheres wherein one can witness, to borrow his words, “how they colonize the colonizer.” 2517
2512Gonzales, Diaspora Diplomacy, 238.

2513According to Gonzales, “When they go abroad to work, they help both their host countries and their family
and hometown needs. The remittances and their development impact is the most tangible evidence of their
transnational bayanihan influence.” Ibid., 31.
2514Ibid., 30.
2515Ibid., 32.
2516Ibid., 45.
2517Ibid., 50.
465
SAMBAYANIHAN
For, indeed, he points out that “churches are the most common places where Philippine
migrant religious influences – both kasamahan (bonding socio-cultural capital) and
bayanihan (bridging socio-cultural capital) --- are most felt.”2518 In that way, they can be
considered as “martyrs” – giving witness to the faith that they have received and have
learned to embrace as part and parcel of life that they carry with them wherever they go.
Despite this reality, however, their contribution to the Church in the West, including Europe
and the U.S., is still underrated. In fact, according to Gonzales, it is still commonly
perceived by the people from the West, as surprisingly expressed even by an eminent
scholar on globalization and migration, Saskia Sassen, that Filipino Catholic migrants are
“simply blending in with mainstream…Catholicism.”2519 Gonzales astutely responded to this
observation by saying that the Filipino migrants who take part in the Catholic congregations
in the West “appear to do so in the beginning particularly when they have no choice.” 2520
He contends that, when the number of Filipino migrants grow in a particular parish
community, they gain a certain level of leverage, although not in an arrogant manner, to
influence “diplomatically” the Church’s practices. Gradually, they are making some inroads
into the Church in the West, whether in the U.S. or in Western Europe, by introducing,
according to Gonzales III, “their own iconography, music pieces, singing styles, language,
homilies, liturgies, priests, nuns, saints, practices, food, drinks, celebrations, holy days,
devotions, groups, and reading materials into church leadership, bible studies, and mass
content.”2521 The introduction of some of the most cherished traditions of the Filipinos into
the Catholic parishes in the West proves that, indeed, they are effective “movers and
shakers” in the contemporary Church in the West. “Just as in San Francisco,” relates
Gonzales III, “the Filipino Catholic Church community in London has not only filled the
pews, contributed money, introduced Filipino images and devotions, Tagalog masses, it has
also institutionalized Philippine tradition particularly the Simbang Gabi novena (Evening
mass novena).”2522 They are indeed “infecting” the Western World with a faith that is
substantially Filipino. Thus, it is our hope that sambayanihan communities will also embody
what Gonzales III has described as “diaspora diplomats”:
“To most Philippine diaspora diplomats, attending Saturday or Sunday worship is not enough.
They influence spaces and places with charisma – including, clapping, chanting, and raising
their hands and voices. This kasamahan behavior was emphasized in San Francisco and it also
applies to London: praising and worshipping God with their larger Catholic, Anglican,
Aglipayan, and Iglesia congregations but afterwards joining other religious sub-groupings for
more intense bible study, quiet meditation, loud singing, peer counseling. They organize
festivals, devotions, charismatic praise, rosary sessions, processions, and traditions such as
Simbang Gabi. Then they eat together and discuss serious issues like advocating for a jury
system to be introduced in their native land.”2523
There are times that Filipino migrants appear on the surface as “submissive” and
“too weak to influence” the mainstream. Nevertheless, beneath the surface they still work
their way in by assuming an attitude that we would like to call as “subversive
subservience”. In that manner, they are able to infuse their Filipino faith in the context of
Western European church in a less conspicuous or confrontational way. This attitude is
something that they have also exercised back home, especially during the era of
colonization. They were able to creatively inculturate the faith that they have received from
the missionaries by employing an attitude of subservience that was subversive at the same
time. This is something that we have already tackled earlier in this doctoral project,

2519Ibid.
2520Ibid.
2521Ibid.
2522Ibid., 102.
2523Ibid., 116.
466
specifically in the first chapter, like how Filipinos used confession and the pasyon to their
advantage. At face value, they may appear to be “playing faithfully by the rule book” as
officially sanctioned by the Church or as enforced by competent church authorities.2524 In
a creative and inconspicuous way, however, they try to “push the envelope”, especially
when the competent church authority’s “back is turned”. The attitude of subversive
subservience can be considered as part of what we have elaborated earlier as the “tactics
of the weak”.2525
It is interesting to note that Filipino “martyrdom” or evangelizing “tactic” significantly
includes the sphere of gastronomy. According to Gonzales III, “food also serves as a
medium for indoctrinating non-Filipinos to Philippine culture.”2526 We push this claim a
little further by saying that Filipino migrant communities entice people from their host
countries and other ethnicities to “come, see, and join” their religious gatherings through
their gastronomic “miracles”. Indeed, Gonzales believes that “these sensory enticements
are effective missionary tools.”2527
On top of everything that we have said about the heroism and martyrdom of the
Filipino migrants, we would like to include the potential of the members of the
sambayanihan communities to participate more actively in some issues that have social,
political and global implications. We are of the opinion that this aspect of heroism and
martyrdom is already in place. The celebration of misa ng bayan abroad which we have
already pointed out earlier is a strong testimony of this. We just need to emphasize this
area. On several occasions, we have observed, as corroborated by Gonzales III who has
studied the “soft-power diaspora diplomacy” of the Filipino migrants in almost all regions
of the world, that Filipino migrants “have used their churches for bayanihan influences
drawing other Filipinos, their families and friends to do civic engagements and political
activism.”2528 As a good example of that is what happened in San Francisco, which hope
also to see in Western Europe. According to Gonzales III,
“Besides offering prayers, church leaders and their congregations have appealed to their local
and Congressional representatives to act on the veterans’ issue. They joined other Filipino
American community-based organizations in protest in front of City Hall and the Federal Office
building. Church members have also raised funds to help fly veterans to Washington D.C. to
meet with Congressional staff and testify in hearings.”2529
This idea is not something that is farfetched for the sambayanihan communities in
Western Europe, because Rev. Patrick Lynch, Auxialiary Bishop of Southwark in England,
when he addressed the Filipino migrants in 2009’s Migrant Mass, had already affirmed
the significant contribution of migrant communities, especially the Filipinos in the social,
economic, cultural and spiritual spheres in modern-day Great Britain.2530 He remarked
that these people have, indeed, brought with them their “deep faith”, as well as their
“commitment to the family and…loyalty to the Church.”2531 This statement of Rev. Lynch
serves as a clear proof of the Filipino migrants’ heroism and martyrdom. “Philippine
diaspora diplomats in London,” as rightly pointed out by Gonzales III, “have also formed
social justice and charity organization.”2532 Gonzales asserts that global migrants are

2525Ibid. Cf. Cueto, “Tactics of the Weak”.
2527Ibid., 58.
2528Ibid., 59.
2529Ibid., 61.
2530Ibid., 100.
2531Ibid.
2532Ibid.,114.
467
SAMBAYANIHAN
indeed a force to be reckoned with and have so much potential socially, economically,
politically and ecclesiologically because they
“1) Play a role in public diplomacy alongside nation state efforts particularly in spreading
knowledge about Philippine culture which achieved mutual benefits for country of origin and
country of destination or immigration; 2) Act not only as diplomats, but as missionaries –
spreading and influencing the practice of faith and religion in close to 200 countries; 3) Earn
money while transferring business, technical, service and other skills to recipient states which,
in turn, allow them to send back money not only for family necessities but nation state needs,
thus reducing dependency from foreign aid and foreign investments; and 4) Infuse much-need
social, spiritual, organizational, and civic diversity into the multicultural ethnoscape of global
cities and communities supplementing existing ones and replenishing what has been lost.”2533
Moreover, according to him,

“The religious Filipinization or the kasamahan and bayanihan influences emanating from
Philippine spirituality and faith are helping save the Queen’s church and London Christian and
Catholic congregations from certain demise…In turn, a number of Filipino migrant faithful who
are members of these churches have benefited from having their prayers answered and their
undocumented immigrants statues insulated. Over the decades, the London faithful have
learned to accept Filipino congregations and worshippers as part of their own.”2534
Filipino migrant communities’ heroism and martyrdom do not only flourish in the
West but in also other part of the globe as well. As a matter of fact, their heroism and
martyrdom thrive more in the most restrictive regions of world, like Middle East and South
Asia. In the most inhospitable milieu, their heroism and martyrdom shine even brighter –
a real event of “weerloze overmacht”. The fire of heroism and martyrdom that is in them
brings light in the most unassuming way to everyone they come in contact with in the
Middle East and in South Asia where practice of Christian faith is discouraged, if not
banned. Despite the perils, they continue to sacrifice themselves for their families and to
meet together for the Holy Eucharist as inconspicuously as possible in order to celebrate
their faith. Having said that, we truly agree with John Paul II who hailed the Filipino
migrants as “modern-day evangelizers” who are bravely showing the world their faith
wherever they are.2535 John Paul II, indeed, commended that spiritual fidelity of the
Filipino migrants which can serve as a wonderful example for other Catholic faithful. 2536
It is also important to mention at this point that as hero-martyrs they can evangelize
through their community life,2537 “diaspora diplomacy,”2538 “empire of care,”2539 and
“hospitality exercised by the strangers.” Gonzales rightly points out: “In gentle way, you
can shake the world. This is essentially how Philippine migrants have been exerting their
influence on cities and states where they work, live, play and worship. They are showing
the world that soft power is effective.”2540
II.4.4.5. Sambayanihan as a Powerful Expression of Bayanihan: a Pilgrimage of Faith and

Solidarity Towards the Eschaton
If we consider the word sam as the most basic concept that holds together all the
other concepts in our proposed BECs of diasporic Filipino communities in the Western

2534Ibid.,120.
2535Pope John Paul II, Address to the Filipino Immigrants from all over Europe, May 22, 1993, St. Peter’s
Basilica, Rome. Cf. also Bishop Gilbert Garcera, D.D., “Filipino Migrants as New Evangelizers,”
http://www.familiam.org/pcpf/allegati/1593/4_Garcera_ENG.pdf [accessed June 23, 2017].
2536Gonzales Diaspora Diplomacy, 134.
2537Cherry, Faith, Family, and Filipino American Community Life.
2538Cf. Gonzales, Diaspora Diplomacy.
2539Cf. Choy, “Empire of Care.”
468
European context, we argue that bayanihan is the most eloquent or profound expression
of it. Bayanihan, which is traditionally understood as a transfer of a house from a place
to another, can symbolically represent the journey or the pilgrimage of the domestic
church. Bayanihan is a saga of a household on the move, a story of unity, and a narrative
of collaborative endeavor – each according to his or her capacity. This is a journey or
pilgrimage of a particular household that involves the entire neighborhood or community
(bayan). It means to say that the task is never done in lonesome, but one that requires
cooperation and solidarity. By doing it, they all become bayani (i.e., heroes and martyrs)
for each other. They all contribute to the success of the journey and task.
It is important to note that every event of bayanihan is a unique event. The
experience is always different. The distance, the terrain, composition of participants, the
size of the house, and the context of the journey makes the difference. Just like bayanihan,
every journey of a BEC is a unique event. There is no uniformity. Msgr. Gabriel, one of the
main proponents of BECs in the Philippines, explains that “the ideal is not uniformity; it
is unity among diversity; it is shared vision among diverse community experiences.” 2541
Applied to the case of the sambayanihan communities, one must expect to see diversity
in the manifestations of Filipino migrant BECs in Western Europe precisely because “[the]
needs, situation, and the struggle of each diasporic community will shape or form the kind
of BEC.”2542 When asked about the best ‘tool’ for building viable BECs, Msgr. Gabriel
responded by suggesting a paradigm shift. He underlined three points which any person
involved in the formation of BEC should bear in mind: He or she must be: “1. rooted in
the vision and mission of Christ – He who defines what we are to do in the Church; 2.
Being rooted in the situation and the people you are serving; you must share people’s
lives; 3. how – ‘tool’ only come third. Change comes as one engages in a pastoral planning,
linking the ideal and vision with concrete life realities; it also demands that the grassroots
and marginalized are included in the process – right from its inception.”2543
Talking about the journey/pilgrimage/movement involved in the life of the
sambayanihan communities, we believe that the suggestion of Eleazar Fernandez can help
us understand more profoundly what the aspect of bayanihan means for the Filipino
migrants’ BECs is Western Europe. According to Fernandez, “we need to exhume and
resurrect the diaspora-ekklēsia identity of the church, if the church is to be true to itself
and if it is to have a future.”2544 He goes on to say that exhuming or resurrecting means
“making diaspora a permanent posture or marker of the church’s identity, not a temporary
condition that we hope to overcome someday…To assume a diaspora identity,” however,
“does not mean that one has no sense of ‘departure’ or ‘beginning’ and no sense of ‘arrival’;
or ‘ending’; rather, it underscores the point that there is no absolute stable departure and
arrival.”2545 That is why, for us, Fernandez’s vision of diaspora-ekkēsia fits perfectly well
the notion of bayanihan embedded in sambayanihan. Bayanihan, in the context of Filipino
migrants’ BECs, entails an ongoing journey or pilgrimage of the community where each
one pitches in to make the transit lighter and meaningful. They bear each other’s load as
they carry on their duty to take care of their families and their vocation to celebrate their
faith in diaspora. Although the telos is an important aspect of this journey, the process
that takes place in the bayanihan becomes the focal point. Fernandez argues that in this
regard “there is no ‘un-originated origin’ from which we can start life; we are born in the
2541Cf. also Ted Gresh, Basic Christian Communities in the Philippines (Quezon City: Cardinal Bea Institute,
1977). Cf. also Amado Picardal, Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Philippines: An Ecclesiological Perspective
(Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University, 1995).
2542Ibid.
2543Msgr. Manny Gabriel, “Missiological Perspectives to the Experiences of Basic Ecclesial Communities in the
Philippines,” CBCP-BEC, http://cbcpbec.com/?p=143 [accessed July 18, 2017].

2545Ibid.
469
SAMBAYANIHAN
middle of things.”2546 In other words, the notion of the diaspora-ekkēsia that Fernandez
has in mind suggests no definitive beginnings or endings because, as he has mentioned,
“beginnings are not absolute, pure or stable; neither are endings.” 2547 For, indeed,
according to him, “[it] is in the context of the ever-flowing stream…that human beings
discover and exercise their subjectivity and agency, not outside of it.”2548 Diaspora-ekkēsia
is always a church en via, always on the way. Thus, Fernandez surmises that “[when] it is
perceived as a temporary condition in which the final aim is to ‘settle,’ it is not a surprise
that it is a dreaded condition, with hurtful consequences in the church’s attitude and
practices toward the new diasporas.”2549 Thus, it is very important for us to include the
notion of bayanihan in Filipino migrants’ BECs in Western Europe or sambayanihan.
Bayanihan embodies the notion of the ekklesia en via, which is understood by Fernandez
as diaspora-ekkēsia, the journey in the interim time. The diasporized Filipino migrants,
certainly, live not only in the in-between space but, also, in the in-between time. If they
will only make use of that unique situation, being in the liminal place and time, they will
– perhaps, together with other migrants who also the same spot – will make the mission
as modern-day evangelizers more more palpable and meaningful.
Another aspect of diaspora-ekklēsiai that we would like to relate to the meaning of
bayanihan that is ingrained in sambayanihan is the notion of the stranger which is
intimately linked with the question of hospitality. Speaking of this relationship, we can
recall that, Ruiz points out, that “[if] ‘who the stranger is’ is the ‘socio-analytical
question,’… ‘how’ we relate to the stranger is the ‘ethical question’.”2550 Hospitality,
according to Fernandez, is “[the] Christian answer to this question… which is at the
heart… of the Crucifixion story – the expression of hospitality par excellence.”2551 He adds
that “[if] how we respond to the stranger is a ‘litmus test of whether we and our culture
have succeeded or not in the eyes of God,” the practice of hospitality is the plumb line by
which we have to judge ourselves and our society; it is the yardstick, the litmus test by
which our moral stature is judged.”2552 Bayanihan, for us, necessarily embodies the notion
of hospitality and the situation of being a stranger. On that note, we would like to state
that our notion of bayanihan against the background of sambayanihan considers the
stranger not as the object of hospitality but the subject. And this particular understanding
of hospitality necessarily retrieves the profound and radical understanding of hospitality
which brings together the German and Dutch meanings of it that Henri Nouwen has
brought up: It is an “offering of friendship without binding [freedom] the guest and freedom
without leaving him alone [friendship].”2553 These freedom and friendship, for us, are
offered not by the host but by the guest – the stranger or the immigrants. Bayanihan,
therefore, is an event of hospitality which is primarily, according to Fernandez, “is a
‘creation of a free space’ where the stranger can be at home and be a friend instead of a

2547Ibid.
2548Ibid.
2549Ibid.,221.
2550This was cited in by Eleazar Fernandez in his book. Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Borders, 226. Cf.
Ruiz, “Diaspora, Empire,” 51.
2552Ibid. According to Gopin, “there is no person of greater concern in the Bible than the stranger who is with
us but not with us, whom we know but do not know, who is a source of great mystery and yet ancestral
familiarity, whose treatment by us is ultimately a litmus test of whether we and our culture have succeeded
or not in the eyes of God, and whose experience is essentially a yardstick of our moral stature.” Marc Gopin,
“The Heart of the Stranger,” in Explorations in Reconciliation: New Directions in Theology, eds. David Tombs
and Joseph Liechty (England: Ashgate, 2006), 6.
2553The German word for hospitality is Gastfreundschaft which literally means “’friendship’ with the guest”;
while the Dutch word gastvrijheid means “freedom of the guest”. Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out, 71.
470
threat or an enemy”.2554 This event that we envision to be part of sambayanihan is already

happening. We believe that it is being experienced by a community known as the FCCC
(Filipino Catholic Charismatic Community) in Brussels. This community, based on our
personal immersion, welcomes people from all walks of life and various cultural
backgrounds in their regular Sunday gawain (i.e., prayer meeting). They even have to
modify the structure of their prayer meeting and change the medium of communication
just to accommodate people who want to join them in their worship. What Fernandez has
cited in his book regarding transforming the status of being a stranger to a space of
hospitality, fremd (stranger) to freund (friend) is something that we hope to transpire in
the context of the sambayanihan.2555 According to Fernandez, “Hospitality transforms
strangers into friends, but the stranger is allowed free space. Hospitality is about creating
a space for others to breathe, find their own voice, sing their own songs, and dance their
own dances. It is about creating a space where strangers can be who they are in their
strangeness.”2556 In the sambayanihan communities that we have in mind, the Filipinos
and other members will hopefully find a “sacred space” for hospitality wherein everyone
can tell his/her own stories as each one negotiates his/her migrant status in the
“heartland of globalization” wherein the image of global history is reconfigured. In this
platform they are also given a chance to express their own way of theologizing and of
celebrating liturgies. In this context, “[conformity] to [one’s] views, expectations, and
practices should not be basis for hospitality.”2557
Genuine hospitality entails:

“the creation of welcoming communities and resistance to practices that are inhospitable…[It]
involves critique and subversion of power differentials… Even hospitable acts of charity are
commendable, we must move beyond charity toward acts of social justice; the unjust ‘table
manners’ of the global market demand it. While ‘faith-based charity provides crumbs from the
table, faith-based justice offers a place at the table’.”2558
With that in mind, we believe that the notion of hospitality entailed in bayanihan sits
very well with the liberational aspect of the BECs that Claver has underlined in his book.
For sambayanihan communities in Western Europe to fully realize themselves as Basic
Ecclesial Communities of modern-day evangelizers, it is imperative that they go beyond
their liturgical and developmental concerns. They need to be in bayanihan with others to
strive for justice, transformation and reconciliation in the context of globalized migration.
The real litmus test for the relevance of sambayanihan communities lies in their ability to
lend themselves as a vehicle for “subversion and resistance to imperial projects and
transformation of the predatory and inhospitable global market.”2559 To ensure that this
becomes a reality, it is important to maintain the link between the three couplings that
we have elaborated on earlier in this doctoral work: “diaspora-hybridity,” “diaspora-
stranger,” and “diaspora-hospitality.”2560 Fernandez contends that “If the church is a
creature of diaspora and was born a stranger, so is the church a creature of hospitality,
born out of hospitality. Without hospitality there would be no church.”2561 Early Christian

2555According to Fernandez, this event took place during the celebration of Edward Ludwig Nollau in
Reichenbach, Germany on in July 2010. Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Borders, 227.
2556Ibid., 228.
2557Ibid.
2558Ibid. Cf. Moyers, cited by Donald Messer, “More than Random Acts of Kindness,” in Ending Hunger Now:
A Challenge to Persond of Faith, eds. George McGovern et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 88-89.
2559Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Borders, 228-29.
2560Ibid., 229.
2561Ibid.
471
SAMBAYANIHAN
churches, according to Mortimer Arias, grew in a remarkable fashion “because of the

extraordinary quality of their hospitality.”2562 In other words, what made the early
Christian communities stood out and effective was their “centripetal mission” or, in other
words, “evangelization of hospitality”.2563 Fernandez explains that
“the early Christian communities practiced hospitality not as a bait and switch or a tactic to
increase membership, but because it was truly at the heart of their identity, and it was an act
of faithfulness to the gospel of Christ. It was in their acts of hospitality that the gospel shone
brightly, and the people saw them; hence, these acts of hospitality paved the way for the
membership in the Christian communities of their time.”2564
As active participants in the contemporary migrants’ journey, one that is full of perils and
potentials, the members of the sambayanihan communities will try to be co-responsible
by assisting one another in their respective base communities and offering service to the
wider parish communities and beyond. In the spirit of bayanihan, they will try their best
to be in solidarity with fellow Filipinos and with the downtrodden people in their host
country. Gonzales has observed in his research that, indeed, “Filipino diaspora diplomats
are not only helping their own but also at-risk and needy migrants from other countries –
the classic definition of bayanihan applied to humanity.”2565
To conclude, we would like to reiterate that bayanihan is a concept that expresses
most profoundly what BECs of Filipino migrants in Western Europe are all about.
Sambayanihan communities are manifestations of an earthly pilgrimage that brings
faithful together as a church best exemplified by hospitality to and of the strangers to
bring about positive change in the globalized world. Sambayanihan communities, being
communities who exercise bayanihan, are located in the in-between space (i.e., hybrid and
interim) where heroism and martyrdom become a reality. Bayanihan is not only about a
journey together, it is about agape. It is about embodying loving communion. By living up
the bayanihan spirit they serve as a concrete manifestation of agape which is the true
essence of the Love of God.
II.4.5. Trust and Decentralization: Towards a Genuine Recognition of the Role of

Basic Ecclesial Community in the Universal Church
After having tackled the different concepts embedded in the neologism

sambayanihan we shall now re-iterate what Bishop Francisco Claver said about the issues
of ‘trust’ and ‘decentralization’ that must be seriously taken into consideration by people
involved in the cultivation of BEC, be it in the Philippines or elsewhere. Claver states that
“In the [pre-Vatican II], the hierarchy is the watchdog and corrector of aberrations in doctrine
practice of its members, and mistakes are not tolerated; in [Vatican II], more leeway is given for
the conscious development of the people’s sensus fidei by their own efforts, and the possibility
of their going wrong is a tolerable fact of life – but so is the possibility of they themselves
correcting mistakes made. This is probably putting it too crudely – and invidiously – but the
2562Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Borders, 230. Cf. Mortimer Arias, “Global and Local: A Critical View of
Mission Models,” in Global Good News: Mission in a New Context, ed. Howard Snyder (Nashville: Abingdon,
2001), 55-56. Cited in Marjorie Thompson, Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox, 2005), 127.
2563Fernandez, Burning Center, Porous Borders, 230. Cf. Helen Lee, “Hospitable Household: Evangelism,” in
Growing Healthy Asian American Churches: Ministry Insights from Groundbreaking Congregations, eds. Peter
Cha et al. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2006), 136.
472
fact is that there is in the BEC and other church bodies like it what sociologists call a ‘self-
correcting mechanism’.”2566
He warns, though, that even with the considerably positive regard on the BEC in the
contemporary period, thanks to the Second Vatican Council, there is still a palpable
“problem of distrust” that lurks within the walls of the Universal Church. He boldly states
that
“The distrust and suspicion runs all the way down from top to bottom in the church. Bishops,
even whole conferences, cannot come up with decisions of their own, say on manners of the
liturgy, without first having recourse to Rome for approval. And in the lower reaches of the
church, the same spirit of mistrust is only too palpable; the bishops are seen as not too trusting
of priests, and bishops and priests of the laity. It is an exaggeration perhaps, but all too often
we act as if the higher parts of the church have to be always guiding the lower and there is fear
that the lower will just stray without the guidance of the higher.”2567
BECs are not to be conceived as perfect ecclesial institutions where perfect faithfulness
both to God and to what the Universal Church dictates is expected. According to him,
“There is no doubt that there will be straying from ‘the straight and narrow’ of church discipline
and teaching. But it happens not only in the lower but in the higher parts as well – when the
human element in the church becomes too dominant and the divine part is shoved to the
background…The only corrective for the straying when it happens is the continual recourse to
the Spirit of truth, and this can be done in no other way than by constant discernment on the
thought and will of the Spirit at all levels of the Church.”2568
Thus, he asks this very important question: “Do we look at the laity more as prone to sin
than open to grace?”2569 He contends, therefore, that
“an overly pessimistic view of the people does not help bring about a more trusting attitude in
the ordinary hierarch – he will not believe that people in their fallen nature will make right
decisions without his ‘magisterial’ guiding hand. This could mean that he doesn’t have enough
trust that God will give them the grace promised by the Son… His lack of trust is distrust of
the Spirit’s action in people.”2570
He states that
“It is to do away with that distrust and its cause that we push for the development of a more
participatory church. That is why we talk of empowering the laity, why we advocate the full
development of the local church, why we have to go all the way down to the lowest levels of
hierarchical church in the BEC. And that is why we seek to develop these BECs into a real
discerning communities of faith – forever in touch with their human reality in charity, forever
in touch too with the Spirit of God in the certain hope that the Spirit will be with us all through
our stumbling and groping efforts to live faithfully the Son’s Gospel.”2571
With respect to the question of decentralization, we are aware that Pope Francis has
been endeavoring to make a Church truly participatory by providing new avenues towards
a decentralization of power. One good example of that is his new decision on giving the
Episcopal Conferences to determine the most proper translations of the Roman Missal.
For Claver, decentralization can also be had by empowering the BECs, because he believes
that, indeed, “[change] will not come from the top – or at least not willingly come from
there… change will take place faster and better from below rather than from above.” 2572
Of course, we are not oblivious of the fact that BECs need proper guidance for them to
fully realize their potentials. They cannot be left on their own. Dialogue, participation and

2567Ibid., 149-50.
2568Ibid., 150.
2569Ibid.
2570Ibid., 145.
2571Ibid., 150-151.
2572Ibid., 156.
473
SAMBAYANIHAN
co-responsibility are needed to flow between the hierarchy and the laity, the Universal
Church/dioceses and the BECs; otherwise, no genuinely productive reform can be
guaranteed.
A BEC, according to Claver, is
“A perfect summary of us as God’s Holy People. A people, graced with the gifts of our cultural
heritage – the particular humanum that every people possesses; graced but at the same time
weighed down by its share of Adam’s sin, yet struggling all the while to be, in faith, God’s own
people in this particular time and place. The never-ending process of rising and falling that
must be carried on with every new generation and within the cultural setting peculiar to it –
this is, when everything is said and done what the local church is all about.”2573
A Partial Conclusion: Sambayanihan Communities: A Trans-colonial and

Transcultural Journey of Filipino Migrant BECs vis-à-vis Globalism, Individualism
and Secularism
In this journey, we hope that we were able to successfully walk our readers through
an intricate but coherent picture of the role of sambayanihan communities in the Western
European context. We commenced our venture with an exploration on how BEC fits in the
larger picture of the renewal brought about by Vatican II. This required an examination of
pertinent Church documents that were promulgated by the said Council, which were
consequently adapted and further developed in the regional and local teachings of the
Church. In general, we can say that the Church, in her official teachings, is supportive of
the idea of building Basic Ecclesial Communities, in whatever configuration and names,
as long as they do not stray from the values of the Kingdom of God and that they remain
connected to the Universal Church.
After revisiting Vatican II and other pertinent documents that were meant for
universal readership or application, our voyage brought as to a field trip to the awe-
inspiring emergence of diverse small Christian communities all over the world as a
response to the call of Vatican II and to the signs of the times. What we have discovered
in this “tour” is the important aspect of contextuality in the cultivation of SSC or BEC,
because we found out that, although all the ecclesial communities that we have examined
are inspired by the renewal brought about by the Second Vatican Council, a rich variety
of structures and thrusts have arisen in the BECs/SCCs depending on their respective
contexts. But, despite the differences, there are still some common threads that can be
seen as running across all of them: lay empowerment, dialogue and participation. Some
of them have withstood the test of time and other simply died down naturally. It is
important to note that the SCCs/BECs that have flourished in the wake of Vatican II have
maintained a certain connection with one another as they gather together periodically to
compare notes and learn from each other. Maintaining a link among all of them every so
often will help them exhibit in the most profound way the universality of their communities
in the midst of their respective contextuality. They are not only expressing what is known
as “unity-in-diversity” but also universality or catholicity in the midst of their specificity
or contextuality.
After an important excursion to the varied and complex manifestations of
BECs/SSCs in other parts of the globe, we zeroed in on how BECs came to be and how
they are conceptually understood in the Philippines based on testimonies and reflections
of those who were in the frontline of BEC formation in the country. What we have
unearthed in this venture is the fact that BEC-formation has been considered a pastoral
474
priority of the Catholic Church in the Philippines since the conclusion of PCP II. We have
learned that the BECs in the Philippine have gone through several interesting phases.
These certainly made the BECs in the Philippines truly meaningful and colorful. One of
the most significant periods in the history of BECs in the country was the violence and
death that the leaders and members of the BECs, also known as Basic Christian
Communities- Community Organization (BCC-CO), had suffered during the Marcos
regime. They were subjected to unimaginable evil because of their advocacies that were
labeled as “Marxist”. They were treated as threat to the State because they were fighting
for the promotion of human rights and protection of the environment. In this segment of
our journey we have also found out that what the Church in the Philippines hopes to see
in the BECs is the establishment of a “church of the poor”. This church is characterized
by dialogue, participation and co-responsibility emanating from the grassroots. With these
three important elements, the BECs in the Philippines are hoped to embody not only the
liturgical and developmental types of BEC but, most especially, the liberational one. In
that way, they will not only give importance to liturgy and to the well-being of each other
as they celebrate their most cherished liturgies and generously share each other’s burden
and blessings, but they also get actively involved in issues that are political in nature to
ensure that charity, justice and mercy are enjoyed by every individual whom God has
created. Perhaps, it is correct to say that the BECs envisioned in the Philippines are
deemed to be sites where a balance between the inward (i.e., the concern of their respective
base communities) and the outward (i.e., the concern of the wider community – social and
political) orientations is creatively maintained.
After the aforementioned episode of the voyage, we went on board an expedition to
see whether some concepts of BEC which were explored in the preceding segments of the
journey could be applied to the Filipino Catholic migrant communities in Western Europe
that will help them re-imagine themselves as sambayanihan communities. In this portion,
we examined both the theoretical and practical implications of sambayanihan which were
couched in the different words or concepts embedded in the neologism: (Sam/isa)
oneness, (Samba) worship/religiosity, (Bayan) community, (Bayani) heroism/martyrdom,
and (Bayanihan) collaborative endeavor. Oneness is considered to be the most important
concept in this compound word, because it is seen as embodying the unity of the Three
Divine Persons which serves as the principle of unity of all relationships – between
persons, between communities, between the laity and the hierarchy, between the local
and universal, etc. It is also considered to be the unifying factor among all the other
concepts implied in sambayanihan. Worship and religiosity, as aspects of samba, are seen
as parts of the essence of being a Filipino which is certainly a product of a transcultural
inculturative process and, hence, can be used as a vehicle for evangelization in the context
of globalization. The concept of bayan together with sam is understood as an expression
of the Church as a community of the people of God united in Christ under the Fatherhood
of God – a communitas. The concept of bayani is understood against the background of
heroism and martyrdom wherein the Filipino migrants are considered to embody as they
endeavor to selflessly provide for their respective families back home which, in the process,
also benefits their country of origin, economically speaking. While being “heroes” for their
families and their country, they can also be seen as unsung heroes of their countries of
destination because, without their humble service to the families that allow both parents
in their host countries to work, the economies in these countries will simply crumble
down. They are, indeed, at the very base of society who are often unrecognized but are so
important because they make succeeding levels of the Western European society more
475
SAMBAYANIHAN
stable. As martyrs or witnesses they do not only serve as Philippine ambassadors who
employ soft-power approach in diplomacy but also act as conduits of evangelization as
they express their noteworthy pananampalataya and reverse-hospitality in wherever they
go. Their liturgies and their food are, without a doubt, important instruments in spreading
the reign of the Kingdom of God in a world where secularism and individualism are an
intense reality. Bayanihan is seen not only as an expression of community, generosity and
solidarity but also a powerful image of a church in pilgrimage, en via, where people are
called together as one community to share each other’s burdens and to enjoy the blessings
together as they hope and strive for the coming of the Kingdom of God.
Thus, our proposal towards a re-configuration of diasporic Filipino communities in
Western Europe into sambayanihan communities or BECs was meant to bolster the
potential of Filipino migrants to become viable instruments of new evangelization. This
new era of evangelization in Western Europe entails promotion of genuine dialogue,
participation and co-responsibility in a milieu of globalization wherein inevitable
encounter of diverse cultural communities transpire. In an epoch where secularization is
swiftly and widely gaining momentum and the “eclipse of God” is profoundly felt,
exacerbated by the apparent “homelessness” experienced by the people in the West - both
in the social and ecclesial realms, we reckon that the Filipino migrant communities who
are interestingly “at home” in the Church will offer the “hospitality of the guests” within
the limits of Western European society. As “hospis” they shall ironically extend a warm
welcoming arm to the people to ‘come’ and ‘see’ for themselves what pananampalataya
means and how can each one be a partaker in and a promoter of God’s kingdom of love,
justice and mercy in the here and the now.
Concretely speaking, we would like to mention at this point a particular Filipino
Catholic migrant community that we have come to know personally and have seen as
embodying whatever we have said about sambayanihan communities. Without
downplaying the remarkable impact of other Filipino and other ethnic communities that
we have met in some Western European cities, we would like to specifically mention the
Filipino Catholic Charismatic Community in Brussels (FCCC) which was originally
founded in 2012 as a breakaway group from the El Shaddai community of Brussels. Their
regular Sunday routine includes mass with the English-speaking community,
socialization with other members of the parish, recitation of the rosary, praise and
worship, bible-sharing or testimonials, a preaching of an ordained minister, business
meeting or discussion of other concerns, and thanksgiving accompanied by monetary
offering that goes to the needs of the community and other charitable works.
Personally, I2574 came to know this community when I was invited to be one of the
priests who shall take turns in preaching for their regular Sunday “prayer meeting” which
they refer to as gawain; literally, it means work. My personal encounter and knowledge of
this particular ecclesial community have been deepened through the masses, retreats,
pilgrimages and out-reach programs that I have been privileged to be part of. I have
learned that this group does not only exist to worship but also to help each other in various
aspects of life in the best way they could amidst their limitations and human foibles. Aside
from that, the members also endeavor to reach out to the wider world by being part of the
English-speaking parish in Brussels. In this parish, they actively participate in the
liturgical activities (i.e., being members of the choir, serving as lectors and acolytes, and
2574Theshift to first personal pronoun is necessary at this point to indicate that this is a singular or personal
experience of the author.
476
the like). Apart from that, they also regularly volunteer to prepare coffee and other
refreshments that are served after every celebration of the Holy Eucharist in the
aforementioned community in Brussels. Those and their other involvements in the parish
prove that FCCC is considerably integrated in the life of the said parish. Hence, it cannot
be regarded as an inward-looking religious ghetto.
We would like to mention that, based on our personal knowledge of the FCCC, the
reflections and testimonials shared by the members are considered to be an essential
element of the prayer meeting cum Bible-sharing. This brings to mind Hirmer who once
said that “In actual fact, Bible-sharing is the spiritual foundation of the Small Christian
Communities. Where Bible-sharing is conducted properly, it turns a Small Christian
Community into a ‘mystagogical community’, whose members help each other to grasp
the secret of Christ’s presence in their midst.”2575 We are convinced that the humble
ruminations of the FCCC members regarding the message of the Sunday gospel vis-à-vis
their daily lives as Christian migrants make them, in their humble way, to be a
mystagogical community. What makes the presence of Christ even more palpable in this
particular community are the discussions and actual works that they do that have
personal, communal, and national/international implications. In their own simple way,
they try to help the members in resolving issues on marriage, employment, migration, and
the like. They also do their best in reaching out to those afflicted by natural and human-
made calamities in the Philippines and in Belgium. The money that they collect in their
regular offering and Christmas fund-raising goes to the community’s fund utilized for their
activities and out-reach programs such as helping poor communities in the Philippines,
sponsoring meals at the Missionary of Charity that feed the homeless people in Brussels,
and other forms of aid to fellow migrants. It also needs to be mentioned that the FCCC
has members who are Filipinos and non-Filipinos. Moreover, as a genuine Filipino
ecclesial community, the gawain is not complete without the table fellowship wherein
Filipino dishes are being served. From time to time, especially during their anniversary
celebrations, they would have what we now understand as a transculturally inculturated
“Filipino mass”. For this reason, this community can be considered as a candidate for
Sambayanihan in the context of Western Europe. Their community breathes new life to
the Church in Europe. This community, for us, represents what Rahner and Congar have
said about the BEC/SCC, a “new way of being church”, that will rise from the grassroots
that must be nurtured and propagated.
So far, the FCCC ticks two of the three typologies of BECs that Claver has underlined:
liturgical and developmental. We are hoping that, in the years to come, the FCCC and
other Filipino migrant Catholic communities in Western Europe, such as those in the
West-Flanders, will also embody the liberational aspect of BEC so that they may become
genuine communities of priests, kings and prophets in Western Europe. We believe that
this vision is not something that is unachievable. In fact, without their knowing it, they
have already participated in one way or another in advocacies that concern the social,
moral and spiritual well-being of the migrants. They only need to be more conscious and
more active in this respect.
There is a strong indication that the four-fold methodology that we employed in this
research project is also in one way or another adapted by the FCCC:
Pakikiramdam/Pakikipagkuwentuhan because their gatherings are filled with an exercise
of empathy or “shared inner perception” as they listen and tell stories (patotoo) of how they
2575Hirmer, “Small Christian Communities,” 9; 20-21.
477
SAMBAYANIHAN
experience God’s presence and involvement in their lives in a variety of ways, especially
when they reflect on the Sunday’s Gospel; Pagdadalaw-dalaw/Pagtatasa because they
figuratively and literally visit each other to assist one another spiritually, materially,
financially and morally, especially when some members are going through crises and are
experiencing some difficulties in their migrant life in Belgium; Pakikisangkot/Pagtataya
because they journey with one another in almost all aspects of life; and Pagpipiging
(Feasting) and Pagsasalu-salu (Communion/Sharing) because they treat each other as
family celebrating each other’s successes and sharing each other’s journey. Whenever they
come together, there is always an air of celebration. The members have the gift of
combining worship with exuberance, work with laughter, charity with enjoyment.
Generally speaking, the sambayanihan communities or BECs of Filipino Diaspora
which we are proposing in this doctoral project, FCCC included, are deemed to be effective
agents of inculturation because they are in the crucible of the universal Church. By being
in the liminal space, they are caught in the cross currents of cultures. This means that
they embody several cultures at the same time which are factored in their utterance of
God-talk, in their celebrations of liturgies and in their structures as ecclesial communities.
Speaking of culture, we argue that the family-orientedness of the Filipino migrants,
if they are to form genuine sambayanihan communities, needs to be purified and
expanded. If this particular trait of Filipino culture will not be renewed, it can pose as a
threat to the fruitfulness of the BECs of Filipino migrants in Western Europe. But if this
family-value is expanded to accommodate the notion of the People of God or the family of
God, the members of the sambayanihan will have a more universal exercise of charity and
solidarity. This proposal is something that we believe to be achievable because the
Filipinos are known for taking care not only of their own nuclear family but also of their
extended families which include both blood relatives and other loved ones. When they see
themselves as part of a larger ecclesial family, their concern will also be extended to the
people beyond their family, their clan, and their respective base communities.
In other words, sambayanihan communities, as transculturally inculturated
communities, must embody the “spirituality of communion”. According to Claver, the
BEC, precisely because it is called as ‘community’ or koinonia, must train its members “to
live and preach their faith not only as individuals but also, and more importantly, as a
community.”2576 And the community here is not referring only to their family, or clan, or
their base community. It includes the parish and other communities. They need to march
together with other communities without also losing sight of their specificity. Claver adds
that the “worship of the community begins with the service of the Word. The Bible-sharing
of the BEC is the most important activity in its worshipping…The discernment on the
Word of God that the community does as a matter of course does not end in mere pious
reflections but is geared toward communal action later for the common good.” 2577
Moreover, he contends that, in terms of worship or leitourgia and ministry or diakonia,
“[the] community cannot be turned in on itself; its worship and action cannot be a
solipsistic turning inward to selfish interests and concerns. It must go out of itself in
service of the people, not only to care for their spiritual needs but also for their material
needs as well. The church’s involvement with human needs is hence an ordinary activity
of the BEC, a concretization of the charity that it professes as a church of communion at

2577Ibid.
478
the base.”2578 Last but not least, Claver rightly points out that, witness or martureia,
necessarily entails the “task of the community to evangelize, to go out of itself in genuine
missionary zeal to spread the message of the Gospel to others and share themselves with
others, whether of the household of the faith or not, and do so as a community. Its main
witnessing is to be found in its doing and living of the Gospel as a community.”2579
To conclude, we say that sambayanihan communities, like the FCCC, must
approximate the “essential definition of BECs” that Claver has come up with: “worshipping
communities of faith-discernment and action at the lowest levels of the church that try,
in a participatory way and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to put life and faith
together into an integrated whole.”2580 With everything that we have observed in the FCCC,
we are convinced that the FCCC is a good candidate to become a sambayanihan
community. By being a worshipping community in Brussels, they invite people to come,
see, and experience a church “as a space, place, community, and an event where one finds
a home, where one’s memories, stories, struggle, and hope find expression and are connect
with others – not melted.”2581

2579Ibid., 133.
2580Ibid., 91.
479
PAGPAPAYABONG
TOWARDS A DIALOGIC, PARTICIPATIVE, CO-RESPONSIBLE CHURCH IN WESTERN

EUROPE INITIALLY SPROUTING FROM THE FILIPINO CATHOLIC MIGRANT
COMMUNITIES
“The past will never return. So new situations require new dispositions.” 2582
-Archbishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncali, 1933
“[It] is necessary that the Church should never depart from the sacred treasure
of the truth inherited from the fathers. But at the same time she must ever look to
the present, to the new conditions and new forms of life in the modern world, which
have opened new avenues to the Catholic apostolate...’ ‘The substance of the ancient
doctrine of the Deposit of Faith is one thing, but the way in which it is presented is
another… may you who are present respond to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so
that the work of all will correspond most exactly to the expectations and needs of the
many people of the modern world.”2583
- Pope John XXIII
W
hat started as an unflagging fascination of a young seminarian in Leuven with
the amazing presence of Filipino migrant communities in almost all corners of
the world, which can be “humorously” likened to the omnipresence of God, has
now become a full-blown doctoral research project that critically appraises, gratefully
appreciates and enthusiastically promotes the potential contributions of the Filipino
migrant communities, especially in Western Europe. We can affirm the truth that many
historians, socio-anthropologists and theologians have problematized and theorized on
issues pertaining to Filipino migration, ecclesiology and inculturation. Nevertheless,
despite the countless liters of ink spilled on those issues, we saw a lacuna which prompted
us to pursue our project. Academically speaking, nobody has formally theorized on the
possibility of cultivating Basic Ecclesial Communities out of the Filipino migrant
communities in the context of Western Europe.
2582“Ilpassato non torna piu. Dunque circonstanze nouve, provvidenze nuove..” Archbishop Angelo Giuseppe
Roncalli cited in Christopher Butler, OSB, “Who was at Vatican II: Papal Voices,” Vatican II- Voice of the Church,
http://vatican2voice.org/4basics/papal.htm [accessed 1 October 2017]. Cf. Peter Hebblethwaite, Giovanni
XXIII: Papa del Concilio, trans. Marco Roncalli (Roma: Castelvecchi, 2013). Cf. also Margaret Hebblethwaite,
John XXIII: Pope of the Century, revised ed. (Great Britain: Biddles, Guildford & King’s Lynn, 2000).
2583“5. Ma perché tale dottrina raggiunga i molteplici campi dell’attività umana, che toccano le persone singole,
le famiglie e la vita sociale, è necessario prima di tutto che la Chiesa non distolga mai gli occhi dal sacro
patrimonio della verità ricevuto dagli antichi; ed insieme ha bisogno di guardare anche al presente, che ha
comportato nuove situazioni e nuovi modi di vivere, ed ha aperto nuove vie all’apostolato cattolico.6. Per questa
ragione la Chiesa non è rimasta indifferente a quelle meravigliose scoperte dell’umano ingegno ed a quel
progresso delle idee di cui oggi godiamo, né è stata incapace di onestamente apprezzarle; ma, seguendo con
vigile cura questi fatti, non cessa di ammonire gli uomini perché, al di sopra dell’attrattiva delle realtà visibili,
volgano gli occhi a Dio, fonte di ogni sapienza e di ogni bellezza, affinché essi, ai quali è stato detto: "Soggiogate
la terra e dominatela" [6], non dimentichino quel rigorosissimo comando: "Adora il Signore Dio tuo e a lui solo
rendi culto" [7], perché il fascino fuggente delle cose non impedisca il vero progresso… Però noi non dobbiamo
soltanto custodire questo prezioso tesoro, come se ci preoccupassimo della sola antichità, ma, alacri, senza
timore, dobbiamo continuare nell’opera che la nostra epoca esige, proseguendo il cammino che la Chiesa ha
percorso per quasi venti secoli.” Pope John XXIII, Address on the Opening of the Second Vatican Council, 11
October 1962, The Holy See, https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/it/speeches/1962/documents/hf_j-
xxiii_spe_19621011_opening-council.html [accessed 1 October 2017]. Cf. Walter Abbott and Geoffrey
Chapman, eds., The Vatican Archives and The Documents of the Vatican II, trans. Geoffrey Chapman (London:
The America, 1966).
SAMBAYANIHAN
In an era which may be generally referred to as “Post-Christian Europe”,2584 one

notices that less and less people profess a “belief in a God” while more and more are
veering towards agnosticism. In the midst of this complex phenomenon, one can observe
that Filipinos, together with other ethnic minorities from the so-called global South, have
been filling the empty pews in the Western European churches vacated by the local
population. Despite some signs of secularization that are seen amongst the Filipinos in
West, it cannot be denied that still, for a lot of them, going to church is an important
aspect of their life. Besides, their homes are generally decorated with religious items that
show how important, perhaps externally, religion is to them. We are of the opinion that if
the existing Filipino migrant communities in Western Europe are re-imagined as BECs,
they can be a counter-witness to a community or nation gravely affected by globalism,
individualism, and secularism that have brought about the staggering decline in religiosity
and church attendance in Western Europe for a number of decades now.
For this to happen, however, some social and ecclesiological hindrances must be
overcome. We have observed that if we compare the reception of the Filipino input in the
Western European churches with that of the United States of America, which can be
generally perceived as open and positive, the Filipino migrant communities’ impact in the
former, perhaps because of the prevailing social climate in this region, has remained
undervalued. Despite their remarkable presence, their involvement in the Western
European parish communities has, unfortunately, not been given the recognition that it
deserves as most of these communities are not completely integrated or, wittingly and
unwittingly, relegated to the fringes. Unlike in the U.S. where they are given due
recognition attested by their active participation and the significant leadership roles that
they play in the parishes, in Western Europe they are generally regarded as either auxiliary
communities who are given a special privilege to gather and celebrate liturgies as an ethnic
enclave within the premises of the parishes on the condition that they do not interfere
with the established structure of the local community. It is not unheard of that, in some
parishes, they are still treated as second-class members of the parish communities who
can participate actively in the activities of the church but are not given major positions in
managing the parish communities.
Sad to say, Filipinos, migrants and otherwise, are not only undervalued in terms of
ecclesiology, but also in the areas of economics, history and theology. In the area of
economics, people just do not realize how massive the impact would be if all Filipino
migrant workers just drop their work altogether for a day. Thus, due recognition must be
accorded to them. In the area of history, people do not realize how world history is affected
by the narratives of the more or less 12 million Filipinos dispersed all over the world. Their
presence and the events that involve them in their host countries definitely make a dent
in the creation of world history. Thus, giving importance to their narratives is needed. In
the area of theology, Filipino theologians are mostly overlooked in the global stage. Only
very few are significantly recognized and given accolades. People do not realize that
approximately a dozen million Filipinos traversing the four corners of the globe are bearers
of ordinary theologies that are transmitted more effectively, albeit in a manner that is
2584According to the 2010 Eurobarometer survey there is an average of 51% who stated among the EU citizens
that they “believe that there is a God”, while 26% noted that they “believe there is some sort of spirit or life
force,” 20% said they “don’t believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force,” and 3% did not give an answer.
In a study that was done by Mattei Dogan, entitled “Religious Beliefs in Europe: Factors of Accelerated
Decline”, it was mentioned that 47% of the French people veered towards agnosticism as of 2003. Dogan,
“Religious Beliefs in Europe,” 161-188.
482
subterranean, all over the world than those formulated by the experts that only few people
could grasp or relate to. Thus, they need to be taken seriously by theologians. Their God-
talk may not be as articulate or as sophisticated as those uttered or written by professional
theologians, but they have something very important to say about making sense of
people’s experience of God and reality. We believe that the best vehicle in order for the
contributions of the Filipino migrants to be taken seriously is the formation of BECs of
Filipino migrants. We surmise that when the Filipino Catholic migrant communities in
Western Europe are re-imagined as sambayanihan communities, their significance will
more profoundly felt.
This academic venture, which we hope to have an actual practical effect not only on
the areas of history, theology and liturgy, but, most especially in the realm of ecclesiology
vis-à-vis Filipino migration in Western Europe, necessarily requires a thorough and
critical treatment of the contemporary phenomenon of globalization and all the other
issues connected to it. We cannot take the issue of globalization out of the equation,
because contemporary Filipino migration is both influenced and influencing the rate and
the shape of this astonishing phenomenon. Globalization, aided by the rapid advancement
of modern technology, has brought the different corners of the world remarkably closer
together than any period in history; thereby, making the world into a “village” small
enough for people to know and “reach” literally and figuratively everything in a heartbeat.
In other words, globalization has shrunk the global space so significantly that everything
has become intensely interconnected, which is both a boon and a bane. It benefits people
because the flow of information, business and travel has become extremely swift and
virtually “effortless”. It is also misery for people, however, because it has made the wound
of division even deeper, the curse of inequality more palpable and the quest for domination
more intense. All these are happening as millions of people are either externally and
internally displaced brought about by several factors, such as military disturbances,
cultural upheavals, political unrest, religious conflicts, extreme poverty, and a
combination of some or all of these problems.
Considering the diaspora of the several millions of Filipinos all over the world, it can
be argued that they are also severely impacted by globalization. The main driving force for
their exodus is the search for greener economic pastures. Almost all Filipino overseas
workers or expats concede that they are doing this mainly because of their love for their
families, which can be unthinkable for some, especially those who are raised in a rather
individualistic society.
The overseas Filipino workers, who are hailed by the Philippine government as the
Bagong Bayani (i.e., New Hero) experience the sense of what Peter Phan calls as “in the
betwixt and between”: an experience of precariousness of being in the margins and of the
potential for transformation in the liminal place. Most of them are in the base of the society
owing to their “minority status” and to the kind of employment opportunities given to
them. Religiosity is arguably perceivable among many Filipinos, migrants or not, which
can be discerned even in their hybrid organizations and in the confluence of secular and
religious spheres in every Filipino gathering. In our experience in Europe, the celebration
of the Holy Eucharist is a vital part of most of these communities. Even birthdays and
other civic celebrations, such as Philippine Independence Day, are always begun with the
Holy Mass.
Being immersed in the different Filipino migrant communities in Europe and in the
U.S., we have been convinced that, indeed, there are significant resources belonging to
the Filipino migrant communities in Western Europe that could possibly be tapped as
483
SAMBAYANIHAN
potential avenues for Church renewal which can be considered as a way of responding to
the signs of the time – a response that entails, to use the expression of Gruber and
Rettenbacher, more than just crossing the border but “border shifting” that paves the way
towards a “new way of doing theology” or a “[venture] into new, unchartered territory”.2585
It is our firm conviction, therefore, that when the extraordinary religious capital and
missionary energy of Filipino Catholic migrant communities are properly harnessed and
nurtured, they can be re-configured as Basic Ecclesial Communities in Western Europe
which employ non-condescending reverse evangelization approach suited for missionary
work in a region where the so-called “death of God”, otherwise known as “eclipse of God”,
is profoundly felt. This is, perhaps, a manifestation of “border shifting” as far as the
Catholic Church is concerned. It can be seen as an alternative to the various notions of
ecclesiology that have proliferated in the western hemisphere and a re-establishment of
the catholicity of the Church.
In order to accomplish the task that we have decided to put our heart, head and
hand on, we have devised a contextualized methodology of the famous Cardijnian “see-
judge-act” schema which involved a four-fold approach. The first is
Pakikiramdam Pakikipagkuwentuhan which served as our non-intrusive entry point for
/
our research work that made use of the art of empathy and listening in order for me to
access the narratives. This is followed by Pagdadalaw-dalaw/Pagtatasa which required
to spend time both in quantity and in quality with the people we are dealing with in this
project to validate whatever we have provisionally gathered in our initial encounters with
them. At this point, we tried to verify our data by comparing and contrasting them to what
we have collected in our library work and formal interviews with people involved in Filipino
migrant communities in several cities in Western Europe. The third is
Pakikisangkot/Pagtataya because our academic work has become an advocacy for us,
especially when a stint as ad interim chaplain for one year to the Filipino Chaplaincy in
Brussels was given to yours truly. This became a golden opportunity for us to be genuinely
immersed in the Filipino communities, especially those that are located in Belgium, which
gave us an insider’s perspective. This rare privilege of working and living closely with the
Filipino migrant communities in Brussels was a risky venture because it could also derail
us from our academic responsibilities considering the demanding load of chaplaincy work.
But it was worth the risk because we can confidently say that our knowledge is not only
theoretical but is a product of actual involvement with the “subjects” we are interested in.
This particular vantage point has given us a profound understanding of what the Filipino
Catholic migrant communities could possibly contribute to history, theology, liturgy and
ecclesiology. In this stage, we do not see ourselves as an outsider anymore, but, to a
certain extent, an insider who share their joys and their woes. Indeed, this phase in our
research work was about pakikisangkot because we became part of their narrative and
their lives. It was an experience of communitas and bayanihan. We became involved in
each other’s lives. It was also an experience of pagtataya because we took the risk of
knowing them personally, living with them intimately, and striving with them
collaboratively. We did not know where our common venture would lead us, but we trusted
that we will get somewhere. And, in hindsight, we can say that it was all worth it. The
fourth but not necessarily at the end of all stages is Pagpipiging and Pagsasalu-salu we
have joined both in heart and mind to the Filipino communities that we have immersed
2585Cf.Judith Gruber and Sigrid Rettenbacher, eds., Migration as Sign of the Times: Towards a Theology of
Migration (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill/Rodopi, 2015).
484
ourselves in. We have partaken in their feasts and shared in their communion that served
as a necessary life-line and as energizing moments to move forward because these events
give us a glimpse of the future and a foretaste of glory. Without these communal
celebrations which we normally have through the Holy Eucharist and the fellowship that
follows after, we gain inspiration and nourishment necessary for the spiritual, physical,
emotional, intellectual, professional, and academic journeys. All the aforementioned
phases in this research work are considered to be part of a transdisciplinary endeavour
which does not only involve the confluence of several academic disciplines but, most
vitally, the participation of the people on the ground.
This post-graduate undertaking which made use of a contextualized
transdisciplinary methodology is seen against the background of trans-colonial worldview
which calls for a level-headed response to the phenomenon of colonialism that continues
to persist in the contemporary world in various and more covert forms. Trans-coloniality,
as we understand it, requires not only a solid stance against the horrors of colonialism
that marginalizes and oppresses – even obliterates - certain sectors of the society, but also
an acceptance that the past cannot be changed anymore and that nobody is completely
blameless or genuinely innocent because each one has contributed to that phenomenon
no matter how big or small it is. This saga, certainly, does not end with opposition and
acceptance, but necessarily includes salvaging what could be used in order to transform
one’s fate and move forward to a better future; hence, transcending the lamentable
legacies of colonialism. This, of course, is a constant interplay between opposition,
acceptance and transformation. To be trans-colonial means to stand permanently in the
middle of resistance, appreciation and conversion. It is a fight for justice and liberation
but also an endeavour towards reconciliation.
In view of this, we undertook a journey which involved a trans-colonial historical re-
righting of how Filipino nation came into being and what propelled the massive dispersion
of Filipinos all over the world. It provided us a solid understanding of the varied worldviews
of the Filipino people which condition them to behave and approach life in interestingly
peculiar ways. We also came to realize that the Filipinos have gone through a lot of
challenges as a nation and as individuals, but the smiles on their faces are hardly wiped
out. Revisiting their complex history brought us to a clearer understanding that, at the
end of the day, generally Filipinos recognized the pains that past colonial histories have
brought to them, but they also generally accept that what had transpired in the past could
not be changed anymore. This does not mean, however, that they are resigned to the
legacy of the past because, as people known for notable resiliency, they refuse to simply
give up and be stuck in the horrors of the past. They creatively find reasons not to be
swallowed up by despair. Most of them count more the blessings rather than the
unfortunate things that happened to them. We should not fail to mention that Filipino
history, as well as migration, has been heavily marked by the “power” that comes from
women. Although Filipino culture has been seen as patriarchal, people do not realize that
beneath that veneer is the formidable force emanating from the women sector who have
served, whether quietly or openly, as the backbone of Philippine economy, politics, society,
spirituality and the like, which may also be attributed to the significance of Mary’s role in
the life and religiosity of the Filipinos.
This project also necessitated a renewed understanding of Filipino theology as
articulated by the ordinary people which we considered to be part of our trans-colonial
project precisely because it is about giving a platform to the voices from the underside or
the margins. If people on the fringes are to be heard, their God-talk must be paid attention
485
SAMBAYANIHAN
to and given credence as well. With this effort, we were able to appreciate more the
extraordinary resilience that Filipinos exhibit amidst the onslaught of tragedies and
misfortunes. Their ordinary God-talk reveals a profound awareness that no matter how
hard they try, there are things that are beyond their control. They continue to persevere
despite the hardships that are thrown on their path while, at the same time, they entrust
their lives and future to God and say, bahala na. They do not easily give up and break
down because they know that they are never alone in their journey which is what Filipino
pananampalataya (faith) -pagnamnam (tasting) and pagtatataya (taking risk) - is all about.
Pananampalataya is the source of inspiration for Filipinos because it allows them to be
realistic and humble in their acceptance of one’s limitation. This does not mean, however,
that they will simply give up because they believe that, indeed, God is merciful and
generous. This faith, however, requires the participation or cooperation of the human
beings. They also need to do their best. Pananampalataya does not flow in the same
stream with stoicism or hubris, because, amidst the insecurity of the “journey”, one is
motivated by an initial, albeit brief and infinitesimal, taste of something to be experienced
in its fullness in the future, no matter how impossible it may seem.
Filipino faith or pananampalataya, we believe, is fueled by the Filipino concept of
intersubjectivity couched in the value “loob-kapwa.” The Filipino “loob-kapwa” provides a
foundation not only for the liturgical but also for the developmental and liberational
aspects of the BECs, because the very essence of these concepts (i.e., loob as a relational
will and kapwa as together with the person) dismisses any bifurcation between the I and
the thou or the subject and the object. The loob-kapwa is a strong affirmation of
intersubjectivity and communion. The absence of the kapwa renders the self or the loob
inauthentic. There is no dichotomy between what is within and without in the Filipino
understanding of loob. Loob, which is not perceived as a disembodied self, is always
directed at something or someone.
They believe in the bayanihan spirit fueled by the intimate relationship of the loob
and kapwa. Bahala na, bayanihan, and loob-kapwa relationality are what makes Filipino
faith, pananampalataya, a powerful ingredient for a trans-colonial attitude against despair
and meaninglessness. With this, they can creatively transform the lamentable legacy of
past history, like making lemonade out of lemons, not only to survive but to enjoy the
present moment despite its imperfections and see hope for the future despite dreariness
of today. We are convinced that the ‘ordinary theology’ of the Filipino migrants, which
integrates loob-kapwa intersubjectivity and pananampalataya uttered as bahala na and
concretely expressed as bayanihan, comparable to the “theology of the people” that Pope
Francis has been asking the hierarchy and the academic theologians to pay due attention
to. Moreover, we believe that Filipino pananampalataya embodies what is understood
theologically as “weerloze overmacht” or the power that ironically comes from weakness
which can be a used as a power means to promote “evangelization from below and within”
– an approach that is deemed as counter-hegemonic, in other words, non-imposing or
non-colonizing.
With this trans-colonial worldview, which we believe as an incorporation of some
desirable objects and viable approaches of anti-coloniality, decoloniality, and post-
coloniality, it can be understood why Filipinos are considered to be an epitome of dynamic
hybridity and transcultural inculturation. It can be confidently asserted that Filipinos are
everything and nothing. When one tries to pin down what Filipinos essentially are, he/she
may find him/herself on an intricate maze of discovery as he/she may stumble upon
layers and layers of complexly intertwining of various cultural influences. It is not wrong
486
to say that every Filipino gene is made up of a concoction of various racial influences
owing to the multiple colonization and interaction with various races and nationalities
that has transpired in their history as a nation. Every Filipino is a hybrid. They represent
Asian, European, American, Polynesian, Latino, Arabic and other cultural heritages but
at the same time they are not fully Asian or European or American or Polynesian or Latino
or Arabic or even African. Sometimes, they are even mocked as people with identity crisis.
Because of this peculiar state where the Filipinos are in, inculturation naturally flows in
their way of life and in their liturgies. Interestingly, their liturgies may appear as heavily
Roman in character but profoundly indigenous in spirit. They are so creatively blended
that one may find it difficult to identify where Roman-ness ends and Filipino begins and
vice-versa.
After looking into the how inculturation is embodied by the Filipino migrants through
the prism of transculturality which comprise the notions of mixture, permeation and
transformation of cultures that will give rise to a métis identity that allows one to see
him/herself in the other – “cosmopolitan citizenship” 2586 - wherein one is creatively
possessing multiple cultures at the same time in the continuous quest for shared interest
and common values, we proceeded to an exploration on a possible reconfiguration of
Filipino Catholic migrant communities in Western Europe as Basic Ecclesial Communities
provisionally referred to as sambayanihan communities that bear the words: sam, samba,
bayan, bayani, and bayanihan. Sam stands for unity-in-diversity or togetherness which
is deemed to form the necessary substrate for a meaningful dialogue, participation and
co-responsibility that must characterize genuine Basic Ecclesial Communities. The notion
of oneness is, in our estimation, in line with the Filipino notion of intersubjectivity
expressed by the intimate relationship between the loob and the kapwa. Samba is a word
that speaks about worship and religiosity or expression of faith which is embodied in the
Filipino notion of pananampalataya revealed in the utterance of bahala na. This word is
also a testimony to the centrality of the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and devotions to
Mary in the spiritual life of the Filipino people, whether in the country or abroad. The word
bayan combined with the prefix sam is considered to convey the notion of the Church as
the People of God who are called to be a community of love, justice and mercy. By using
this Filipino word, we also illustrated how Filipino migrants creatively straddle between
two worlds – their country of origin and countries of destination – wherein they try to
maintain, despite their limitations, their love and devotion for their motherland, and
gratitude and appreciation to their host countries. The word bayani which derived from
the word bayan is about profound love and devotion to one’s homeland that inspires one
to offer oneself as a sacrifice. In other words, it is a combined notion of martyr and hero.
Filipino migrants are hailed as the new heroes by the Philippine government because,
while they strive to provide an arguably comfortable life for their family, which includes
not just the nuclear family but also the extended ones, they are also helping the economy
of the Philippines in a significant way because of the foreign remittances that they send
back home. They are also bayani even in their host countries because of the humble and
important services that they render to their citizens that allow both parents to work in
order to meet the high cost of living in the industrially advanced countries and also the
keep the economies of their respective countries afloat. It is not an exaggeration to say, as
we have already mentioned earlier, that a significant part of world economy will be crippled
once the Filipino overseas workers stop working even just for a day. Bayani, in the context
487
SAMBAYANIHAN
of this doctoral project, is seen against the background of martyrdom best exemplified by
Jesus Christ whose self-sacrifice has transformed the curse of the cross to become a
blessing of salvation. Filipino migrants, through their sacrifices and their humble witness
of faith as they gather together for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and for praise and
worship, allow people in their countries of destination to see a different view of life. They
give witness to the value of community, joy and hope in the midst of individualism,
secularism and cynicism. Their heroic witnessing of the Christian values of generosity and
hospitality, done in a non-condescending way and by way of festivity and gastronomy,
shows a lot of potential for contemporary Christian mission. The word bayanihan, in our
own understanding, brings together every concept in the neologism into a powerful
expression of the journey towards the Kingdom of God characterized charity, justice and
mercy. It is an event most cherished by the Filipinos because it exhibits the spirit of
kinship and camaraderie where each one pitches in according to the gifts that he/she has
been bestowed upon, whether time, or talent, or treasure. Bayanihan, as an obra comun,
makes every participant a hero and a co-pilgrim that brings community to a better place
which is what being Church is all about – a sacrament that brings people to a closer union
with God, a conduit of grace and salvation. Of course, we do not say that Filipino migrants
are perfect and can be canonized as saints. They have their own share of humble foibles
and traits that run contrary to the values of the Kingdom, just like any one of God’s
wonderful creation. But, they do possess something that is of value – something that will
serve as a beacon light in a time and place where God has been pushed to the margins.
In the course of this post-graduate research work, we have come to a realization that
all our discussions on trans-coloniality, trans-culturality and trans-disciplinarity –
including all the ruminations on history, theology, liturgy and ecclesiology – bring us to a
conviction that the concept of sambayanihan can be adapted not only to ecclesiology, or
especially to BEC of Filipino migrants in Western Europe, but also to our understanding
of history, theology and liturgy. We are saying this because, in our discussion on the
history of Filipino migrants that can be traced as far back as the pre-colonial times, the
idea of how singularity and plurality are held together in a creative balance is made
apparent through the various but intricately connected stories of how the Philippines as
a nation came about, not to mention that the Philippines is an archipelago with more than
7,100 islands united under one national leadership and one constiution. Therefore, the
sam/isa, that is unity-in-diversity, of sambayanihan is truly manifested. What our
historical retrieval reveals also is the remarkable faith, pananampalataya, of the Filipino
people that has been deeply entrenched in their psyche that, wherever they go, they more
often than not find ways to express it, even in the most precarious situation where an
expression of Christian religious elements can cause them their lives. Their faith which
they ordinarily express through various liturgical gatherings, especially the celebration of
the Holy Eucharist, is a proof as to how samba (worship) is considered to be an important
aspect of Filipino way of life. We recall Gonzales III who has underscored “Worship informs
and enriches the ministry… Ministry is a church’s embodiment of hope.” 2587 This
pananampalataya becomes the driving force of the millions of Filipino migrants in all
corners of the globe to take risks in order to take care of their families: a testament of
heroism, which can be also seen as martyrdom, that is being an example of self-sacrificing
love for the sake of the family and loved ones, and by extension to one’s beloved nation.
Hence, the notion of bayani is deeply entrenched in the history of the Filipino people. What
488
is showcased in all these is the spirit of bayanihan that Filipinos have in each and everyone
of them wherein the idea of journeying together as co-responsible community members.
We can also argue that notion of sambayanihan has become the common thread that
held together our various elaborations on an ordinary theology that befits the Filipino
people, especially the migrants. The peculiar relationship between the loob and kapwa
which we believe is what fuels Filipino faith, pananampalataya, expressed in the utterance
of bahala na is deeply rooted in union of God and the human person out of God’s
kagandahang-loob (goodwill). Thus, there is no doubt that Filipino faith is anchored in the
idea of oneness: unity with God and unity with one another. This explains why Filipinos
are more communitarian than individualistic. We have also discovered in our academic
quest that, indeed, Filipino faith in not only evident in their love for liturgy but, most
profoundly, in their boldness or willingness to do whatever it takes, as we have already
expounded on in our narration on Filipino migration, to provide for their beloved families
as they say, bahala na. In that way, they have become heroes not only for their families
but also for their country as they pump in cash remittances to the Philippines that help
Philippine economy afloat. As an effect they become reluctant martyrs who become shining
examples of sacrifice, love and generosity. And also, wittingly or unwittingly, they become
missionaries in the countries they go to as they “fill in the empty pews” in the Western
European churches and as they communicate their faith to the people in their host
countries. Of course, their faith shines even brighter when they exhibit their bayanihan
spirit in times of need, whether in the Philippines or in their country of destination, as
they share their time, talent and treasure despite their limited resources.
Sambayanihan is also discernible even in our discussion on transcultural liturgical
inculturation because it speaks about the multiplicity of cultures and how they are
creatively blended in order to have a dynamically coherent liturgical celebration: a unity-
in-diversity which is the real essence of catholicity. Of course, there is no need to explain
how sambayanihan is related to the worship because our inculturation of liturgy is
essential about samba (worship): a worship that expresses gratitude to and oneness with
God that takes into serious consideration the context of the worshipping community. And
speaking about inculturated liturgy for Filipino migrants, we know that the symbolisms,
themes and prayers used in their liturgical celebrations reflect the pananampalataya of
the Filipino people that is characterized by a profound trust in Divine Providence
encapsulated in the utterance of bahala na which is about pagnamnam (forestate of God’s
goodness) and pagtataya (heroism or martyrdom – taking risk). We have also observed
that celebration of the Holy Eucharist and other liturgies is also an occasion for the
Filipino migrants to show solidarity with one another and to reach out to one another as
companion in a journey in the spirit of bayanihan as they pray for each other’s intention
and as they do their best to ease the burden of fellow Filipinos and other people who are
in great need of God’s mercy and generosity.
If there is one very important lesson that trans-coloniality has taught us in the
course of our research work, it is the humility to accept that the past cannot be changed
and the hopefulness that the future can be re-imagined. We can do this by understanding
history in its proper perspective: identifying what needs to be lamented, condemned and
discarded; pinpointing what can be salvaged, upheld and propagated. By so doing, a
possible brighter future can be prophesied. This trans-colonial view of history can be seen
through the prism of salvation history whereby the fallen state of God’s creation is saved
through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross that transformed a death originally meant for
criminals to an occasion to offer sacrifice as a ransom for many. Members of the
489
SAMBAYANIHAN
sambayanihan communities may not be explicitly aware of this, but every one of them
possesses in a profound way this trans-colonial outlook that, as each one shares his/her
story, allows them to be thankful to God for the blessings that they have received amidst
the challenges they have encountered along the way, such as discrimination,
marginalization, oppression, poverty and the likes. To say it succinctly: we are heirs of the
past; we are partakers of the present; we are weavers of the future. The future will be
bright if we make the most of what we have in the present.
Having said all this, we are happy that what began as a simple fascination with the
concept of trans-coloniality and a profound appreciation of the presence of the Filipino
migrant communities in western Europe, eventually developed into a full-scale advocacy
to promote cultivation of Filipino migrant BECs that we refer to as sambayanihan
communities that serve as evangelized and evangelizing communities against the
backdrop of western Europe where rapid and massive globalization, as well as profound
“eclipse of God”, is deeply felt. We hope that whatever we have talked about in this doctoral
research project will not only contribute to the ever-growing understanding of theology in
the academic world but, most especially, will be appreciated and utilized by the people on
the ground, the ordinary theologians and practitioners of Catholic faith – the Filipino
migrants in Europe – to deepen their understanding of their unique pananampalataya
and, at the same time, maximize their missionary potential in Western Europe where they
are now planted. We hope that truly they will bloom wherever they are now planted. We
believe that this is not just a dream but is already happening in the challenging yet fertile
soil of Western Europe as we have already illustrated in the conclusion of the fourth and
final chapter, the story of the Filipino Catholic Charismatic Community (FCCC) in
Brussels.
We contend, therefore, that the Filipino migrant communities in Western Europe are
on the way towards being evangelized and evangelizing members of the Catholic Church
who are spreading, in their own little but significant ways, the reign of the Kingdom of
love, justice and mercy in a dialogical, participative and co-responsible way. They are not
just exercising their duties as economic migrants whose desire is to improve the quality
of life of their respective families but are also treading the path of mission as they share
their narratives of history and theology “in their own tongues” and as they celebrate their
most cherished liturgies that expresses hybridity and globality through a creative
confluence of religious and cultural influences. Their mere presence and practice of
pananampalataya creates a space for hope vis-à-vis “the darker side of western
modernity”.2588 Indeed, to use the expression of Fernandez, their sambayanihan
communities are “burning centers” of faith with “porous borders” as they continue to reach
out to and welcome others with the hospitality and generosity of the “stranger”.
Our main purpose here in this dissertation is to present whatever the Filipino
migrants in Western Europe can contribute, but it does not mean that whatever we have
said about them is attributable only to them. Surely, as we have already mentioned earlier,
other ethnic minorities exhibit some, if not all, of the traits and phenomena that we have
identified in this doctoral work as belonging to the Filipino migrants. We just want to
affirm the positive things that the Filipino migrants can share to the world, especially in
the areas of history, theology, liturgy and ecclesiology. Thus, we would like to encourage
other academicians or theologians from what is referred to as the Global South to continue
what they are doing. And, considering the amount of literature that we have examined
2588Cf. Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity.
490
which are written by them, we know that they are also doing their part in propagating
whatever positive things that their religious migrant communities can share in the
contemporary world.
To conclude, our transdisciplinary quest in this doctoral dissertation has brought us
to an affirmation of the conceivable sustainability of a sambayanihan community in
Western Europe in an atmosphere of trans-coloniality and trans-culturality. This ecclesial
manifestation as a new way of being Church in Western Europe can be thought of as a
unity of worshiping community (The People of God) of Filipino hero-martyrs (weerloze
overmacht) in active, participative, and co-responsible journey with one another and with
other communities, aimed at building communities with liturgical (priestly),
developmental (kingly) and liberative (prophetic) thrust, gathered together because of and
sustained by a Christ-centered Trinitarian faith, and trustingly placed under the maternal
protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, within the ambit of a Catholic parish/diocese
oriented towards a universal, ecumenical and interreligious dialogue in an era marked by
unprecedented migration brought about by contemporary globalization.
If there is one song that captures the journey and the missionary potential of the
Filipino migrants, it would be the song entitled Stella Maris which was popularized by the
Bukas-Palad Music Ministry. When this song was sung during the 2017 anniversary
celebration of the El-Shaddai community in Amsterdam, Monsignor Johannes Maria
Willibrordus Hendriks, the Auxilliary Bishop of the Diocese of Haarlem, was so move by
how everyone in the congregation sang this particular song. He noted that, indeed, the
song captured the sentiments of every migrant Filipino who struggles in his/her diasporic
life but continues to share his/her faith as he/she continues to trust in Mary’s protection
as a sign of God’s mercy:
“Kung itong aming paglalayag/ Inabot ng pagkabagabag/ Nawa'y mabanaagan ka/ Hinirang
na tala ng umaga// Kahit alon man ng pangamba/ Di alintana sapagkat naro'n ka/ Ni unos ng
pighati/ At kadiliman ng gabi// KORO: Maria sa puso ninuman/ Ika'y tala ng kalangitan/
Ningning mo ay walang pagmamaliw/ Inang sinta,/ Inang ginigiliw// Tanglawan kami aming
ina/ Sa kalangitan naming pita/ Nawa'y maging hantungang Pinakamimithing kaharian//
(KORO)”2589
With Mary’s guidance and protection, Filipinos will never lose hope and will never stop
professing their faith in God. They will continue to give witness to their faith in the best
way that they can. Like the Mary of the Magnificat they will continue to express their
spirituality of subversive subservience, a Filipino way of embodying weerloze overmacht.
2589Thiscan be translated as: “If ever anxiety has come upon our voyage, we hope to have a glimpse of you
who are hailed as the star of the morning. Even the crashing waves of fearfulness will not deter us, for you
are with us: neither the tempestuous blow of anguish nor the darkness of the night. Mary who dwells in
everyone’s heart, you are the star in the heavens. Your brilliance does not fail. Dear Mother, our darling
Mother, shine on us our Mother. May we all reach our final destiny, the heaven that we all long for, the
kingdom that we most desire.” Credits to Silvino Borres, Jr., S.J. who wrote the lyrics of this song and to
Manuel Francisco, S.J. who composed the music. This was popularized by the Bukas-Palad Music Ministry.
Cf. Bukas Palad Ministry, “Stella Maris,” Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxVpIqsgVqk
491
APPENDIX 1: RESULTS OF SURVEY
Random Survey conducted in the Filipino Catholic communities of Antwerp, Brussels,

Ieper, Amsterdam, Nice, Paris, Athens and Barcelona
Number of Respondents = 77
1. a. Years in Abroad
1- 5 years 12
6-10 years 14
11-15 years 12
16-20 years 9
21-25 years 8
26 -30 years 9
31-40 years 6
b. Nature of Job
Primary sector: agriculture, fishing, mining 0
Secondary sector: construction, industry 1
Tertiary sector: service sector with the emphasis on 56
profit
Quaternary sector: service sector without the 12
emphasis on profit
Student 4
Unemployed/Job seeker 3
*Factory Worker = 1
**house keeping = 41
Babysitting: = 8
Hotel Supervisor = 1
Administration = 2
Accountant = 1
Dental Assistant = 1
Receptionist = 1
***Care giver = 6
Teaching= 6
2. a. Years of involvement in the church

1- 5 years 20
6-10 years 22
11-15 years 9
16-20 years 6
21-25 years 11
26 -30 years 3
b. Years of membership in the faith community – chaplaincy/ministry/parish

1- 5 years 23
6-10 years 20
11-15 years 11
16-20 years 5
21-25 years 8
26 -30 years 2
SAMBAYANIHAN
c. Role in the faith community

Member 35
Council member/Coordinator 13
Music Ministry 11
Collector/Lector /Lay Eucharistic 19
Minister
Catechist 9
3. a. Greatest joys in the community

Meeting fellow Filipinos Member 25
Sharing/Serving 29
Strong commitment/Dedication 11
Celebrating important events 7
Unity 6
Praying/loving and respect 15
b. Greatest frustrations in the community

Lack of commitment 13
Lack of unity 9
Gossiping 9
Lack of attendance/Tardiness 9
None 4
4. Dreams for the community

Unity in the community 23
Acceptance of individual differences 8
To actively engage in the mission 21
To be discerning community 4
To grow in number and spirit 37
To have a Filipino chaplaincy/parish 3
5. a. Personal Appraisal of the celebration of the Holy Eucharist

Give comfort and hope 3
Bring me closer to God 19
Highest form of prayer 8
Joyful 19
Solemn 13
Inspiring 11
5. b. Elements that comprise a Filipino mass

Filipino Language 30
Filipino Priest 10
Filipino Songs 15
6. Elements that make people appreciate the celebration of the mass

Good Homily 42
Witnessing 7
Lively/good songs 9
494
APPENDICES
Decoration/visual and technical tools 8

Solemn 10
Active participation 16
7. a. Positive aspects of Filipino communities in Europe

Welcoming and open to all 24
Hopeful/Comforting/loving 17
United 9
Helpful/Supportive 22
Creative/talented 4
b. Negative aspects of Filipino communities in Europe

Passivity of the members 9
Infiltration of perceived negative 4
European traits
Jealousy/competition 17
Lack of unity 13
Crab-mentality/Gossiping 10
8. Ways to maximize the positive aspects and minimize the negative aspects of the
Filipino communities
Acceptance/tolerance 17
Open-mindedness/Less judgmental 13
Helping each other 18
Strong sense of participation 7
Formation programs 16
9. Contributions of the Filipino communities to the wider community

Active involvement to the 44
Parishes/Dioceses
assistance and support to other 27
migrants
Assume leadership in society 3
10. The role of the Filipino communities in the future

To become a Model community 37
To become a missionary community 38
495
SAMBAYANIHAN
APPENDIX 2:INFORMED CONSENT
Informed Consent Form

Research Project: The Ecclesiological and Liturgical Impact of Filipino Migrant Catholic
Communities in the Western European Countries
I agree to take part in this research project of Fr. Rowan Lopez Rebustillo for the partial
fulfillment of the requirements of his doctoral study in Systematic Theology. The purpose
of this document is to lay down the conditions of my participation in this task by being
interviewed.
1. I have been sufficiently informed about this research project. The purpose of my
participation as an interviewee in this project has been explained to me and is clear.
2. My participation as an interviewee in this project is voluntary.
3. I allow the researcher to gather data based on my written responses to the questions
provided by the researcher. It is clear to me that I am free to withdraw from participation.
4. If I feel uncomfortable in any way during the interview session, I have the right to decline
to answer any question or to end the interview.
5. I understand that, if I wish so, the researcher will not identify me by name or function
in any reports using information obtained from this interview, and that my confidentiality
as a participant in this study will remain secure. In all cases subsequent uses of records
and data will be subject to standard data use policies which protect the anonymity of
individuals and institutions.
6. I have read and understood the points and statements of this form. I have had all my
questions answered to my satisfaction, and I voluntarily agree to participate in this study.
8. I have been given a copy of this consent form co-signed by the interviewer.
____________________________ ________________________
Participant’s Signature Date
____________________________ ________________________
Researcher’s Signature Date
496
APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE
QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE FILIPINO MIGRANTS

1. How long have you been working abroad? Do you have a family here? What is the
nature of your job?
2. How long have you been involved in the Church? How long have you been a member
of this chaplaincy/ministry/parish? What roles do you take in this context?
3. What are you greatest joys and frustrations as a member of this community?
4. What are you dreams for this community?
5. How do you find the celebration of the Holy Eucharist? What for you qualifies as a
Filipino mass?
6. What do you think are the things needed for people to appreciate more the celebration
of the mass?
7. What do you think are the negative and positive aspects of Filipino communities in
Europe?
8. How do you think can the Filipino communities address these “problematic
tendencies” and develop more their positive features?
9. What do you think are the things that your particular Filipino migrant community
can offer to your parish community?
10. What do you think will be the role of the Filipino migrant communities in the future?
497

Rowanlopezrebustillo-Sambayanihan-Dissertation 2018 PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Rowanlopezrebustillo-Sambayanihan-Dissertation 2018 PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

2018

S SSu uup pep ere rvr viv sii oss roo rr

FACULTY OF THEOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Status Quaestionis ...................................................................................................................................................... 1

Paunang-hasik: Some Preliminary Remarks ...........................................................................................................83

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 143

Introduction: Pakikiramdam and Pakikipagkapwa-Tao: A Story of Loob-Kapwa in the Context of Filipino

Introduction: A Preliminary Attempt to Explore the Notion of Trans-coloniality in the Context of

Introduction: Sambayanihan: A Compelling Missiological Force in Small Ecclesiological Packages: A Viable

TOWARDS A DIALOGIC, PARTICIPATIVE, CO-RESPONSIBLE CHURCH IN WESTERN

APPENDIX 1: RESULTS OF SURVEY ........................................................................................... 493

1. Written Sources and Works

_________. “Message to the Participants in the 13th Meeting of Basic Ecclesial

Pope Paul VI. Evangelii Nuntiandi, December 8, 1975,

Bruce, Steve. Secularization: In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory. Oxford: Oxford

Chauvet, Louis Marie. Symbol and Sacrament: Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian

Helvetius, Claude. De l’homm, de ses facultés intellectual, et de son education. London:

O’Halloran, Jim. Small Christian Communities: Vision and Practicalities. Dublin:

Smolarski, Dennis C. Liturgical Literacy: From Anamnesis to Worship. New York,

________. The Long Revolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961.

Brazal, Agnes M. and Emmanuel S. de Guzman. “Intercultural Church: A Challenge in

________. “To be is to be Substance-in-Relation.” In Explorations in Metaphysics: Being,

Elizondo, Virgilio. “Popular Religion as Support of Identity based on the Mexican-

Lichnerowicz, André. “Mathématique et transdisciplinarité.” In Interdisciplinarity:

Pilario, Daniel. “Back to the Rough Grounds: Locating Resistance in Times of

Tucci, Robert. “The Proper Development of Culture.” In Commentary on the Documents

Lukaszyk, Ewa. “The Brazilian Case: Towards a Paradigm of Transcolonial Studies.”

Wilson, Bryan. “Aspects of Secularization in the West.” Japanese Journal of Religious

Llenado, Ferndinand. “Developing a Contextual Theology of Postcolonial Filipino

Chammartin, Gloria Moreno. “Migration, Gender Equality and Development.”

Arevalo, Catalino, S.J. “Thoughts on Filipino Theology.” Loyola School of Theology

Bloomberg. “The 20 Fastest-Growing Economies this Year,”

Fernandez, Eleazar. “Personal Reflection.” United Theological Seminary of the Twin

Healey, Joseph. “Historical Development of the Small Christian Communities/ Basic

Lukaszyk, Ewa. “A Definition.” Transcolonial Studies, http://www.ewa-

University of Richmond, Virginia, http://integralleadershipreview.com/7518-

________. “Communion of Communities: Ecclesiological Perspectives.” CBCP News,

Rodriguez, Evelyn I. “Primerang Bituin: Philippines-Mexico Relations at the Dawn of the

Small Christian Communities in Mumbai. “Church Documents on SCCs,”

University of Colorado. The U.S. Occupation (1898-1946),

AMB Ang Mahal na Birhen

IEC International Eucharistic Congress

SOWING A FILIPINO SEED ON THE CONTEMPORARY LANDSCAPE OF

A TRANSDISCIPLINARY EXPLORATION ON A POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTION OF FILIPINO

Formation of sambayanihan (i.e., one worshipping community of hero-martyrs

The problem that is mainly addressed by this dissertation is how the

Purpose of the Study

The aim of this dissertation is simply to bring to the table of conversation -

2) Pagdadalaw-dalaw/Pagtatasa (regular immersion and reflective assessment); 3)

and Complexity,” Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science 1, no:1(2010):19.

For Basarab Nicolescu, the most prominent advocate of transdisciplinarity who

21Cf. Basarab Nicolescu, First World Congress of Transdisciplinarity, “Charter of Transdisciplinarity,”

Bulletin Interactif du Centre International de Recherches et Études transdisciplinaires 1(2000), http://ciret-

Keil, “Transdisciplinarity: Between Mainstreaming and Marginalization,” Ecological Economics 79(2012): 1,

Popescu (Iaşi: Al. I. Cuza University, 1999).

40Augsburg, “Becoming Transdisciplinary,” 235.

and Society, eds. Thompson Klein et al. (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2001), 7.

Personal embeddedness in such a transdisciplinary inquiry, for Montuori, is not

Transdisciplinarity,” Integral Leadership Review, August 2, 2012, University of Richmond, Virginia,

Centre, http://www.obesity-cancer.wustl.edu/en/About/What-Is-Transdisciplinary-Research [accessed

Scope and Limitations

Overview of the Dissertation