TOPIC: FILIPINO SOCIAL THINKERS

OBJECTIVE: EXAMINE KEY CONCEPTS AND IDEAS OF FILIPINO THINKERS IN THE

SOCIAK SCIENCES ROOTED IN FILIPINO IN FILIPINO LANGUAGE/S AND
EXPERIENCES:
a. 19th Century

1. JOSE RIZAL (REFORMIST)

*Intelligence is the solution to the ills of the country.
*Their consciousness should be freed from fanaticism, docility, inferiority, and hopelessness.
•He started La Liga Filipina with the job of enlightening the minds of the people.
•Believed in Agnostic Deism – the view that God created the universe with its law, never to
interfere with it again.
•“Human problems are irrational human creations and can be solved through rational solutions.
If reason commits mistakes, only reason can correct them.”
•“What is the use of independence if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?”

2. ANDRES BONIFACIO (REVOLUTIONIST)

•Founded Katipunan/KKK. (Kataastaasan, Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng
Bayan)
•His philosophy of revolution was published in the revolutionary newspaper, “Kalayaan”.
•Transformed the blood compact (sandugo) as a kinship contract.
•According to him, a revolution of war is justified when there is breach of contract.

3. EMILIO JACINTO (REVOLUTIONIST)

•He capitalized on the idea of a free reign of reason, of the freedom to think and do, rather than
the freedom to will and do. (Gripaldo, 2002)
•“In a colonial situation where both will and thinking are suppressed, where intellectual
fanaticism is the rule, where one’s will is conditioned to submit to tyranny, it is intellectual
liberty that comes primary.”
•Filipinos must get rid of slavery; must embrace liberty again with a price, a bloody revolution.

4. MANUEL LUIS QUEZON (POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER)

•Political pragmatism & political operation for an eventual Philippine independence
•Political Pragmatism – “one must fight for a goal but if obstacles towards that goal are difficult
to summon then one must fall back to an alternative that is better than nothing provided it’s in
the right direction.”
•Believed in Social Darwinism – governments are products of political struggles for survival.
• “Partyless Democracy” – political parties influence the politician, the people.
•Believed in the democratization of education for all, national language, and justice.
•Equal access to essential raw materials.

5. JOSE P. LAUREL (POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER)

•Individuals cannot forever remain in solitude.
•Social differences
•“Human rights cannot be guaranteed unless the citizens first do their obligations towards the
state.”
•“Good governance is founded on righteousness and foreign relations must be based on full
reciprocal rights and privileges between and among nations.”

6. RENATO CONSTANTINO (NATIONALIST)

•Colonial experience has developed a captive consciousness. An effect of this “crab mentality”.
This is the tendency to those on top of the hierarchy to push those below while those below to
pull down those up above.
•“When one makes a nationalist choice, he or she chooses not for himself or herself alone but for
the entire nation as well.”

7. R. ESQUIREL EMBUSCADO (DISSECTIONIST)

•As a painter, he believed that the task of an authentic artist is to cut the umbilical cord of the
past, to make use of the present, and to protect that present to the open future. He called this art
of “dissectionism.”
•True art must not be part-oriented, but present-future oriented.

8. CIRILO BAUTISTA (POLITICAL THEORIST)

•“Rubber Toner” – a poem
•“History can be read as a poem in the same way a poem can be read as history.”

9. CLARO R. CENTEZA (META PHYSICIAN)

•To “exist” is to “stand out.”
•To “exist” is “to make a difference.”

10. ROLANDO M. GRIPALDO (CIRCUMSTANTIA LIST)

•“free choice” - Choices are done in situations, which are of 2 broad types: rational and non-
rational.
11. ISABELO DELOS REYES (LABOR ACTIVIST/ ANTHROPOLOGIST)
•Father of Filipino Socialism
•Initiated labor strikes against American business firms
•Founded ‘El Ilocano’
•He organized the first labor union, Union Obrera Democratica Filipina
•Mother Tongue based Multilingual Education

12. TEODORO M. KALAW

•Published Cinko Reglas de Nuestra Moral Antigua

13. CAMILO OSIAS

•“TAYO” concept
•Believes that education must secure for every Filipino the fullest measure of efficiency,
freedom, and happiness

14. VICENTE SINCO, FRANCISCO DALUPAN, CONRADO AQUINO

•Liberal Education – an approach to learning that empowers individuals and repairs them to deal
with complexity, diversity, and change.
•Sinco envisioned the need for well-trained teachers as one of the essential factors to improve the
quality of the educational program in schools.
•Aquino also stressed that those responsible for the education of the citizens must also educate
them in the fullness of their rational nature.

ACTIVITY:
Using a separate sheet of paper, choose 5 among the Filipino Social Thinkers and explain their
contributions in our society.