CHAPTER 4

THE FILIPINO CHARACTER:

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
J U N E L C E RVA N T E S
• In 1998 Senator Leticia Shahani submitted to the Senate this Report
titled "A Moral Recovery Program: Building a People, Building
Nation".

The strengths of the Filipino character are:

1) pakikipagkapwa-tao,
2) family orientation,
3) joy and humor,
4) fexibility, adaptability and creativity,
5) hard work and industry,
6) faith and religiosity and
7) ability to survive.
• The Weaknessess of the Filipino character are:
1) extreme family centeredness,
2) extreme personalism,
3) lack of discipline,
4) passivity and lack of initiative,
5) colonial mentality,
6) kanya-kanya syndrome, talangka mentality,
7) lack of self-analysis and self- reflection, and
8) emphasis on porma rather than substance.
There is so much good in the Filipino but so much needs to be
changed, too. Shahani's report ( 1988) explains that family
orientation becomes in-group orientation that prevents us from
reaching out beyond the family to the larger community and the
nation. In our personalism, we are warm and caring but this
leads us to lack of objectivity. We are concerned with people we
know but unfair to people we don't know. In our flexibility, we
compromise precision and discipline.
We are a joyful people with a sense of humor but we can't take
things with humor all the time for serious problems need serious
analysis. Our faith in God is our source of strength but this
makes us dependent on forces outside us, do nothing that makes
us submissive to God's will. We are good at pakikipagkapwa-tao
and so we can easily empathize but we can at the same time be
envious of others. We can be hardworking and yet can be lazy
and passive in the workplace.
 VALUES EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS

Senator Shahani's Report was given in 1988. But its findings as

reported may still be true today. The Department of Education
has as its vision to help develop. "Filipinos who passionately
love their country and whose values and competencies enable
them to realize their full potential and contribute meaningfully
to building the nation." It has as its core values - maka-Diyos,
maka- tao, makakalikasan and makabansa.