Towards Kapwa

Originally titled "The Sikodiwa Manifesto" (2023)

This was first published as The Sikodiwa Manifesto on March 1, 2023. It has been slightly edited to reflect more current perspectives.

It begins with the self and the illusion that the individual is separate from the world. It comes down to the most basic assumption about the universe: that it is only material, that the vibrance and nuance of life are products of mysterious but predictable mechanical processes. In this view, time is linear and the self is limited to the body. This assumption influences social dynamics: if one believes oneself to be fundamentally separate from the universe, then it is also true that one is separate from other people. “Civilization” has come to mean competition and dominance. Man’s goal has become to reach higher and higher, to “rise above all the rest.” The highest self, in this sense, refers to the fulfillment of one’s own potential, removed from one’s social context. Due to this, the individual has become so alienated from nature and other people. They have forgotten their role in history. This causes an overwhelming boredom with the world, a lack of meaning or purpose in life. This, however, points to an important truth in the nature of being human: one cannot find meaning in the world, if one sees oneself as separate from it.

Intuitive Indigenous Insight

The intuitive human tendency to be one with others is present in the Filipino indigenous worldview.¹ The Filipino personality, katauhan, is the full essence of their humanity. One’s inner self, loob, reaches out to others, and can only be recognized by its actions with kapwa, the collective. Foreigners have translated kapwa as “other people,” thereby alienating the self from the collective when in fact kapwa more accurately reflects one’s belongingness in the context of a shared identity. The highest level of kapwa is pakikiisa—that is, sharing the struggle (pakikibaka), becoming one (isa) with others. The goal of any collective effort is ginhawa, a stable and spacious peace built on community. 

One’s relationship with the world goes beyond other people. Various Filipino folk beliefs imply the existence of a spirit world, not as a separate space but as something that is integrated in this reality. The objects of nature have spirits, and these entities can have tangible manifestations. When a person dies, their spirit goes into nature, and eventually becomes a nature spirit. Thus it can be said that the Filipino’s relationship with the environment is spiritual, shaped by fear for the consequences of disrespecting invisible forces as well as by respect for their beauty and power. It can be seen therefore, that recovering the intuitive truths of the Filipino psyche may allow for a deeper relationship with the world beyond the self. One is not distinct from the world; one is a product of the world, born into the context of a shared humanity.

The Dangers of Ibang-tao

Others Defining Us

There is some danger in the form of ibang-tao (strangers) trying to colonize others due to their own sense of competitive individuality. Strangers may insist on their own interpretation regarding broad Filipino experiences, perhaps even claiming ownership on indigenous terms. Foreign researchers have often interpreted Filipino concepts through a colonial lens, distorting their meaning to suit their purposes and give them an excuse to “educate” the “primitives,” thereby erasing culture and forcing an alien perspective. This attitude persists until today, whenever we continue let others define who we are, and whenever we follow foreign standards instead of our own, despite the unwieldiness of most foreign systems in our climate. We must begin to listen to our own intuition and celebrate each other, using our own standards.

Others Representing Us

Some of us have also become ibang tao to our own culture in that they insist on an idealized (that is, romanticized and so often exoticized) sense of “Filipino-ness.” They are often coming from a surface-level form of nationalism where communicating in Filipino might only mean speaking in “pure” Tagalog, wearing indigenous patterns (without necessarily knowing what they mean, or being in contact with particular ethnolinguistic cultures), and writing in the ancient scripts. This perspective tends to be tokenistic in that it only picks and chooses what is and is not “Filipino”; it is appropriative in that it represents aesthetics that are not always fully understood by the merchant and wearer; it is Manila-centric in that it privileges the experience of the urbanized, Westernized, and affluent; and it removes the Philippines from the context of a global community. Knowing Philippine languages does not guarantee a Filipino spirit, in the very same way that the colonizers learned our languages in order to better indoctrinate us. Of course, returning to one’s native language is a fantastic way to (re-)access one’s indigenous psychology, but we can use any language that helps us be understood. English, for example, can be just as effective of a communication tool to reach Filipinos across the world and introduce Filipino concepts to non-Filipinos. What matters, then, is that we are not merely wearing costumes of culture—it is better to become culture, to be culture regardless of outfit.

Who are we?

Another surface-level danger is romanticizing (and so often exoticizing) a monolithic idea of pre-colonial ancestors, perceiving them as ascended masters. While it is important to recover the indigenous attitudes and customs before the influence of colonizers, this tendency can sometimes be a way to escape the issues plaguing the Filipino today. They were human too, and any student of history knows that like us they were gullible and scheming, yet also wise and warm. If one were to truly learn more about the indigenous perspective, one need only speak to fellow Filipinos. Today, the babaylan still sings to the mountains and the folk healer still harnesses the powers of nature. The Filipino folk Christian has done what Filipinos have historically done with food—take foreign influences and give it a uniquely Filipino flavor. The pre-colonial ancestor is not Filipino—as Nick Joaquin said, they are anything but. We are only “Filipino” because of our participation in history. Our collective identity is persistence, revolution, and adaptation—in a word, transformation. We have become Filipino, we have claimed this name for ourselves, and we have given it our own meaning. One is in danger of being ibang-tao when one removes oneself from a historical and social context, and anyone who forces a perspective removed from the facts of history or the real experience of the Filipino may also be coming from the alienated ibang-tao worldview.

The Filipino is Worth Living For

In the end, it is not about a “return” to ancient lifestyles, which is actually just a form of regression. It is important, rather, to listen to the whisper of intuition, which has always been present. We can start by identifying the roots of everyday inconvenience, which are often manifestations of systemic flaws, usually leftovers from colonial history. Indigenous knowledge has the potential to enrich one’s life, but it is not limited to the enhancement of the self—it is also about finding oneself in the world. If, then, one were to truly live out the principles of these ideas, it ought to be in the service of the needs of our Kapwa today.

1. No doubt it is also present in other indigenous worldviews, but being that I am Filipino, this is the perspective inherent in my upbringing—for example, we can find parallels between the Filipino “kapwa” and the African “ubuntu.”