When I write and talk about Philippine folk psychology, most of the ideas I share have actually been explored before. Concepts like “Kapwa,” “Kalooban,” and “Hiya” are just ordinary things we say, but when we get to sit down and reflect on them, they have deeper philosophical implications. Even if these are commonsense to us, it’s still very exciting because, in our everyday lives, we don’t usually stop and think about things. Which is why I find it very, very weird when some people make the claim that they “discovered” certain things first—it’s like Ferdinand Magellan “discovering” the Philippines!
My View of Research
As a Filipino born, raised, and living in the Philippines, the research I do feels very much like connecting the dots: from one ethnolinguistic concept to another, to some psychological theory I learned in school, to a belief from folklore that I grew up with, and so on. When I read Filipiniana ethnographies and philosophical reflections, I feel that I am in conversation with people living and past, local and global. I would say that the task of the researcher today—or culture worker, or documentarian, or journalist—is to participate in this larger conversation.
In any conversation, it’s not good manners to claim that we said things we didn’t, or to ignore what’s already being said around the table. Imagine if we were having a lunch gathering, and we were already in the heat of fantastic discourse, and someone comes into the party late, bringing with them ideas that have already been expressed around the table by saying, “Why aren’t people talking about this?” Being late isn’t the issue here; it’s that they didn’t listen first!
As an educator and researcher, but mainly as an advocate of free and liberating thinking, I detest plagiarism, and, by extension, materials created through machines that turn plagiarized sources into a Frankenstein’s monster of hallucinated slop. Slapping one’s own name over another’s hard work and/or lacking the humility to be aware of existing discourse in one’s field of interest are both forms of intellectual colonialism, which tend to commodify knowledge as distinct “products.” It lacks the care and intentionality of a truly meaningful and perennially relevant work. This is what I’ve learned, having encountered some people who take parts of my research and design work without permission, some who outright impersonate me,1 and some who have accused me of not citing them properly… even though they haven’t actually been participating in the conversation!
“Owning” Indigenous Concepts
Like I said, the concepts we talk about in indigenous or folk psychology are just everyday concepts. Ordinary Filipinos should be able to recognize them instantly as an idea passed on through generations—“Kuwento/turo ng matatanda.”2 This is why I find it very weird (and, again, somewhat colonial) when some claim that they were the first to ever talk about or reflect on an indigenous concept! Suddenly, culturally shared ideas are treated like possessions and commodities. It’s like someone trademarking the concept of “Kapwa,” which is just absurd—and by law, you can’t really do.3
For researchers such as myself, the most we can claim ownership on is our particular way of thinking and the way we say things, expressed in materials such as books, essays, courses, and social media posts. I will say that doing research is absolutely a kind of labor, and researchers (especially in developing nations such as ours) deserve to be well-compensated.4
Let me give two stories from my personal experience that best exemplify some encounters I’ve had with regard to the “ownership” of ideas.
Story 1
I once wrote about the prefix “Ka” in Filipino language, pointing out that it often represents relationships (e.g. kapatid, kasama, kalaro, etc). Now if you look at the baybayin symbol for Ka, it is two wavy lines connected by a line. A wavy line by itself is “Ha,” which looks like it can represent hangin or hininga, which is the soul—when a person passes away, we say, “Kinuha ang kaniyang hininga.”5
In the sharing I made, I made sure to properly reference the person I first heard it from: Dr. Teresita Obusan. Weirdly, someone I didn’t know commented on it, claiming that this was their idea, dating back to some workshop they gave a decade ago. They insisted that I was, somehow, stealing this concept from them. I asked them for any evidence of their work, and they said it was private—for their clients only. In that case, how could I have taken from something that was never publicly shared?
Granted, this “Ka” thing is a novel and interesting idea, even for me, when I first read about it, but I never claimed that it was mine—I often cite Dr. Obusan. Besides, she wasn’t even the first person to talk about the philosophy of Ka, or about the mystical symbolism of baybayin! Fr. Leonardo Mercado had already talked about this in the 1970s, and, all the way back to the Spanish colonial era, some Ilustrados were already playing around with the possible meanings of baybayin symbolism.
When we’re faced with the same timeless themes, it’s likely that someone had already said something about it. Maybe we can first do a little bit of research to see whether it’s been discussed before—and then we can build on that. In this way, we aren’t merely rehashing old discourse, but actually engaging with it.
There is definitely a way to discuss indigenous concepts and worldviews in a collaborative sense, rather than in a possessive, gatekeep-y sense, which is the theme of the next story.
Story 2
A few years ago, I was doing research on an indigenous worldview that places our Kaluluwa (soul) within Kapwa (shared identity), within the larger Kalikasan (nature). I was actually following the work of Fr. Jaime Bulatao and Dr. Kristine Meneses, who talked about how the everyday Filipino is always in contact with unseen forces, like spirits, and how treating them like Kapwa can help promote cultural diversity, biodiversity, and holistic wellbeing.
Around the same time that I had published this research in an academic journal, I learned that my colleagues from Magis Creative Spaces, who had been working with Indigenous communities via the Cartwheel Foundation, had also come up with a very similar framework through their immersion! Of course, it was not exactly alike, but it followed the same general structure. We didn’t insist on who “discovered” it first—rather, we just worked together to build a workshop for a program by The Arts and Health Institute (TAHI), based on this idea. I felt that there was mutual respect and collaboration between us, and I truly enjoy every time we get to work together, as we so often see eye-to-eye.
See, we developed this framework independently from each other, yet we ended up constructing very similar structures. That’s because we’re only giving a shape to something that has always been with us: our collective cultural worldview. We are working with the same material, the same people, the same context. Since we think alike, we ended up in the same place.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Obviously, I don’t know everything. That’s why I’m more comfortable calling myself a “researcher”: I search for knowledge, and then search again to make sure I’ve understood something well. There have been many times in my work where I thought I’ve stumbled upon something remarkably original, and then I read something from decades ago and see that it’s already been discussed. In fact, I see many discourses today revisit the same themes and criticisms that indigenous scholars in the 1970s had already answered. I suppose that human concerns are concerns for every generation, and, in contrast to the Western idea of linear progress, maybe our knowledge is more of a cycle—we learn, get stuck in convention, get conditioned, challenge ideas, unlearn, learn again, and the cycle continues.
As researchers and culture bearers, we are all part of the same dance, gathering around the same table, tending to the same garden. It is much better to work and play together, rather than just collect ideas only to display them like lifeless trophies. I have always seen that this greater field, as it flourishes today, is an ecology of ideas, rather than the movement of a few “great thinkers.” The flowers that bloom in the garden aren’t blooming by themselves; the soil had to be fertile, the climate had to be right, and the weeds had to be removed. The researcher is a gardener.
Quick Resource Guide
🌞 Here are the archives of my essays for Lifestyle Inquirer, my published academic papers, and my recorded public lectures. All of these can be accessed freely.
📖 You can now pre-order my upcoming book, Sikodiwa: Revisiting Filipino Indigenous Wisdom for Personal and Shared Wellbeing (North Atlantic Books, 2025)!
❤️🔥 For bonus material, including monthly meditations, notes on Philippine folklore, and unreleased videos, music, and designs, you can subscribe to my Patreon.
There was a time when I was alerted of an account on Instagram posing as me, having also reposted many of my designs. They were messaging their followers, offering tarot reading services for a fee. They claim to have been drawn to their energy. It’s a ridiculous scam. The funny thing is that I do actually know how to read tarot, and I’ve read for others too, but I haven’t done that in a while, and it’s also not the theme of my current work. If you’re interested, I did actually publish an article on tarot reading in the Diliman Review, which you can read online.
Translation: “Stories/teachings of elders.”
Section 175 of the Intellectual Property Code states that “no protection shall extend, under this law, to any idea, procedure, system method or operation, concept, principle, discovery or mere data as such, even if they are expressed, explained, illustrated or embodied in a work; news of the day and other miscellaneous facts having the character of mere items of press information; or any official text of a legislative, administrative or legal nature, as well as any official translation thereof.” Read more via the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines.
Researchers—both in the natural and social sciences—struggle for financial and political support in the Philippines, where policy-makers often prioritize business interests, at the cost of careful planning. But this deserves its own post.
Translation: “Their breath was taken.”