[This paper is the third revised version (2013). It was originally presented in a philosophical conference in Athens, Greece on 6 June 2006, Athens Institute of Education and Research. It was first published as Chapter 28 in The philosophical landscape. Third edition. Edited by Rolando M. Gripaldo. Manila: Philippine National Philosophical Research Society, 2007. Other editions appeared in Philosophia: International Journal of Philosophy 36/8 (1): January 2007 and in The making of a Filipino philosopher and other essays. [A collection of Gripaldo's essays.] Chapter 2. Mandaluyong City: National Book Store, 2009.] FILIPINO PHILOSOPHY: A WESTERN TRADITION IN AN EASTERN SETTING 1 Rolando M. Gripaldo, Ph.D. 2 In tracing historically the development of Filipino philosophy as traditionally conceived, the author discovered that the early Filipino philosophers were Enlightenment thinkers. This was the direct consequence of the Filipino colonial experience and the explanation why the trajectory of Filipino philosophy is basically Western in orientation. INTRODUCTION Filipino historical experience gives birth to Filipino philosophy. Colonially governed by Spain for over three centuries, by the United States for half a century, and by Japan for about half a decade, the Filipinos towards the last decade of the nineteenth century began to absorb the Enlightenment ideas that came from Europe. These ideas helped trigger the 1896 Philippine Revolut ion against Spain. The opening of the Suez Canal reduced travel from Europe to the Philippines from about six months to only a litt le over one month, or to be exact, to only thirty-three days. Spanish Enlightenment moved slowly in Spain, but in the first half of the nineteenth century, Krausism spread. Krause was a minor Kant ian who wanted Spain to be progressive.3 In the second half of the nineteenth century, a number of Filipinos went to Spain to study. One of them, Jose Rizal, had a polit ical agenda to unite the Filipino expatriates in Spain and seek reforms for the nat ive country. 4 While studying medicine in Madrid, Rizal read a lot and was familiar with the ideas of Voltaire and other Enlightenment thinkers. Meanwhile, the Filipino intellectuals who remained in the Philippines read about the Philippine situat ion part icularly through the works of Rizal- his two novels-Noli me tangere and El filibusterismo-that depicted the sad state of the Philippines, his polit ical essays, and his annotations of Antonio Morga's history of the Philippines. They also read about the Spanish Revolut ion; the French Revolut ion and its ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity; and the lives of the American presidents, among others. 8 ENLIGTENMENT IDEAS The seventeenth century is tradit ionally described as the Age of Reason, the nineteenth century as the Age of Ideology while the eighteenth century as the Age of Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment (Berlin 1956) included such thinkers as John Locke, Voltaire, George Berkeley, David Hume, Thomas Reid, Condillac, La Mettrie, Johann Hamann, and Georg Lichtenberg. The Age of Enlightenment stresses the dominance of reason; contractual agreements; inevitability of progress; deist ic, humanist ic, or mechanist ic religious persuasions; reliance on human effort to solve human problems; human rights; educat ion as an instrument to progress; and the like. It was also the period of scient ific pursuits and progress (the age of Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton), and the period of economic theorizing (the age of Adam Smith, the Physiocrats, and Malthus). The early Filipino thinkers-the reformists (like Jose Rizal) and the revolut ionists (like Bonifacio and Jacinto)-were Enlightenment thinkers. FILIPINO ENLIGHTENMENT Jose Rizal: Reformist The alternat ive to a failed struggle for reforms in Spain, according to Rizal, is to work on the consciousness of the people in the nat ive land itself. He wrote Marcelo H. del Pilar, the editor of the Filipino mouthpiece in Spain, La solidaridad, that he knew now the solution to the ills of the country: it is through intelligence, through reason, that the Filipino people should work with. Their consciousness should be freed from fanat icism, docility, inferiority, and hopelessness. Since nothing can be gained from formal educat ion, which the Spanish friars controlled, Rizal thought that an informal organizat ion, La Liga Filipina, should do the job of enlightening the minds of the people. Its goals were to unite the ent ire archipelago, develop agriculture and commerce, mutual protection in t imes of danger and need, defense against violence and injust ice, and development of genuine educat ion. Rizal believed in the human capability to solve human problems. Human potent ialit ies can be realized to the full except that in certain instances, there are hindrances. The greatest hindrance in the Philippine situat ion was Spanish colonizat ion. It is important to work within such a colonial situat ion in what is now known in contemporary polit ical thought as the development of a civil society. A civil society (McLean 2001) lies between the family and the state, and it attempts to fulfill needs of a community with or without the help of the state through solidarity (unity in purpose) and subsidiarit y (cooperation to accomplish basic community goals). Religiously, Rizal believed in agnost ic deism (see Gripaldo 2009a,33-56), the view that God created the universe with its laws, never to interfere with it again. We know God, according to Rizal, both through nature (the hard deism of Voltaire) and our conscience (the soft deism of Rousseau), but we do not know exact ly 9 what his attributes are. Human problems are irrat ional human creat ions and can be solved though rat ional solut ions. If reason commits mistakes, only reason can correct them. A revolut ion to succeed must have military leaders, sufficient funding, sufficient arms and ammunit ion, sufficient numbers, and a proper polit ical orientat ion. Otherwise, it will only be a massacre and innocent lives, women, and children will perish in the struggle. Rizal prefers first the people's experience in human basic freedoms or in basic democrat ic rights before the grant of independence. A nat ion can be independent without being free or free without being independent. He once said: "What is the use of independence if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?" He was well aware of some independent states of Lat in America, which remained despotic despite having gained independence from their colonizers through bloody means. Falsely accused of foment ing the 1896 Philippine Revolut ion, Rizal was eventually executed in Bagumbayan in December 1896. While in prison in Fort Santiago, he learned about the successes of the revolut ion in nearby Cavite province. In a desperate situat ion where the revolut ion he originally spurned was succeeding in certain parts of the nat ion, Rizal could only hope for its success, and in his last poem, Mi ultimo adios, he appeared to support it: "I see t ints in the sky begin to show / And at last announce the day" and "Pray too [Fatherland] that you may see your own redemption." Andres Bonifacio: Revolutionist Bonifacio is the founder of the revolut ionary society, Katipunan. When Spanish authorit ies discovered it, it ably recruited some 30,000 members in a period of approximately six months. Three days after the founding of La Liga Filipina, Rizal was banished to Dapitan in Mindanao, the southern part of the Philippines. Bonifacio, a member of the Liga, thought that was the end of the line and founded the Katipunan. Bonifacio's philosophy of revolut ion was published in the revolut ionary newspaper, Kalayaan (literally, "Freedom"). Agoncillo (1956,12) attributed the phenomenal increase of Katipunan membership to the disseminat ion of the revolut ionary ideas in Kalayaan as the "power of the written word." Making use of the Enlightenment idea of a contract, Bonifacio (1963) transformed the blood compact between the Spanish explorer, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, and Sikatuna, the chieftain of the island of Bohol, in central Philippines, as a kinship contract. The blood compact, Sanduguan, consisted in mixing in a vessel drops of blood taken from the wrists of at least two individuals and drank by both of them. It signifies the union of the two as blood brothers. It means a contractual agreement of helping each other in their needs and development. While the social contract to set up a government by the people is based on societal needs to provide them security in their lives and properties, the blood contract refers to kinship t ies and is more basic than the societal 10 contract. A betrayal of the blood contract has depth in significance in that it is a betrayal of a brother against another brother. A revolut ion or war is just ified, according to Bonifacio, when there is a breach of contract. The nat ives of the Philippine archipelago were economically prosperous, free, and happy prior to Spanish colonizat ion. It was-in a relat ive sense-a paradise. While the nat ives did their part of the contract-by building Spanish ships, manning them, fight ing their wars, and constructing their forts and churches-the Spaniards failed miserably on their part of the contract. They transformed the nat ives into docile religious fanat ics and debased them-without human and polit ical rights. They exploited the nat ives through forced labor and through buying nat ive products at low government prices. They paraded their riches while the nat ives wallowed in abject poverty. Only few nat ives benefited from the colonizers' greed. For Bonifacio, such a breach of contract required a violent upheaval. A revolut ion was just ified to restore the lost paradise. Emilio Jacinto: Revolutionist Jacinto (Gripaldo 2002) capitalized on the Enlightenment idea of a free reign of reason, of the freedom to think and do (i.e., intellectual liberty) rather than the freedom to will and do (l.e., volit ional liberty). He apparent ly believed that the issue on which comes first, the freedom to think and do or the freedom to will and do, is highly situat ional. In a colonial situat ion where both will and thinking are suppressed, where intellectual fanat icism is the rule, where one's will is condit ioned to submit to tyranny, it is intellectual liberty that becomes primary. The freedom to think and do is a rebellion against a tyrannized will. In such a debased situat ion, there is no will to think freely, there is only a leap to exercise the freedom to think (intellectual freedom). One should be able to think through his situat ion clearly before he can will anything significant at all. Prior to Spanish colonizat ion, the nat ives were autonomous agents and in democrat ic barangays or communit ies, they exercised this freedom to think.5 They also had the freedom of expression to a certain degree. All these were gone when the Spaniards ruled over the nat ives. Jacinto was committed to the ideals of the French Revolut ion: liberty, equality, and fraternity. In his philosophy of revolut ion, which was published in Kalayaan, Jacinto (1897) had Liberty telling the Filipino youth who consulted her that the medical cure of the ills of his brethren is to embrace her again with a price, a bloody revolut ion. They must get rid of Slavery (Spanish colonizat ion) who came to them with the mask of friendship, prosperity, civilizat ion, and the like. They embraced Slavery and forgot all about her, Liberty. AMERICAN AND JAPANESE COLONIAL INTERLUDES The explosion and sinking of the American warship, Maine, in a harbor of another Spanish colony, Cuba, provided the reason for the United States to 11 intervene in the revolut ionary situat ion of the Philippines. What began as an American friendly intervent ion in the Philippine revolut ion against Spain turned into the suspicion by Filipino leaders that America, under the Republicans, had no intent ion of leaving the country. A misunderstanding of a military command to halt by an American sentry led to the shooting of three Filipino revolut ionists, and the incident became the American excuse for waging a war against the Filipinos. As expected in this Philippine-American War, after leaving behind several thousand American soldiers and Filipinos dead or wounded,6 the Filipino military eventually succumbed to American superior military might. Manuel Luis Quezon: Political Philosopher Quezon fought against the Americans in the Philippine-American War. But the surrender of Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo to the Americans signified, for Quezon, the end of the military struggle for independence. The fight for freedom, Quezon believed, should now shift through peaceful means in the U.S. Congress. By defeat ing the Federalista Party whose plat form was to make the Philippines a state of the United States, the Nacionalista Party whose plat form was "immediate, complete, and absolute independence," sent Quezon to the U.S. Congress to fight for independence. The United States, in the Cooper Law of 1902, allowed two Filipino resident commissioners to represent Philippine interests in the U.S. Congress. They could discuss and debate on Philippine issues in the Lower House and they could influence the Upper House (the U.S. Senate), although they could not vote. Quezon's polit ical philosophy consists of two strands: polit ical pragmatism and polit ical preparat ion for an eventual Philippine independence. Political pragmatism is the principle, which says that one must fight for a goal, but if obstacles towards that goal are difficult to surmount, then one must fall back to an alternat ive that is better than nothing provided it is in the right direct ion. Quezon realized it was difficult to obtain from Congress an immediate and complete independence because Democrat ic President Woodrow Wilson, whom Quezon thought would be different from Republican presidents, would not allow it . So he persuaded Congressman William Jones to author a bill, which would promise Philippine independence as soon as a stable government in the Philippines could be obtained. Erving Winslow, the secretary of the American Ant i-Imperialist League, persuaded Senator James Clarke to author an amendment in the Jones bill that would make the Philippines independent in four years. Quezon supported and fought for it s passage, but the Clarke amendment was defeated in the Senate by one vote. The Jones Bill of 1916 eventually became a law. Unfortunately, the president of the Nacionalista Party, Sergio Osmeña, mishandled his influence in running the government (which Democrat ic Governor General Francis B. Harrison rapidly Filipinized) by polit ical patronage and corruption. By the end of President Wilson's second term, the Philippine government was in near-bankruptcy and the stable government was 12 nowhere in sight. The Republican administration that succeeded President Wilson nixed the independence issue. This incident led to the split between Osmeña and Quezon whom the latter won. As head now of the Party and the Philippine Congress, Quezon began the second strand of his polit ical philosophy: the preparation for an eventual Philippine independence. A new round of peaceful struggle for independence in the U.S. Congress led to the passage of the Hare-Hawes Cutting Act creat ing the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935 and making the Philippines independent in 1945, but the Philippine Congress rejected it . Quezon wanted the military provision therein that leaves to the U.S. President the decision to retain or not the U.S. military bases and installat ions in the Philippines revised. President Franklin D. Roosevelt later acceded and this led to the passage of the TydingsMcDuffie Act. The Philippines would decide after independence whether to retain or not the American bases in the country. 7 Elected as the Commonwealth president in 1935, Quezon now buttressed his polit ical ideas with some educat ional and social thought. He believed in Social Darwinism-that governments are products of polit ical struggles for survival. He viewed polit ical part ies as necessary only when they have compet ing plat forms of government because the part isanship is clear-cut. But he opposed polit ical part ies whose programs of government are not different from the party in power but whose existence is premised simply in crit icizing the government in order to grab power. If polit ical part ies have no dist inct ive polit ical programs, then a partyless democracy may be necessary. He supported the American democrat izat ion of educat ion for all social classes by constructing more classrooms and hiring more teachers, and by guaranteeing free public educat ion from the elementary to high school. He believed in the development of a nat ional language that would be spoken by all. He also believed that the aims of education must be good cit izenship and preparat ion for livelihood; that the foremost duty of the cit izen in t imes of peace is to pay his taxes and in t imes of war, to fight for the survival of the nat ion. He envisioned a government with distribut ive just ice, which means that the bourgeois desire for wealth must be tempered by the social ameliorat ion of the working class through government intervent ion in terms of legal measures and economic regulat ions whenever necessary. He honest ly sought a code of ethics to strengthen the character not only of cit izens but also of government employees. He believed in just ice for all, a social just ice that would allow the working class to receive decent compensation to enjoy culture and leisure. His social just ice program included higher wages, credit facilit ies that would allow the Filipinos the opportunity to earn a decent livelihood, and the protection of the rights of women and the poor, among others. He believed that inequity of the distribut ion of wealth among nat ions should be corrected so that every nat ion was permitted to have equal access to essent ial raw materials, which certain countries had monopolized, and world trade- controlled by few nat ions-would be allowed to take its natural course. 13 Knowing that such a new world economic order was not yet forthcoming, he advised the youth to prepare for nat ional defense. A nat ional defense for the Philippines during the Commonwealth Period would assume a defensive nature under the umbrella of the military might of the United States, which would assume the offensive stature. Quezon thought that a country would invade another country only for economic gain so he envisioned to train some twelve divisions of soldiers, which would make it so costly for an invader to undertake in terms of human and material resources. At the time, Quezon developed a defensive air force and also a skeletal defensive navy. He believed that even after independence in 1946 the defensive nature of the Philippine military must be maintained and strengthened. A military treaty with the United States could be obtained to guarantee the external security of the country. Jose P. Laurel: Political Philosopher Individuals, according to Laurel, cannot forever remain in solitude. No man can be an island unto himself. What throws individuals into a social cohesion is this psychological "fear of solitude." Although a person is gregarious and cannot live without others, he or she realizes it is not likewise easy to live with each other. They have personal differences (in terms of temperaments, ideas, and ideals) and social idiosyncrasies. There is this constant personal attraction and a tolerant social repulsion, a love-hate relat ionship. I love my neighbor but I also hate my neighbor. What goes among individuals goes likewise among nat ions. Japan wanted isolat ionism, but military and economic survival required that it should circulate itself among other nat ions. Its massive industrializat ion necessitated a constant supply of raw materials and greater trade within a larger area. A Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (Gordon 2000) was needed. To ensure such a success, a cost ly military adventurism far exceeded the expectat ions of the Brit ish, French, and American colonial masters of Asia, and even the gain-loss equat ion of Quezon. It may be cost ly to invade the Philippines, but the economic gain far outweighs the cost in terms of the long-term East Asia Co-Prosperity scheme. When Japan bombed Pear l Harbor, the die was cast. Quezon decided that Laurel should stay in the Philippines to help Jorge Vargas, the mayor of Manila, welcome the Japanese, who entered the Philippines through Northern Luzon in Aparri and Vigan, and Southern Luzon in Legaspi, by making Manila an open city. Quezon himself would head the Commonwealth-government-in-exile in the United States. Laurel as a lawyer earlier helped Japanese businessmen open up agricultural lands in Mindanao. He also received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Tokyo. These Japanese connect ions enabled the Japanese to gain confidence in Laurel who later became the President of the Japanese-sponsored Philippine 14 Republic. After the war, Laurel while in Sugamo prison in Japan wrote his memoirs and some of his moral and polit ical ideas. Laurel believed that the love-hate relat ionship necessitates some rules of ethical behavior for individuals in the form of laws, customs, and tradit ions, and for nat ions, in the form of treaties and execut ive agreements. The law different iates between what is legally good or evil and between what is legally just or unjust. The people's support of their government would ideally entail their protection from injust ice. Abolish laws and everything would fall into confusion. The law is the boundary between the government prerogat ive and the people's liberty. If the government prerogative prevails over the people's liberty, then tyranny reigns while if the people's liberty prevails over the government prerogative, then anarchy emerges. The required balance between liberty and authority should be achieved through the educat ion and discipline of the cit izenry, including those who are running the government. Democracy means the representative type of republicanism where the people are considered sovereign. The people do not direct ly govern but delegate their power through their representatives. The state exists for the individual and the funct ions of government are to provide the people with livelihood and health, social just ice, free educat ion up to a certain level, and economic opportunity. Human rights cannot be guaranteed unless the cit izens first do their obligat ions towards the state by honest ly paying their taxes, obeying the laws and regulat ions, sincerely performing the duties of professionals and public servants, and not tolerat ing the infringement of laws by others. Laurel believed that good governance is founded on righteousness and foreign relat ions must be based on full reciprocal rights and privileges between and among nat ions. Laurel's main funct ion as president of the Japanese-sponsored republic was to cushion the impact of hunger and Japanese atrocit ies on the Filipino people. He provided rolling kitchens to feed the people, and surrept it iously supported the guerilla struggles against the Japanese forces. When the Japanese Imperial Army told him to conscript Filipinos to fight the war against the Americans, Laurel politely refused. Agoncillo (1965, 378) cites an elderly man who said that Laurel did his job well as president of the republic. Not everyone should be in the mountains to fight as a guerilla. Someone should stay in government to minimize the hardships experienced by the people during the war. POST-COLONIAL PERIOD A number of Filipino thinkers after independence in 1946 believed that the Philippines had remained a colony-a neocolony-of the United States. We have Claro M. Recto, Jose Ma. Sison, Lorenzo Tañada, and Renato Constant ino, among others. They called for an independent economic and foreign policy. They were the left and the left-leaning nat ionalists who 15 wanted the Filipinos to cut their umbilical cord, so to speak, from their colonial past, that is, get rid of their colonial hangover. For lack of space, I will only discuss the nat ionalist philosophy of Renato Constant ino. Renato Constantino: Nationalist Constant ino (1966, 1970, 1978, and 1979) argued that Filipino colonial experience has developed a captive consciousness in that it was shaped and tailored to the needs of the colonizers. It is a colonial consciousness-a consciousness of inferiority or an indiscriminat ing attitude to favor foreign products in all sorts of things (foreign academic degrees, imported consumer products, foreign designs, etc.) against local ones. An effect of this type of consciousness is crab mentality or the tendency-as crabs do in a basket-for those on top of the hierarchy to push those down below while those below to pull down those up above, and the net effect of this tendency is that there is a very slow progress to go up for all of them. What is needed is a counterconsciousness in terms of nat ionalism. Nat ionalism is defined as an expression of reality that "we have a country of our own, which must be kept our own." Its economic expression is industrializat ion with the desire to consciously "control the management of [its own] resources." Aid and cooperation of its technologically more advanced sister-nat ions may be accepted, but it must insist on "full control of it s economic dest iny." Its political expression is independence or the "freedom to plan and work out Filipino nat ional goals without outside interference with the nat ional interest in mind. And its cultural expression is the development of a culture rooted in Filipino heritage and, though admitt ing of foreign influences, "retains its dist inct and separate ident ity." The neocolonial status is one where foreign corporations control the nat ional economy while the government implements mendicant policies based on mistaken priorit ies that benefit not the majority of the people whose economic status of poverty remain untouched but the transnat ionals and the Filipino middle and upper classes. Instead of pursuing a well-planned industrializat ion [or superindustrializat ion] strategy, government priorit ies relied heavily on (i) export-oriented industries that primarily import their raw materials, (ii) export-oriented agricultural crops that eat up fifty-five percent of arable lands, (iii) the tourism industry which develops resorts and hotels that are most ly affordable only to foreign tourists and a few Filipinos, and (iv) the export of manpower. Constant ino's economic nat ionalist alternat ive is an ideology of economic liberat ion which is (a) mass-oriented and (b) ant i-imperialist. He suggested a "bottom-up" economic approach (rather than a "trickle-down" approach), which will organically connect the people's productivity and freedom from economic deprivat ion by investment in industrial growth to serve the growing needs of the populat ion. This means the setting up of people's cooperatives. The goal is a social and just distribut ion of the nat ional product, and exports should play a subordinate role to the production 16 for local basic needs. Income from exports must be devoted to capital buildup. This economic alternat ive, for Constant ino, must be buttressed with a nat ionalist educat ion (consist ing, among others, of advocat ing an internat ionalism based on a firm nat ionalism for the people to know what to culturally assimilate beneficially) and a nat ionalist ethics that includes a modified Sartrean injunct ion that when one makes a nationalist choice, he or she chooses not for himself or herself alone but for the ent ire nat ion as well. TRANSCENDING THE COLONIAL HANGOVER Although we cannot erase the colonial past, we can make it obsolete in our minds or make use of some aspects of it as we transcend the colonial hangover. For lack of space, I will discuss the ideas of only four Filipino philosophers who believed this can be done in certain areas, if not in all, of philosophy. R. Esquivel Embuscado: Dissectionist As an art ist-philosopher (he is a painter), Embuscado (1975) rejected the view that authent ic art is simply a cont inuation of past experience or learning to the present. He held that the task of an authent ic artist is to cut the umbilical cord of the past, to make use of the present, and to project that present to the open future. He called his philosophy of art "dissect ionism." True art must not be past-present oriented, but present-future oriented. The contents of dissect ionism are the depressive social scenarios that we experience at present: outcast figures, monotonous life, old age, war and intrigues, poverty, social causes, discontents, and the like. According to Embuscado, they are intuited [as Henri Bergson (2011) maintained in his philosophy] from the unifold of undifferent iated hidden reality by human consciousness and creat ively expressed in manifold dissect ional ways into the future, through swirling motions, which later become available to the senses. The unifold is in perpetual mot ion or becoming, and this mot ion of the present is creat ively projected into the future. The artist, in other words, perceives beyond the sense appearances and projects the intuited scenarios of hidden reality into the "region of the unknown" (the future). Dissect ionism is dynamic. It consists of mult ifarious lines that crisscross the canvass from all direct ions in beaut iful movements. Ontologically, it is a rebellion against art ist ic permanency, that is to say, against stagnat ion and imitat ion (as in realism), mut ilat ion of reality (as in cubism), fantasy (as in surrealism), uncreat ivity (as in repet it ive commercial art), and the like. The true artist must rid art, if possible, of human or any semblance to object ive realit y. His task is not to capture a moment of reality and make it permanent in his or her work of art. Tradit ional styles dwell in the past and are perpetuated in the present by imitat ion or improvisat ion. Permanence in art depicts reality as stagnant, negates the freedom of movement, and st ifles human possibilit ies to explore the unknown future. The new art ist must start 17 something authent ic; must create a novel mode of art ist ic expression in the present which must essent ially be dynamically project ive. It is important for the art ist to create, not to imitate or repeat the past styles, but to explore the possibilit ies of the future. For Embuscado, the infinite variat ions of two opposing forces-beauty and misery-excited him. This nervous excitement is not only the ult imate form of art to him, but a "cont inuous act of protest, the result of rebellion, the truth, and the contradict ions one finds in the object ive world." There is beauty in misery, "beauty in melancholia." The art ist as rebel must constant ly dissect this beauty project ively and dynamically. The "region of the unknown"-the future-is the art ist's "aesthetic dest iny;" it gives him the "mysterious delights" to explore dissect ionally. Embuscado's futurism in art is different from Alvin Toffler's futurism (1970) in educat ion. Toffler does not have an open future in that our image of the future, which is precondit ioned by present technological developments, determines the curricular offerings at present in order to realize that futurist ic image. Embuscado's theory has similarit ies with Italian futurism (Boccioni et al. 1910; see also "Futurism," n.d.), especially in paint ing, as in the reject ion of the past and of imitat ion, but Embuscado does not dwell on glorifying the present but emphasizes the projection of the movements of present hidden reality towards the open future (see pictures below). Nature from Behind. Ink on paper. Dissectional Figure. Oil on linen. 1973. 28.5 cm. x 36.5 cm. Year and size not indicated. 18 Tambakero. Oil on photograph. Truth and Beauty. Ink on paper Year and size not indicated 1974 23 cm. x 30.5 cm. Cirilo Bautista: Poetical Theorist Baut ista is a poet-philosopher who believed we can make use of some aspects of our colonial past while transcending it by fashioning the present and the future. In writ ing poetry, e.g., we can use the language of the former colonial master, i.e., English, in becoming ourselves -modern Filipinos. He wrote about the birth, nature, travails, and demise of any poem. He (1998) maintained that every part icular poem has an ideal poem in the poet's mind ready to be expressed as such-a part icular poem. He called this ideal poem the Rubber Tower-apparent ly because of it s soft, bouncy, and pliant character-that looms high in the poet's consciousness ready to be transformed into a specific piece of poetry. For Baut ista, the Rubber Tower is an organic flesh and the part icular poem is "flesh made Word." The Rubber Tower is nourished by the people's historical experience and, as such, its end product, the particular poem, is always culture-bound. The poem was originally made for the ears; it had an aural beginning. It was only much later that it was made for the eyes with the invent ion of writ ing. The print ing press mummified the poem in a piece of paper; it transformed the poem to a "word paint ing" or a "piece of sculpture." The inst itut ion of silent reading, which St. Ambrose started during the Middle Ages, banished the ears from part icipat ing in the understanding of the poem. On some occasions, oral reading is performed to reclaim the ears' prerogative to the poem. The poem can depict reality faithfully or disguisedly through its layers of mask. The Verb, the poem's blood, is the first layer of the mask that sets the poem's intellectual direct ion. The Adject ive, the second layer, gives us the magic of the poem; it provides us with mult ifarious landscapes and fills our brains with kaleidoscopic colors. It is the "layer of sunrise and sunset, of 19 constant music." The Adverb is "an Adject ive with legs." It keeps the sunrise and sunset in mot ion; it is the avant garde in the forefront of the poem's search for meaning. It is act ive, always in the march. The third layer is the Noun, which is the "fulcrum of the poem's turning." Exuding its imperia l character, the Noun is carried on its back by the Verb and the Adject ive. It makes the poem a history and history a poem. Historical personages like Rizal and Bonifacio would have just been memories, but their poems, through the imperial Nouns as substances therein, are not only a part of history but contains the people's historical experiences. The poem can assume many forms: it can be warlike, liberator, religious, propagandist ic (or an opium of the people), historical, polit ical, ethical, etc. The meaning of the poem is threefold: (i) the poet's intended meaning; (ii) the reader's hermeneut ical meaning; and (iii) the meaning the poem has assumed over t ime in its "peregrinat ion in the world of letters." The poet's intended meaning is the meaning of the present moment and context when the poet fashions the part icular poem from the ideal Rubber Tower. It is essent ially the maker's individual meaning. The reader's hermeneut ical meaning carries the poem to the wider communal consciousness of the people where its communal rituals reflect collect ive history and the plan for collect ive grandeur. The poem acquires the communal milieu that determines the criteria of respectability and good public taste. The reader's meaning is basically a communal meaning. The two meanings-individual and communal-are independent but if they do coincide it is only by accident. In this coincidence, the times of the maker and the reader become congruous, and the poem becomes t imeless. It is the poem of the individual (the poet) and the community (the readers) of different t imes and places. It becomes "everybody's poem" that transcends cultural and temporal bracket ing. In some instances, however, the single poem assumes different meanings to different people of different cultural backgrounds and becomes a "freelance linguist ic ent ity in life's battlefield." The third meaning indicates the poem has its own meaning which originates from itself, not the maker or reader. It is an object ified collect ive meaning which transcends the past and becomes universally relevant. When this happens it becomes a real poem-a sovereign poem. It becomes the analogue poem. It becomes the analogue of society. Rizal's Mi ultimo adios, for example, has the object ified meaning of "the Filipino anguish for a just life." Although it has this third meaning, it can also have the subject ive meanings of different readers. Understanding the poem takes the vantage point of the reader. As soon as the poet finishes the poem, he no longer owns it ; it becomes a public property and will have a life of its own. Its meaning transcends its beginning. History can be read as a poem in the same way that a poem can be read as history. A poem can be polit ically belligerent, especially when it opposes tyranny, in the same way as it can be an object of political terrorism as when the tyrant equates it with sedit ion-vilifies, represses, or persecutes it . 20 The death of the poem occurs in two ways: (1) when it is a manifestation of the immaturity of the poet's imaginat ion: it is a weak poem which cannot govern its own passion, cannot sustain its polit ical momentum, lacks a strong ident ity, perverts it s historical sense, and the like; and (2) when it is a bad poem: it cannot compare with other texts, cannot validate its poet ic claim, fails in it s "tact ical preparat ion," and cannot adequately articulate itself. Baut ista argued that the poet fails to defend the poem to protect himself, but he might have other talents such as a good "singing voice," etc. Claro R. Ceniza: Metaphysician Ceniza tried to reconcile the Parmenidean denial and the Heraclitean affirmat ion of the realit y of change. His philosophical views simply forget the colonial past and proceed with contemporary realit ies. He rendered obsolete that past and its hangover. Something like this view we find in the Bible: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland" (Isa. 43:18-19). In attempting to reconcile Parmenides and Heraclitus, Ceniza indeed is making a way in the desert. Ceniza (2001) began by showing that we can derive the existence of cont ingent objects from the postulates of Parmenides that what is rat ional is real and what is real is rat ional (or what can be thought or spoken is possible and vice versa, and what is possible is and vice versa) and its negat ive corollary that what is nonrat ional is nonreal and what is nonreal is nonrat ional (or what cannot be thought or spoken is not possible and vice versa, and what cannot be thought or spoken is not and vice versa). In themselves, individually, the postulates and their respect ive corollaries do not contradict each other, but when applied to contingent phenomena, they involve a contradict ion. For instance, it is a contradict ion that "it is possible for things to be and for them not to be" at the same t ime. It is contradictory for me to have a million dollars in the bank and not to have them in the same bank. Being contradictories, it is apparent that cont ingent phenomena do not exist. But Ceniza argued their nonexistence does not mean they are completely obliterated, because we experience seemingly cont ingent objects like chairs, tables, trees, and the like. Conceptually, cont ingent phenomena as contradictories do not exist, but experient ially, they do. How is that possible? Ceniza first clarified the meaning of existence. "To exist" is "to stand out." Contingent ent it ies do not stand out; they subsist. If an object is not green, it does not mean it has no color, but the color green does not stand out or does not exist in the object. Red and green result in yellow but they are there subsistent in yellow. The colors of the rainbow are subsistent in white-the plenum or neutral state-which is the "balanced sum of all colors of the rainbow." Numbers subsist in zero, the plenum (or sum total) of all posit ive and negat ive integers, as silence is the plenum of all noises. The other meaning of the phrase "to exist," according to Ceniza, is "to make a 21 difference" in the sense of affect ing something or its surroundings. In a sense, the Parmenidean Being or universe is a plenum of which cont ingent ent it ies subsist, and they exist or stand out only from the perspect ive of experiencing finite subjects or persons. Existence is, therefore, experiential, that is, either phenomenologically or empirically. From the Parmenidean plenum, cont ingent ent it ies exist or stand out because they are caused. There must be a "reason, cause or explanat ion for the things we experience." If the ground is wet, it must have been caused by (1) rain, (2) flooding, (3) broken underground water pipe, (4) sprinkled water, or (v) waste water thrown on the ground. In (1), the wetness would cover a wide area including the roofs of houses; in (2) the wetness will be wide but will not include elevated grounds and roofs of houses; in (3) "the wetness would cover a relat ively small area, with a center where the break in the pipe is located;" in (4) the area covered by wetness will even be smaller ; and in (5) the covered area will be much smaller and the water might even be dirty. By examining the affected surroundings, we can determine the cause of the wetness. Ceniza discussed a number of other issues such as the nature of the universe, the possibility of a Final Cause, the nature of the person, and the like, but for lack of space I will just enjoin the readers to read his book. In the final analysis, Ceniza's reconciliat ion of the reality of the Being ("The One") of Parmenides and the mult iplicity of cont ingent changing ent it ies of Heraclitus hinge on the notions of subsistence and existence which are both experiential (experienced by the subject phenomenologically or empirically). Rolando M. Gripaldo: Circumstantialist Like Ceniza, Gripaldo (2011) attempted "to make...streams in the wasteland" by lett ing the colonial past subsist and by letting the present and the future stand out-to make a difference. Gripaldo dist inguished two senses of the word "circumstance" in relat ion to the choosing situat ion. The first sense is the situation totalized. It is this sense where the choosing agent feels the total situat ion compels him or her to choose one option rather than the others: "Under the circumstance, I have no choice but to leave you." The second sense merely means a situational condition among many such situat ional condit ions that lead to a person's choice. Here the choosing agent feels free to choose A rather than B or C: "Under the circumstances, I will choose A." Situations are of many kinds-situat ions of death, marriage, murder, choice, anger, etc. and they are fluid: overlapping, interpenetrating, transitory, momentary, and if they endure it is only for a litt le while, not forever. They may recur later, but they are always succeeded by other situat ions. Their borders are difficult to delineate in object ive reality, but they can be abstracted in thought and their boundaries delineated for analysis. Gripaldo zeroes in on the choosing situat ion, for he was interested in clarifying the notion of "free choice." In what sense is a choice free? His 22 thesis is that while the chooser is free in the sense that he or she is not compelled by an authority or by someone to make a choice, the situat ion of which he or she is an integral part determines his or her choice. Gripaldo describes his book, Circumstantialism, as an essay on situat ional determinism. Choices are always done in situat ions, which are of two broad types: rational and nonrat ional. Rat ional choices involve deliberat ion and decision. Nonrat ional choices are done without deliberat ion as in habitual choices, flippant choices like tossing a coin or picking just any card from a deck of cards, mistaken choices, unconscious choices, and choices done on the basis of a simple preference. While Gripaldo extensively discussed nonrat ional choices, he set them aside as pseudo-choices. Genuine choices must meet T. F. Daveney's (1961) five condit ions. First, there must be genuine alternat ives. One cannot be said to have chosen if he or she takes the one and only chocolate in the box. Second, the chooser must be aware of these alternat ives. One cannot also be said to have chosen if he or she believes that, assuming he or she takes it , there is only one chocolate in the box when in fact there are many and of different kinds. Third, he must believe these alternat ives are attainable or doable. One cannot choose to buy a house or a particular car if he or she knows it is not for sale. Fourth, he must have a prior aim, purpose, or want for choosing. We have two scenarios: (a) If I want to arrive at my dest inat ion quickly, then my choice of transport will be guided by that want; and (b) If offered a job in a foreign land out of nowhere, then-though I may have no init ial purpose in accept ing the offer-the purpose will actually become discernible when I go into the deliberat ive act. I may want a higher salary and the offer has it . Fifth, the alternat ive chosen must be that which suits him or her best: (a) If we choose an opt ion which we desire or which is in line with our goal, the choice suits us, and also the situat ion, best. (b) If the situat ion calls for us to do an act which appears necessary but which we do not want to do, but have to, then the choice suits the situat ion best, though not necessarily us. One may, e.g., shoot a wounded friend in war: "I did not really want to shoot him but he requested me to do it and I knew the enemies would torture him to death just the same, so I had to shoot him." (This is the first sense of circumstance-situat ion totalized-and should not concern us.) When the chooser is confronted with alternatives in the choosing act, he or she usually performs three stages. The first stage, Stage1, is his or her recognit ion of alternat ives, which can be more than two. The alternat ives may be abstract like "love or friendship," concrete like "apples or bananas," or a mixture like "pineapple or love." The second stage, Stage2, involves his or her deliberat ion and decision. The chooser begins to deliberate as to which alternat ive suits him or her best. He or she weighs the merits and demerits, advantages and disadvantages, pluses and minuses of each alternat ive, and makes the decision. At the tail end of the acts of deliberat ing and deciding is the chosen alternat ive. A person may say, "To buy this banana is my decision; it is also my choice." After the second stage, the act of choosing is 23 consummated although a rerun may st ill be possible. The last stage, Stage3, involves the chooser's act ing out of his or her decision/choice. It is the taking, buying, etc., of the chosen alternative. The act of choosing is here fully consummated. Situational condit ions are the data or pieces of informat ion that serve as the inputs of the act of choosing. These are the circumstances of the choosing situat ion, and the choosing agent derives them from four sources: Source1, the person's present external environment-provides alternat ives as perceived: physical or mental objects or both; in the case of mental or abstract objects, the spat io-temporal environment is st ill necessary since the person who makes the choice is situated in a space-t ime setting. Source2, the person's past-memory as the repository: includes habits, attitudes, and capacit ies. Those relevant in choosing are generally remembered; those "unconscious" desires or wants, when they do not appear in conscious memory, are irrelevant or will not feature in the act of choosing. Source3, the person's future-refers to a project ion of the choice to the future: merits/demerits, advantages/disadvantages, usefulness/uselessness, and the like. Source4, the person's present physical and mental condit ion-healthy or not either mentally, physically, or both. All these sources are situated in a particular space-time scenario. They are all present in a part icular choosing situat ion even if some are ignored or just taken for granted. For example, if one is healthy, the choice to go to Singapore or not will not include Source4, since the physical condit ion is taken for granted. But when one is sick for days, the decision will include the physical condit ion and the decision may be negat ive. Gripaldo argued that the voluntary freedom one feels when one confronts the alternat ives (Stage1) is carried over to the acts of deliberat ing and deciding (Stage2). And it is here in the second stage that the chooser begins to discern the best choice for him/her under the situat ion. When he or she finally decides on choice A, the other choices are simply blotted out. In other words, in so far as the four sources of situational condit ions are concerned, the best choice for the chooser is latent or hidden in the choosing situat ion and it goes to the surface only during the act of deliberat ion. In a manner of speaking, the chooser's best choice8 has already been determined by the situat ion, and the chooser-on the basis of the four sources-has simply discerned (or has ascertained) it in the process of deliberat ion. Gripaldo concluded that in rat ional choices the person could not have chosen otherwise. The situat ional condit ions-some or all of which the chooser may avow-are his or her reasons for select ing the choice. In Stage3, the chooser acts out the choice in a manner where he or she is led to an option, after deliberat ion, where he or she could not have chosen otherwise. In this regard, Gripaldo maintained that in Circumstant ialism or in a genuine choosing act, freedom and determinism are compat ible.9 24 CONCLUSION The Filipino philosophies discussed in this paper 10 are basically Western in orientat ion. Such a historical trajectory is brought about necessarily by the people's colonial experience (Christ ian religion, English language, Western philosophical ideas) and carried over to contemporary times. Recent Filipino philosophizing is characterized with a break from the colonial past-or, at least, by the act of ignoring that past-and a preoccupat ion with particular philosophical problems, but it is st ill a Western brand of philosophizing. There are current activit ies by Filipino teachers of philosophy and philosophers, which focus on some reflections on certain topics in Eastern and Filipino cultural ideas, but they have not yet reached the status of philosophical maturity. We are interested, for example, in a Filipino's own philosophy of culture rather than on his or her descript ions of perceivable philosophical perspect ives presupposed or imbedded in communal Filipino culture, i.e., tribe or nat ion (see Mercado 2005 and Villanueva Jr. 2006). NOTES 1. Third revised version of the paper originally presented in an Internat ional Philosophy Conference in Athens, Greece on 6 June 2006 under the sponsorship of Athens Inst itute of Education and Research. 2. For Gripaldo's curriculum vitae, please click the link http://www.pnprs.org/Philosophia%20Editor.pdf. 3. Karl Christ ian Friedrich Krause (Bonoan 1994, 13) tried to orient Spanish life to European rat ionalism. 4. Rafael Palma's (1996) polit ical agenda is more probable to me than Leon Ma. Guerrero's (1974) literary agenda. 5. William Scott (1994, 129) ident ifies autocratic and democrat ic barangays. In the context of Jacinto's argument, Jacinto certainly referred to democrat ic barangays. 6. An est imate puts it at 4,234 American soldiers dead with 2,818 wounded and 20,000 Filipino soldiers dead with 200,000 to 500,000 civilian casualt ies. See "The history guy" (2006). 7. Quezon also objected to the economic provision, which would not properly prepare the country for independence, but this was shelved for future negotiat ions after independence. 8. If we choose the second best choice, there must be an addit ional intervening situat ional condit ion that tips the balance of decision in favor of the second best choice, and elevates that choice to the posit ion of the first best choice in that given situat ion. 9. Gripaldo (1998-99) discusses some implicat ions of this philosophy in terms of responsibility, remorse, punishment, etc. in "Circumstant ialist ethics." 10. For lengthy discussions on individual Filipino philosophers, see Gripaldo (Part I, Secs. 1-2, 2009b and 2009c). 25 REFERENCES Agoncillo, Teodoro. 1956. 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