Abstract

This paper presents an approach to Filipino Christianity (particularly Roman Catholicism) using the concepts of sákop (reduction) and kagándahang-loób (hospitability). It attempts a critical phenomenology of the Filipino experiences of reduction and hospitality. These two experiences imply a paradox. Since being baptized by the Spanish colonial conquest in 1521, its identity has been in flux. Historically, the Filipino Christian experience was brought about by the reducción system. However, this experience is condensed by claiming kagandánhang-loób as a virtue. Yet, kagandánhang-loób is not enough to articulate the Filipino Faith, evidenced by the experience of Filipino migrants or in questioning the faith’s presence in Philippine politics. This critical phenomenology of religion seeks to interrogate these quasi-transcendental structures of the Filipino Christian experience and locate such structures between the extremes of sákop and kagandáhang-loób.