ome young friends of mine, who find me insufferably conservative

and bourgeois, gave me for assigned reading recently a book of

essays by Chairman Mao Tse-tung. I find Chairman Maos literary
style engagingly direct and refreshingly vigorous. That must be the
reason why he is so widely read and quoted in the Peoples Republic
of China.
I am especially fascinated by his manner of asking a question and
immediately answering it himself.
Thus, in the essay on the Chinese Revolution, he asks: What,
then, are the targets of this revolution? What are its tasks? What are its
motive forces? What is its character? And what are its perspectives?
And a little further down:Since the character of present-day Chinese

A Lenten Lecture delivered at the Ateneo de Manila University on

March 10, 1971, published in Lenten Lectures, edited by Raul J. Bonoan,
S.J. (Manila:Ateneo Publications Office, 1971), pp. 42-56; The Filipino
in the Seventies:An Ecumenical Perspective, edited byVitaliano R. Gorospe
and Richard L. Deats (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1973),
pp. 18-29; Rediscovery: Essays in Philippine Life and Culture, edited by
Cynthia Nograles Lumbera and Teresita Gimenez-Maceda for the
Department of English,Ateneo de Manila University, from an original
compilation by Bienvenido L. Lumbera (Manila: Department of
English, Ateneo de Manila University and National Book Store, Inc.,
1977), pp. 324-337; The Heart of the Philippines (in Japanese), edited by
Mary Racelis Hollnsteiner (Tokyo: Bunyusha Publishing Co., 1977),
pp. 153-175. For basically the same article under title The Uses of
Living Tradition, see Archipelago, 1 (June 1974), 16-20.

Horacio de la Costa, S.J.

The Filipino National Tradition

society is colonial, semi-colonial, and semi-feudal, then what, after

all, are our chief targets or enemies at this stage of the Chinese
revolution?
The answer is immediate, brief, and to the point.They are none
other, says Chairman Mao,than imperialism and feudalism, namely,
the bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries and the landlord class at
home...
Confronted with such enemies, the Chinese revolution becomes
protracted and ruthless in nature...
Confronted with such enemies, the Chinese revolution must,
so far as the principal means or the principal form is concerned, be
an armed rather than a peaceful one...
Confronted with such enemies, the Chinese revolution has also
to tackle the question of revolutionary base areas...
This question-and-answer form, if repeated often enoughand
Chairman Mao, recognizing a good thing when he sees it, does not
disdain repetitionhas a mesmeric effect which is quite effective.
After being exposed to it for sometime, one finds oneself believing
not only that the answers are the right answers, butwhat is more
importantthat the questions are the right questions to ask.
Part of the secret, of course, is that the vocabulary must be limited.
Certain epithets must be permanently attached to certain persons and
institutions. There must be no variation. The masses must always be
the toiling masses; the running dogs of capitalism must always be not
only dogs but running dogs; and once a puppet, always a puppet.
I wonder if you will allow me to try a modified form of this
method of exposition on you this evening? It will have to be a
modified form, because, unfortunately for our experiment, this is
not the Peoples Republic of China, but the ambiguous (alanganin)
Republic of the Philippines.And Filipinos are not easily mesmerized.
They are apt to question not only the answers to questions, but the
very questions themselves.You are likely to demand some proof for
what I am about to say. Laging makatuwiran ang Pilipino, that is the
trouble. And so, one must expect that the discussion period after this
lecture will not be as orderly and harmonious as it might have been
in a Chinese village commune. But it may, just possibly, be more
interesting.

106 Readings for Theology 141: A Theology of the Catholic Social Vision

Well, then, let us ask ourselves five questions.

One: What is nationalism?
Two: What is a nation?
Three: What is a nationalist?
Four: What is the Filipino national tradition?
Five: What light does this tradition cast on our present national
task?
What is nationalism? Nationalism is two things. It is an ideology;
it is a commitment. An ideology, that is to say, a concept of what the
nation is, what it can be, and what it ought to be. A commitment,
that is to say, a recognized and accepted duty to help develop and to
help defend ones nation so conceived.
Clearly, nationalism presumes the existence of a nation about
which it is an ideology and to which it is a commitment. Our next
question must therefore be: What is a nation?
A nation is a people with a common political allegiance. A
common political allegiance, because a nation tends, by its very nature,
to constitute itself an independent and sovereign state, and to maintain
itself as such.This common political allegiance is based on three things.
It is based on a tradition, a consensus, and a compact.
A tradition, that is to say, a shared historic experience from which
the nation drives the principles and values by which it lives. These
principles and values each generation seeks to understand and to
assimilate.And it seeks to transmit them intact, and if possible enriched,
to the generation that succeeds it.
A consensus, that is to say, a shared understanding of what the
nation is, of what is good for the nation, and of what belonging to
the nation means. What the nation is: the national identity. What is
good for the nation: the common good, as distinct from the private
interests of person, group or class. What belonging to the nation
means: the rights and duties of the citizen.
A compact, that is to say, a shared agreement among the citizens
based on the national tradition and the national consensus. This
compact need not be explicit, because it is implicit in the very notion
of citizenship. This compact is an agreement with respect to three
things.

de la Costa, S.J., The Filipino National Tradition 107

It is an agreement to keep the nation intact and independent.

This is what moves the citizen to take up arms, and if necessary to
lay down his life in defense of his country.
It is an agreement to develop the nations physical and human
resources, and to do this in such a way as to benefit the many, not just
a few; to provide not only for the present generation but for future
generations. This is what moves the citizen not only to fight for his
nation in time of war, but to work for his nation in time of peace; to
keep it in being, and to promote its well-being.
It is an agreement, finally, to do these things not with a view of
national aggrandizement at the expense of other nations, but rather
with a view to rendering ones nation capable of making a distinctive
contribution to the general advancement of mankind.
Thus, the nation is constituted not only by a tradition and a
consensus but by a compact; a compact among its citizens to come
to the nations defense, to contribute to the nations development,
and, by so doing, to strengthen international friendship.
What, then, is a nationalist? From the preceding considerations it
follows that a nationalist is one who commits himself to a threefold
task.
A nationalist seeks to embody the national tradition in his
ideology, while adapting the principles and values of that tradition
to the challenges of the present.
A nationalist seeks to win national consensus for that ideology.
A nationalist seeks to give direction to the national compact by
reducing that ideology to a practicable plan of action.
Since a nationalist ideology must take into account the national
tradition, we must now ask ourselves: What is the Filipino national
tradition?
The Filipino national tradition can be summed up in five principles:
pagsasarili, pakikisama, pagkakaisa, pagkabayani, pakikipagkapwa-tao.
Pagsasarili. This is the principle of self-reliance. It is the burning
ambition of every Filipino to be himself; to be his own man; to be a
person in his own right; to make up his own mind; to do his thing.
He may not say so in so many words. He may not even be completely
conscious of this drive within him. But it is there. Pagsasarili: to own
oneself.

108 Readings for Theology 141: A Theology of the Catholic Social Vision

But magsarili, to own oneself, necessarily implies ownership of

that sufficiency of this worlds goods whereby one can be ones own
man. That is why pagsasarili rejects both the abolition of private
property, which is a principle of collectivism, and the concept of
private property as an absolute right, a right to use, to abuse, and not
to use, which is a principle of free-enterprise capitalism; for both of
these principles, when carried out in practice, deprive the majority
of people of the economic base for human dignity, and for real and
not merely nominal citizenship.
What pagsasarili demands is, rather, the wider distribution of
private property, and the development thereby, in every responsible
citizen, of the quality of self-reliance.

Only when we rise from the knees we have bent in beggary

and stand beside the other nations of the world not on
crutches but on our own feet, thinking and speaking and
acting as free men and as free citizens of a true republic in
name and in fact...(only then) can we rightly claim to have
achieved and deserved our independence.

When Magellan and his men called on the people of Mactan to

stop owning themselves, what answer did Lapu-Lapu send back to
them? This: that if the Spaniards had lances made of metal, the men
of Mactan had lances made of wood, with tips hardened in the fire.
Just that.
Of us Filipinos it can be said that our history is a history of lost
battles. But the battle of Mactan beach was one battle we won; and
we won it by relying on weaponry that, while vastly inferior, was
nevertheless our own.
Pagsasarili. If we Filipinos put so high a valuation on pagsasarili,
it is perhaps because we have been denied it for so long. One of the
great evils of colonialism is to put a premium on dependence; to make
survival itself depend on being dependent; on not being oneself; not
being ones own man; being a non-person; having someone else make
up ones own mind; doing someone elses thing, not ones own. And
so, more fortunate foreigners, to whom an inscrutable Providence has
granted the opportunity to be always self-reliant, must try to live with
this hang-up that we have about pagsasarili. Listen to Recto:

de la Costa, S.J., The Filipino National Tradition 109

Pagsasarili is the personalist principle in our national tradition.

Pakikisama is what might be called the partnership principle.
What does pakikisama mean? It means the equitable sharing of
goods and services among all who help to produce those goods or
render those services; and this on the basis, or a least in the spirit of
partnership. The ideal of self-reliance certainly does not exclude this
other ideal of sharing, of the give-and-take, whether spontaneous or
institutionalized, that living together in society demands. Especially
is this true of a society such as ours, with its marked family-alliance
and local-community orientation.
Most Filipinos have never even heard of Aristotle, but they would
certainly agree with his dictum that the man who lives alone
Rousseaus noble savage, in factis not a man at all, but either a
beast or a god. One of the worst things you can say about a Filipino is
that hindi siya marunong makisama or wala siyang pakikisama.
Thus, Rizal, in the Constitution of the Liga Filipina, proposes as
the second general objective of that organization mutual protection
in every want and necessity. In the section Duties of the Members,
n. 5 prescribes that in all walks of life, preference shall be given to the
members. Nothing shall be bought except in the shop of a member,
or whenever anything is sold to a member, he shall have a rebate.
Circumstances being equal, the member shall always be favored.
And n. 6 declares that the member who does not help another
member in the case of need or danger, although able to do so, shall
be punished.
This punishment shall be according to the principle of poetic
justice, for at least the same injury suffered by that other must be
imposed on him. Finally, under n. 9, he shall not submit to any
humiliation (the principle of pagsasarili), but neither shall he treat
anyone with contempt (the principle of pakikisama).
Emilio Jacinto, in the Kartilya of the Katipunan, follows this up
with the following declaration: The good work that is done out of
self-interest and not for its own sake has no merit.True piety consists
in doing good to others, in loving ones neighbor, and in making right
reason the rule of every action, work and word.
It will be said that there is nothing particularly Filipino about
pakikisama, that pakikisama is simply the normal human response to the
fact that one owes ones being and well-being to society, and hence

110 Readings for Theology 141: A Theology of the Catholic Social Vision

that one ought to share with ones fellows both the burdens and the
rewards of association.True enough; and because pakikisama is human,
it is also Filipino. Filipinos are human beings, after all.
But this also might be said, that when we give our own name to
a human condition, we also give our own nuance to it. What, then,
does pakikisama add to the general notion of sociability? Perhaps
this, that helpfulness, neighborliness, is expected of everyone; but it
is never forced on anyone.
It is expected of everyone; that is why we have an instinctive
aversion to rugged individualism, to being malakas at the expense of
others, which is the operative principle of the free-enterprise society.
We cannot accept the survival of the fittest, because we do not consider
survival a matter of fitness, but a matter of right. We are sceptical of
the famous hidden hand of Adam Smith, whereby if I simply and
single-mindedly sought my own self-interest in everything, I will be
found, in the long run, to have contributed to the welfare of everyone
else.We beg leave to doubt this, not so much because we believe, with
Keynes that in the long run we are dead, but because we tend to
put our faith in the helping, rather than the hidden hand.
Only, we do not force the helping hand on anyone; this is the
other nuance of pakikisama.We make a distinction between makisama
and makialam, between helping and meddling. Help should be offered,
but should await acceptance.A man should be allowed to make up his
own mind as to what is good for him. He may have lost everything
else; let him not lose thatthe right to decide whether he wants to
be helped, and in what way.
This being the way we are, I suspect that we would resist
collectivization with the same angry vigor that we are now trying
to shake off laissez-faire. We simply refuse to be organized, either by
the Left or by the Right, and least of all by experts. If there is any
organizing to be done, we would like to do it ourselves; and it will have
to be organization that allows for a large measure of individuality. By
all means let us have community but let it be a community of persons,
not units; people, not masses. Tayoy makisama upang ang bawat isa ay
makapagsarililet us help one another to possess himself.
But is this possible? Freely to organize; to organize for freedom;
to fashion unity out of diversityis this possible? Possible or not, it
is what we want. It is the whole movement of our history. Of seven

de la Costa, S.J., The Filipino National Tradition 111

These are truths you must never forget. If instead of using

freedom you abuse it, we shall not only not make progress,
but we shall be in a worse state than we were before. Not
only that; if we really mean to reconstruct our society on
firm foundations, then we must undertake a radical reform
not only of our institutions but of our own ways of thinking
and acting. Our revolution must be not only external but

Freedom does not mean that we are to obey no one, for freedom
itself demands that we conform our conduct to the guiding light of
reason and the commanding voice of justice. What freedom does
mean is that we ought to obey, not anyone, but only and always that
person whom we ourselves have chosen and acknowledged as the
most capable of leading us; for in this way we are but obeying our
own reason. An army that becomes insubordinate and disobeys its
commanders really loses freedom, because it subverts the order and
attacks the discipline imposed by reason, which shows that a body
of men becomes incapable of action if it has no unity of movement
and purpose, if one pulls this way and another that.

Many there are (he wrote in a famous passage) who talk of

freedom without knowing what it means. Many believe that
once they have gained freedom they may do what they please,
good or bad.This is a great error. One is free only to do good,
never to do evil. Freedom must always be in harmony with
reason and the dictates of an upright and honest conscience.
The thief is not free when he steals, for he allows himself to
be dragged by evil desire. He becomes a slave of his passions,
and we imprison and chastise him precisely because he refuses
to be truly free.

thousand islands and seventy languages; of Indian spirituality, Chinese

humanism, and Malay enterprise; Spanish hidalgua and Anglo-Saxon
technology; of animist bahala na, Muslim dedication, and Christian
commitment, to make one nationthat is our modest proposal.
Pagkakaisa. Rizal set the ideal in the Latin motto he gave to the
Liga Filipina: unus instar omnium, one for all. Mabini explained what
making the ideal a reality would demand of us.

112 Readings for Theology 141: A Theology of the Catholic Social Vision

Therefore. O my countymen! Let us scatter the mist that

befogs our intellect, and let us consecrate all our strength
to the good cause, with unshakable and absolute faith in its
success, and in the ultimate prosperity so anxiously desired
by us, of the land of our birth.

Reason tells us (he wrote) that we must not waste our time
waiting in vain for promises of felicity that will never come,
that will never materialize. Reason tells us that we must rely
upon ourselves alone and never entrust our rights and our life
to anyone else. Reason teaches us to be united in sentiment,
thought, and purpose, so that we may acquire the strength
necessary to crush the evil that is affecting our people...

Mabini was a man who wanted to get things done. And the only
way he saw things could get done was by concerted action under iron
discipline; in a word, pagkakaisa. But you will observe that no matter
how much he wanted pagkakaisa, he did not thereby jettison freedom.
What he said was that freedom itself demands that we conform our
conduct to the guiding light of reason and the commanding voice
of justice.
It is interesting to note how much reliance the founders of our
nationalist tradition placed on reason. Rizal, of course was always
appealing to reason, Mabini here insists that freedom must be
reasonable, else it is not freedom. Jacinto, in a passage quoted earlier,
makes true piety consist not only in pakikisama, but in making right
reason the rule of every action, work and word.And when Bonifacio
asked the self-same question that Lenin askedWhat then, must we
do?It was to reason that he turned for a reply.

internal.We must provide a more solid basis for our character

formation, and we must rid ourselves of the vices which
are, for the most part, a legacy of Spanish rule. Otherwise
our country will become more and more enfeebled and
impoverished by civil war and domestic disagreements until
it perishes altogether. Even the blood so generously shed by
our heroes will be powerless to save it from death.

de la Costa, S.J., The Filipino National Tradition 113

It is doubtful, however, whether reasonableness alone, even if it

had justice as its sole end and honest labor as its sole means, can
bring about that perfect union to which we all aspire. Something
else is needed; something that can only be called lovelove of country,
patriotism. Threadbare words, unfortunately, much used and much
abused. Who was it that said of patriotism that it is the last refuge of
the scoundrel?
But if scoundrels occasionally succeed in passing themselves off
as patriots, honest men ought not to fear being patriots lest they be
taken for scoundrels. As Saint Augustine said in another connection,
sheep should not feel compelled to change their appearance simply
because there are wolves in sheeps clothing.The association of sheep
with patriots is perhaps unfortunate, since we are today inclined to
be sheepish about patriotism.
But why should we be? Those who embody patriotism
pagkabayaniin our national tradition were by no means sheep-like
characters. Certainly not Raja Soliman of Maynila, who said to

And therefore, taking reason as its sole norm of action,

justice as its sole end, and honest labor as its sole means, (the
Philippine Republic) now calls upon and invites all Filipinos,
its sons, without distinction of class, to come together in a
perfect union for the purpose of creating a noble society;
noble not by virtue of pedigree or pompous titles, but of
personal merit; a free society, free of the self-interest and
petty intrigue that destroy and debase, free of the jealousy
and patronage that demean, free of the boasting and quackery
that deface a commonwealth.

It would seem, then, that pagkakaisa, national unity, is not

something we would allow anyone to impose on us. Rather it is
something we want to arrive at ourselves, through a process of free
discussion and by the exercise of a certain reasonableness. Laging
makatuwiran ang Pilipino, ngunit paminsan-minsan ay may katuwiran din.
Filipinos are congenitally disputatious, but it is not impossible for a
reasonable agreement to result from their disputes. And therefore, as
Aguinaldos proclamation of 23 June 1898, which is our Declaration
of Independence, states,

114 Readings for Theology 141: A Theology of the Catholic Social Vision

This, then, is our ideal of patriotism. To the ideal of a people

united by a national consensus (pagkakaisa) to build together by a
neighborly sharing of goods and services (pakikisama) a society in
which every man can develop himself fully as a person self-possessed
(pagsasarili), it adds the demand for total dedication to the nation as
suchpagkabayani.
We are told, of course, that this ideal is hopelessly out of date.
Why cultivate nationalism in a world rapidly moving toward
internationalism? If we must dedicate ourselves to an ideal, let it be
to the brotherhood of man. As to that, we can readily agree that an
international organization within which all men can live as brothers is
a consummation devoutly to be wished. But we might point out that
the very word internationalism presupposes nationalism. If nations
are to be united, there must be nations to unite. Those who have
already achieved full nationhood can afford to take their nationalism

Ensueo de mi vida, mi ardiente vivo anhelo,

Salud! te grita el alma que pronto va a partir;
Salud! ah, que es hermoso caer por darte vuelo;
Morir por darte vida, morir bajo tu cielo.
Y en tu encantada tierra la eternidad dormir.

No sacrifice can be too great. The same thought had been

expressed, a year earlier, by another man about to die, in one of the
most moving stanzas ever addressed by a poet to his country:

The General has given me the pick of all the men that can
be spared and ordered me to defend the Pass. I realize what
a terrible task has been given me. And yet I feel that this is
the most glorious moment of my life. What I do is done for
my beloved country. No sacrifice can be too great.

Goiti that he was pleased to be the friend of the Spaniards, but that
the Spaniards should understand that the Tagalogs were not painted
Indians; that they would not tolerate any abuse, and that they would
repay with death the least thing that touched their honor, And
certainly not Gregorio del Pilar, who, on the very day he died at
Tirad Pass, wrote the following in his diary:

de la Costa, S.J., The Filipino National Tradition 115

A mans worth does not consist in being a king, or in having

a pointed nose and white skin, or in exercising as a priest

All men are equal, whether the color of their skin be white
or black. One man may surpass another in wisdom, wealth,
or beauty but not in that which makes him a man...

for granted, can even be high-mindedly apologetic about it. But we

who, having been colonial subjects for four hundred years, are still
seeking national identity and purpose, may perhaps be forgiven if
nationalism is uppermost in our minds and boringly recurrent in
our conversation.
Would it be thought discourteous on our part if we were to recall
that it was once said of England that patriotism was the religion of
the English? And that it was not so long ago that American school
texts prescribed for use in the Philippines quoted with reverence the
dictum of an American naval officer, My country, may she always
be right, but right or wrong, my country?
That is not a principle we are prepared to defend. What we are
prepared to defend is this: that if we are nationalists it is not because we
wish to separate ourselves from the rest of men, but, on the contrary,
because we wish to build up a nation that can make its own distinctive
contribution to the general advancement of the human race.
Our ideal of pagkabayani is balancedor, more precisely, is
completedby our ideal of pakikipagkapwa-tao, which is our
polysyllabic way of expressing John Donnes insight that no man is
an island, he is part of the main.
Pakikipagkapwa-taoto be a fellow, a friend, of every man,
provided it be on a basis of equalitywas this not what Raja Soliman
tried to convey to Goiti when he said that he was pleased to be the
friend of the Spaniards, but that he would not tolerate any abuse?
A principle, unfortunately; which, as it turned out, was more honored
in the breach than in the observance.
But, when all is said and done, the brotherhood of all mankind
will be advanced in proportion as all mankind agree on what a man
is, and what he is worth. If anyone asks us what our thinking is on
this matter, I suggest that we simply quote to him the words of Emilio
Jacinto:

116 Readings for Theology 141: A Theology of the Catholic Social Vision

These, then are the principles and values we derive from our
national tradition. Pagsasarili: the will to secure for every Filipino the
means to develop himself as a responsible human being. Pakikisama:
the willingness to share with one another the burdens as well as the
rewards of living together. Pagkakaisa: the building up of an articulated
national community through forms of social organization understood,
accepted, and undertaken by the people themselves. Pagkabayani: the
readiness to put the common good of the nation above the private
interest, whether of ones own person, group, or class. Pakikipagkapwatao: human solidarity but human solidarity understood as, first of all,
a dedication to the development of ones own nation, so as to enable
it to participate on free and equal terms in the total development of
mankind.
The past, they say; is prologue. If we seek to retain remembrance of
the past, and employ historians to help us to do so, it is not so much to
indulge in the barren delights of antiquarianism, as to derive from the
thoughts and deeds of our predecessors a better understanding of our
present concerns. And so we must ask ourselves what enlightenment
we can draw from our national tradition with reference to our present
national task.
But before we do so, a previous question should perhaps be
moved, namely, whether it is to our national tradition that we should
go for enlightenment. For this is an assumption that has been and is
being disputed.Whether explicitly or by implication, in theory or in
practice, it is being asserted that either we have no national tradition,
or if we have, that it is not relevant to our present concerns. And
therefore it is proposed that we look for the solution to our national
problems elsewhere, to some foreign ideology; whether it be the

the office of being Gods representative. It does not consist

in being one of the great ones of the earth. What though a
man be born and raised in the wilderness, and speak no other
language but his own? If his ways are gentle, if his word is
true, if he cherishes his good name, if he neither tolerates nor
commits injustice, if he knows how to love the land that gave
him birth and to come to her assistance, that man is really
and truly great.

de la Costa, S.J., The Filipino National Tradition 117

liberal ideology of the Western, or the totalitarian ideology of the

Communist world.
I personally do not agree with either the assertion or the
proposition. I believe that we do have a national tradition. If it appears
that we do not, it is surely because we have not taken the trouble to
look for it. Secondly, I believe that we will find this national tradition
of ours to be entirely relevant to our present concerns, if only because
it was fashioned by Filipinosby thoughtful and dedicated men of
our own race who saw our society and culture not from the outside
but from the inside. Thirdly, I would have no objection whatever to
deriving from foreign ideologies, whether liberal or communist, what
may be valid and useful for our purposes; but I would judge the valid
and usefulness of such foreign derivatives from the standpoint of our
national tradition.
What, then should we look for in that tradition?
May I suggest that what we should look for is not ready made
solutions to our national problems, but a specific approach to them;
that approach, namely which is most likely to win national consensus,
as being most in accord with the principles and values which, as result
of our shared experience over historic time, we have come to hold
most deeply as a people?
May I further suggest that this approach would be, specifically and
concretely for the Philippines, to undertake national development as
a process of liberation and integration?
Development, according to Pope Paul VI, is the new name for
peace. This is true enough of development globally considered,
for, certainly the alleviation of world poverty is our best hope for
world peace. But we must ask ourselves whether in a country like
the Philippines, development is best approached from the notion of
peace, and not rather from the notion of liberation? For peace is the
tranquility of order; but the order may be a just or an unjust one.The
tranquility of an unjust order is what Tacitus transfixed, once for all, in
a famous epigram on the pax romana. They have made a desolation
and called it peace.
Now the development of people can only be brought about by
the people themselves. No one can do it for them; not government;
not the Church; not foreign aid. Only they can do it. But they cannot
do it if their energies are sapped and their initiatives thwarted by an

118 Readings for Theology 141: A Theology of the Catholic Social Vision

unjust and oppressive social order And so it is there that development

must begin; in the dismantling of institutionalized injustice; in setting
people free.
But this means conflict. Freedom from injustice cannot be won
without conflict. In a country like the Philippines, before development
can mean peace, it must mean liberation.
Liberation; but at the same time, and by the same token,
integration. For the whole object of setting people free is that they
may be free to work together, free to collaborate in the building up of
a social order that shall be just. It is precisely the fragmentation of our
society that is the most prolific source and the strongest bulwark of
the injustices that prevail among us. Our struggle for liberation must
therefore be not only against the forces that now divide our national
community; but against the forces that would further divide it, and
transform what is already a fragmentation into an anarchy.
Liberation and integration - these are the two nuances, it
seems to me, that our national tradition gives to our present task of
development.The whole thrust of our historic experience as a people
has been toward pagsasarili, toward that state of society wherein every
man can possess himself, and can have access to that share of our
national resources whereby he can in truth possess, and be, himself. It
was to this end, that every Filipino may at last, in Rectos words, rise
from the knees he has bent in beggary; that our heroes, our bayani,
made the sacrifices that they did.
But the thrust of our historic experience is, in equal measure,
toward the achievement of self-possession through equitable sharing
within a national community by pagkakaisa through pakikisama; or, as
our Declaration of Independence put it, by the coming together of
all citizens, without distinction of class, into a perfect union.
And it is thus, and only thus, that we can hope to fulfill our
other ideal of pakikipagkapwa-tao: to approach the brotherhood of
man not with a petition, but with a gift. A gift distinctively; uniquely
Filipino.

de la Costa, S.J., The Filipino National Tradition 119