Trends and Development of an Indigenous Psychology: The Case for Sikolohiyang Pilipino

In this study, i decided to research for publication of SP (or any published papers related or concerned to it) from 1990 to 2004 using archival and internet research. The basis for using publication research is to understand whether there is link between maturation and publication. That is, the more publication of such field is witnessed, the more its substance (i.e., theory, methods, and concepts) are maturing or tested to be good thesis. (In data collection, i decided to use major libraries in the Luzon area (e.g., U.P., DLSU, ADMU, and UST) and the EBSCO Database. This preference goes with the assumption that most of important or major publications of SP might be found in libraries where there is lack of national circulation or press releases of Filipino books.)

In my study, i was able to recover 140 studies that are published in national and international journals, books, and edited readings. In this classification, one of the significant finding is that most of the studies discuss in details painstakingly "What is Sikolohiyang Pilipino?" for the audience reader. There is less studies regarding theoretical building that are related to developing a pure Filipino concepts. Researchers are also inclined to study the much debated "Pagkataong Pilipino" versus "Filipino Personality" such as the hiya, amor propyo, pakikisama, and utang na loob. There is less studies geared toward application of the Sikolohiyang Pilipino and much preference to studies on gender (e.g. masculinity or pagkalalake) from recent publications of SP.

Most of these studies are found in scholarly publication journals and most of them are published nationally. However, there is a question whether how representative does national means and where is the SP if disseminated nationally since much of the activity regarding SP is found in Manila where the SP (at the Dept. of Psychology, UP) and PSSP (National Association For Sikolohiyang Pilipino) is found.

In terms of yearly publication, the number of publication of SP researchers are sporadic. In my gathered data, in 1993, there is only one published paper regarding SP. In terms of authorship, most of SP studies are published singly. This means that the activity of research within SP is centered within 1 person only. In this case, there would be difficulty in processing studies of SP since it does not reach a wide audience since the transfer of knowldege is passed from one person to another. Rarely, collaboration of authors reaches to seven authors but nonetheless, it is questionable how does these seven authors provided knowledge on such study. (In assumption, that is, out of the seven authors, majority of them may have just collected the data and minority of them processed and finalized the output).

Unlikely what Enrqiuez has envisioned, much of the studies i gathered were oriented with indigenization-from-without. I doubt how is the indigenization-from-within works. This has arised when some papers often mention SP but the problem is, when one reads the process and method of derivation (including theorization), much are still importing and using the imposed etic. This means, in my own opinion, that there are those researchers who are joing the bandwagon of indigenous psychology (Adair, 1993) not aware that they are disguising their Western ideas in order to be appreciated that they partake with the cultural/indignization movement. Like the problem of indigenization approaches, another problem arises is the problem of language. Much of the studies gathered are English-written texts. This means that knowledge building is discussed in a foreign tongue. For example, Pe-Pua and Protacio-Marcelino's tribute paper was published in English in 2000 for the Asian Journal of Social Psychology. Two years after it was read at the Silver Jubilee of the IACCP in 1998 held at Washinton USA. It took another two years, in 2002, when it was publishd in Tagalog by the PSSP under Navarro and Yacat. In my own undertanding, this particular dilemma of language is of political and personal interests by the researchers. But as to what motive this is, that remains to be discovered.

The concept of culture perhaps is the most difficult understanding one would look at to SP. Sikolohiyang Pilipino partakes confusion of being an indigenous psychology and a cultural psychology. Perhaps, Yang (2000) is right to note that such psychology from the Philippines is of monocultural indigenous psychology. Such monocultural is that of the cultural background SP has introduced. These cultural background is reflected with the language, that is, the Filipino-Tagalog language. Since the Philippines is of many ethnic cultural group with many language orientations, there is difficulty how can SP representative of the whole Filipino culture wherein much of its concept are of Filipino-Tagalog orientation (it is to note that there are some terms which are already assimilated by the Filipino-Tagalog terms borrowing from other cultural languages, in this case, this words though borrowed have different meaning for the Tagalogs who have used such words).

The purpose of my study was to best give a picture of maturation for SP. But the results showed a different story. There is much controversy and problem regarding the definition of SP and how does theoretization by empiricism works within this approach/movement. Perhaps, its greatest contribution, that the importance of culture, is widely recognized by most researchers in psychology and has been partly mainstreamed in psychological studies but as to SP as another kind of psychology or a state of psychology, that is another story to tell which needs years to embark.

(This paper was read at the 14th Regional Convention of the Psychological Association of the Philippines, Supreme Hotel, Baguio City, May 23-26, 2005.)