Core value

Enriquez’s structure has layers, and the layers are the whole argument. At the bottom, one core value: kapwa. Above it, pakikiramdam, which Enriquez labelled the “pivotal interpersonal value” and which is the skill that operates it, and kagandahang-loob, his “linking socio-personal value.” Above those, the surface values.

A core value is not the most frequently observed value. It is the one the others are derived from. That distinction is what makes the layering testable rather than decorative: if you change your reading of kapwa, every value above it changes meaning, and if you change your reading of a surface value, nothing below it moves.

The practical use is diagnostic. When you meet a claim about Filipino character, ask which layer it is describing. Almost every famous claim is describing the surface, and almost none of them say so.

Source: Virgilio G. Enriquez’s value structure, set out in Enriquez (1992), From Colonial to Liberation Psychology, UP Press, free to borrow, and summarised in Rogelia Pe-Pua and Elizabeth Protacio-Marcelino (2000), “Sikolohiyang Pilipino: A legacy of Virgilio G. Enriquez,” Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 3(1), 49 to 71, free PDF.

First used in: 2.1 · There is no line where you end and they begin