Surface value

In Enriquez’s structure, the values sitting on top of the core: hiya, utang na loob, pakikisama, and the confrontative set alongside them.

Surface does not mean shallow or false. These are observably real and Filipinos will tell you so. It means visible from outside, and derived rather than foundational.

The reason the distinction is worth a term is that almost the entire English-language portrait of Filipino character was built from this layer alone, and then read as if it were the structure. Enriquez’s charge is that this produces a description of a people who fold, which does not fit the historical record.

The test to carry: when someone describes Filipinos, ask whether the thing being described could be observed by a stranger in a week. If it could, it is surface, and the description is a description of what strangers get shown.

Source: Virgilio G. Enriquez’s value structure, in Enriquez (1992), From Colonial to Liberation Psychology, UP Press, free to borrow, and 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, which lists the surface values by name and by group.

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