Human Dignity, Justice, Fairness, Youth - Eubios Ethics Institute

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Macer, DRJ and Saad-Zoy, S. eds., Asia-Arab Interregional Philosophical Dialogues:
Human Dignity, Justice, Fairness, Youth, Democracy and Public Policy (UNESCO, 2011)
Medieval Islamic Philosophy: Lessons from the Philippines
- Roy Allan B. Tolentino, MA
Ateneo de Manila University
Philippines
In a recent newspaper column, Randy David, professor of sociology at the University of the
Philippines and someone who might be described as a Filipino public intellectual, made the
following remarks:
A useful starting point for any analysis of the problem in Mindanao is the recognition that the
Philippine government is not, and indeed has never been, in full control of Muslim
Mindanao. The ubiquitous checkpoints that dot the region, manned by forces belonging to
traditional warlords and rebel groups, concretely attest to this. To all intents and purposes,
Philippine laws and institutions have never defined the framework of political rule in these
parts. Periodic elections conducted by national agencies may indicate membership in the
Filipino polity. And the presence of state-run schools may suggest integration into the national
culture. But this is largely an illusion. 12
While these general observations were made in light of the recent flare-up in the conflict
between so-called “lawless elements” and government troops, the same assessment might be
made in terms of Filipino culture as a whole. What denizens of Manila have come to understand
as “Filipino culture” has excluded, for the most part, the socio-economic and cultural history of
the Muslim South. So thorough has the Christianization of this region of the Philippines been
that Muslims are included largely as an afterthought, a nugget of knowledge students need to
memorize in order to pass exams. Practically speaking, many of the students in private
institutions of learning in Manila, of which the majority are run by Christian religious orders,
only encounter Islam through the stereotypes portrayed in media, and their purchase of pirated
DVD’s. I wish that last part were a joke, but sadly, it is not.
It is in this context, therefore, that the Department of Philosophy of Ateneo de Manila
University engaged in an experiment, of which I was the willing test subject. Founded in 1967,
the Department of Philosophy has a long tradition in the canon of Western thought, influenced
equally by scholasticism and phenomenology. It has also endeavoured to engage other traditions,
with specialists in the Chinese and Indian traditions. Alas, there was only one person who
researched Islamic thought, the late Fr. O’Shaughnessy, who has been dead for many years now.
Unwilling to let the study of Islamic thought to die with Fr. O’Shaughnessy, the department
chanced upon an opportunity to have its younger faculty members begin this foray into Islam.
I studied for a year at the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies, in Yogyakarta,
Indonesia, where Dr. Amin Abdullah crafted a reading plan for me. Personal reasons forced me
to return to Manila earlier than expected, but lest this turn into an autobiography, allow me to
skip ahead to the part when we offered, for the first time in decades, a course on Islamic
12 David, Randy. “Mindanao from Moro Eyes,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, Wednesday, 26 October 2011.
Accessed on 14 November 2011, http://opinion.inquirer.net/16073/mindanao-from-moro-eyes.