Introduction

This lesson highlights freedom from the intellectual, political, spiritual, and economic aspects. To
be free is a part of humanity's authenticity. In one way, understanding freedom is part of our
transcendence. Freedom consists of going beyond situations such as physical or economic. For
instance, students can be young and poor, but they can still pursue their dreams of becoming a
doctor, teacher, or a stage actor. As discussed in the last lesson, critical thinking is an important
tool toward freedom and truth.

5.1 Realize that "All Actions Have Consequences"

A. Aristotle

The Power of Volition

The imperative quality of a judgment of practical intellect is meaningless, apart fion, will. Reason
can legislate, but only through will can its legislation be translated into action. The task of
practical intellect is to guide will by enlightening it. Will, in fact, is to be understood wholly in
terms of intellect. If there were no intellect, there would be no will. This is obvious from the way
in which will is rationally denominated.

The will of humanity is an instrument of free choice. It is within the power of everyone to be
good or bad, worthy or worthless. This is borne out by:

our inner awareness of an aptitude to do right or wrong;

• the common testimony of all human beings; the rewards and punishment of rulers; and the
general employment of praise and blame.

Moral acts, which are always particular acts, are in our power and we are responsible for them.
Character or habit is no excuse for immoral conduct. Attending class is a student's
responsibility. Should the student cut class, then he/she is responsible for the consequences of
his actions.

As a result, he/she must be held responsible for any accident or failure in grades that will befall
on him/her. The student may regret what he/she had done, but all the regrets in the world will
not call it back. The point is the student should not have cut class in the first instance. When the
matter is sifted down, the happiness of every human being's soul is in his own hands. to
preserve and develop, or to cast away.

For Aristotle, a human being is rational. Reason is a divine characteristic.

Humans have the spark of the divine. If there were no intellect, there would be no will. Reason
can legislate, but only through will can its legislation be turned into action. Our will is an
instrument of free choice. As shown in Figure
5.1 Reason, will, and action drives each other.

B. St. Thomas Aquinas

Love is Freedom

Ofall creatures of God, human beings have the unique power to change themselves and the
things around them for the better. St. Thomas Aquinas considers the human being as a moral
agent. As discussed in Chapter Three we are both the spiritual and body elements; the spiritual
and material. The unity between both elements indeed helps us to understand our complexity as
human beings. Our spirituality separates us from animals; it delineates moral dimension of our
fulfillment in an action. Through our spirituality, we have a conscience. Whether we choose to be
"good" or "evil" becomes our responsibility.

A human being, therefore, has a supernatural, transcendental destiny. This means that he can
rise above his ordinary being or self to a highest being or self. This is in line with the idea of St.
Thomas that in the plan of God, a human being has to develop and perfect himself by doing his
daily tasks. Hence, if a human being perseveringly lives a righteous and virtuous life, he
transcends his mortal state of life and soars to an immortal state of life.

The power of change, however, cannot be done by human beings alone, but is achieved
through cooperation with God. Between humanity and God, there is an infinite gap, which God
alone can bridge through His power. Perfection by participation here means that it is a union of
humanity with God. Change should promote not just any purely private advantage, but the good
of the community.

Aquinas gives a fourfold classification of law: the eternal law, natural law, human law, and divine
law. Human beings, as being rational, have laws that should not only be obeyed but also
obeyed voluntarily and with understanding (for instance, in following the traffic rules). The
natural Raw, then, in its ethical sense, applies only to human beings. The first principle and
precept of the natural law is that good is to be sought after and evil avoided (this is the instruct
of self-preservation). There is inherent in every human being an inclination that he shares with
all other beings, namely, the desire to conserve uman life and forbids the contrary. For instance,
if there is fire, and its burning heat is felt, then, it is but a hurman tendency to avoid it.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Since the law looks to the common good as its end, it is then conceived primarily with external
acts and not with interior disposition. For example, if someone does not lie to his parents so
they will increase his allowance, then the reason of his goodness stems not because he does
not want to lie because it will hurt them but because he knows that there is a reward for being
so. The same goes with government officials who use full media coverage when they help their
constituents so that people would vote for them. A person, thus, should not be judged through
his actions alone but also through his sincerity behind his acts.
For Aquinas, both natural and human laws are concerned with ends determined simply by
humanity's nature. However, since a human being is in fact, ordained to an end transcending his
nature, it is necessary that he has a law ordering him to that end, and this is the divine law or
revelation.

It also gives human beings the certitude where human reason unaided could arrive only at
possibilities. It deals with interior disposition as well as external acts and it ensures the final
punishment of all evildoings. Neither cif which is possible for human law. This divine law is
divided into old (Mosaic) and the new (Christian) that are related as the immature and imperfect
to the perfect and complete. We have, however, now passed beyond philosophy, since this rests
on reason and experience alone; the analysis of the divine law is the function of theology.

Philosophy of the Human Person

Eternal law is the decree of God that governs all creation. It is, "That Law which is the Supreme
Reason cannot be understood to be otherwise than unchangeable and eternal" Natural law is
the human "participation" in the eternal law and is discovered by reason. Natural law is based
on "first principles." As discussed in the previous lessons, the principle of sufficient reason
states that nothing exists without a sufficient reason for its being and existence.

For Aristotle, the purpose of a human being is to be happy. To be one, one has to live a virtuous
life. In other words, human beings have to develop to the full their powers-rational, moral, social,
emotional, and physical here on earth. For St. Thomas, he follows the same line of thinking, but
points to a higher form of happiness possible to humanity beyond this life, and that is perfect
happiness that everyone seeks but could be found only in God alone.

St. Thomas wisely and aptly chose and proposed Love rather than Law to bring about the
transformation of humanity. For Love is in consonance with humanity's free nature, for Law
commands and complete; Love only calls and invites. St. Thomas emphasizes the freedom of
humanity but chooses love in governing humanity's life. Since God is Love, then Love is the
guiding principle of humanity toward his self-perception and happiness-his ultimate destiny.

C. St. Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Freedom

St. Thomas Aquinas establishes the existence of God as a first cause. Of all God's creations,
human beings have the unique power to change themselves and things around them for the
better. As humans, we are both material and spiritual. We have a conscience because of our
spirituality. God is Love and Love is our destiny.....

D. Jean Paul Sartre: Individual Freedom

Sartre's philosophy is considered to be a representative of existentialism (Falikowski 2004). For

Sartre, the human person is the desire to be God: the desire to exist as a being which has its
sufficient ground in itself (en sui causa). There are no guideposts along the road of life. The
human person builds the road to the destiny of his/her choosing; he/she is the creator (Srathern
1998).
Sartre's existentialism stems from this principle: existence precedes essence. The person, first,
exists, encounters himself and surges up in the world then defines himself afterward. The
person is nothing else but that what he makes of himself.

The person is provided with a supreme opportunity to give meaning to one's life. In the course of
giving meaning to one's life, one fills the world with meaning.

Freedom is, therefore, the very core and the door to authentic existence. Authentic existence is
realized only in deeds that are committed alone, in absolute freedom and responsibility and
which, therefore, the character of true creation.

The person is what one has done and is doing.

On the other hand, the human person who tries to escape obligations and strives to be en-soi
(i.e., excuses, such as "I was born this way" or "I grew up in a bad environment) is acting on bad
faith (mauvais foi).

Sartre emphasizes the importance of free individual choice, regardless of the power of other
people to influence and coerce our desires, beliefs, and decisions. To be numan, to be
conscious, is to be tree to imagine, free to choose, and be responsible for one's life.

E. Thomas Hobbes

Theory of Social Contract

A Law of Nature (lex naturalis) is a precept or general rule established by reason, by which a
person is forbidden to do that which is destructive: of his life or takes away the means of
preserving the same; and to omit that by which he thinks it may be best preserved.

Given our desire to get out of the state of nature, and thereby preserve our lives, Hobbes
concludes that we should seek peace. This becomes his fairst law of nature. The
reasonableness of seeking peace immediately suggestis a second law of nature, which is that
we mutually divest ourselves of certain rights (such as the right to take another person's life) so
as to aclieve pearce.

That a person be willing, when others so too (this is necessary for pearce-building), to lay down
this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other people, as he would
allow other people against himself (Garvey 2006).

The mutual transferring of these rights is called a contract and is the basis of the notion of moral
obligation and duty. If one agrees to give up his right to punch you, you give up your right to
punch him. You have timen transferred these rights to each other and thereby become obligated
mot to hurt each other. From these selfish reasons alone, both are motivated to mutually
transfer these and other rights, since this will end the dreaciled state of war. Hobbes continues
by discussing the validity of certain contracts.
However, one cannot contract to give up his right to self-defense or self-preservation since it is
his sole motive for entering any contract.

Philosophy of the Human Person

The rational pursuit of self-preservation is what leads us to form commonwealths or states, the
laws of nature give the conditions for the establishment of society and government. These are
the rules a reasonable being would observe in pursuing one's own advantage, if he were
conscious of humanity's predicament in a condition in which impulse and passion alone rule.
The individual himself should not be governed by momentary impulse and by prejudice arising
from passion. The State itself is the resultant of the interplay of forces; and the human reason,
displayed in the conduct expressed by these rules, is one of the determining forces (Garvey
2006).

The laws of nature can be said to represent axioms and postulates that render this deduction
possible. They answer the question, "What are the conditions under which the transition from
the natural state of war to the state of human beings living in organized societies becomes
intelligible?" These systems are rooted from human nature and are not God-given laws, Nor do
they state absolute values, for according to Hobbes, there are no absolute values (Garvey
2006).

In Leviathan, Hobbes asserts:

"The fundamental law of nature seeks peace and follows it, while at the same time, by the sum
of natural right, we should defend ourselves by all means that we can.

it follows from this that there are"some rights that no human being can be understood by words,
or other signs, to have abandoned or transferred." Contracts made in the state of nature are not
generally binding, for, if one fears that you will violate your part of the bargain, then no true
agreement can be reached. No contracts can be made with animals since animals cannot
understand an agreement."

The third law of nature is that human beings perform their covenant made. Without this law of
nature, covenants are in vain and but empty words; and the right of all human beings to all
things remaining, we are still in the condition of war. Further, this law is the fountain of justice.
When there has been no covenant, no action can be unjust. However, when a covenant has
been made, to break it is unjust. Hobbes adds:

"...that covenants of mutual trust are invalid when there is fear of nonperformance on either part,
and that in the natural condition of war this fear is always present. It follows, therefore, that there
are no valid covenants and hence, no justice and injustice until the commonwealth is
established; that is, until a coercive power has been established which will compel human
beings to perform their covenants."

Hobbes, upholds that human beings seek self-preservation and security; however, they are
unable to attain this end in the natural condlition. of war. The laws of nature are unable to
achieve the desired end by themselves alone; that is, unless there is coercive power able to
enforce their observance by sanctions. For these laws, though dictates of reason, are contrary
to humanity's natural passions. Therefore, it is necessary that there should be a common power
or government backed by force and able to punish. This means that the plurality of individuals
should confer all their power and strength upon one human being or upon one assembly of
human beings, which may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, aunto one will (Garvey
2006).

That is [Link], they must appoint one man (or woman), or assembily of human beings, to bear
their person, a person being defined as "he wihose words or actions of another human being, or
of any other thing, to wihor they are attributed, whether truly or by fiction." Hobbes makes a
distinction between a commonwealth by institution and by acquisition.

1.​ A commonwealth is said to exist by institution when it has been established through
the covenant of every member of a multitude with every other member. The multitude of
human beings subjects themselves to a chosen sovereign from fear of one another.
2.​ A commonwealth is said to exist by acquisition when the sovereign power has been
acquired by force. Here, human beings fear for death or bonds of that human being who
holds power over their lives and liberty.

Neither of these commonwealths affects the sovereignty. The subjects of a sovereign cannot
either change the form of government or repudiate the authority of the sovereign: sovereignty is
inalienable. No sovereign can be unjustly put to death or in any way punished by his subjects.
For,

"inasmuch as every subject is author of all the sovereign's actions, to punish the sovereign
would be to punish another for one's own actions.

One of the prerogatives of the sovereign enumerated by Hobbes is judging what doctrines are fit
to be taught. Thus, the power of the sovereign being, to all intents and purposes unlimited,
brings forth the question of freedom (if any) to be possessed by the subjects or ought to be
possessed by them. A point of greater importance is that subjects are absolved from their duty
of obedience to the sovereign, not only if the latter has relinquished his sovereignty, but also if
he has indeed the will to retain his power but cannot, in fact, protect his subjects any longer.

Philosophy of the Human Person

If the sovereign is conquered in war and surrenders to the victor, his subjects become the
subjects of the fatter. If the commonweaith is tom asunder by internal discord and the sovereign
no longer possesses effective power, the subjects return to the state of nature, and a new
sovereign can be set up.

F. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rousseau is one of the most famous and influential philosophers of the French Enlightenment in
the 18th century. In his book The Social Contract, he elaborated his theory of human nature. In
Rousseau, a new era of sentimental piety found its beginning.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

The "EDSA Revolution" is an example, though an imperfect one, of what the theory of Social
Contract is all about. According to Hobbes and Rousseau, the state owes its origin to a social
contract freely entered into by its members. The two philosophers differed in their
interpretations.

Hobbes developed his idea in favor of absolute monarchy, while Rousseau interpreted the idea
in terms of absolute democracy and individualism.

Both have one thing in common, that is, human beings have to form a community or civil
community to protect themselves from one another, because the nature of human beings is to
wage war against one another, and since by nature, humanity tends toward self-preservation,
then it follows that they have to come to a free mutual agreement to protect themselves.

Hobbes thinks that to end the continuous and self-destructive-condition of warfare, humanity
founded the state with its sovereign power of control by means of a mutual consent. On the
other hand, Rousseau believes that a human being is born free and good. Now, he is in chains
and has become bad due to the evil influence of society, civilization, learning, and progress.
Hence, from these come dissension, conflict, fraud, and deceit. Therefore, a human being lost
his original goodness, his primitive tranquility of spirit./

In order to restore peace, bring his freedom back, and as he returned to his true self, he saw the
necessity and came to form the state through the social contract whereby everyone grants his
individual rights to the general will. The term 'Social Contract' is not an actual historical event. It
its a philosophical fiction, a metaphor, and a certain way of looking at a society of voluntary
collection of agreeable individuals. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights constituted, as an
instance of a social contract, however, is not a metaphor but an actual agreement and actually
"signed" by tie people or their representatives (Solomon & Higgins 1996). The "1986 EDISA
Revolution" was not a bloody one. People gathered in EDSA to voice their disenchantment
peacefully and through mutual effort, successfully ousted Marcos. This had inspired changes
not only in our own country but alson in Eastern Europe's Perestroika.

There must be a common power or government which the plurality of individuals (citizens)
should confer all their powers and strength into (freedom) one will (ruler).

5.2Evaluate and Exercise Prudence in Choices

For B.F. Skinner, the environment selects which is similar with natural selection. We must take
into account what the environment does to an organism not only before, but also after it
responds. Skinner maintains that behavior is shaped and maintained by its consequences.
Behavior that operates upon the environment to produce consequences (operant conditioning)
can be studied by arranging environments in which specific consequences are contingent upon
it.

The second result is practical; the environment can be manipulated Yelon (1996) accepted that
behavioral psychology is at fault for having overanalyzed the words "reward" and"punishment.
We might have miscalculated the effect of the environment in the individual. There should be a
balance in our relationship with others and the environment. In our dealing with our fellow
human beings, there is the strong and obvious temptation to blame the environment if they do
not conform to our expectations.

The question of freedom arises. Can an individual be free? According to Skinner, our struggle
for freedom is not due to a will to be free as for Aristotle or Sartre, but to certain behavioral
processes characteristic of the human organism, the chief effect of which is the avoidance of or
escape from "aversive" features of the environment.

The feeling of freedom, according to Skinner becomes an unreliable guide as soon as would-be
controllers turn to non-aversive measures, as they are likely to do to avoid the problems raised
when the controller escapes or attacks. For example, a skillful parent learns to reward a child for
good behavior rather than punish him for bad. Control becomes necessary in the issue of
freedom.

Following the adage of John Stuart Mill, "Liberty consists in doing what/one desires." Skinner
states that when a person wants something, he acts to gret it when the occasion arises. Skinner
argues that even though behavior is completely determined, it is better that a person "feels free"
or "believes that he is free."

The issue is controllability. We cannot change genetic defects by punishment; we can work only
through genetic measures that operate on a much longer time scale. What must be changed is
not the responsibility of autonomous individual but the conditions, environment, or genetic, of
which a person's behavior is a function. Example, a student was praised by a teacher who said
to him. "Wery good!" for a solution to a problem or for giving the correct answer to a question.

Skinner thinks that the problem is to free human beings not from control but from certain kinds
of control, and it can be solved only if we accept the fact that we depend upon the world around
us and we simply change the nature of dependency. Skinner proposed that to make the social
environment as free as possible of aversive stimuli, we do not need to destroy the environment
or escape from it. What is needed, according to Skinner, is to redesign it.

Life is full of paradoxes; nobody could nor should control it. We have tim be open to life, learn to
accept and live with paradoxes. Learning with contradiction is not the same as living in
contradiction. The paradoxes account for the reasons why life cannot be held still. Defining or
conceptualizing insists on regarding one aspect of life at the same time disregarding the other.

In the spirituality of imperfection, we learn to accept that life, our environment, is both "evil" and
"good." In recognizing life's open-endedress, we learn to be flexible and adaptable. B.F. Skinner
believes that, macality is a conditioned response impressed on the child by society. Despite this
view, however, creating a static environment, such as a controlled environment, is not applicable
in the realities of everyday world (Schouten & Looren de Jong 2012).

Skinner is right, however, in pointing out the influence of environment especially in the
socialization of children. Unfortunately, there is an emphasis today in the acquisition of money,
property and prestige, regardless of values or lack of those-that children learns.

There should not just be a re-engineering of the environment, but a total transformation of how
we view our environment, beginning with our own orientation. How do we view life? Is it merely
a life concerned with power that, according to Buddha, is the cause of despair? Or should it be a
life of cooperation, vision and concern with other living beings?

Indeed, the theory of freedom has negative and positive tasks. Our lives should not be merely
controlled by rewards and punishments. As human beings, we are capable of reaching different
level of heights and ideals. According to Ye lon, punishment is an educative measure, and as
such is a means to the formation of motives, which are in part to prevent the wrongdoer from
repeating the act and in part to prevent others from committing a similar act. Analogously, in the
case of reward we are concerned with incentive (Schouten & Looren de Jong 2012).

However, much more important than the question of when a person is said to be responsible is
that of when he himself feels responsible. Evidently, not merely that it was he who took the
steps required for its performance; but there must be added awareness that he did it
"independently, "of his own initiative" or whatever the term is. This feeling is simply the
consciousness of freedom, which is merely the knowledge of having acted of one's own desires.
And of "one's own desires" are those which have their origin in the regularity of one's character
in the given situation, and are not imposed by an external power, such as a stimulus.

The absence of external power expresses itself in the well-known feeling that one could also
have acted otherwise.

Indeed, the environment plays a significant part in our lives. However, since the Stone Age, we
had proven that we are not completely under its mercy. We have and shall continue to tame and
adapt to the changes in the conditions of the environment. As Plato believes, the soul of every
individual possesses the power of learning the truth and living in a society that is in accordance
to its nature.

We are responsible, whether we admit it or not, for what is in our power to do; and most of the
time, we cannot be sure what it is in our power to do until we attempt. In spite of the alleged
inevitabilities in personal life and history, human effort can re-determine the direction of events,
even though it cannot determine the conditions that make human effort possible.

It is true that we did not choose to be born. It is also true that we choose, most of us, to keep on
living. It is not true that everything that happens to us is like

"being struck down by a dreadful disease." The treatment and cure of disease to use as an
illustration-would never serve as a moral paradigm for the whole human situation-would never
have begun unless we believed that some things that were did not have to be, that they could
be different, and that we could make them different. And what we can make different, we are
responsible for.

5.3 Choices Have Consequences and SomeThings Are Given Up. while en Others Are
Obtained in Making Choices

Twentieth century gave rise to the importance of the individual, tihe opposite of medieval
thought that was God-centered. For Ayn Rand (19946), individual mind is the tool for economic
progress vis-à-vis laissez fasire capitalism. Since the mind is important, the sector that molds it
should mot be controlled by the government. Similar with Aristotle, Rand believes that thinking
is volitional. A person has the freedom to think or not. Though, for Rand, the majority belongs to
the passive supporters of the status quo witho choose not to think.

Individual rights, as espoused by Hobbes and Rousseau, are not mensly numbers. Rand rejects
collectivism because of its brute force. Though human beings have rights, there should also be
responsibility. Individlesal rights were upheld in capitalism that is the only system that can
uphold and protect them. The principle of individual rights represented the extension of morality
into the social system.

Rand cited the right to gain, to keep, to use, and to dispose of material values. Most developed
countries have disposed their toxic wastes to developing countries. Disposing materiat values,
thus, is not just a maiter of throwing waste but projecting where to dump wastes that would raot
impinge on the rights of others.

Individualism, as espoused by Rand, is lined in family dependency because Easterners believe

that the individual needs the community and vlice versa. The Filipino and Chinese, for instance,
stress the human relationships that emphasize that the person is not necessarily an
independent entity.

In Filipino's loob, for instance, the individual is the captain of his own stip on a sea that is not
entirely devoid of uncertainties. Loob touches the daily human aspect of the Filipinos.

Filipinos embraced family and political parties. For the Filipinos, cone does not only fulfill
reasons of the mind but of the heart and persomal involvement as well. Whereas Rand upheld
the individual, Filipinos' lamob is essentially an interpersonal and social concept before it is a
privately, personal concept.

Filipinos look at themselves as holistic from interior dimension unciler the principle of harmony.
This encompasses Filipinos' humanity, personality, theological perspective, and daily
experiences. It aspires harmony weth others and nature to be in union with God. Filipinos'
holistic and intersor dimensions stress a being-with-others and sensitivity to the needs of others
that inhibits one's personal and individual fulfillment.

There is the apprehension on the group-oriented approach of the Filipino that might hamper the
individual's initiative and responsibility. it is contended that the individual should be disciplined
from within rather than fear from authority figure. Discipline and responsibility should be
inculcated especially through education.

Filipinos' loob is the basis of Christian value of sensitivity to the needs of others and gratitude. It
encompassed "give-and-take relationship among Filipinos. As such, repaying those who have
helped us is a manifestation of utang na loob or debt of gratitude. Loob is similar with other
Eastern views that aspire for harmony (sakop) with others, God and nature. Loob prioritized
family, relatives, and even non-kinsmen. It bridges individua differences and is the common
factor among human beings.

The concept of Rand's free individual and Filipino's view of the free human being may have
differences but can be overcome. The potential of the Filipino should be able to grow so that he
will be aware of his uniqueness Children should be brought up to the identity of the members of
the family and simultaneously with that of the nation. Self-sufficiency (kasarinlan) should
recognize human worth and dignity.

Individualism, thus, should not be seen as selfishness but an affirmation of a truly human self
that is the supreme value of human living. To be a free individual is to be responsible not only
for one's self but also for all Thus, the individual becomes a free and creative person who
asserts one's uniqueness.

Kagandahang loob, kabutihang loob, and kalooban are terms that show sharing of one's self to
others. This is the freedom within loob. Loob puts one in touch with his fellow beings. Great
Philippine values, in fact, are essentially interpersonal. The use of intermediaries or
go-betweens, the values of loyalty, hospitality, pakikisama (camaraderie), and respect to
authority are such values that relate to persons. In short, the Filipino generally believes in the
innate goodness of the human being.

Filipino ethics has an internal code and sanction than other legalistic moral philosophies that are
rather negative. The Filipino, who stresses duties over rights, has plenty in common, once again
with Chinese or Indians. The Filipino looks at himself as one who feels, wills, thins, acts, as a
total whole as a "person," conscious of his freedom, proud of his human dignity and sensitive to
the violation of these two.

5.4 Show Situations that Demonstrate Freedom of Choice and the Consequences of cheir
Choices

The author agrees to Rand's views of the individual in the advancement of a person. According
to Rand, individual freedom should be aligned with economic freedom. The Filipino "sako" or
harmony can be a helping value to the full development of the Filipino if it opens up to embrace
the whole Philippine society. However, there are cases where the Filipino "sakop»" may
adversely affect the social and financial status of the one moving upward the social ladder. For
instance, the more well-off members of a family share their gains with their relatives or friends in
need.
However, sometimes, the beneficiaries of the monetary assistance (utang or loan) just use the
money for non-essentials (eg., drinking sprees) when there are more important concerns that
should be prioritized (e.g., tuition fee). Hence, Filipino "sakop" must begin to raise its members
in a more responsible way and the members should likewise take this attempt to raise them
financially and socially seriously so as not to squander thehelp bestowed on them. Moreover,
they mast come to realize that their personal worth and dignity is not exterior to themselves; it is
found not in the body of the "sakop" but in one's "kaloobam." If these are fulfilled, the Filpinos
shall not only be better persons but a better nation with a sound economy (Andres 1994).

A leader or a manager with "magandang kalooban" is not passive but plays active role in
economic develapment. Leaders should not just focus on the impact of job performance but
treats every individual worker as persons and not as objects. Filipinos can attain a sound
economy through an integrative system as such there is support and help among unit of
organizations within a company. To make up for the inferiority compilex of Filipinos, a good
Filipino leader/manager must encourage fellow Filipiros to believe in themselves so that they car
bounce back as an economic power.

the Human Person

Rand presupposed that greater creativity will be achieved if the government will minimize
influence on individuals. Flipinos should take the initiative by following Rand's suggestion and
adopting individualism in their value system. The author thinks that individualism will provide
Filipinos an opportunity to be more aware of their capacity, to harness fully their strengths, and
to commit themselves to life. Individualism reinforces kasarilihan (self-sufficiency), as such, it
discourages subservience from external control higher than itself.

"Kasarilihan" promotes entrepreneurship, which minimize foreign control of Filipinos (i.e., from
the control of monopolies and multinational companies). Other than entrepreneurship,
individualism also prioritizes countryside development, a self-help concept among the country
dwellers, which discourages dependence on government loans which would leave the locals to
follow whatever conditions the government sets in favor of the loan. Furthermore, for Andres
(1986), the spirit of self-help is the root of all authentic growth in rural development, which is a
source of national productivity and efficiency.

As a result, entrepreneurship and countryside development economically and politically

emancipate Filipinos from local and foreign intervention. Moreover, Filipinos learn to be
self-sufficient which leads to self-respect and consequently, enhances Filipinos' amor propio
(pride and respectability).

Education has its own part to fulfill in giving importance to individual students and in
promulgation of the concept of individualism. Mounting a continuing education among Filipinos,
education should not shape the students' mind to be passive. Educators should be aware of the
individual talents of students, the differences in their family background, gifts and capabilities.
Rand proposed that the main task of education is to teach students how to be trained in theories
and concepts. The students have to be taught the eventual of knowledge discovered in the past
so that they will be equipped to acquire further knowledge of their own effort (Binswanger.
1986).

However, individualism should be tied with social responsibility and should not be just
"tayo-tayo" or "kami-kami." Our own individuality should interact with the individuality of others.
In this light, every Filipino should be given equal chance to cultivate their talents that inevitably
contribute in the development of the society. Further, as individuals who are free, Filipinos
should recognize their own brand of uniqueness, instead of copying foreign cultures. "Loob"
does not only develop the self of an individual but the welfare of others.

Remembering EDSA

Filipinos' self is rooted in "loob" (Alejo 1990) from which springs a person's authenticity.
Individualism could only progress to real change if it-springs from the innermost depth of
"kalooban" and not just for "pakitang tao" (outward appearance's sake). Thus, individualism
manifests changes within and outside the person.

Further, "loob" is the only identical factor among people's diversity in creed, color, and status in
the society. Moreover, there is no way that Filipinos will have no equal chance to become worthy
individuals. The author also took note of the interplay of Western philosophy that emphasizes
modern science and technology; the East, however, is more concerned on the inner and
personal nature of the self. The Eastern thinker is acquainted through one's personal
experience and intuitive grasp of reality, which is of higher value than the analytical speculation.