Social Knowledge and the Legitimation of the State: The Philippine Experience in Historical Perspective

In: Political communication, Volume 9, Issue 3, p. 173-189

Abstract

The purveyors of social knowledge, including the social sciences, in the Philippines from the Spanish colonial period to the present have borne much responsibility in the task of delineating what is considered as dangerous & subversive, on one hand, & permissible, on the other. More importantly, they have served, either willingly or unwillingly, to legitimize & validate the existing political order by elaborating on that order's ideological basis, contributing to the formulation & implementation of policies, refusing to challenge the political order, or simply being acquiescent to its presence. The Philippine experience reinforces the observation that objectivity is relative to the paradigm to which the practitioner belongs. In the wake of the postbehavioral movement in the social sciences, the social scientist's role in the Philippines, like that of his or her counterparts in the West, is influenced not so much by the drive to be objective as by the need to choose between competing values that would ultimately determine his or her relevance to society.