Republic of the Philippines Pangasinan State University Graduate School Urdaneta City, Pangasinan Subject: CAE 215 - Philippine

Writings Professor: Dr. Jessica J. Jimenez Topic: PROBLEMS OF OUR CULTURE by: Salvador P. Lopez Prepared by: Mr. Dennis A. Solis PROBLEMS OF OUR CULTURE by: Salvador P. Lopez I.Objectives: At the end of the report, the class will be able to: 1. Discuss authors biography; 2. Analyze the essay; 3. Present a thorough discussion about the message of the essay.

II. Introduction to the Author Salvador Ponce Lopez (May 27, 1911October 18, 1993), born in Currimao, Ilocos Norte, was an Ilokano writer, journalist, educator, diplomat, and statesman. He studied at the University of the Philippines and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1931 and a Master of Arts degree, also in philosophy, in 1933. During his UP days, he became a drama critic for the Philippine Collegian and was a member of the Upsilon Sigma Phi. From 1933 to 1936, he taught literature and journalism at the University of Manila. He also became a daily columnist and magazine editor of the Philippine Herald until World War 2. In 1940, Lopez' essay "Literature and Society" won in the Commonwealth Literary Awards. This essay posited that art must have substance and that poet Jose Garcia Villa's adherence to "art for art's sake" is decadent. The essay provoked debates, the discussion centered on proletarian literature, i.e., engaged or committed literature versus the art for arts sake literary orientation. He was appointed by President Diosdado Macapagal as Secretary of Foreign Affairs and was ambassador to the United Nations for six years before reassigned to France for seven years.

Lopez was the president of the University of the Philippines from 1969 to 1975. And he established a system of democratic consultation in which decisions such as promotions and appointments were made through greater participation by the faculty and administrative personnel; he also reorganized U.P. into the U.P. System. It was during his presidency that U.P. students were politically radicalized, launching mass protests against the Marcos regime, from the so-called "First Quarter Storm" in 1970 to the "Diliman commune" in 1971. During the Diliman Commune, Lopez called the students, faculty, and employees to defend UP and its autonomy from militarization, since the military wanted to occupy the campus, searching for alleged leftists as well as activists opposing them. Many militants, out of his defense of UP's autonomy and democracy, considered him as a progressive and a militant member of the UP academe. V. The Essay Analysis

Culture is the sum total of the ideas, customs, skills, religion, arts and way of life of a people in a given period of civilization. These ideas and customs become the source of the principles and values by which the people live. Transmitted to the next generation, some customs continue to influence the dayto-day affairs of certain people. Others, however, through time have been evaluated, revised, and even enriched. Culture has been understood in many ways over the years. Culture, as defined by Calhoun, is the learned norms, values, knowledge, artifacts, language, and symbols that are constantly communicated among people who share a common way of life. Leslie A. White refers to culture as an organization of phenomena that is dependent upon symbols, acts, objects, ideas, and sentiments. In this sense, culture means the entire way of life of people and everything learned and shared by people in society. The essay, The Problems of Our Culture, was written during the Japanese Occupation by Salvador Ponce Lopez. According to Lopez, culture denotes the sum total of nations achievements in art, religion, science, and letters; their philosophy and way of life; the ideals and instrumentalities by which they live. Our culture is the continuity of our traditional life. Thus, it is considered the backbone of our being a Filipino. It was mentioned in the essay that Filipino culture is the product of crossbreeding. Our ancestors who first came to these shores were a breed of men far different from their offspring and absorbed generous doses of different cultures. In other words, we have become what we are today by the historical events that happened before. The author emphasizes that hybridization of our culture produced a positive effects. We gained a lot more than what we lost. According to Lopez, with the cultural hybridization, we lost the animistic faith of our pagan forefathers. We lost the slave

system of social organization and the tribal system of government of the petty chiefs and kings. On the other hand, we gained Christian religion. Christianity, apart from its value as a system of religious belief, was a powerful liberating force in the life of the people. We acquired a zeal for learning and education, a desire to seek knowledge throughout the world. From this, sprang a new confidence in our own powers. We cultivated the scientific spirit eradicating ignorance. Finally, we developed an appetite for an abundant and convenient way of living brought about by modern civilization. The essay also sought to induce Filipinos to rediscover the cultural identity. First, develop a new market for the Philippine products in Asia. Second, the movement to Filipinize the personnel of the schools and the content of instruction. Next, the movement to Filipinize the clergy by elevating Filipinos to positions of rank and responsibility in the hierarchy of the Chrurch. Also, the adoption of Tagalog as the national language and as a compulsory subject in all Philippine schools. All these according to Lopez bespoke a nation beginning earnestly to turn inward upon itself, seeking in the depths of its own soul treasures it had long neglected. Likewise, the essay points out two things Filipinos were guilty of. One is indiscriminate borrowing and failure to assimilate properly what we borrowed. In order to address these, the author presented possible remedies to rehabilitate our cultural heritage. First, we must carefully re-examine the content of our culture and then decide what parts and features of it should weed out and what others we should keep, regardless of whether these are native or foreign origin. Second, we should continue borrowing from the cultural treasures of other nations, this time making absolute care that we take over only those things that harmonize with the spirit of our traditions and have power to enhance our fund of beauty and truth. Third, we must look more closely than we have been wont to do in the past into the treasures that abound in the soul of the race or that lie buried in the forgotten pages of our history, retrieving those customs, traditions, and ideals that reason and practice may prove to be valid and useful still. Fourth, remembering that judicious selection and imitation are not enough, we must do more than swallow what we borrow; we must assimilate it rather than letting the juices, as it were, of our native genius permeate, digest, and transmute it into the living flesh and body of Filipino culture. True culture belongs to all the world, the heritage of all mankind. Lopez said cultural isolation is fatal. There is no country in the world that possesses a culture which is exclusively the product of its own genius. If race, language and religion are the basic elements of culture anywhere, which country among those that are considered as the most progressive in the world today has not experienced an alien infusion in one or more of these cultural elements?

There can be no objection to any movement which seeks to show that the Filipinos had a high level of indigenous culture even before the coming of the Spaniards. By all means, the Filipino people ought to know that we have a past of which we can be proud of and therefore also a future which shall be worthy flowering of the past. An understanding of culture will provide individuals with a better appreciation of the different cultures of people with whom they may relate now and in the future.

VII. References

Internet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_P._Lopez http://emotionalgirljoy.weebly.com/salvador-p-lopez.html