The kalooban of our ancestors

I AM not into saying that the time before the Spaniards was a “golden age” and that our ancestors’ lives were perfect. No. I am not an essentialist, and I don’t romanticize our ancestors. I also do not believe in what others call “set Filipino values” even if sometimes I use the word in English for lack of a better term (because these so-called traits are not homogeneous and are different in various parts of the country). What I do recognize is that they had freedom. They had contact with other people and traded with them and that they had ideals — although not set and homogeneous — that were guided by our common Austronesian culture and manifested in one way or another in various parts of the country. Instead of the Westernized term “values,” I like to call them kalooban — Kalooban ng Bayan.

Since our Austronesian ancestors had a pottery culture, we are actually like the jars they made. We have labas (outside), loob (inside) and lalim (depth) and of course, laman (content).