BRIDGING THE GAP
Dominant Bisayan values
Values are universal. They are common to all people but they find different meanings and applications in as much as culture is relative. In effect, values are also relative because they are the product of the experiential and historical experiences of the people, as well as of their religious beliefs and orientations. Thus, what is acceptable and desirable behavior in one society may not be so in other societies.
As it is with the rest of the Filipinos, the Bisayans, especially those in Panay and Negros Occidental, have certain dominant values that reflect what kind of people they are. These values spring from their peculiar way of viewing life through interactions with physical and social environments.
Those that are considered to be the dominant values of the Bisayans are those that are anchored on love, honor, power and security. Each of these values does not, in itself, exists in its purity but is combined and interrelated with other values. Love or gugma is not just romantic attraction but also involves affection and concern for members of the family and for friends. Related to this value is the trait malulo or being tender to people one loves or cares for. For stronger or more intense feelings of love and affection, one may add the Hiligaynon word, gid, as in "Ginahigugma ko gid ikaw!" However, love may also be alternatively associated with discipline, especially of the children.
Honor is normally associated with being known as a good person, whose reputation is untainted with such negative traits as being dishonest, corrupt, boastful, greedy, etc. Honor or dungog/kadungganan is always associated with huya or kahuy-anan, as well as with the Spanish, amor propio. Also related to dungog is utang nga kabalaslan, the moral obligation to return whatever favor or help has been received.
Power, on the other hand, is called by the Bisayans in its Spanish equivalent, poder. Poder relates to authority and influence, things possessed by those holding important positions in the government and those who are economically affluent. Having poder connotes also financial security and well-being for the person who possesses it. The downside of it is that, especially in the Philippines, those in power tend to become abusive and steps on the rights of those who have nothing at all. Thus, the usual tendency in this situation is the development of patronage, where one powerful individual or family has tremendous control over a great number of people.
All Bisayans aspire for security. Security or seguridad is understood by them as a state or condition of being peaceful and quiet, of being able to meet all the basic requirements in life, and of being free from trouble or danger. Nevertheless, security may also assume other implications such as over protectiveness or remaining silent despite the need to get involved in exposing certain anomalies or criminal activities going on. What happens, therefore, is that one exchanges truth for its illusion. This means that, aside from what an individual does or a certain group of people do, as perceive by their actions, there is also specific meaning attached if one were to consider the motive for doing the action.
The general character of the Bisayan culture is such that it revolves and yields itself to certain core values, namely guma, dungog, poder, and seguridad. These four core values explain the motivating factors of the Bisayan decision-making process and of their actions. Values and their manifestations are not isolated but related. They exist in clusters because a person's behavior is correlated with the various perspectives, meanings and values. If one value is at work, it has to be associated with other values. This explains the very behavior of the Bisayans, and of course the rest of the Filipinos. While they hold on to the four core values, yet their behavior and the way they look at themselves vis-a-vis other people may be dictated by the other values or considerations that are related to or entirely deemed opposite the said core values.