Is the concept of a Filipino intelligentsia at all plausible? Or is it “un-Filipino” in a society where the stomach is king and the brain a look-alike stomach located in the skull?
Does this collection of intellectuals and knowledge workers exist at all as a distinct level of our society? Is it at the forefront of intellectual thought in science, the arts, culture, technology, the academe and politics?
Or must we hunt for these beings with the intense enthusiasm of astronomers searching for extraterrestrial intelligence?
Are these creatures to be found in planets such as Starbucks and Seattle’s Best, where intelligent and unintelligent conversation seems to exist only amid steam clouds from hot coffee?
Do they, like the ancient Greek Pythagoreans, gather in secret locations for fear of persecution by the jaded masses, there to revel in their shared knowledge among others of their kind? Are they the “educated derelicts” scoffed at in a famous ode to materialism, which boasts that only persistence and determination guarantee worldly success?
Is the Filipino intelligentsia in the widely read and seemingly omniscient political columnists? Or the stentorian TV news readers that reflect their network’s bias for tawdry journalism? Or those mealy-mouthed politicians with facile comments on whatever issue hogs the headlines?
Is it the rich? The richly educated? The long-suffering middle class that props up the economy but which receives a pittance in return? The religious orders steeped in arcane learning? Or, were I a game show contestant: Is the answer letter D, or all of the above?
And who are the leading lights of this invisible stratum of society? The “ilustrados” had Rizal, Del Pilar and Jaena. Who speaks for the Filipino intelligentsia of today? Who are its thinkers? And where can one read about their multitude of opinions, and of the necessary conflict of ideas that mark an intelligentsia?
Who are these people?
Without an intelligentsia, who is there to speak out with authority on the complex issues that bedevil the Filipino? Who will wield the intelligentsia’s power of using knowledge to goad governments and corporations into positive action?
In this Information Age, why are Filipinos who know more afraid to show society they know more?
Is knowledge a scarlet letter?
Perhaps a Filipino intelligentsia does exist. But nothing has been heard of or from it. Perhaps it’s because intellectuals prefer to work muted in the background, as if they were simply neurons.
But there is truth to that centuries-old observation that the true aim of education is not knowledge but action.
The Filipino intelligentsia must take action by using its vast knowledge to make sense of the world around us. It must proudly announce its existence. It must assert itself against the strident voices of loud amateurs, rabble-rousers, hedonists and politicians of whatever ideology as the brains of this nation.
Where is the Filipino intelligentsia?
Art Villasanta is the Philippines’ historian of the Korean War and is a keen student of military history. His military websites are at www.peftok.blogspot.com and www.futurewardefeat.blogspot.com.