Social knowledge and the legitimation of the state: The Philippine experience in historical perspective

Social conditions have been recognized as a factor in the rise of social knowledge. The social knowledge produced creates a social reality characterized by its own justification for existence. Established intolerance and institutionalized suppression, for example, delineate what the guardians of society regard as dangerous and subversive, on one hand, and permissible, on the other. 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 this task of delineation. But more importantly, they have served, either willingly or unwillingly, to legitimize and validate the existing political order by elaborating on the political order's ideological basis, contributing to the formulation and implementation of policies, refusing to challenge the political order, or by 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, but, rather by the need to choose between competing values that would ultimately determine his or her relevance to society.