The Young and the sacred: an analysis of empirical evidence from the Philippines
The article presents an empirical understanding of the sacred among the Filipino youth from a multicultural and multifaith context. A multistage item development in Manila and Mindanao was undertaken to prepare a Likert scale meant to explore the empirical dimensions of the construct ‘sacred’. Exploratory factor analysis was utilized to identify the underlying factor structure. The results reveal a four-factor structure: religious, valued, ethical and communal. Filipino youths’ notions veered away from the traditional sacred–profane continuum by introducing a personal–religious dynamic. The results underscore the affinity of the religious dimensions (divine and communal) to Filipino youths’ personal appreciation (ethical and valued) of the sacred.
In the canon of sociology of religion, the sacred is taken as the assumed moral architecture that is made visible or comes to the fore only when threatened by the profane, which threatens to destabilize it (Durkheim, Freud, and Weber). However, this pertains mainly to its (seemingly) necessary association with religion. In the controversy surrounding the clandestine burial of the remains of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, the sacredness of the place, and what it symbolizes for Filipinos’ sense of heroism, is pushed at the forefront of national consciousness. The paper claims that the analysis of Filipino youth protest against the burial through their slogans, posters and memes, manifests the changed contours in the meaning of the sacred, which are culled from Filipino youth’s experiences of banal (holy), maganda (beautiful) and ritwal (ritual). Thus, what is the sacred is that which is relational, or it may be a content of experience, and/or engagement in” fleeting moments” that can be encountered in spaces and places where young people find themselves in the here and now.
While cyberspace fosters and provides democratic spaces crave by young people to creatively express themselves, such spaces can also render them vulnerable. Through phenomenology, De La Salle University students critically examined their own experience as they navigated cyberspace. The activity enabled them to reflect deeply into their own engagement and whether such made them empowered or vulnerable.
cafe public intellectual 