Summary
Kapwa is the Filipino understanding of the self as shared with others; Filipino scholars translate it as shared identity, shared inner self, or the self in the other. Psychologist Virgilio Enriquez, founder of Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino psychology), placed it at that field’s core: “The ako (ego) and the iba-sa-akin (others) are one and the same in kapwa psychology”. Bayanihan, communal solidarity, is one of the values Enriquez called ‘surface’ concepts, with kapwa as the core beneath them.
Both are lived values with long histories, reshaped by Spanish Catholic colonisation, and kapwa reaches beyond relations between people into the cultural, historical and spiritual.
Rationale
Kapwa came up when we interviewed Leni Velasco, and Part 1 names it. It locates what lies beneath belief between people, not inside heads; our listing it “doesn’t convey the fullness” of a lived value.