THE National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) and Regional Development Council in Western Visayas, along with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), continue to promote the reintegration and strengthening of Filipino values in education toward the "new normal."
A webinar, the last of the series of Western Visayas Online Orientation on Filipino Culture and Arts during coronavirus disease (Covid-19), was held recently.
It took into account the key lessons learned from the previous webinars which focused on core Filipino values and approaches to revive and teach these "values" in basic and tertiary education.
A total of 175 participants attended the webinar coming from line agencies, local governments, private sector, cultural workers and artists, teachers from the Department of Education (DepEd) in the region, professors, culture and arts program officers of state universities and colleges, and culture focal persons from Neda regional offices.
Neda-Western Visayas said the webinar aims is to raise the awareness and discuss the importance of taking into consideration Filipino values in programs and projects of government, as well as to promote and reintegrate Filipino values in the education sector.
Arvin Manuel Villalon, culture development consultant of the NCCA and team leader of the National Survey on Filipino Values, discussed the "NCCA Study on Filipino values: Implications for Education and Values Formation" highlighting the basic contexts on values and pedagogies on values.
He presented an assessment on Filipino values in terms of the functional relations, the elements of the middle force of value system along with self-worth, feelings, worthy relationship, skills, humaneness and mental attitude which showed that values influence a person's mindset, relation to others or neighbors and it can be a force for people's survival and for nation-building.
Villalon also discussed the implications of Filipino values in terms of primary concerns of a family such as basic needs, work, education and health and other relevant sectors like governance, environment, peace and development, business and even mass media.
"The belief is still in the heart of the Filipino values and these values are directed towards the achievement of the common good such as moral imperative, accountability and duty," he emphasized.
Theatre and film director, playwrights and full professor of the Department of Film, Televisions and Theatre of the University of Notre Dame du lac in USA Dr. Anthony "Anton" Juan Jr., meanwhile, shared how to integrate and teach values in education by presenting "Reflections on Memory, Will, Action in Transformational Values and the Role of Performativity and Education in Value Formation."
"In education, your role must be clear that you are giving the choices between what is good or evil, what is happiness of self and what is happiness shared, what truths are absolute and which are relative to conditions," he said, adding that "it is not enough to teach values, but how they relate to the meaning of values and nation."