Virgilio Enriquez

Enriquez went on to become Chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of the Philippines from 1977 to 1982. He continued to inspire and encourage students to embrace the Filipino language and culture, furthering the growth of Filipino psychology and continuity of the national language. He died at the age of 51 on August 31, 1994, in San Francisco, California due to cancer.

Enriquez is also well known for the numerous books he authored throughout his career such as Indigenous Psychology and National Consciousness (Enriquez, 1989) to his final publication Pagbabangong-Dangal: Indigenous Psychology & Cultural Empowerment (Enriquez, 1994). Areas of his research included “indigienous psychology, Filipino personality, psychology of language and politics, philosophy and values, cross-cultural psychology, and Pilipinolohiya (Philippine Studies).”

As Enriquez worked to break boundaries and instigate different learning practices, he received many high accolades in his profession. Most notably in 1982, he was given the Outstanding Young Scientist of the Philippines award by the National Academy of Science and Technology, and after his passing was awarded the National Achievement in the Social Sciences in 1997 from the National Research Council of the Philippines.

Filipino psychology "began in the early 1970s initially as a protest against Philippine psychology's colonial character and the uncritical acceptance of American psychological models." It “urges Filipino psychologists to confront social problems and national issues as part of their responsibility as social scientists.” A way to understand the Filipino character, it is helpful to analyze the social interaction in a Philippine setting. A conceptual distinction in many different levels and modes of interaction is provided by the Filipino language. There are 8 levels of interaction that were found by Santiago and Enriquez; these levels include pakikitungo (transaction/civility with), pakikisalamuha (interaction with), pakikilahok (joining/participating with), pakikibagay (in conformity with/in accord with), pakikisama (getting along with), pakikipag-palagayang-Ioob (having rapport with), pakikisangkot (getting involved with), and pakikiisa (being one with).” Enriquez coined the term 'kapwa', and he believes it to be the only term that both categories of "outsider" (ibang tao) and "insider" (Hindi ibang tao). He used this term to “explain Filipino interpersonal relations.” The English word "others" is what is thought to be the closest English equivalent of "kapwa." Although “kapwa" is similar, it means the unity of the ‘self’ and the ‘others’. A prominent student of Enriquez, Katrin de Guia also studied kapwa and asserted that it is the shared identity between the self and others.

Enriquez earned his B.A. in Philosophy from the University of the Philippines in 1961. In 1966, he attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to pursue a master's degree, and later a Doctorate degree in social psychology. He then returned to the Philippines in 1971 to continue teaching psychology. Filipino psychology was created because he noticed that scholars and intellectuals in the Philippines were dissatisfied with the Western-oriented take on psychology as their models did not fit with Filipino culture and behavior. As such, he focused more on a Filipino-oriented teaching model in his teaching and research including using Filipino to lecture and exam.

Even as there was “no concerted effort in the 1960s to reject and correct traditional way of teaching and studying psychology”, this changed in the 1970s when Enriquez introduced Filipino psychology, also called Sikolohiyang Pilipino—his most significant contribution to the realm of psychology. According to Enriquez, Filipino psychology is the fruit of experience, ideas, and orientation of Filipinos. He also said that a Filipino can better understand himself and in turn, is able to improve his life more. Different from traditional psychology, Filipino psychology identifies what the key concepts are in order to have an understanding of a Filipino's mind, personality and behaviour, while also looking at human behaviour from non-western culture context.

Virgilio G. Enriquez (November 24, 1942 – August 31, 1994), also known as Doc E, was a social psychologist and the Father of Filipino psychology "Ama ng Sikolohiyang Pilipino". He was born on November 24, 1942, at Santol, Balagtas formally Bigaa, Bulacan. He was the youngest of 5 children to Arsenio Libiran Enriquez and Rosario Galvez Gaspar. He is the founder of the Pambansang Samahan sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino, (corporate name: National Association for Sikolohiyang Pilipino, Inc.).