Philippine E-Journals

KAROL WOJTYLA’S PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN PERSON AND THE FILIPINO CONTEMPORARY SOCIETAL ISSUES

Glenn G. Pajares

 

Abstract:

The contemporary Philippine society is flooded with various concerns and issues such as drug abuse, extrajudicial killings of the War on Drugs, HIV and AIDS, fake news, and human-induced climate change, among others. This predicament can be attributed not only to the degradation of ethics and values but basically to the deterioration of the philosophy of the human person; that is, the lack if not a distortion of the Filipino’s understanding of what man truly is. By using content analysis, this paper delves into Karol Wojtyla’s Philosophy of the Human Person as a means to help address and rectify the said distorted outlook of the human person as the root cause of the many issues of contemporary Philippine society. It allows the Filipino to understand himself and others as a human person who, according to Wojtyla, is created in God’s image and likeness, a subject and not an object, a substantial amalgamation of body and soul, endowed with the faculties of intellect and will, a conscious and free-efficient cause or agent of his actions. Therefore, a moral being capable of moral choices, who seek the Truth and the Good as the basis of his decisions, and a social being who is responsible and accountable for his actions as well as a steward of the environment and the whole of creation.