Visiting a musician friend once, we talked about the role of Philippine folk music in the underground struggle after the imposition of Martial Law in 1972. In the discussions, my friend would often reply or explain things with a song, one of which was about a couple who both belonged to the Communist Party of the Philippines. The song, which somehow reflected his own personal experience, described the breakdown of the couple’s relationship that neither Marx nor Lenin nor Mao could resolve. The chorus (and conclusion) of the song was that love, not ideology, was important.

The song made me think about the concepts “ideology” and “love.” But what about those people who define and understand love only from the scheme of ideology, I thought. How can an ideology – whether political, social or cultural – not be able to take in “love”?

During the live news coverage of the Ultra Stadium stampede in Pasig City, I saw on television an elderly woman appealing to the viewing public for the safe recovery and return of her granddaughter. In the midst of her panic and confusion, she was able to describe the girl’s clothing and appearance, and added “pakibalik nyo na lang po sa akin yan, dahil karugtong po yan ng buhay ko” (please return that to me, because that is the continuation of my life).

The few seconds that she spoke on television struck me on a number of vital levels. First was her vivid memory of her granddaughter’s clothing and appearance in spite of her apparent state of emotional panic and mental confusion (Her granddaughter was later found and she looked exactly as described). Second was her use of the word “yan” instead of “sya” to refer to her granddaughter. “Yan” (from “iyan”) translates to the demonstrative pronoun “that” (which is near the person addressed), whereas “sya” (from “siya”) translates to the pronoun “he,” “she” or “it.” And third, was her use of the metaphor “karugtong ng buhay ko” (meaning “continuation” or “connection of my life”) to describe the non-physical characteristics of her granddaughter.

These points reveal to me with clarity the ideology underlying this woman’s concept of “love.” It is an ideology that is congruent with the principles of buhay (life), and that aspect of life that is inherited, bisà (life force or biological endowment). Buhay and bisà establish the rules of this woman’s equilibrium, the balance between the inner world and the outer world, of the self within the universe.

“Ideology” begins with the concept idea, meaning “the appearance of things.” Idea and logos (or “word”) evoke the capacity to articulate the internal representation of external things. This involves “making sense of things” not only in terms of internalization or introspection but also at the same time in terms of articulation or linguistic conscientiousness. The language used by the woman in search for her granddaughter declared her own internal logic of pag-ibig (love), of buhay and bisà, with such balance and precision that defied both their popular romantic conflations and their politically muddled meanings.

So, my musician friend may have been right after all. Marx, Lenin, Mao or Jeffersonian ideologies can’t bring us any closer to much understanding until we have by ourselves developed the language through which our introspection of external things may be explored and expressed, until we have established the rules of our own aesthetic equilibrium.

I believe that in the Filipino worldview, this aesthetic equilibrium is found in diwà.