Research

As the national university, we champion and support innovative research that addresses the country’s most pressing challenges.

08 Feb 2024

UP Manila

Vaccination significantly reduces the chances of getting long-COVID and, in some cases, improves existing long-COVID symptoms

The emergence of COVID-19 brought about a global health crisis of unprecedented proportions. As vaccination campaigns were rolled out, researchers...

Read More

07 Feb 2024

UP Los Baños

Higher education, marriage and abstaining from smoking lower risk of undernutrition whereas being female increases likelihood of overnutrition

Malnutrition in multiple forms is a public health crisis in many countries. The different forms of malnutrition affects numerous countries...

Read More

06 Feb 2024

UP Diliman

Researchers modify the Friedmann equation and predict unique signs for the current era of the universe for the first time

Moments near the Big Bang, the universe underwent rapid and accelerated expansion called inflation. Any two objects that were 1...

Read More

05 Feb 2024

UP Manila

Before intervening in SOGIE-based harassment, bystanders consider the type of harassment, risks to their safety and victim’s need for help

In the Philippines, there have been rising incidences of harassment directed at Filipinos who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans,...

Read More

02 Feb 2024

UP Cebu

Filipino students value competence the most in business leaders whereas Finnish students prefer friendliness

This article sets out to examine cultural differences in perceiving leaders’ visual and non-verbal behavior. It examines and compares how...

Read More

01 Feb 2024

UP Diliman

Embodying the Filipino “transpersonal worldview” can remind us of our relationship with nature and promote respect for it

In the indigenous Filipino belief, nature is filled with spirits. After we pass on, we return to nature, becoming anito....

Read More

31 Jan 2024

UP Diliman

The Libingan ng mga Bayani is a social space where epitaphs signal social relationships and realities

In this paper, I looked at the epitaphs found on grave markers in Libingan ng mga Bayani. I investigated how...

Read More

30 Jan 2024

UP Manila

Review explores how genetic and social factors contribute to the development of gender-based cancer differences among Asians

Cancer is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity globally. Sex differences in cancer are evident in death rates and...

Read More

29 Jan 2024

UP Los Baños

Researchers develop an ergonomic keyboard that eases typing in English, Tagalog and even Taglish

In the Philippines nowadays, English and Tagalog languages are alternately used for formal written communications;  in a school setting, English...

Read More

26 Jan 2024

UP Diliman

Study introduces an easy physics experiment for students to do at home, providing learning opportunities with minimal teacher involvement

The COVID-19 pandemic posed a challenge for laboratory classes to keep students engaged amidst the limitations of a fully remote...

Read More

24 Jan 2024

UP Manila

People who are new patients or seeking clearance or referral for endocrine-related symptoms are more likely to opt for teleconsultation

Telemedicine employs the use of technology to increase access to health care. This is especially relevant in developing countries where...

Read More

23 Jan 2024

UP Diliman

While Visayan women were depicted as “most civilized” in colonial photography, the photos still upheld a gender ideology promoting male superiority

Significant works have been published on American colonial photography in the Philippines, which primarily focus on the depiction of Filipinos...

Read More

Research

In Visayan and Mindanao epics, one encounters the figure of an enigmatic character called the “Man With No Breath”. This figure is durable, as it has been recorded in epics collected from the 1950s up to the 2000s, and found across the Philippines in Panay and in southern Mindanao. Moreover, the idea that breath can be detached and placed elsewhere is likewise found across
Island Southeast Asia and the Austronesian-speaking world, as our comprehensive mapping demonstrates.

We view this spatial and temporal durability as a regional cultural feature that foregrounds “breath” and “breathing” (in the negational form of “no breath”) as a key category in Philippine and wider Southeast Asian/Austronesian “animism.” However, we approach animism not simply as beliefs in spirits, but by proposing what we call a “logic of breathing” that is instantiated in various socio-cultural domains—from observances during deaths and births, to marriage conventions and emotive expressions.

In beliefs and practices governed by this “logic of breathing,” breathing is symbolically construed as “cutting and linking,” with cutting—as a symbolic entity and action—specifically associated with marking-with-value. This may seem counter-intuitive because we are used to the idea that it is continuous (or “not-cut”) breathing that connotes wellbeing. But in the epics we studied, it is the Man With No Breath character that is actually considered deathless and invulnerable in his “no breath” state. We thus argue that breathing as cutting and as marking-with-value is more generative of insights addressing cultural-philosophical paradoxes in indigenous/Austronesian “religion” and “ritual”.

This publication works along these three themes:

(a) Juxtaposing Visayan and Mindanao epics and the key, durable “metaphorical” figures that occur in them (specifically, the “Man With No Breath”);

(b) Broadening the ethnological comparative context of studying these Philippine epics to cover Southeast Asian and  Austronesian-speaking world (we accomplished this through a comprehensive mapping of beliefs, stories, philosophizing, etc., revolving around the detachability of breath in this broad region); and

(c) Proposing an approach in studying these “metaphorical” figures as indices of a durable schema and notions of “personhood” and “self” (in the local terminology of “souls” and “spirits”) that can be found across this geographic domain.

This study is therefore significant because these three aspects/approaches are not usually drawn together and centered in studies of Philippine epics. We observed that Philippine epic studies have been, by and large, more literary or folkloristic in analytical bent rather than anthropological. Our contribution is a step towards the study of indigenous epics as a key facet in the study of the
anthropology of society and its institutions, as well as (and more importantly), self and personhood.

Authors: Myfel D. Paluga and Andrea Malaya M. Ragragio (Department of Social Sciences, University of the Philippines Mindanao/Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University)

Read the full paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0967828X.2023.2234820