Vol. 3 No. 1 (2023): PASR Journal

 It is with deep honor and gratitude that I write this foreword for the collection of papers presented at the Philippine Association for the Sociology of Religion (PASR) in collaboration with the Philippine Association for the Study of Culture, History, and Religion (PASCHR) with the theme Collective Memory: Exploring Through the Prism of Culture, History, and Religion held in Guimaras State University on October 20-22, 2022.

The PASR conferences had always been a platform for interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration. It provides a space for students, developing academics, and season scholars to interact, present, and to discuss current and pioneering works ranging from the anthropological, the historical, the political, the religious, and the sociological.

This publication embodies the very core of PASR as scholars from various academic disciplines gathered to render an empirical audit and analysis of local and global phenomena.

In Quo Vadis Philippines?: Forgetting Atrocities of the Martial Law and Problematic Historical Empathy, Dr. Maria Virginia G. Aguilar and Dr. Edwin F. Lineses suggest that the transmission and internalization of culture through pattern maintaining institutions allow people to construct their cultural memory. Cultural memory crystallizes shared experiences and aspirations providing the sense of identity and collective conscience.

In Pro Tutela Fidei: Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres’ (SPC) Missionary Zeal during the American Colonization of the Philippines (1904-1946), Dr. Salvador M. Evardone faithfully details the impact of the Treaty of Paris on the three centuries of Hispanic Catholicism in the country. Dr. Evardone suggests that benevolent assimilation of the Philippines to the United States in 1898 led to the successes of Protestant missionaries and the Aglipayans as Filipinos started to deflect from the Catholic faith. As a response, the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres took over the mission to protect and preserve Catholicism through evangelization, care of the sick, and Catholic ministry among the underprivileged.

In Myanmar Historiography in the Pre-Colonial Period, Dr. Mo Mo Thant writes about the scientist as a social chronicler by exploring the transformation of the style of historiography in Myanmar. Dr. Thant proposes that in Myanmar, historiography starts with a prose chronicle called Rajavamsa also known as Yazawin (in Pali) or the Chronicles of Kings. This document explains and describes the continuous and chronological registers of events around the Myanmar kings in the 16th century. 

 In Decoding the Elementary Forms of Social Exchange in Philippine Politics, Dr. Frederick Iguban Rey, theorizes about the interplay of cost and reward as the basis of human interaction by testing the five propositions perceived by Homans in 1961 as the foundations of sociability. Contextualizing these propositions, Rey elaborates on the nature and structure of social exchanges in Philippine politics. These propositions were validated to generate a scientific blueprint of the dynamics of human interaction as participants strive to achieve a balance in the ecology of power relations.

In Learning from the Navajo: Rethinking Religion for a Post-Colonial Era, Dr. James Spickard, speaks about the lingering presence of intellectual colonialism in the post-colonial era in the sociology of religion. Dr. Spickard proposes that dominant theories and concepts reflecting the European and American religious developments failed to capture the religious dynamics in other parts of the world. The paper suggests that it is critical to explore the importance of generating concepts from non-Euro-American religious spaces such as that of the Navajo and their concept of hózhǬ to accommodate unfamiliar insights and civilizations as sources of universal understanding.

These coming together of scholars from different points of departure will furnish the academic community with excellent insights on the interconnectedness and interdependence of social institutions. I trust that this collection will stimulate further study and research in all these areas.

We thank all authors and participants for their contributions.

Frederick Iguban Rey, MSc, MA, PhD.

Faculty-Researcher The Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas (UST)