If we want to be technical about it, this course I'm enrolled in should really be called Araling Pilipino. That's the official name of the course, as all courses offered by the Filipino Department have Filipino names. This language difference is significant as it differentiates B.A. Creative Writing from B.A. Malikhaing Pagsulat. In practice, however, people, especially those outside our department, more often use the English translation to refer to A.P. This usually doesn't pose much confusion in the undergrad level since KAL is the only college that offers it for undergrads. The confusion arises in the masteral and doctoral programs which are offered in both KAL and the Asian Center. But more often than not, people don't really care.
Personally, I find it more practical to use the English translation with those who may not be familiar with AP. But as I have written earlier, I still think AP and Philippine Studies (as it is known in other countries and maybe in Asian Center but I wouldn't really know) are different. This difference is one of the things I keep pondering on along with the things my professors teach. In fact, I seem to enjoy analyzing the course itself more so than studying what it actually teaches.
There is a total of only six AP subjects with the course title AP in the entire AP undergrad curriculum-- two of which I am currently taking. The ones I'm taking are the introduction to AP and a course on research methods. The ones I shall no longer bother taking are the seminar on Philippine culture, society and economy, another research methods course which doesn't seem to be included in the revised curriculum, the thesis proposal class, and the thesis class. The other required major subjects have the course title Fil and Pan Pil, the rest are the panloob and panlabas na disiplina. The AP-titled-subjects hold the degree program together with its nationalistic paradigm. This nationalistic paradigm is the difference between a non-AP student taking a cognate elective and an AP student taking the same elective as panlabas na disiplina. The elective taken by the AP student is supposed to simply be a means to the nationalist end.
I'm not certain whether it is just an effect of having activist professors-- I hope it is-- but the nature of this nationalism seems to be predominantly Marxist. They claim, though, that Marxism is just one perspective from which to study Philippine culture and society. They teach Gramsci, Althusser, and more local ones like Sison, and Constantino but those are only variations which are essentially Marxist in nature rather than entirely different perspectives. In fact, one of the first things they teach is the preference for Marx's materialism over Hegel's idealism.
While I do admit that Marx's materialism is a perfectly valid, if not a necessary, assumption for the study of culture, history and society, I am uncomfortable with the political and economic Marxist ideas on which my professors base AP. This discomfort, I guess, lies in the idea that the human condition is much more complicated than class struggles and Marxism is not the only framework for nationalism. Moreover, the AP student manual (yes, we have a student manual) does not specify this particular framework but instead emphasizes the use of different perspectives so long as they are nationalistic, scientific and makamasang kulturang pambansa. Perhaps the other aspects of the human condition and other nationalistic frameworks are meant to be supplied by the panlabas na disiplina but since there isn't another discipline that emiphasizes Marxism (well I couldn't think of any), they teach it in AP. But... I don't know.
The point is: AP is nationalistic Philippine Studies.
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