23/10/2026
MAHARLIKA: IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY — WHO ARE WE, REALLY?
“This book is not just about a name. It is about a soul. To name a people is to own a people, and to rename oneself is to reclaim oneself.” — Deo Palma
📖 At the PROUT Maharlika Convention 2026, Deo Palma, founder of Ang Katipunan ng mga Samahang Maharlika (AKSM), presented his book, Maharlika: In Search of Identity, opening a thought-provoking conversation about colonialism, national identity, historical memory, and the future of the Philippines.
His message raised a fundamental question: Can a nation truly decolonize its future without first examining how its colonial past continues to shape its identity, institutions, and collective imagination?
For Palma, the proposal to rename the Philippines as Maharlika is more than a symbolic gesture. It represents an aspiration toward psychological, cultural, and spiritual decolonization—a process of reclaiming agency over how a people understand themselves and imagine their future.
🌏 But the conversation also goes beyond the question of a country's name.
It invites deeper reflection on how colonial histories continue to influence education, culture, governance, and prevailing notions of progress.
It challenges Filipinos to rediscover and critically engage with their precolonial histories, Indigenous knowledge systems, cultural diversity, and relationships with the wider Southeast Asian world.
And perhaps most importantly, it asks whether genuine liberation is possible without transforming the narratives and assumptions through which a society understands itself.
💡 Decolonization is not simply about recovering the past. It is also about recovering the power to imagine, define, and create our own futures.
Palma's presentation offered an invitation to dialogue, debate, and collective reflection rather than treating national identity as a settled question.
✨ As the PROUT Maharlika Convention explores alternative socioeconomic models and new possibilities for social transformation, the conversation on identity reminds participants that building a new social order also requires examining the deeper cultural and historical foundations upon which that future will stand.
What does it mean to be Filipino? What might Maharlika represent? And what kind of collective identity could inspire a more just, inclusive, compassionate, and regenerative future?
🌱 Another Philippines is possible. Perhaps imagining it begins with asking who we are—and who we aspire to become.
PROUT Maharlika Convention 2026
📅 October 21–22, 2026
Building a New Social Order
