In the Philippines, masculinity is often taught long before it is questioned. Boys learn early which emotions are acceptable and which are not. Anger, pride, competitiveness, sexual bravado—these are tolerated, sometimes encouraged. Sadness, fear, tenderness, doubt are quietly pushed aside, labeled as weakness, softness, or worse: pagiging babae (acting like a woman). This is how emotional illiteracy takes root, not through cruelty alone, but through repetition, jokes, silences, and expectations passed down in families, classrooms, churches, and barkada circles.
“Lalaki ka, huwag kang umiyak” (“You’re a man, don’t cry”) remains one of the most common phrases Filipino boys hear. A Manila-based psychologist once told a local magazine, “By the time many Filipino men reach adulthood, they can feel emotions intensely but struggle to name them. They know something is wrong, but they don’t have the vocabulary—or permission—to talk about it.” Emotional suppression becomes a survival skill, not because men are naturally closed off, but because openness carries social risk.
This emotional illiteracy shows up most clearly in how Filipino men deal with stress and mental health. While women are more likely to confide in friends or seek counseling, men often retreat into silence, humor, alcohol, or overwork. A 32-year-old office worker in Quezon City described it bluntly: “When I’m overwhelmed, I just shut down. I don’t even know what to say if someone asks how I’m feeling. Saying ‘pagod lang’ (just tired) is easier.” That phrase—pagod lang—has become a catch-all excuse that hides anxiety, depression, burnout, and grief.
Religion and family expectations reinforce this pattern. Catholic ideals of sacrifice and endurance often merge with masculinity norms that frame suffering as noble and silence as strength. Men are expected to be providers, pillars, haligi ng tahanan (pillars of the home), even when wages are low, jobs unstable, and pressures relentless. Admitting emotional difficulty can feel like admitting failure. As one married father interviewed by a community NGO put it, “My wife can cry. My kids can cry. If I cry, who will hold the family together?”
Yet this stoicism comes at a cost. Emotional illiteracy affects relationships, particularly intimate ones. Many women describe partners who are loving but emotionally unavailable, quick to anger yet unable to explain why. A Filipina activist once wrote online, “Our men are not heartless. They are emotionally starved—and we keep asking women to feed them without teaching men how to eat.” Without emotional language, conflicts escalate, misunderstandings linger, and intimacy becomes fragile.
Younger Filipino men are beginning to challenge these scripts, especially in online spaces. Mental-health advocates, therapists on TikTok, and peer-support groups are slowly normalizing conversations about male vulnerability. A 24-year-old university student shared in a podcast, “When I finally went to therapy, I realized I wasn’t angry all the time. I was scared. No one ever taught me the difference.” That realization—simple but radical—marks the beginning of emotional literacy.
Importantly, Filipino culture itself offers tools for emotional depth. Concepts like loob (inner self) emphasize interiority, while pakikipagkapwa (shared humanity) values empathy and connection. These traditions suggest that emotional awareness is not foreign to Filipino identity; it has merely been sidelined by rigid, imported models of masculinity shaped by colonial history, religion, and economic pressure.
Talking about Filipino masculinity and emotional illiteracy is uncomfortable because it exposes a collective wound. But it also opens a door. Teaching boys that emotions are not weaknesses, giving men language for vulnerability, and allowing space for softness do not weaken families or society. They strengthen them. As one counselor working with male clients summed it up, “Filipino men don’t need to become less masculine. They need permission to become fully human.”
Spicy Auntie has been watching Filipino men for a long time. In families, in offices, in bars, in activist meetings, in comment sections where they either explode with rage or disappear completely. And here’s Auntie’s unscientific but painfully consistent conclusion: many Filipino men are not emotionally strong. They are emotionally illiterate.
They feel things deeply. Don’t get it twisted. They feel shame, fear, jealousy, grief, loneliness, anxiety, heartbreak. They just don’t know what to call those feelings, what to do with them, or how to talk about them without feeling like they’ve failed some invisible masculinity exam. So everything gets compressed into three socially acceptable outlets: silence, anger, or jokes. Sometimes alcohol, if budget allows.
Auntie keeps hearing the same excuse: “Ganito talaga ang lalaki.” This is just how men are. No, sweetheart. This is how men are trained. Boys are taught early that crying is embarrassing, vulnerability is dangerous, and emotional openness is something women do. By the time they grow up, they can hold down jobs, raise families, lead teams—and still have the emotional vocabulary of a teaspoon.
And who pays the price? Women, mostly. Girlfriends who become unpaid therapists. Wives who are expected to “understand” moods that are never explained. Daughters who grow up tiptoeing around fathers who don’t know how to say “I’m scared” but are very fluent in irritation. Society then acts shocked when communication breaks down, when violence erupts, when men implode quietly or loudly.
The irony is delicious and tragic: Filipino culture actually has words for inner life, connection, shared humanity. But masculinity bulldozes over them with imported ideas of toughness, Catholic endurance, and colonial hangovers about what a “real man” should be. Suffer quietly. Provide endlessly. Don’t complain. Don’t feel too much. Don’t ask for help.
Then we wonder why men resist therapy, mock mental health conversations, or vanish emotionally the moment things get hard. Emotional illiteracy isn’t just personal; it’s political. It keeps power structures intact by ensuring men never question the roles suffocating them—or the damage they cause others while trapped inside them.
Spicy Auntie isn’t asking Filipino men to cry on cue or turn every conversation into a feelings circle. Auntie is asking for basic emotional literacy. Learn to name what you feel. Learn that vulnerability is not weakness. Learn that silence is not strength. Because the world does not need more men who “endure.” It needs men who can feel without hurting everyone around them.
Class dismissed. Homework: look inward. No cheating.