“The best years of your life
are the ones in which you decide
your problems are your own.
You do not blame them
on your mother, the ecology,
or the president. You realize that
you control your own destiny.”
— Albert Ellis
We often hear “motivation” at school, work, social media, and marketplaces. But have we recognized the intensity of its power concerning attachment, love, recognition, and even fulfillment? Motivation is as important as the food we take. Grasping its importance can contribute to attaining inner peace and underscore the meaning of self-actualization. In my experience, I themed it as self-transcendence. Understanding the concept of motivation from a psychological standpoint can help us discover the reasons for joining the terrorist organization.
“A straightforward married man expressed his desire to provide a secured future for his family. I want to uplift my family out of poverty away from a very isolated community.”
“One curious mother of three told me that since high school, I had already dreamed of finishing a college degree, and they told me that if I join them and adhere to their principles, I might be able to achieve my goals.”
According to a creative and shy young woman, she was having a party with her friends, and everyone appeared to be having a good time. “They invited us to join them. Because I have a physical disability, I was initially hesitant to go with them. However, they did not criticize or bully me because of my vision impairment. I felt like I belonged there, so I joined them.”
According to a 43-year-old melancholic and decisive man, “I have an inner and strong impulse to change the government’s system. I assumed it stemmed from my distaste of growing up in a feudal family environment.”
“My brothers persuaded me to join them in their fight for my mother’s death,” the man explained. “I was in desperate need of survival in my lonesome disposition, and the CPP-NPA-NDF promised to provide me with a better life while also assisting in the pursuit of justice for my deceased mother. They, on the other hand, failed me. I was under the impression that they were sincere in their intentions. They only served to exacerbate my already tricky situation at such a young age.”
An intellectual male confided to me that when he was only 16 years old, he was head over heels in love with a bright girl. He has decided to follow her path and stand by her side no matter what it takes, even if that means embracing communist ideology and joining the CTG against the government.
Motivation is generally defined as the reason for actions, willingness, and goals that require satisfaction. Ryan and Deci emphasize that motivation is inspired by outside forces or extrinsic motivation and by themselves or intrinsic motivation.49 It means that the person’s desires or needs may be innate or acquired through environmental factors such as culture, family, school, and community. When you make a decision, your choice is undoubtedly influenced by the state of your motivation.39 Motivation plays a vital role for every aspect of human behavior, including the motivation to engage in terrorism as often assumed to be the cause or ideology. Terrorism is predominantly motivated by ideological, social, political, racial, or nationalist motives.20
In 2017, Wayne Korbl examined motivations behind terrorism from the perspectives of Rational Choice Theory and Social Solidarity Theory, both acceptable in political science and sociological discipline.50 In contrast, Cohen reviewed the modern psychological theories to explain the complex phenomena of terrorism and politically motivated violence.51
According to the Strategic Communications Handbook of the Civil Relations Service, Armed Forces of the Philippines, motivations are the needs, wants, and desires that can lead to actions and behaviors in a certain way. Motivation refers to the drive, intentions, and reasons of the friends rescued in joining the CPP-NPA-NDF.52 An analysis of their childhood, familial history, and geographical setting is included in this book.
Take heed to Arnel’s need for love, affection, and belongingness. Arnel was consistently on top of his class and excelled in academics from preschool to college. His parents are from the middle class and honed him to the Catholic priesthood. At the age of five, Arnel longed for his father’s love, care, and presence and witnessed how his father emotionally abused his mother because of his infidelity. Arnel was sent to a private Dominican all-boys school in Manila in the 1980s, where he met Andrea, a bright girl from the counterpart all-girls Catholic school across the block. Their long-time relationship would significantly impact his misadventures with the CPP-NPA-NDF.
At the tender age of 14, it was the first time he felt infatuation with a girl that made him eventually decide to leave the priesthood. He was so mesmerized by Andrea, and he was determined to pursue her no matter what it would take to win her heart. All through high school, he wooed Andrea, but she was just friendly with him.
His relationship with Andrea took a turn when they entered the University of the Philippines Diliman in the early 1990s. After all the years, Andrea suddenly showed interest in him, and they became a couple. Little did Arnel know that Andrea was intertwined with leftist activism at the university and was already a member of the League of Filipino Students. Andrea’s real motive for getting closer to Arnel was to recruit him. She brought him to activists’ meetings, lectures, and actual rallies in Mendiola near Malacañang and the U.S. Embassy along Roxas Boulevard in Manila. Arnel was initially hesitant, but sooner or later, he became seriously involved with Andrea’s activism.
When Arnel was introduced to the underground activist organization, communism and socialism philosophies were not new. He already had a broad grasp of its ideological foundations from social sciences classes in the university. All that Arnel was thinking was only to be with Andrea, and he was even willing to go to the mountains with her.
He tagged along with Andrea and attended lectures on Pambansang Demokratikong Paaralan (PADEPA) and Araling Aktibista (ARAK). Andrea brought him to a remote mountainous area of Sierra Madre in Nueva Vizcaya, Northern Philippines to undertake immersion with impoverished communities to supposedly experience the “real situation” and concretize theoretical indoctrinations. Arnel mingled with the poor communities and did everything he could with a genuine intention to help. His intelligence and articulation skills were noticed, and he was soon groomed as a propagandist for the communist movement. After a few months of immersing himself in the hinterlands, he was ready to take oath as a full-time CPP-NPA-NDF member and bring his activism to a higher level in the armed violence against the government.
It was then Arnel started to notice that Andrea was drawing away from him. He found out that Andrea was flirting anew with a possible recruit in the same university, and it has been that way even before Andrea expressed interest in him.
Arnel was so heartbroken, but he struggled to stay in the mountains. His motivation to join the CTG crumbled down to pieces in the long run, and he eventually lost interest. Arnel found his way back to Manila and never went back to the clutches of the CTG.
In the next seven years, Arnel would not hear from Andrea until he was informed that she was killed in an encounter with the military. Arnel found out that Andrea had seven children with seven CPP-NPA-NDF commanders. At Andrea’s funeral, Arnel could not find a trace of the pretty girly face that Andrea once had. With a heavy heart, Arnel saw in her face the hardships and miseries brought by a distressful life in the mountains with the CPP-NPA-NDF.
Arnel found a new solace in a Christian community. However, he could not move on because he was still fixated on his experience with Andrea, which profoundly affected his psychological-emotional stability and carried the trauma of that painful experience for many years.
Arnel’s story speaks of love, affection, and belongingness as motivations in joining the CPP-NPA-NDF. His behavior is a manifestation of his social and safety needs. He was even willing to take the risk of leaving his material dreams in exchange for filling the psychological void in his heart.
In my observation, the friends rescued’s basic drives in joining the CPP-NPA-NDF revolve around these themes:
- the need for independence amid identity formation;
- the need for love, affection, and belongingness through joining a group or community;
- the love for learning or education and growth toward easing poverty, geographical isolation, inferiority, and low self-esteem;
- the need for power to experience a sense of safety and security; and
- the need to survive by fulfilling physiological demands.
- Arnel’s and other friends rescued’s motivations of joining the CPP-NPA-NDF relate to every human’s needs, including physiological, safety, love, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.53 Abraham Maslow’s Theory of Motivation and Hierarchy of Needs may explain the inspiration and reasons of Arnel and the other friends rescued in joining the CPP-NPA-NDF. Maslow explains that the human desire for belongingness progresses toward self-actualization,35 or as I prefer to call it, self- transcendence.
Belonging to a group or community is a significant source of human motivation. It is one of the five human needs identified, along with physiological needs, safety, love, self-esteem, and self-actualization, among other factors. These requirements are arranged hierarchically, and each person’s needs must be met in the appropriate order.
The theory’s basic premise is that we are motivated to meet each level in ascending order. As each level is sufficiently satisfied, individuals are then motivated to meet the next level in the hierarchy. The five levels were further sub-categorized in relation to survival and security.
What is it like forming an identity? How is it possible to experience ABC’s? The need for Acceptance, the need to Belong to a certain group, the need to Control, and often missed by many, the need to have a meaningful existence!
Interestingly, Dweck’s theory of the Two Mindsets: the Fixed Mindset and the Growth Mindset analyzes motivation and self-control’s role and effect in interpersonal processes. Dweck explains how people’s convictions are affected by the conscious or subconscious mindset responsible for understanding ourselves and our motivations to reach our full potential. Further, the theory also explained the fixed and growth mentality mindsets in defining whether our motivations and perceptions are internally unchanged or evolving and affected by hard work and learning.54
Dweck’s Fixed and Growth Mindsets and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs apply in this context of investigation to confirm that the psychological motivation of the actors’ behavior in joining the CPP-NPA-NDF is based on their basic human needs.
REFLECTIONS
As part of the process
of achieving self-transcendence,
humanity must look beyond
the confines of human experience
and consider LEARNED OPTIMISM
as a means of realizing
one’s full potential.
An emerging reason for radicalization found from the stories of friends rescued revolves around the unfulfilled basic physiological and psychological needs. The geographical challenges they experienced negatively impacted their humanness as the manipulators exploited this factor by sowing hatred toward the government. The unfulfilled physiological needs because of poor economic status and the absence of government services in their location made them feel more inferior and vulnerable to the CPP-NPA-NDF propaganda. Further, the psychological variables such as safety and social needs are the main precursors of their desire for superiority by being dependent on the strength and false promises of the CTGs. Many of them wanted to go to school to elevate their poor status. However, the absence of schools and job opportunities hinder them from enhancing industriousness. As a result, they develop low self-esteem and a fixed mindset. They believe that their dependence on the CTG is their only way to reach their dreams and have not realized that they have the innate strengths and capabilities to grow independently. In addition, to their revelations, they all had difficult childhood and adolescent years because their parents and environment did not provide them with the necessary guidance, love, and affection.
Consequently, they tend to find people they believe could fill the void within. They had been deprived of the fundamentals of a good life, which are essential for reaching self-transcendence — their full spiritual potential as human beings. They were denied a sense of belonging in a vaguely morally upright community until the CPP-NPA-NDF of sympathy-grabbers stepped in to fill the holes in their hearts and minds. The terrorists nabbed their bright future to grab power and attempted to overthrow the government through violence and destruction of lives and properties. Overall, the need for a sense of family and safety, community, and human connections plays a significant role in protecting the vulnerable from radicalization. It also denies the complications of geographical isolation. A transpiring pathway to recruitment as dissenting motivations will help our government leaders and the security sector recognize specific and grounded programs toward peacebuilding, countering violent extremism, deradicalization, and conflict resolution.
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