Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research | Vol. 2, No. 1 | February 2014 57 P-ISSN 2350-7756 | E-ISSN 2350-8442 | www.apjmr.com Mahatma Gandhi’s Doctrine of Ahimsa: Implication on Noted Filipino Students ’ Values DR. MARIA LUISA A. VALDEZ maluhvaldez888@gmail.com Batangas State University, ARASOF - Nasugbu, Batangas PHILIPPINES ABSTRACT This study generally aimed to analyze Mahatma Gandhi ’s doctrine of ahimsa and its implication on noted Filipino students’ values. This paper employed the qualitative philosophical method of research in analyzing the tenets of ahimsa in the representative literary works chosen. This involved the science of textual criticism and hermeneutics supported by the researcher’s analysis and insights with reference to the content of the texts to bring about the philosophical treatment of the identified works. The analysis and interpretation revealed that: 1) Ahimsa refers to the principle of nonviolence based on the sacredness of all living creatures and an important tenet of ancient Indian religions specifically Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism; 2) Gandhi is one of the writer-thinkers who philosophizes that ahimsa is the ontological core of existence; 3) The salient points of the doctrine find their noblest expressions and exemplifications on his life and works; 4) While leading nationwide campaigns to ease the humanitarian issues of poverty, women’s rights, religious and ethnic harmony and injustices of the caste system which are quite evident in his works, Gandhi applied the principles of nonviolent civil disobedience, playing a key role in freeing India from foreign domination, (http://www.youthforhumanrights.org/voices-for-human- rights/champions/mahatma-gandhi.html) and 5) Gandhi’s writings can inspire the Filipino students to turn to the transcendental diversion of humanity and to change the way they think and review their values through the tenets of literature supplied by the re-examined nonviolence advocate and his commitment to life here and thereafter. Keywor ds: Mahatma Gandhi, Ahimsa, and Nonviolence I. INTRODUCT ION The twentieth century was a century of war, a century in which hundreds of millions of people died violent deaths, according to Daisaku Ikeda, a Buddhist leader, educator and peacebuilder. Ikeda has pondered over this thought - Have men learned anything from those horrifying tragedies? In the new era of the twenty-first century, he stressed that mankind must be guided by the overruling principle that killing is never acceptable or justified - under any circumstance. Unless men fully recognize, widely promote and deeply imbed the understanding that violence can never be used to advocate one's beliefs, they will have learned nothing from the bitter lessons of the twentieth century, according to http://www.daisakuikeda.org/es/constructor-el-coraje-de-la-no- violencia.html. Since its foundation over 60 years ago the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) took over a mission in consonance with its Constitution which avers that, “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” Relative to this, the same Constitution highlights that “a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world, and that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind”. This mandate has provided UNESCO with a time-honored experience in promoting mutual understanding while fighting the humanitarian issues on discrimination, intolerance and violence. According to Ikeda (2005), the real struggle of the twenty- first century will not be between civilizations, or between religions. It will be between violence and nonviolence and between barbarity and civilization, in the truest sense of the word. In its quintessence, the UNESCO’s program of action emphasizes that “the culture of peace and nonviolence is a commitment to peace-building, mediation, conflict prevention and resolution, peace education, education for nonviolence, tolerance, acceptance, mutual respect, intercultural and interfaith dialogue and reconciliation. It is a conceptual as well as a normative framework envisaged to inspire thoughts and actions of everyone. Therefore, it requires cognitive as well as the emotional abilities to grapple with man’s situation in a rapidly changing world as well as with the emerging world society. This aim entails not just more factual knowledge, but also the broadening of one’s consciousness and the