Reference no: EM133132510

Instruction: An Overview of the Philippine Culture

Explain each paragraph.

Micro level causes would be social practices and social relations occurring within an immediate environment that result either to positive or negative situations or effects social facilities or difficulties to the member of society or community.

Macro level causes on the other hand would be social policies and traditions institutionalized at the global environment by dominant social institutions that either maintain or demolish the micro level causes of the problematic social realities.

At the macro level:

The intensifying economic crisis that impoverish the Filipino majority can be attributed to the underdevelopment of the country's economic sectors particularly agriculture and industry. Agricultural development is hindered by agrarian problem where the direct producers do not have meaningful access to and control of lands, credit, technology and markets. This, against the backdrop of a rapidly growing rural population, incapacitates the agricultural/rural economy to absorb or provide jobs resulting in excessive labor surplus.

The industrial sector, being underdeveloped, cannot provide jobs to the labor surplus. Those who migrated to urban areas to look for jobs end up in slum areas doing menial livelihood activities. The growth of the urban poor population has been rapid that comprise the bulk of the informal sector. Most being unskilled labor, they do not have the competitive edge in the employment market. Some are lucky enough to be absorbed in construction industries that provide them in seasonal employment. Even those with academic qualification hardly find jobs and end up in the export labor market. Those who cannot find overseas employment are forced to take jobs for which they are overqualified.

Industries, unlike agriculture can provide jobs 24 hours a day continuously in any seasons. It is therefore a crucial agenda in pursuing a strategic solution to the unemployment problem.

Pursued based on agrarian development, national industrialization can increase domestic productivity as well as strengthen the economy's absorptive capacity to tap the growing labor force.

As the economy is not able to produce machines that produce machines, the industrial sector cannot engage in value-added production of raw material agricultural outputs. Moreover, it cannot support the modernization needs of agriculture. Thus, agricultural products (crops, minerals, timber, sea and marine products) are exported to feed the raw materials needs of overseas industries. On the other hand, the country imports for agricultural production, technology and capital goods (machines) and even raw materials to run the country's semi-processing industries. With the country's entry into the WTO-GATT regime, even agricultural and consumer products have been imported with the effect of further marginalizing our local producers.

On one hand, the socio-political crises resulted to a cultural crisis characterized by the distortion and erosion of positive social and moral values that used to bind Philippine society . On the other hand, values created from such distortion and erosion tends to reinforce rather than become a counter-force to the social crisis.

The mainstream media and information technology (IT) which are owned by corporate proponents of market-oriented globalization have been effective channels in promoting values, lifestyles and consumption patterns favorable to the market. Movies in particular, promote an escapist culture or hero-worship that defies the positive value of unity and collective action of peoples to solve social problems.

The educational system, which is dominantly run by private investors or financed by loans, has become commercialized. Such would be evidenced by the continuing tuition increases every school year. Another would be the choice of enrollment that heavily weighs in favor of courses that are more technical and closely associate with the needs of business corporations. In school year 1997-1998 for instance, population for Business Administration, Mathematics and Computer Science, Engineering, Medical and allied courses were 620,681, 166,329, 299,226 and 164,784 respectively. On the other hand, population of courses which are crucially important to social and human development like Humanities, Social and Behavioral Science, Natural Science and Agriculture, and related courses were 9,394, 34,735, 21,914, and 64,760 respectively. (Higher Education Enrollment in Government and Private Schools by Discipline Group, SY 1996-1998, www.nscb.gov.ph/secstat/d educ.htm.)

Gross graft and corruption in government; the creation and implementation of social policies that make more difficult the life of the poor; the practices of corporations that destroy the environment, dislocate or disintegrate poor communities; or deny the basic rights of workers; the involvement of law enforcers in organized crimes would be clear evidences of the worst value distortions happening in the country's cultural and moral landscape.

Influenced by distorted values against the backdrop of massive poverty, the poor also develop the tendency to engage and indulge in anti-social activities, e.g., drug abuse and trafficking, prostitution rings, gambling syndicates and other organized crimes led by socially powerful and influential personalities. Some others engage in petty crimes and are usually the ones being caught and convicted swiftly. Drug trafficking, in particular, would no longer be considered for microanalysis as it had grown into a global trade.

There is close correlation between increasing crime incidence and the worsening poverty situation. Crime increases when employment opportunities become unavailable. In the U.S. for instance, crime and random acts of violence is pervasive, but no amount of additional prisons, no amount of executions of murderers and no amount of extra police equipment has stopped crime unless the basic economic structure that breeds poverty is positively changed. It is the same cause for Rwandan commercial sex workers to say "it is better to die of AIDS in ten years than from hunger tomorrow" (Janet Bruin, Root Causes of the Global Crisis, Institute of Political Economy, March 1996).

Extreme poverty beyond rationalization tends to reactivate prejudices and biases that have been kept in people's sub-consciousness during favorable times. This can be a factor in the increasing incidence of ethnic and religious conflicts (as in Mindanao), resurgence of racism in OCW or immigrant-receiving countries or domestic violence against children and women.