Lesson 3

• Centralism


  • Highly centralized politics and government today
• Development of national consciousness


  • During colonialism
• Borrowings of political ideas and government institutions

  • Local government - alcalde mayor/gobernadorcillo/cabeza de barangay
  • National government - branches: ELJ; democratic form (bill of rights, constitution, etc)
• Dominance of illustrados


  • 1896 Philippine Revolution as prime example
  • Historic, social and economic superiority
  • Essential conservatism of public policies - weak enforcement of policies
• Emergence of middle and lower classes

  • Partly through public education
  • New economic opportunities
  • Universal suffrage
• Family


  • Social institution with great influence on structure and discipline of parties
  • Conduct of government officials and agencies
• Ambivalence and uncertainty


  Mentality: ningas cogon, manana habit, bahala na, tayo-tayo (kami-kami)
• Collision of indigenous or traditional values and attitudes with modern values and attitudes of Western origin
• Contradictions and inconsistencies in behavior as individual and citizens, law and practice, pronouncement and conduct, plan and action
• Economic Conditions


  • Low incomes
  • Sharp inequalities in wealth
  • Unemployment and underemployment
  • Potent alien minorities - investors, trans-national companies (TNCs), multi-national companies (MNCs)
• Ecological Factors


  • People - Malay stock; high degree of homogeinity (Christians, Muslims ~6%)
  • Place - geographic location very strategic
  • Physical and social technology - agricultural, industrial, centralism, religiosity, lack of common language, class cleavage, profound enthusiasm for education, strong family and geographic ties
  • Wishes and ideas - value system: complex and un-analyzed (undetermined)
  • Catastrophe - Spain, America, Japan
  • Personality - courtesy and hospitality, pride with sensitiveness and harbor grievances, imitate/adopt rather than be creative, love of gambling/risk taking, respect for authority, willingness to work hard if objective in sight, serene/easy going life with fatalism
• Oligarchic Politics/Politics of Elite

  • Elite, masses, underdevelopment - wide gap between the upper classes and masses, urban and rural area dichotomy in terms of development
• Open Society


  • Allows upward mobilization through education, success in business, professions, politics/government employment
• Distinctions/Stratification


  • Horizontal - regional origin, ethnic membership, language
  • Vertical - wealth, prestige, power ranks
• Economic Condition/Situation


  • Export oriented - to the detriment of the people
  • Import goods, export labor - SHOULD be export goods, import people to invest in PH
  • Dependent economy - responds more to the demands of more affluent areas than to the needs of its overwhelming poor, rural population
• Social Consequences of Economic Dependence

  • Health care problems - increased health costs, medicines
  • High labor export - skilled persons employed in construction, manufacturing and domestic services in Southwest Asia (Middle East), professional services in medicine, nursing, engineering and accountancy for US, Europe, Australia and Asia
  • High brawn and brain drain - economic hardship, labor cost is artificially low to attract foreign investors, educational structure - skills not absorbable by economic and social conditions, colonial mentality - foreign (especially American) as necessarily superior