(A talk delivered on the Alternative SONA: Boses kan Boss organized by the Department of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Naga University in Bicol, Philippines on 28 July 2014)
My role here
is to present to you some of the things which may affect and shape you as a
member of society. This task is commonly known in social science as
sociological imagination, coined by Mills in 1956. Your problems are usually
social issues too. For example, your problem of having no electricity is due to
“Glenda” but more than a week after the typhoon, your problem might point to a
public issue of inefficient delivery of public service; your problem of boring
and uninspiring classes might point to a public issue of lack of priority for
education, resulting to low wages for teachers and to outmoded and predictable
teaching strategies and technologies; your fear of security might be a symptom
of rising criminality and breakdown of social ties in communities; these are
social issues. However, if you do not have a love life, it is a personal
tragedy, not a social issue. Unless you are a Kris Aquino.
If there is anything my 15-minute talk will
accomplish, I want it to be that we all realize that our problems, hence public
issues, are created by people. Thus, solutions can also be from people.
So what are
some of the things that happened in the past year which will potentially affect
and shape you as a member of society? Due to limitation of time, I will name
two things. I will also show how they may affect and shape you.
First is
the Reproductive Health (RH) law. I know you heard countless discussions on
this topic. I think now is the best time to revisit the law after a decade of its
intense and emotional process of passage. Much like a typhoon, the morning
after brings clarity of what happened. This is also a goal of social science –
to bring clarity and shed light on the things that affected us, are affecting
us, and will affect us. As we know, the Supreme Court (SC) upheld the
constitutionality of the law, while striking down several of its provisions. Much
like the decision of the SC, I recognize the good and not-so-good aspects of
the law. The first aspect that I will discuss is that the law to me is one of
the most, if not the most, altruistic that was passed by Congress. No lawmakers
claimed that the law is for them or will benefit them personally. They passed
the law for specific segment of our population – the poor who have more children
than the rest of the population. For the lawmakers, they had to arrest the
growing population from the poor so that the country would benefit from its
economic gains. Our contry has been consistently among those with highest
growth rates in the world in the past years. These economic gains have been
lost because of our relatively high population growth rate. Most RH advocates
also echoed the same. Now finally, we have a law that is primarily for the “benefit”
of the poor so that they will not have more children they can hardly take care
and attend to their needs. Underlying this seemingly altruistic act towards the
poor is a view that the poor is a dead weight towards development. As a
development practitioner, I think that the law is an example of a solution
which may not actually be a solution. Well yesterday according to reports, the
100th million Filipino was
born. This is according to a commission that announced in 2010 that Filipinos
had reached 96 million. When the official census came out, Filipinos in 2010
were only 92 million, a difference of 4 million. The flaw in the computation occurred
in the use of the highest end in the range of the population growth rate. In
the commission’s website (last visited in January 2014), it was using 1.9 population
growth rate when World Bank, ADB, and UN are using 1.7 percent as the
Philippine population growth rate.
The second
aspect of the law that I’d like to discuss is its cultural implication. Ruth
Benedict, a well-known anthropologist, describes culture as integrated whole in
his classic book, Patterns of Culture. Without a doubt, the RH law will
have tremendous implications and potentialities in the young Filipinos’
behavior and attitudes because it will introduce alterations in the patterns
and configurations of young adults’ lives.
Imagine a
road built in a remote barangay. Imagine the happiness of farmers and the
changes in that barangay because of the road. Well, you don’t have to imagine too
far because it might lead you somewhere. I will present to you two cases in my
hometown, Milaor. A paved road was constructed in barangay Alimbuyog connecting
it to poblacion and other barangays. After the construction, night clubs or “aling-alingan”
in local language sprouted in the barangay making it a red light district.
Another case is in “baliong salog” or the remote barangays across the river.
Paved roads were constructed in barangay Dalipay, Mayaopayaowan, Cabugao,
Maydaso until to some remote barangays of Minalabac. Farmers were so happy with
the road, and so the robbers and thieves. The road provided the robbers and
thieves an easy escape route just outside Naga City. These are examples of
unintended consequences or in Merton’s words, latent functions, of the road.
Now, what
is the latent function or unintended consequences of RH law, especially to the
young adults. Well, let’s take an example close to us – Thailand. In a report
by Thai Bureau of Public Health, Thailand has the highest teen pregnancy rate
in Southeast Asia, beating Laos and the Philippines. Thailand has introduced,
long time ago, sex education in schools and has made contraceptives readily available.
Then why? Thai authorities conceded that their young people have lost values associated with the sexual act.
May I cite
another example! I lived for almost four years in the Netherlands. I heard
stories of parents of teenage boys aged 13-15 years old casually handing out
condoms to their boys if they are going to parties or sleep-overs. In my
encounters with Filipina mothers in the Netherlands, many of them who are married
to Dutch and have children face a dilemma of whether or not allowing their
teenage daughters to go to parties and sleep-overs.
As far as I
know, there is one institution which is strongly criticized and derided by
non-members as well as some members, but still is consistently and constantly
reminding people to do the act only after marriage. This restricts its practice
with only one person.
Many
international health workers are puzzled by the Philippine statistics on HIV-AIDS
having very low recorded cases. Others are also baffled by the Philippine
statistics as one of the countries with women who have late sexual contact. On
average, Filipinas have their first sexual contact at 21 years old.
I, for one,
am not puzzled and baffled by these statistics. There is a value at play here. And
I am afraid that this may change the patterns of behavior because the
integrated whole is being reshaped by a law and its unintended consequences.
The second
thing that may affect you is the peace agreement between the government and
MILF. This agreement will bring significant changes in intergroup relations
between Christians and Muslims. Social science recognizes that there are
various points of view, and that these points of view come from groups and
their relative position in society. Have you ever tried looking at and
experiencing Philippine society as a Moro? You may experience the anti-Muslim
bias in workplaces, in schools, in communities, in politics, and in society in
general.
Tomorrow we
will celebrate Eid’l Fitr, one of the most important days for Muslims. Do you
know that the Philippines declared this as holiday only in 2002? That means
prior to 2002, Muslims worked during Eid’l Fitr! Imagine yourself as a
Christian working during Good Friday or Christmas!
Certain
groups are discriminated by the structures of dominance. Edwin Ardener labels
them as muted groups. He argues that their mutedness is not only in public
discourse, but their mutedness remain because their aspirations cannot be
expressed or realized using the modes of expression and models by the dominant
group. Last Independence Day, this mutedness was challenged by our student.
However, such articulation and breaking from mutedness gained minimal public
support, unfortunately. To my mind, the desired impact is not met because of
the use of the dominant mode of expression (i.e. Tagalog) and content (national
issue). Had that student shouted in Bikol and the content was a valid grievance
of Bicolanos (e.g. Ano an naginibohan mo para sa Bikol? Haen an major na
projecto mo digdi? Mayaman an Bikol, tano ta tios kami? Itao an poder sa local,
federalismo ngonian na!), public support might have been gained.
(Kindly
watch out if PNoy has major projects in Bicol. This apparent neglect of the government
has been the primary reason why Bicol tends to vote for opposition. In some parts of
Bicol, there are even two governments.)
In my PhD, I
studied different categorical groups. I investigated peoples’ willingness to
allow social distance towards religious out-groups in the Philippines. I found
out that people are willingto minimize social distance in private domains (e.g.
friends, classmates and neighbors), but not in public domains (e.g. mayor,
police and civil servant).It is because of power. People exclude religious
out-groups in matters that involve power. In an article that got published in
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility Journal, I tested factors that
could impact on this social distance between Christians and Muslims in the
Philippines. I found out that out-group trust is a strong predictor of social
distance. That means out-group trust is likely to reduce social distance
between categorical groups. The recent peace agreement is a clear manifestation
of out-group trust. Another example is the choice of Muslim woman as a news
anchor in a national TV in 2012. It was a historic first for Muslims.
Now do you
want to reduce social distance between Christians and Muslims? Show some trust.
Will you vote for a Muslim running for senator? Since 1995, our Philippine
Senate has never had a Muslim member.
Sociological
imagination invites us to grasp the intersections between our role in society
and conversely, the role of society in our lives. The task at hand is to locate the state of the nation in this imagination. Thank you! Dios mabalos po!
