Monday, July 28, 2014

Alternative State of the Nation Address (SONA): A sociological perspective

(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!

No comments:

Post a Comment