Philippine Culture and Education

Group Strawberry Holiday

Section B

Every culture has aspects it values a lot more than others. To Filipinos, "makatapos" or being able to finish studying all the way up to college is a necessity. Our group observed however, that this does not hold true for western cultures. In the Philippines, if you can afford it, not going to college is unacceptable. We now wonder, why? What part of our culture makes this so? We then decided to ask our respondents, "How important is higher education and why?" Here are our respondents, several people ranging through different age groups and backgrounds.

Bea, 7, Kid
#Culture #Learning

Edwin, 50, Male upper class
#Culture #Passions

Nicola, 33, Professional
#Culture #Prerequisite

Chela, 27, Working class
#Culture #Jobs

Shane Anthony, Professional

Rachele, Adult
#Culture #Training

Noel, Father
#College #Goals

Lolita, 73, Lola
#Culture #Ambitions

Jeric, Professor
#Culture #ResponsibilityToCountry

Armando, Lolo
#Culture #Better Life

Nancy, 49, Mother
#Culture #Jobs

Angela, Upper Class
#Culture #Society #Discrimination

Sara, Student
#Culture #GradesvsPassion

Nacho, 10, Kid
#Culture #RealWorld

Sasa, Religious
#Culture #Einstein

Christina, 19, Teen
#Culture #Career

Raphael, 15, Teenager
#Culture # Jobs

Clive, 48, Adult
#Culture #Advantage #Attitude

Nancy, 49, Mother
#Culture #Jobs

The responses we got were quite predictable. Education, especially higher education in the Philippines, is usually for purely pragmatic reasons. Every time we came across an answer concerning the future and jobs, we couldn't help but feel "Ah yes of course," as we get that very same speech from almost everyone around us. It was shocking to see however, that most of the responses had a common denominator. It was refreshing to see people from older generations speaking of modern ideas like passion and personal goals. It's also quite interesting to note that some people part of the system, aka college students, are very critical of the importance of higher education.

The Hundred-Thousand-Peso-Question

Final Project: Teen Titans

SA 21 Section B

Topic: Deviance

We asked 20 people from different age brackets, social class, and social institutions a very interesting question that we called the hundred-thousand-peso-question. Behold for the very amusing and even shocking answers that you are about to see! Enjoy. :)

Question: For P100 000. 00, which of teh following would you consider doing?

               a. Cross-dress for a month.

               b. French kiss a random stranger on the lips.

               c. Dye your hair with multiple colors.

               d. Jaywalking.

               e. Cheating on a partner.

               f. Eating human flesh.

Age Group

#deviance #folkways

Name: Alec

Age: 11

Gender: Male

Status: Geade School Student

"I am so excited to try this. Just for fun!"

#deviance #folkways

Name: Princess

Age: 9

Gender: 

Status: Grade School Student

"I can boeeow from my kuya and this is gonna be so easy for me."

#deviance #folways

Name: Aldrin

Age: 17

Gender: Male

Status: College Student

"Just to be different."

#deviance #folkways

Name: Elai

Age: 17

Gender: Female

Status: College Student

"Madali like 1, 2, 3."

#deviance #mores

Name: wish not to disclose

Age: wish not to disclose

Gender: Male

Status: Professor, PolSci Dept., ADMU

"wish not to disclose"

#deviance #law

Name: Aimee

Age: 30

Gender: Female

Status: Department Secretary

"Easiest to do."

#deviance #folkways #dyehair

Name: Ben

Age: 49

Gender: Male

Status: Family Driver

"Dye hair, because it is the simplest."

#deviance #folkways #dyehair

Name: Elv

Age: 49

Gender: Female

Status: Housemaid

"Dye hair, because it is the simplest."

Social Class

#deviance #mores #upperclass

Name: Albert Sy

Age: 52

Gender: Male

Status: Bussinessman

"Eating human flesh because he's curious about the taste."

#deviance #folkways #upperclass

Name: Rosario Sy

Age: 48

Gender: Female

Status: Bussinesswoman

"Cross-dressing because it's the easiest task to do."

#deviance #laws #working class

Name: Rowel Calogos

Age: 31

Gender: Male

Status: Security Personnel

"Kasi may thrill."

#deviance #folkways #workingclass

Name: Alma Fermano

Age: 42

Gender: Female

Status: Photocopying personnel

"Kasi tomboy ako dati."

Social Institutions

#deviance #folkways #lector

Name: Dr. Grace Carole Beltran

Age: does not wish to share haha

Gender: Female
Occupation: dermatologist and cosmetic surgeon; mass lector
"I've always wanted to try wearing some clothes for men!"

#deviance #folkways

Name: Angelo

Age: 19

Gender: Male

Status: College student and Church choir member

"It's easy. I can even do it for free."

#deviance #folkways

Name: Ric

Age: early 50s

Gender: Male

Status: Businessman; parent

"I would cross-dress because it is the simplest."

#deviance #mores

Name: Luisa

Age: late 40s

Gender: Female

Status: Housewife; parent

"I would cross-dress because it is the simplest."

#deviance #laws

Name: Pacifico

Age: -

Gender: Male

Status: Lolo

"Because a lot of people are already doing it."

#deviance #folkways

Name: Pacifica

Age: -

Gender: Female

Status: Lola

"Because in doing so, i offend no one."

#deviance #laws

Name: Victor

Age: 21

Gender: Male

Status: Teacher, ADMU

 "Because it's the the easiest thing to do out of the 6. Screw the rules."

#deviance #laws

Name: Reine
Age: 19

gender: Female
Occupation: Upperclassman
"P100,000 is so big just to pay a jaywalking fine."

Observation
Well, to start off, we begin with our Teenage participants. It was very interesting to find out that a teenage boy is willing to cross dress for a month (even said he would do it for free) because it would be a quite amusing experience to see how his friends would react to him while the girl answered that she would be willing to dye her hair with multiple colors because she has done it before. As you may infer, it may seem so that the generation of the youth today are more adventurous and diversifying in what they want to experiment in their physical appearances because they feel they have more “freedom” to do it and are less likely to be judged nowadays.
As for the kids, our group mate was excited and at the same time iffy about asking the kids about our deviance question because he felt they might be a bit too “overwhelming” for them. He was amused when he found out that at their age, they had the concept of giving importance to morals, values, law, and norms, thus, he wasn’t that much surprised anymore about their choices. From what they chose, (dying the hair and cross-dressing for a month) we can say that for the kids, they were willing to go against the things that they usually do for a hundred thousand pesos probably because there wasn’t much really to think about on the question.
For the Working class, we ended up going for our Guard and Photocopier personnel because a lot of people didn’t want to get questioned. Funnily enough though, the Guard ended up choosing to break the law because, as he said, “May thrill”. For our very own Photocopier (Ate Alma), she chose to cross dress because she used to be a “tomboy”.
As we can conclude from the experiment, the choices of the adults and parents (both male and female) are pretty much similar, where they would choose what they think are the easiest and safest to do without disrupting the folkways and mores of society. As dying one's hair in different colors or cross-dressing for a month are actions that would create gossip within friends but wouldn't really create that much controversies as the other actions such as cannibalism or cheating, or endanger one's life such as jaywalking. For the teens, so long as the people that surround them don’t mind what they do, they seem not to care whatever they end up doing. Of course though, we still had one person, a teacher, who picked to eat human flesh but shied away from showing his face and giving his name to be showed here. We can only understand that he felt that he could be judged by others if people knew that he was willing to do this. As it stands though, it seems that when people reach a certain age, they tend to care less of their fears of being judged by others so that in doing these weird things it’s not really that big of a deal for them anymore.

Respect or Looks? : The Stand of wearing Shorts in the Church

Being the only country in South East Asia to embrace Christianity as its primary religion, we tend to look at the church as the portal, the boundary between the material and the spiritual. Different people have different opinions whether or not our respect towards the church reaches to the extent that even a dress code (which is currently being implemented) should be strictly applied.

Currently, the church helps decency and promotes respect through the banning of wearing outfits that are deemed too casual, like shorts. Men and women alike wearing shorts are not allowed inside most churches, some just get away with it, the others are not as lucky.

So in the final project, we decided to ask people from different walks of life about their opinion on this. Is it okay for people to wear shots in church?

Name: Angel

Student

Age 19

Name: Fernando

Age 47
Profession: Truck Driver

Name: Julia

Age 7

Name: Denise

Age: 35
Profession: Doctor

Name: Carlo

Age: 8

Name: Cindy

Age: 41
Profession: Businesswoman

Name: Carlotta
Age: 39 

Profession: Interior Designer

Name: Patricia

Age: 19

Student

Name: Marisse

Age: 25

Profession: House maid

Name: Jun

Age: 41

Profession: Businessman

Name: Leona

Age: 22
Profession: Cashier

Name: Luigi

Age: 19

Student

Name: Anthony

Age: 23

Student

Name: Gerardo
Age: 46
Profession: Security Guard

From the photos above, we can say that we Filipinos really live up to our name of being the respectful ones. We respect even the shenanigans of the uncertainty the church brings us, and even though the stand of the church lies on what we don't see, we still respect it by wearing formal, not showing off too much skin and others.

There's also the concept of gender inequality. The last picture by Mr. Gerardo, says that only women are prohibited to wear shorts to the church. This goes to show that women, despite how "Equal" they are with men now, are still not up to the level of freedom of fashion men have. He believes that men can wear shorts, but women cannot.

Also, a group member tried to interview a nun. She didn't allow us to document anything from the interview, she said that it's okay to wear shorts, what's important is that your purpose in going to church is to thank God and to cherish every moment you have while in the vicinity.

To conclude, Filipinos, despite how superstitious we are, still have different stands on topics such as this. They might be socially caused, like how they were raised in their families or how their peers affected them, but either way, this is a justification of the statement that everything is socially constructed. People from different walks of life, different statuses, different professions and age groups also have different opinions on one topic. Socially constructed topics like this determines who we really are in society.