UNDERSTANDING CULTURE

SOCIETY AND POLITICS

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL: GRADE 11
2nd QUARTER: MODULE 1

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COURSE OUTLINE: UNDERSTANDING CULTURE SOCIETY AND POLITICS

WEEK TOPICS LEARNING OBJECTIVES REFERENCES

NO.

7 Non-State
Institutions
• differentiate functions of Ederlina D. Baleña, Dolores M. Lucero, Arnel A. Peralta (2016).
nonstate institutions in Understanding Culture Society and Politics. Quezon city;
society; Educational Resources Corporation
• analyze the similarities
and differences of bank
and corporation;
• Explain the forms and
functions of state and
non-state institutions.

8 Education as a
Social Institution
• Evaluate how functions UCSP module published by the Department of Education
of education affect the
lives of people in society
• Examine the functions Ederlina D. Baleña, Dolores M. Lucero, Arnel A. Peralta (2016).
and importance of Understanding Culture Society and Politics. Quezon city;
education in the society Educational Resources Corporation
• Explain different types of
education in the From the book Education and the Significance of Life by J.
Philippines Krishnamurti

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9 Social • examine stratification Ederlina D. Baleña, Dolores M. Lucero, Arnel A. Peralta (2016).
Stratification from the functionalist Understanding Culture Society and Politics. Quezon city;
and conflict Educational Resources Corporation
perspectives;
• Identify characteristics of From the book Education and the Significance of Life by J.
the systems of Krishnamurti
stratification;
• understand the
components of social
and political
stratification.

10-11 Government • Explain government programs and Rhoderick V. Nuncio, PhD, Elizabeth Morales
Programs and initiatives in addressing social Nuncio, PhD, Raychelle R. Artuz MA, Praxis:
Initiative in inequalities e.g. local, national, Understanding Society, Culture and Politics (2016)
addressing Social global
Inequalities • Analyze government programs and
initiatives in addressing social
Maria Virginia G. Aguilar. PhD. Luis Carmelo L.
inequalities e.g. local, national,
Buenaventura. PhD. Josephine R. Lejos-Cruz.
global
• suggest ways to address global M.A.,Ma. Melinda C. Santos-Delmonte. Llb: Society
inequalities Culture and Politics an Introductory text for senior
• Identify different social inequalities high school

12 Responses to • identify new challenges faced by Rhoderick V. Nuncio, PhD, Elizabeth Morales
National human populations in contemporary Nuncio, PhD, Raychelle R. Artuz MA, Praxis:
Challenges societies; Understanding Society, Culture and Politics (2016

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• describe how human societies adapt
to new challenges in the physical,
social, and cultural environment.
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Maria Virginia G. Aguilar. PhD. Luis Carmelo L.
Buenaventura. PhD. Josephine R. Lejos-Cruz.
M.A.,Ma. Melinda C. Santos-Delmonte. Llb: Society
Culture and Politics an Introductory text for senior
high school
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NOTE TO STUDENT AND PARENTS/GUARDIANS:

The main purpose of this module is for students to learn and understand government
programs and initiative in addressing social inequalities. There are video lectures
available online for all the lessons contained herein. They can be used as a
supplementary study aid if need be. As facilitator of this module, it is expected that:

1. Explain government programs and initiatives in addressing social inequalities e.g.

local, national, global
2. Analyze government programs and initiatives in addressing social inequalities
e.g. local, national, global
3. suggest ways to address global inequalities
4. Identify different social inequalities

1.
LESSON PROPER (WEEK 10-11): UNDERSTANDING CULTURE SOCIETY AND POLITICS

INTRODUCTION

Poverty sector in the Philippines, may it be in rural or urban setting, is widespread

across the different sectors of the society. The National Statistics Coordination Board
(2013) estimates a poverty incidence rate of 22.3 percent during the first semester od
2012. This means that of the estimated 96% million population in the country, around 23
million living in poverty. The poorest sectors in the Philippines include fisherman, farmers,
children, self-employed, and unpaid family workers, woman, youth, migrant and formal
sector senior citizens and individual residing in urban areas. Of theses sectors, fishermen
and farmers are considered to be two of the poorest, most vulnerable neglected and
deprived. It is an irony indeed that these people are the ones who have the least access
to the resources that would allow them to provide for the necessities of life.

Programs in Alleviating Poverty

Poverty alleviation programs or projects that are set and promoted by the
government and private institutions all have one thing in common the goal to provide
better living conditions for the poorest segment of the society. As there is no single formula
or solid plan to ensure that poverty will be eradicated, alleviation programs focus on
providing the poor with opportunities to gain access to the goods and services that they
do not have. These initiative can either be long term or short term in nature depending
on the aspect of the poverty that is being addressed .For instance, livelihood projects
and education development are supposed to run for a relatively longer period of time
compared to a feeding program or a medical mission.

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In the Philippines, some of the most common poverty alleviation programs include
microfinance for small-scale livelihood and enterprise projects; community driven
development initiatives; promotion of education, science and technology; population
management; and natural resources sustainability projects. These programs may be
spearheaded by the government or private individuals and corporations. As such, these
initiatives have varying degrees of effectiveness and efficiency. Success rates are largely
dependent upon internal and external factors that come into play. For instance, a
poverty alleviation program that has a huge amount of funding could fail if the target
sector would not cooperate. On the other hand, a project with a relatively small funding
but has tremendous amount of support from all the stakeholders may create positive
results and may even led to drastic changes among the lives of the affected sectors.

Conditional Cash Transfer Program

A conditional cash transfer program is one the most common ways to address
poverty on massive scale. The general idea behind this poverty alleviation program is
very simple and straightforward. The government (or any private entity) would provide
cash families living in absolute or relative poverty given that they meet certain conditions
and criteria. These conditions vary from country to country but would usually include
mandatory education for the children, getting regular health check-ups. Attending
development seminars, participating in livelihood programs, and the like in exchange for
cash. For example, if a family wants to avail of the program, they would be required to
send all their children to school and attend development seminars before they could get
a monthly allowance from the implementing agency. The goal is to provide accessible
financial assistance to families who are struggling to provide for the necessities of life and
help them move away from the cycle of poverty.

Many countries around the world depend largely on the conditional cash transfer
programs to jumpstart more comprehensive poverty alleviation program. In the
Philippines, the conditional cash transfer program is implemented by DSWD and it is
known as the “Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program” which targets to address children who
are aged 0-14 years old. According to DSWD (2013), the objectives of the program
include the provision of temporary cash assistance to the poor and breaking the cycle
of poverty through investment in human capital. This means that by providing
opportunities to improve their education and health conditions, these children would be
able to find decent jobs and secure a better future for their families. According to the
proponents of conditional cash transfer, that program create the notion that poor
people can always depend on others to help them in life. Whatever they need would be
supplied by an endless stream of organization without much effort on this part. It is also
reinforce the idea that they cannot help themselves hence they need to constantly
depend on others. However, these beliefs are countered by those who say that instead

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of looking at conditional cash transfer programs as dole-out, it should be considered as

something that would empower the poor people.

Five Biggest Slums of the World

According to the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing, there

are about 200,000 informal settlements (more popularly known as slums) around the
world. The five largest slums pf the world are the following:

Name of theSlum Location Population

Neza-Chalco-Itza Mexico city, Mexico 4 million

Orangi Town Karachi, Pakistan 1.5 million

Dharavi Mumbai-India 1 milliom

Khayelitsha Cape town, South Africa 400.000

Kibera Nairobi, Kenya 200, 000

Garbage chicken: A grim staple for Manila`s Poor

By Kyung Lah, CNN

Felipa Fabon waits outside a local fried chicken restaurant in Manila. Crouching near to
feral cats and rubbish bins, she isn’t there to meet friends for dinner but to search through
the dinner`s trash bag.

“Im sorting the garbage, looking for pagpag” she says.

In Tagalog "pagpag" means the dust you shake off your clothing or carpet, but in Fabon's
poverty- stricken world, it means chicken pulled from the trash.
Pagpag is the product of a hidden food system for the urban poor that exists on the
leftovers of the city's middle class.

Fabon is the merchant and pays the trash dealer just over a dollar for tonight's supply of
garbage and scraps.

In the dim haze of the street lights, she holds up a half-eaten chicken breast.

"This one, this is meat," she says. "Now what we do at home is clean it, put it in plastic, and
then I sell it in the morning. It's very easy to sell because it's very cheap. People in my
neighborhood want very cheap food."

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"If it's mostly bones, it's 20 pesos ($0.50) per bag," she says.

After bagging up the chicken scraps she heads home to Tondo, a neighborhood
infamous in the Philippines as one of the poorest slums in Manila.

At dawn, about six hours after Fabon first got her trash delivery, she begins to divide up
the pagpag.

Fabon sniffs the chicken, which she says has a bad, sour smell. She's disappointed that
she only has five bags to sell this morning that will sell out in just minutes.

"Pagpag!" Fabon calls out, as she walks through the slums carrying her small cart.

Morena Sumanda, a 27-year-old mother of two, is the first customer.

Sumanda lives in a shanty that sits on top of one of Manila's biggest garbage dumps. She
doesn't have the 20 pesos to pay Fabon until her husband comes home that evening.
For him, 20 pesos is full day's pay, says Sumanda.

Sumanda's toddler son, Nino, wails as she first washes the chicken, heats the pot and
adds vegetables to the pagpag, which is mostly bones.

"Sometimes it comes from the garbage," she says, as she hands a small, half-eaten
chicken wing to her son.

Sumanda, and others like her, have no other choice but to eat pagpag, says Melissa
Alipalo, a social development specialist and a volunteer at the Philippine Community
Fund (PCF).

"It is a private humiliation of the poor to have to eat off someone else's plate. But it's a
survival mechanism for the poorest of the poor," she says.

The NGO is based in Manila and has built an elementary school in the heart of the Tondo
slums.

PCF's school educates 450 of the most poverty-stricken children in Tondo, with the aim of
freeing families from poverty. The school survives on donations and provides students with
two meals a day.

Maria Theresa Sarmiento, PCF's manager of health and nutrition, says that when the
school first opened she was treating children with a range of illness and disease.

"Even though they cook the food, the disease is still there," she says.

Sarmiento says that parents know pagpag is not a good source of food for their children,
but that they don't have any choice.

"They're being pushed to do that thing because they don't have enough money to buy
the food that they should prepare," she says.

For Sumanda this is all that she can afford and it's better than nothing.

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"By the mercy of God, this is enough," she says.

Gender Inequality

Gender inequality is still a major issue faced by societies across the world there
have been developments regarding this issue since the 1990’s but there is still a long way
to go concerning gender inequality. Girls and women across different countries of the
world still face discrimination in areas of health, education, political representation, and
labour market among others ( United Nations Development Program, 2015) Some
examples of such gender parity include the following women in Northern Africa hold less
than one in five paid jobs in the non-agricultural sector ; in sub-Sagaran Africa, Oceania
and western Asia, girls still face barriers to entering both primary and secondary school (
United Nations 2015) Across the globe, women still struggle to hold positions of power
particularly in societies dominated by men. There are countries around the world that do
not allow women to drive, vote, go anywhere without a chaperone, express their
creativity, and restrictions that actually limit the things that they can do. Of course, there
are cultural and social conditions to consider but these should not limit women from
exploring options concerning they today life. Goal no.5 of the united nations sustainable
development goals is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The
target is to end all force of discrimination against women and girls across the world. It
aims is to ensure that women and girls are ensured of an active, efficient and effective
participation to propel growth and development across different societies regardless of
cultural and political contexts. It also aims to empower women to participate more in
activities and initiatives that would an able them to use technology and other economic
resources. Promoting gender equality would entail a strong commitment from
governments, non-governments organizations, and civil societies across the world. Like
any other area of development, gender equality may only be achieved if everybody
would be through to its cause and be willing to do their fair share of responsibility in
achieving the goal

Ethnic Minorities

The Philippines is a country with a rich historical and cultural background. This
results to a multitude of ethnic and indigenous group that inhabit the island. According
to a study than by the Roger Plant (2002), There are approximately 150 ethnic group in
the Philippines that identify by the Office of the Presidential Advisor for Indigenous People
Affairs. For instance, in Northern Luzon ethnic minorities are concentrated along the
Cordillera Region. Some of these groups include the Isneg, Kalinga, Ifugao. These groups
are largely dependent on agriculture for survival. There are also indigenous tribe in the
Southern most island of Luzon which include the Mangyans of Mindoro and the
Tagbanua’s of Palawan. In the Visayan are the Badjao’s, Maranaos and Samals among
other. The Lumads who are ethnic minorities who did not become Muslims are also to be

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found across Mindanao (Plant 2002).

Person with Disabilities

According to the United Nations, approximately 650 million people or about 10

percent of the world's population live with disabilities. Around 80 percent (520 million) of
this population live in developing countries. Moreover, according to studies done by the
United Nations, persons with disabilities are more likely to be victims of discrimination,
violence, rape. These people are less likely to have access to police intervention,
preventive care, or legal protection (United Nations, 2015). The United Nations
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which was adopted in 2006 states
that persons with disabilities have the right to the same fundamental, civil, and political
rights as other human beings. In general, the Convention aims to help persons with
disabilities to develop their capabilities and skills in whatever means possible (United
Nations, 2015)

Global Inequality

Global inequality has long been a concern of various policy makers and social
movers of our time. The ever-increasing problem of the disparity between developed
and developing countries is an issue that still persists in different economic forums across
the world. According to a report by Oxfam International (2015), the combined wealth of
the richest which is 1 percent of the world, will overtake that of the other 99 percent by
2016. The study revealed that the global elite had an average wealth of $2.7 million per
adult in 2014. As much as prominent individuals and global leaders talk about this
inequity, there is still a staggering difference between the rich, the middle class, and the
poor populations of the world. This is something that not only is a hindrance to growth
and development of societies but is also something that demoralizes people. Global
inequality poses the extreme differences between the standards of living across the
world. Some countries have effective and efficient access to economic resources,
technology, education, and healthcare. Meanwhile, other countries have limited access
to even the necessities of life. Such inequality is an indicator of the kind of life that future
generations may have. Like any other area of development, global inequality should be
addressed with a strong commitment from various sectors of the society otherwise it will
be an issue that would persist in the years to come.

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ACTIVITIES/ASSIGNMENTS/PROJECTS: UNDERSTANDING CULTURE SOCIETY AND

POLITICS

Instruction: Imagine yourself as a lawmaker and propose a bill that can eradicate poverty in the
Philippines.

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