MY COMMUNITY, MY RESPONSIBILITY

PART I: WHAT IS A COMMUNITY?

I. CONTEXT

Human beings are by nature social. We strongly manifest our personhood or

being by how we relate with others in our respective communities. The youth for
instance, is one big sector belonging to certain communities. They have the time,
ingenuity and enthusiasm to render service contributory to the general welfare
and the betterment of life for the members of various communities confronting
several social realities. They have been greatly recognized by the government for
their role in nation building. They are the most valuable resource of the nation
who can be motivated, trained, organized and involved in military, literacy, civic
welfare programs for the service of the nation. They can channel their energies
for the development of these communities and act on their social responsibility.

General Objectives

At the end of this module, the student should be able to:

a. Define what community is;

b. Identify social issues and concerns related to gender, environment, peace,

human rights health and sanitation, education, national security and
governance;

c. Apply social analysis tools in analyzing situations affecting the marginalized

sectors such as the women, children, youth and urban poor;

d. Make choices on issues related to gender, environment, peace, human rights

health and sanitation, education, national security and governance;

Specific Objectives

a. Identify the Filipino community values;

b. Share significant experiences/learning/insights during the social exposure;

c. Share relevant observations on the economic, political, cultural and

environmental situations of the communities;

d. Organize a team adopting Filipino community values;

e. Become an active member of a team

II. EXPERIENCE

Activity 1

BUILDING A HOUSE

The class facilitator will do the following:

1. Divide the students into 5 groups
2. Provide each group with one Manila Paper and each student with a piece of
crayon
3. Ask each student to choose a part of the house that s/he would like to be.
S/he must not reveal to his/her group mates his/her choice.
4. Invite each one to draw the part of the house s/he has chosen on the Manila
Paper, all together building a house.

Sharing/Reporting
The class facilitator will ask the students to share with their group mates the
following:
1. What particular part of the house did you choose? Why?
2. How did you feel while building the house together?
3. How is building a house related to your having or being in a community?

The group will choose one member who will share with the whole class their
answers.

The class facilitator will synthesize the sharing of the groups and relate it with the
input on Community.

Input 1

WHAT IS A COMMUNITY

A community is an aggregation of families and individuals settled in fairly compact

and contiguous geographical area with significant elements of common life, as
shown by manners, customs, tradition, and mode of speech (Ross, 1987). It also
refers to people and the pattern of social relationships among them, which may be
characterized by:
 A common system of values
 Normatively defined relations
 Interdependence
 Recognition of belonging
 System of stratification
 Locality

It is also a combination of social units and systems that perform the following major
SOCIAL FUNCTIONS:

 Economic (production, distribution, consumption). “The study of how people and

society end up choosing, with or without the use of money, to employ scarce
productive resources that could have alternative uses – to produce various
 commodities and distribute them for consumption, now or in the future, among
various persons and groups in society” (Samuelson, 1980).
 Socialization. The processes whereby we learn to behave according to the norms
of our culture.
 Social Control. The set of rules and understanding that control the behavior of
individuals and groups in a culture (Kornblum, 1997).There are certain basic
norms that contribute to social control. “All social groups have such
‘commandments’ as ‘Honor thy father and mother,’ ‘Thou shalt not kill,‘ ‘Thou
shalt not steal’ (Park & Burgess, 1921).
 Social Participation. Participation involves exchange, which creates mutual
obligation among individuals. Participation can engender or strengthen a sense of
responsibility towards others, the community, or a particular institution. Leaders
of communities and institutions can therefore expect members to participate in
and contribute to group projects. Social participation can also sensitize group
members to the fact that they are subject to the same economic, political, cultural
or social conditions. Participation can therefore promote and strengthen
identification with the group or institution since it is viewed as being
advantageous.
 Moral Support. A way of giving support to a person or cause, or to one side in a
conflict, without making any contribution beyond the emotional or psychological
value of the encouragement (Wikipedia).

LONGING FOR A COMMUNITY

Deep in our hearts we all long to be with others, to live in love with others, to share,
to cooperate. No man is an island, we need one another, and we have been made
for one another.

One can only become her/his real self is supported and taught and loved and
corrected by others. That is the way God plans our life. Adam, the representative of
us all was lonely although he had so many animals around him. God created a
companion for him, somebody like himself.

This is the only image of how man has been made to live with others, to share his life
with other people.

BARRIERS TO A GOOD COMMUNITY

 Difficult relationships at home, with relatives, with neighbors

 Selfishness and individualism
 Jealousy, gossip, slander
 Lack of involvement
 Lack of concern, cooperation
 Grudges and hatred
 Pride, lack of respect
 Miscommunication, communication gaps

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FILIPINO COMMUNITY

The Filipino community is

 predominantly  multilingual  particularistic  developing

rural
 transitional  segmented  pluralistic

Aims, Goals, and Aspirations

 value of social acceptance (pakikisama, amor propio, hiya)
 value of economic security and social mobility.

Beliefs and convictions

 personalistic and supernaturalistic (bahala na, suerte, gaba-panalanging).

Predominant Value Orientations

 personalism, non-rationalism, particularism.

Norm and principles

 structural (in-group centeredness, family and kin, age-grading and generation
system, status and power, local language and religion,)
 ranking (in-group vs. out group, super-ordinate-subordinate, relationship authority)
 operational (equivalence and solidarity), reciprocity (utang na loob), compassion
(awa), patience, endurance and resignation).

COMMUNITY VALUES

a. Pakikitungo - diminishing oneself in deference to other people, gain the other

person’s trust at the first encounter
b. Pakikisalamuha - relating with others in a more confident and intuitive way while
gradually acclimatizing oneself to the emerging ways of their group
c. Pakikibagay - adopting to a particular lifestyle, being sensitive to the ways of
others and to move with much consideration for them
d. Pakikilahok - contributing as much as they can into the group’s efforts, becoming
more conscious of what they share in the community
e. Pakikisama becoming conscious of being a part of a community
f. Pakikipagplayang-loob - deep understanding and acceptance of each other
despite personality differences
g. Pakikisangkot - understanding and appreciating what they each bring to the
community especially the importance of each member’s deeper involvement in the
group
h. Pakikiisang-loob - bonding between the members of the group, affirming and
enhancing it with the expression of a shared future.

TYPOLOGY OF FILIPINO VALUE ORIENTATION

1. Ultimate End: individual self, individual family kinship, prosperity and happiness
in its holistic sense, family and individual prestige and fame

2. Character Structure and Life Organization:

 a. The financially successful man-image who has achievements without much
hardship; who is Christlike but also mundane enough to enjoy the fruits of
his work
b. Virtues: shrewd, acquisitive, calculating, modestly ambitious but not too
hardworking, manipulative of persons and things, cooperative
c. Person: inherent worth and dignity of person; a son of God with an immortal
soul and infinite value.
d. Competition: competition is inevitable in life but must be avoided if possible;
if it cannot be avoided, one must come out a winner by hook or by crook; if
working with competitors is advantageously good, work with them.
e. Cooperation: stress on mutual aid, service with ulterior motives
f. Wealth and Property: frugality and extravagance; my property is mine, your
property is ours; public property is mine; a symbol of respectability,
prestige; some things are valuated quantitatively in monetary units; a
comfortable level of living regarded as desirable

3. Social Change, intellectual Inquiry and Creativity: resistance to social change;

not so inquisitive about technology; ultra-conservative in substantial matters;
ultra-progressive in accidental things; psychological blocks to creativity.

PROGRESSION OF FILIPINO VALUES SYSTEM

The Filipino is familistic. He is loyal first and foremost to his family, then to neighbors
and members of the community, barrio-mates, towns mates, region mates, island
mates and finally to his nation mates.

COMMUNITY WORK

Student community work consists of direct assistance to community or sectoral

people’s organizations (base groups) acting on local issues. The most common type
of student involvement in community is parallel – i.e. done by extra – curricular,
socially – oriented student groups at the students’ own time. Other types are
intervening, or done during long school breaks (e.g. summer work camps in rural
villages); interwoven, or integrated into curriculum or a specific course (such as
Theology or Development Economics); and subsequent, or done after graduation
from college (e.g. voluntary apprenticeship to a social development agency).

The work maybe general, or directed towards the development of general skills in
social change work – for instance, tutorials, catechism, literacy training or the
building of Basic Christian Communities or related to the student’s own academic
program – for instance, paralegal work for law students, community – based health
programs for medical or nursing students, participatory research for social science
students.

Student community work contributes to the whole effort in building people’s

movement for social transformation. For the students themselves, this involvement
provides a venue for developing a more concrete analysis of social situation rooted
in actual experience. Close contact with the poor translates an abstract social
responsibility into a deep personal commitment to others.
The work can also serve as training for the development of skills useful anywhere,
but most especially in professional social change work after graduation. Community
work is also an important factor in the students’ personal growth, nurturing their
confidence in themselves and a sense of meaningful direction and contribution to
society. This increased student morale and the rich learning resources provided by
any poor community benefit the school. Student community work probably provides
the best model yet for a genuinely liberating education.

III. EVALUATION
1. What is a community?
2. What are the different functions of a community?
3. What are the Filipino community values?
4. What are the barriers to a good community?
5. What are the different types of community work?