Essay On Filipino Culture

857 Words2 Pages

ANDREW PERSEUS CHENG

Many people believe that Filipinos are people with a rich background in history and this, therefore, makes us rich in culture as well. But based on the 1988 article by Renato Rosaldo, the Filipinos of today can be considered as “people without culture.” A brief background on culture would make the assumption that all human conduct is culturally arbitrated, and thus this differs from nation to nation. In the case of the Philippines, the development of culture can be traced into certain stages, which are pre-cultural, cultural, and post-cultural. Before divulging into each stage however, it is important to give a foundation or a background with regards to the basic characteristics of culture.
One critical characteristic of culture is that it is learned. Culture is not biological nor is it inherited. It is also different from region to region, which means that the culture we have is a product of the environment that we live in. Another characteristic is that culture
The Negritos are idealized as nomadic tribes with customs, beliefs, and rituals of their own. This makes them isolated and different from others, and as a result, they are forced to live in tribes in the marginal lands of the Philippines. Based on the basic characteristics of culture, they are, in retrospect, people with culture. But since they are hunter-gatherers, they are considered in a “pseudo-evolutionary ladder” as people without culture. (Rosaldo, 1988). They are regarded as uncivilized and uneducated, isolated and marginalized, therefore they become a lower class in the social hierarchy. From the pre-cultural stage, the people of the Philippines encountered the Spanish colonial era. With this, they introduced a different form of religion, social hierarchies, and rules. Thus began the cultural stage of the Filipinos. With this stage, we can relate the basic characteristics of

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