The Philippine Culture And Cultural Values Of The Philippines

Introduction of Philippine people The Philippine Islands, an archipelago of 7,107 islands located between the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea, is a country with a multitude of seven major ethnic groups and eight major dialects. In this regard, there exist subgroup differences as in other cultures, with respect to an individual’s ethnicity, dialect, and education, as well as age and gender.

While there exist subgroup differences in cultural values, there remain a number of values that have been identified as most representative of the Philippine culture by professionals in the field of psychology, as will be discussed later in the research paper. In an effort to reveal the importance of each cultural value, such would then be ranked

Cultural values most representative of the Philippines The five cultural values most representative of the Philippines is provided in Appendix A, which further includes a related cultural dimension and behavioral example. Each cultural value, moreover, is ranked from one to five, with one being the most central and immovable and five being the least central and critical to the country’s culture.

Strong familial and extended familial ties The Philippine cultural value of strong familial and extended familial ties ranks first, which was described by Quisumbing (as cited in Church, 1987) as the “core of all social, cultural, and economic activity.” The bilateral extended family, which includes the relatives on the father and mother’s sides, is considered as an individual’s support in terms of both psychological and financial needs as mentioned by Fox, Jocano, Pal, and Arquiza (as cited in Church, 1987). In the cultural dimension of Individualism, the Philippines, moreover, aptly received a low score of 32 (see Appendix B), indicating the mentioned strong integration of in-groups, which include immediate, and in many instances, extended families (Hofstede,

Even prior to and after the colonization of Spain, there were several other countries that had colonized the Philippines, which include Netherlands, Portugal, Britain, and Japan (Central Intelligence Agency, 2015).

In this regard, the Philippines was colonized by many countries, leaving the country and its people in disagreeable circumstances. While this may have been the situation, the Filipinos found refuge in their families. The foreigners looked down on us; therefore, the Filipinos learned how to prop themselves up through support group that included immediate and extended families and friends. In this regard, the Filipinos owe such support groups their gratitude, resulting in a high value placed on strong interpersonal relationships, such as in the cultural values of strong familial and extended familial ties, respect for authorities, pakikisama, utang na loob, and lastly, amor