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Dangers to going it alone: social capital and the origins of community resilience in the Philippines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2007

GREG BANKOFF
GREG BANKOFF
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Hull.
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Abstract

Robert Putnam's influential article ‘Bowling alone: America's declining social capital’ puts forward a number of possible factors to explain the decline of civil society in the USA. Many of these same forces are also at work in America's erstwhile colony in Asia, the Philippines, where almost the opposite outcome is true if one can measure such things as social capital by the activity of formal and informal associations and networks devoted to mutual assistance. Unlike Americans, however, Filipinos are exposed to a much higher degree of everyday risk. This article traces the evolution of mutual benefit associations and networks and suggests that it is in precisely those geographical regions most exposed to personal misfortune and community danger that they proliferate most readily.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , August 2007 , pp. 327 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

ENDNOTES

1  Putnam, R., ‘Bowling alone: America's declining social capital’, Journal of Democracy 6, 1 (1995), 65–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also his subsequent book, R. Putnam, Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community (New York, 2000).

2  G. Bankoff, Cultures of disaster: society and natural hazard in the Philippines (London, 2003), 179–83.

3  E. Almario ed., Disasters: the Philippine experience (Quezon City, 1992), 15–19; R. Punongbayan, ‘Natural hazards in the Philippines’, in Proceedings of national conference on natural disaster mitigation 19–21 October 1994 (Quezon City, 1994), 5; G. Rantucci, Geological disasters in the Philippines; the July 1990 earthquake and the June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo (Rome, 1994), 25–7. Forty per cent of the Filipino population are classified as poor and 5,218,804 families as living below the poverty threshold; see Table 2A, ‘Poverty incidences of population by region, urban–rural: 1997 & 2000 (in percent)’ and Table 3, ‘Magnitude of families below the poverty threshold by region, urban–rural: 1997 & 2000’, in Republic of the Philippines, National Statistical Office, http://www.census.gov.ph/data/sectordata/dataincome.html (2002).

4  CRED defines a disaster as an event requiring international assistance or causing ten deaths or affecting more than 100 persons. See Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (EM-DAT), Brussels, The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, http://www.emdat.net (2007).

5  My thanks to Jean-Christophe Gaillard for permission to use this hazard map of the Philippines, previously published in Gaillard, J. C., Liamzon, C. and Maceda, E., ‘Act of nature or act of man? Tracking the causes of increasing disasters in the Philippines’, Philippine Geographical Journal 49, 1–4 (2005), 45–66Google Scholar.

6  On the failure of technology, see T. Cannon, ‘Vulnerability analysis and the explanation of “natural” disasters’, in A. Varley ed., Disasters, development and environment (New York, Brisbane, Toronto and Singapore, 1994), 13–29, and K. Hewitt, ‘Sustainable disasters? Perspectives and power in the discourse of calamity’, in J. Crush ed., Power of development (London and New York, 1995), 115–28, and Regions of revolt: a geographical introduction to disasters (Edinburgh, 1997). On the mutuality between environment and society, see A. Oliver-Smith, ‘Global changes and the definition of disaster’, in E. Quarentelli ed., What is a disaster? Perspectives on the question (London and New York, 1998), 177–94, and ‘Theorizing vulnerability in a globalized world: a political ecological perspective’, in G. Bankoff, G. Frerks and D. Hilhorst eds., Mapping vulnerability: disasters, development and people (London, 2004), 10–24, and see D. Hilhorst and G. Bankoff, ‘Introduction: mapping vulnerability’, in Bankoff, Frerks and Hilhorst eds., Mapping vulnerability, 1–9.

7  P. Bourdieu, ‘The forms of social capital’, in J. Richardson ed., Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (New York, 1985), 241–58; Coleman, J., ‘Social capital in the creation of human capital’, American Journal of Sociology 94 (1988), S95–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8  R. Putnam, R. Leonardi and R. Nanetti, Making democracy work: civil traditions in modern Italy (Princeton, 1993), 167.

9  A. de Swaan, In the care of the state: health care, education and welfare in Europe and the USA in the modern era (Oxford, 1988); M. van Linden ed., Social security mutualism: the comparative history of mutual benefit societies (Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt, New York, Paris and Vienna, 1996).

10  Geertz, C., ‘The rotating credit association: a “middle rung”’ in development’, Economic Development and Cultural Change 10, 2 (1962), 241–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ardener, S., ‘A comparative study of rotating credit associations’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 94, 1–2 (1964), 201–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11  A. Manalili, Community organizing for people's empowerment (Manila, 1990), 1–2; E. Luna. ‘Rethinking community development in the Philippines: “indigenizing” and regaining grounds', in V. Miralao ed., Philippine social sciences in the life of the nation, vol. 1 (Quezon City, 1999), 315–43.

12  S. Ikehata, ‘Popular Catholicism in the nineteenth-century Philippines: the case of the Cofradía de San José’, in Reading Southeast Asia: translation of contemporary Japanese scholarship on Southeast Asia, vol. 1 (Ithaca, 1990), 111–12.

13  M. Barrion, Religious life of the laity in eighteenth-century Philippines: as reflected in the decrees of the Council of Manila of 1771 and the Synod of Calasiao of 1773 (Manila, 1961), 82.

14  Archive of the Archdiocese of Manila, Manila (hereafter AAM), Estatutos que observa los hermanos y hermanas de la Cofradía de Simo. Nino Jesús, 40-A-1, Folder 8, Ternate 1866; AAM, Manila, Estatutos de la Cofradía de Jesús Nazareno, 40-A-1, Folder 9, Cofradías 1891–1897; AAM, Manila, Articles of incorporation of ‘The Crusade’, 40-A-1, Folder 11, Cofradías 1914–1935.

15  AAM, Manila, Estado numérico de los hermanos y hermanas de la orden tercera existentes en cada uno de los pueblos de esta vice-comisaría de Rosales Nueva Ecija, 40-A-1, Folder 9, Cofradías 1891–1897.

16  G. Clarke, The politics of NGOs in South-East Asia: participation and protest in the Philippines (London and New York, 1998), 52.

17  The emphasis is subtly different in each case: pakikipagkapwa connotes activities that can be defined as ‘being one with the other or with others’ or ‘being part of the group’ but pakikisama conveys a strong sense of sanction against breaking ranks with the group, regardless of whether their actions or activities merit personal approbation. See F. Jocano, Growing up in a Philippine barrio (New York, 1969), 96–8; F. Jocano, Slum as a way of life: a study of coping behaviour in an urban environment (Quezon City, 1975), 166–87; and F. Jocano, Working with Filipinos: a cross-cultural encounter (Manila, 1999), 66. I am indebted to Jose Dalisay (English Department, University of the Philippines) and Noelle Rodriguez (History Department, Ateneo de Manila) for help in clarifying these concepts.

18  Balmaceda, J., ‘“Turnuhan” as practised in various provinces’, Philippine Agricultural Review 20, 4 (1927), 381–421Google Scholar.

19  Balmaceda, ‘“Turnuhan”’, 405. The principal source of information on such communal practices is this study published by Julian Balmaceda in 1927, based on a survey initiated by the Director of Education in 1914 that employed municipal schoolteachers to conduct local enquiries on the different types of work covered by these schemes and the nature of their organization.

20  Testifying to the widespread nature of these practices throughout the archipelago, reciprocal forms of labour were known by a wide number of terms and often by more than one in the same province. Among the most commonly used terms were hil-o-jan or hil-oa-nay (the hilo meaning ‘help without pay’) in Antique, saknuñgan or suyuan in Batangas, hongosay on Bohol, tuluñgan or lusuñgan in Bulacan, amuyu or arayat in Cagayan, onglonan in Camarines, guimong in Ilocos Norte, tagnawa and tupac in Ilocos Sur, gamal or pinta in La Union, ticlos, doce-doce or tag polo in Leyte, iriloan on Palawan and tagbo in Surigao.

21  Balmaceda, ‘“Turnuhan”’, 400.

22  On the sugarcane fields of Batangas, most arrangements involved about 30 workers but the group size was smaller among the abaca-knotting women of Antique, more like 10–15 individuals and some with as few as 5.

23  Balmaceda, ‘“Turnuhan”’, 387, 390, 399.

24  Ibid., 390, 391, 400.

25  Ibid., 405, 418–421.

26  See G.R. No. 31057, 7 September 1929, Supreme Court, Manila: an appeal against a judgement handed down by the Court of First Instance of Santa Cruz in Laguna (Civil Case No. 2447) in which the legal office of Messrs Sumulong and Lavides had successfully brought an action against the president-treasurer, directors and secretary of the association known as Turnuhan Polistico & Co. to account for the funds they had handled on behalf of its 800 members.

27  Balmaceda, ‘“Turnuhan”’, 399. This seems unlikely considering their current prevalence in urban areas and among employees of government and corporate business. However, little research of this nature has been done in the Philippines as yet.

28  Balmaceda, ‘“Turnuhan”’, 386, 394, 408.

29  On the role of the Katipunan, see R. Ileto, Pasyon and revolution: popular movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910 (Quezon City, 1979).

30  Wurfel, D., ‘Trade union development and labor relations policy in the Philippines’, Industrial and Labor Relations Review 12, 4 (1959), 584CrossRefGoogle Scholar. David Sturtevant's study of the Guardia de Honor de Maria traces how a devotional religious confraternity founded by the Dominicans in the middle of the nineteenth century developed into something with an altogether different purpose while at the same time retaining many of the attributes of the cofradías and turnuhans in which it had its roots. See D. Sturtevant, Agrarian unrest in the Philippines Guardia de Honor – revitalization within the revolution and rizalistas – contemporary revitalization movements in the Philippines (Ohio, 1972).

31  Bankoff, G., ‘Wants, wages and workers: laboring in the American Philippines, 1899–1908’, Pacific Historical Review 74, 1 (2005), 72–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32  Rosenberg, E., ‘Filipinos as workmen; data and conclusions on the labor situation and general conditions in the Philippine Islands’, American Federationalist 10, 10 (1903), 1024Google Scholar; Carroll, J., ‘Philippine labour unions’, Philippine Studies 9, 2 (1961), 226Google Scholar; W. Scott, The Union Obrera Democratica: first Filipino labor union (Quezon City, 1992), 71–2; M. Kerkvliet, Manila Workers' Union 1900–1950 (Quezon City, 1992). Rosenberg was editor of the San Francisco Clarion and a veteran labour leader of stevedores and teamsters on the Pacific waterfront. He was sent by the AFL on a fact-finding mission to investigate working conditions in the Philippines, his report subsequently published in the trade union journal The American Federationist. On early unionism, see also Runes, L., ‘Toward a militant trade unionism’, Philippine Journal of Industrial Relations 5, 1–2 (1983), 65–76Google Scholar.

33  Sturtevant, Agrarian unrest, 10–11; Clark, V., ‘Labor conditions in the Philippines’, Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor 58 (1905), 850Google Scholar. Victor Clark (1868–1946) devoted much of his scholarly attention to those areas of the world for which there was little reliable economic information and which were of increasing interest to the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. Between 1900 and 1913, he visited Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Cuba, Mexico, Java, New Zealand, Australia and Canada as well as the Philippines, producing monographs on each that were subsequently published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. See Durand, E., ‘Dr Victor Selden Clark’, Journal of the American Statistical Association 41, 235 (1946), 390–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34  Clark, ‘Labor conditions’, 850.

35  Membership expanded from 29,259 persons in 1918 to 77,479 persons by 1923, an increase of 265 per cent. Capital, too, rose significantly, though not as fast as membership, from 1,607,000 pesos to 2,605,043 or 162 per cent over the same period. See J. Balmaceda, Agricultural credit cooperative associations in the Philippines (Manila, 1924), 18–19, 27.

36  The enactment of the Philippine Corporation Law of 1906 provided a legal framework for their activities and the Philippine Chapter of the American Red Cross, the Philippine Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Philippine Islands Anti-Tuberculosis League and the Associated Charities of Manila all had branches in Manila by the late 1920s.

37  Clarke, The politics of NGOs, 53–5.

38  B. Fegan, ‘The social history of a central Luzon barrio’, in A. McCoy and Ed. de Jesus eds., Philippine social history: global trade and local transformations (Quezon City, 1982), 91–129; Fegan, B., ‘“Tenants'” non-violent resistance to landowner claims in a central Luzon village’, Journal of Peasant Studies 13, 2 (1986), 87–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J. Connolly, Church lands and peasant unrest in the Philippines: agrarian conflicts in 20th-century Luzon (Quezon City, 1992).

39  G. Rivera and R. McMillan, The rural Philippines (Manila, 1952), 167.

40  Historical Data Papers, Philippine National Library, Manila (hereafter HDP), Historical sketch of the town of Polangui, La Purisima, Albay Reel 1 (officially Reel 3), 257; HDP, Manila, History and cultural life of the town of San Simon, barrio of Dela Paz, Pampanga, Reel 36 (officially Reel 52). Such organizations were not always denominated as PTAs even if they fulfilled the equivalent services; thus in barrio Del Pilar in San Fernando, the organization was called Aguman Bayug Aslag. HDP, Manila, Historical data of the town of San Fernando, barrio Del Pilar, Pampanga, Reel 36 (officially Reel 52), 11.

41  D. Atienza; author's interview with Danilo Atienza, program supervisor, integrated community disaster planning program, Red Cross, Manila, 22 October 2002.

42  HDP, Manila, History and cultural life of the municipalities of Minalin, barrio of Santa Rita, Pampanga, Reel 36 (officially Reel 52), 75.

43  Organizations such as the Tagulan Katipunan Pambangsa, a farmers' organization recruited barrio folk in Pampanga and elsewhere in central Luzon. See HDP, Manila, Historical data of the town of San Fernando, barrio of Baliti, Pampanga, Reel 36 (officially Reel 52), 29. On rural hardship, see B. Kerkvliet, The Huk rebellion: a study of peasant revolt in the Philippines (Quezon City, 1979), 26–60.

44  Sturtevant, D., ‘Sakdalism and Philippine radicalism’, Journal of Asian Studies 2 (1962), 199–215CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Guerrero, M., ‘The Colourum uprising’, Asian Studies 5, 1 (1967), 65–78Google Scholar; Ileto, Pasyon and revolution.

45  Members of the brotherhood bore triangles branded on their shoulders, wore the omega or yoke symbol on their hats and marched in uniform at each other's funerals. Members swore never to betray their associates, to resist eviction, to refuse to pay exorbitant rents or accept the tenancy of anyone evicted and to support those in trouble with their landlord, especially when the latter tried to enforce his rights to a share of the harvest or to collect debts.

46  The sounding of the barrio lieutenant's horn was also a signal for all able-bodied men to report for advising on needed community work that required collective labour; see Rivera and McMillan, The rural Philippines, 168.

47  Connolly, Church lands, 94–6; B. Fegan, e-mail communication with the author, 2003.

48  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of Muñoz, barrio Mangandingay, Nueva Ecija, Reel 47, 2.

49  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of the town of Polangui, La Purisima, 257.

50  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of Gerona, barrio Bularit, Tarlac, Reel 72, 69.

51  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of Muñoz, barrio Mangandingay. The parent organization, the Kalibapi or Kapisanan sa Paglilingkod sa Barong Pilipinas (Association for Service to the New Philippines), was created by the occupation administration in 1942 and was a supposedly non-partisan organization dedicated to the social, spiritual, cultural, moral and economic advancement of the nation under suitable Japanese tutelage. With chapters in every province, its ‘tentacles’ were said to have ‘reached into almost every home’; see T. Agoncillo, The fateful years: Japan's adventure in the Philippines, 1941–45, 2 vols. (Diliman, 2001), 367.

52  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of Gerona, barrio Bularit, 69.

53  The Huks had their origins in the pre-war peasant unions of the 1930s. These became the mass basis for the rural united front formed by the communist and socialist parties of Central Luzon to wage guerrilla warfare against the Japanese, and were known as the Hukbalahap or People's Army against the Japanese. Peasant radicalism was heightened in the post-war period by the re-imposition of traditional agrarian systems; the harassment, arrest and assassination of Huk cadre and their outlawing in 1948; and the refusal of the national government to allow seven peasant-supported elected representatives of the Democratic Alliance to take their seats in Congress. See E. Lachica, Huk: Philippine agrarian society in revolt (Manila, 1971), and Kerkvliet, The Huk rebellion.

54  An attempt was made to mobilize farmers with the formation of Farmers' Cooperative Marketing Associations in 1953 and to coordinate the government's approach to community organising through the creation of a Presidential Arm on Community Development in 1956. See Clarke, The politics of NGOs, 58. The Catholic Church, too, was actively engaged in organizing rural associations with the establishment of the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) in 1953 by a group of Catholic laymen affiliated with the Jesuit-inspired Institute of Social Order. See B. Po, ‘Rural organization and rural development in the Philippines: a documentary study’, in M. Fernandez ed., Rural organizations in the Philippines (Quezon City, 1980), 39–54.

55  Po, ‘Rural organization’, 31–2. Functional barrio government was only achieved with the passage of the Revised Barrio Charter of 1963 (RA3590) and the Decentralization Act of 1967 (RA5185) though it continued to remain chronically under-funded. In 1952 4-H Clubs were initiated, based on their North American counterparts, with the aim of providing young people (15–18 year olds) with the opportunity to learn through individual, group and community projects that enhance self-reliance, instil a spirit of voluntarism and promote cooperation and fellowship. They are still active today, with a membership of more than 100,000 youths distributed across the archipelago in 3,881 clubs.

56  Romani, J., ‘The Philippine barrio’, The Far Eastern Quarterly 15, 2 (1956), 236CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57  See Rivera and McMillan, The rural Philippines.

58  Romani, ‘The Philippine barrio’, 235.

59  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of the town of Cabiao, Nueva Ecija, Reel 47, 9.

60  J. Romani and M. L. Thomas, A survey of local government in the Philippines (Manila, 1954), 133.

61  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of the city of Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Reel 47, 21.

62  Romani and Thomas, A survey of local government, 132.

63  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of Gapan, sitio Taluate, Nueva Ecija, Reel 47, 131.

64  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of Gapan, sitio Balante, Nueva Ecija, Reel 47, 20.

65  Agaton Pal identified two different types of cooperative labour exchange in his study of social organizations on the south-western coast of Leyte in the post-war years: sangga, characterized by a joint investment of labour and the sharing of resultant income or produce, and outright labour exchange or ayon. See Pal, A., ‘A Philippine barrio: a study of social organizations in relation to planned cultural change’, University of Manila Journal of East Asiatic Studies 5, 4 (1956), 402–5Google Scholar. Brian Fegan also described a number of reciprocal arrangements in rural parts of central Luzon in the early 1970s that were known collectively as gantihan: lusungan, in which groups of farmers discussed their ideal planting schedules and arranged them so as to avoid any clash of interests; bataris, in which the farm-holder paid for labour on the spot through providing food, drink and cigarettes; tulungan, or help that was not restricted to farm work and covered all forms of tit-for-tat reciprocity; and even a more sinister form of reciprocity known as purga, derived from the Spanish word for forcing someone to provide help. From Fegan, e-mail communication with the author, 2003.

66  Fegan, e-mail communication with the author, 2003. Pal also recorded another form of labour exchange that, though still dyadic in nature, was manifestly more altruistic: alayon was a form of work-bee where people offered their labour to those in need of assistance, and tagbu involved work on community improvements such as maintaining the barrio chapel, constructing or refurbishing school buildings and repairing bridges. See Pal, ‘A Philippine barrio’, 404–7.

67  Rivera and McMillan, The rural Philippines, 168.

68  See Putnam, Leonardi and Nanetti, Making democracy work.

69  Portes, A., ‘Social capital: its origins and application in modern sociology’, American Review of Sociology 24 (1998), 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70  Woolcock, M., ‘Social capital and economic development: towards a theoretical synthesis and policy framework’, Theory and Society 27, 2 (1998), 151–228CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71  It is interesting to note that one of the other societies that exhibits many of the same attributes as the Philippines is Bangladesh, a country also noted for the frequency and magnitude of its hazards. See M. Zaman, ‘Vulnerability, disaster, and survival in Bangladesh: three case studies’, in A. Oliver-Smith and S. Hoffman eds., The angry earth: disaster in anthropological perspective (New York and London, 1999), 192–212.

72  Balmaceda, ‘“Turnuhan”’, 387.

73  Ibid., 401.

74  Ibid., 386.

75  Ibid., 389–90.

76  Ibid., 394.

77  Bankoff, G., ‘In the eye of the storm: the social construction of the forces of nature and the climatic and seismic construction of God in the Philippines’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 35, 1 (2004), 91–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78  Balmaceda, ‘“Turnuhan”’, 405.

79  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of the town of Polangui, Santicon, Albay, Reel 1 (officially Reel 3), 266; HDP, Manila, History and cultural life of the municipalities of Minalin, sitio Maniango, Pampanga, Reel 36 (officially Reel 52), 27.

80  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of the town of Polangui, Santa Cruz: traditions, customs and practices in domestic and social life, Albay, Reel 1 (officially Reel 3), 141. A ‘swidden field’ is one cleared in a forest by means of the ‘slash and burn’ method; they were generally utilized for only one or two years before being allowed to return to the original vegetation.

81  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of Santa Ignacia, barrio Cabugbugan, Tarlac, Reel 72, 17. More precisely, communal labour during the planting and harvesting seasons was performed under the pinta system, while working together on the repair or construction of each other's homes was more properly tagnawa; HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of Sta Ignacia, barrio Caanamongam, Tarlac, Reel 72, 11. Use or even recognition of the term turnuhan is now infrequent, its retention mainly being among religious associations, to denote those whose ‘turn’ it is to read and discuss the bible text at the next meeting (author's field-notes, 2003).

82  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of the Guimba district, barrio Saverona, Nueva Ecija, Reel 47, 3. On agricultural expansion in central Luzon, see M. McLennan, The central Luzon plain: land and society on the inland frontier (Quezon City, 1980), and C. Lataillade, A. Dumontier and N. Grondard, L'agriculture des Philippines: la plaine centrale, histoire et perspectives (Paris, 2002).

83  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of Sta Ignacia, barrio Caanamongam, 10.

84  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of Muñoz, sitio Rangayan, Nueva Ecija, Reel 47, 1–2.

85  The regions are defined as constituting the following provinces and sub-provines as designated under the US colonial regime: Northern Luzon as Nueva Vizcaya, Amburayan-Benguet, La Union, Ifugao–Lepanto–Bontoc, Isabela, Abra, Ilocos Sur, Cagayan, Ilocos Norte, Babuyan Islands and the Batanes; Central Luzon as Southern Tayabas, Northern Tayabas, Batangas, Laguna, Cavite, Rizal, Manila (city), Bataan, Bulacan, Pampanga, Zambales, Tarlac, Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan; Southern Luzon as Masbate, Romblon, Mindoro, Marinduque, Sorsogon, Albay, Catanduanes and Ambos Camarines; the Visayas as Oriental Negros, Occidental Negros, Bohol, Cebu, Leyte, Iloilo, Antique, Capiz and Samar; and Mindanao as Sulu, Cotabato, Davao, Zamboanga, Lanao, Bukidnon, Agusan, Misamis, Surigao, Southern Palawan and Northern Palawan.

86  Census of the Philippine Islands, 1918, vol. 1 (Manila, 1920–1921), 462.

87  Archives of the Manila Observatory, Quezon City, Floods in the Philippines, 1691–1911, Box 10–37.

88  Census of the Philippine Islands, vol. 4, 16, 37.

89  Generoso Rivera and Robert McMillan attribute the success of zangjeras to the fact that the majority of their members held plots of land of commensurate size, were of similar backgrounds and had long been resident in the community. See Rivera and McMillan, The rural Philippines, 168.

90  H. Lewis, Ilocano rice farmers: a comparative study of two Philippine barrios (Honolulu, 1971), 128–30.

91  Ibid., 135–8.

92  Ibid., 147–9.

93  Pal, ‘A Philippine barrio’, 408.

94  Rivera and McMillan, The rural Philippines, 168.

95  HDP, Manila, Historical sketch of Peñaranda, barrio of San Josef, Nueva Ecija, Reel 47, 88.

96  F. Turner, ‘The significance of the frontier in American history’, in G. Taylor ed., The Turner thesis concerning the role of the frontier in American history (Lexington, 1972 [originally published 1893]), 22.

97  Balmaceda, ‘“Turnuhan”’, 400.

98  B. Aquino, Politics of plunder: the Philippines under Marcos (Quezon City, 1987); D. Wurfel, Filipino politics: development and decay (Ithaca, 1988); A. Celoza, Ferdinand Marcos and the Philippines: the political economy of authoritarianism (Westport, 1997); J. Lacaba, Days of disquiet, nights of rage: the First Quarter Storm and related events (Manila, 2003).

99  Efforts of the Philippine Ecumenical Council of Community Organizations and its subsequent manifestations were instrumental in establishing the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) in 1969 and The Share and Care Apostolate for Poor Settlers (SCAPS) in 1973.

100  As a percentage of GNP, ODA (Official Development Assistance) reached levels of between 2.3 and 3.3 per cent of total expenditure over the period 1986–1992; see Clarke, The politics of NGOs, 71. Benigno Aquino was the principal mainstream opposition figure to Ferdinand Marcos.

101  K. Constantino-David, ‘Intra-civil society relations: an overview’, in M. Ferrer ed., Civil society making civil society (Quezon City, 1997), 30; Clarke, The politics of NGOs, 71.

102  Recognition of NGOs is also provided in Article II, Section 23, which outlines general state policies, and in Article X, Section 14, which provides for NGO participation in local government structures.

103  E. Lubi, ‘An outline of the historical development of Philippine NGDOs, in Partnership in development: non government organizations conference proceedings (n.p. [Manila?], 1992), 22; Miralao, M. and Bautista, C., ‘The growth and changing roles of NGOs and the voluntary sector’, Philippine Sociological Review 41, 1–4 (1993), 22Google Scholar; G. Silliman and L. Noble eds., Organizing for democracy: NGOs, civil society, and the Philippine state (Quezon City, 1998). The most elaborate typology is formulated by Karina Constantino-David who identifies the following: DJANGOs or development, justice and advocacy NGOs; TANGOs or traditional NGOs; FUNDANGOs or funding agency NGOs; MUNGOs or mutant NGOs, further divided between GRINGOs (government-run and initiated NGOs) and BONGOs (business-organized NGOs); and finally a group of opportunistic organizations that she disparagingly labels COME N'GOs. See K. Constantino-David, ‘From the present looking back: a history of Philippine NGOs’, in Silliman and Noble eds., Organizing for democracy, 29–31. Typologies of NGOs outside the Philippines usually focus more on the specific functions and the roles they perform at different levels of society. D. Korten, Getting to the 21st century: voluntary action and the global agenda (West Hartford, 1990).

104  Miralao and Bautista, ‘The growth and changing roles of NGOs’, 23–4.

105  Rocamora, J., ‘Philippine progressive NGOs in transition: the new political terrain of NGO development work’, Philippine Sociological Review 41, 1–4 (1993)Google Scholar, 1–18; Constantino-David, ‘Intra-civil society relations’, 22.

106  Registration with the SEC is now mandatory and confers certain legal and financial benefits that make compliance with its provisions attractive. The SEC estimates that only 75 per cent of non-stock entities can be properly classified as NGOs or POs, but its inability to enforce the submission of annual accounts or to properly monitor non-stock-entities status means that registration is widely abused. See Clarke, The politics of NGOs, 70–1.

107  N. Brown, L. Amadore and E. Torrente, ‘Philippine country study’, in Disaster mitigation in Asia and the Pacific (Manila, 1991), 198–9.

108  See the special issue of the Philippine Sociological Review 41, 1–4 (1993).

109  M. Ferrer, ‘Civil society: an operational definition’, in M. Diokno ed., Democracy and citizenship in Filipino political culture (Quezon City, 1997), 13.

110  According to these NGOs, the community approach they advocate promotes empowerment through developing local leadership and fosters organization by means of consciousness-raising. Communities are made aware of the value of collective action through involvement in projects of immediate benefit to the participants that address widely felt issues or problems. The desired outcome (at least from the point of view of the progressive NGO movement) is genuine partnership between NGOs and POs and between community organizers and local leadership, to encourage the latter to assume ultimate responsibility for activities and projects. See O. Francisco, ‘Building civil society at the grassroots; the Philippine community organizing experience’, in Ferrer ed., Civil society making civil society, 90.