NAME: Castillo, Sherwin

SECTION: BSMA 1-13

My Contemporary Social Context

Throughout the decades in our human history, we have seen how everything gradually changed
from scratch to industrialization, from primitive to modern, and from nothing to almost everything we could
ever dreamed of. Truly, humans have already surpassed numerous of milestones and now, everything is
just as smooth and easy and almost at the tip of our fingers. With the countless successive discoveries in
various bodies of knowledge and pioneering inventions that could solve most of humanity’s problems and
inconveniences, we have reached an era where it is the easiest to live in. However, even with these changes
and contributions that make life easy, living in the 21st century is an irony—for problems have never ceased
to exist and have only continued to evolve to make things even more complicated. Moreover, problems still
exist because solutions are exclusive in different ways and beyond reach for a number of people because of
different social contexts individuals experience.

New issues arise, together with past issues, day by day in today’s modern world. They are evident
in protests and rallies, founding of organizations and agencies, advocacies and campaigns, emergence of
research discoveries, and formations of laws. Clearly, issues call for these actions or in another but same
way of manner, it is because of issues that these actions occur. Issues are products of unresolved
misunderstandings and variance, concomitant of diversity and multiculturalism. Some of the issues that are
observed across the globe include lack of human rights, gender inequality, scourge of wars, overpopulation,
famine, and poverty. Here in the Philippines, we have records about how these issues have inflated in the
past years and remained unsettled. Nonetheless, not in all places in our world experience these. While
Central African Republic had the highest risk of hunger in 2018, Belarus had the lowest rate. While same-
sex marriage is legal and performed in The Netherlands and The United States of America, homosexuality
is a criminal act in Chad and other 70 more countries. While Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria have been war-
torn for years, New Zealand, Denmark, and Austria are indicated to be the most peaceful countries in 2018.
The issues in a particular area are a section of social context or social environment, specifically called the
macrosystem setting. Aside from issues, the macrosystem setting also includes culture, ethnicity, customs
and laws, race, and national residence.

Our macrosystem setting resonates several decibels on how we behave and function as individuals
of our residence. It plays a large role on how we perceive things and situations. The laws that are available
and not in a particular state reflect the history of the locus and the dominance of the issues that call for
immediate attention to establish them. For an instance, in 1984, the Philippines had its first reported case
of HIV infection. During that year, two Filipinos were reported contracted with the virus. A year after, 10
people were added to the statistics and 29 more the following year. From 1984 to 1998, the year when the
Republic Act No. 8504 also known as the Philippine AIDS Prevention and Control Act of 1998 was created,
the number of cases increased very steeply to 1,169. Despite the alarming global heightening of HIV/AIDS
cases, it took 14 years before the Philippines finally had its law regarding this issue. Imagine the possibilities
that the rate could have been stopped from increasing since 1984 only if the Philippines promptly took a
step in raising awareness, promoting solutions, and providing responses. Perhaps, a thousand of lives could
have been saved if they had access to information and preventive solutions such as using condoms and
getting HIV tests regularly. Despite the creation of the law which could have been a solution to this issue,
the number of cases of HIV/AIDS had only continued to skyrocket to 28,428 as of 2015. This quantity only
reveals the frailty of the RA No. 8504. Aside this, the predominance of Roman Catholicism in the
Philippines has contributed to the HIV/AIDS stigma for the reason that the religion conservatively talks
about sex and denounces the use of contraceptives. That is why even if an existing law has been available
for years already, the spreading of information and gaining of access to it are constricted because of social
standards religion teaches us; that even a non-Catholic would be agitated to access the benefits of the law
and remain poorly-educated and at risk for HIV instead because of the amount of discrimination prevailing
in the country. As a result of which, Republic Act No. 11166, also known as the Philippine HIV and AIDS
Policy Act of 2018, was created to countermand the previous HIV/AIDS law to provide better access and
to strengthen the provision of HIV and AIDS in the Philippines.

Another example that belongs

to the macrosystem setting is the economy a specific area has. In the Philippines, people who live in Quezon
City are way different from people from Lanao Del Sur mainly because of the economic difference the two
places have. As the richest city in the Philippines, Quezon City has abundant budget to provide basic needs,
such as healthcare and education, and create local projects regarding infrastructure, transportation, security,
and social services. These benefits help the residents of Quezon City to achieve a good lifestyle in order to
be functional and substantive citizens. They are more able to secure their future because of their easy and
free access to education, together with technologies and internet connections that enable them to be globally
competitive to the ever-changing needs of learning. They are less prone to infections and diseases because
of the healthcare and pharmaceutical services available in their city. In comparison to Lanao del Sur, a
poverty-stricken province in Mindanao, where wars on terrorism triumph; access to education is limited;
and public institutions including hospitals and schools are not enough and with inadequate supplies and
poor facilities, the people there have less opportunities to rise from their current situation. The consecutive
wars imperil the lives of the citizens to live freely and affect their daily lifestyle as they impose fear, doubt,
and hatred. Exposure of pre-schoolers and school-aged children to wars might create trauma and phobia
that would affect their growth and development, inhibiting them to go to school, communicate with peers,
and interact with others; adolescents and adults might become aggressive and feel the need to retaliate,
affecting their moral knowledge and ethical pluralism. In general, people might experience stress, anxiety,
and depression for the long run. Worse, the catastrophe of wars includes deaths and displacement. Not only
the macrosystem setting but also the exosystem setting affects an individual’s life. The loss of a child’s
interaction to his dead parent, the displacement of a child, and even community utility shutdowns—all
because of war—affect his life indirectly. Moreover, interconnection within the family might be challenged
due to changes in the exosystem setting. A child might lose their parents or anyone in their family. His
surviving parent, if there is, could have a new partner and become their step-parent. A child might
experience discomfort in their new milieu. His siblings might rebel, plant seeds of hatred towards their
parent, and run away from home; even him could. As the war seethes and continues to damage a community,
relationships in families are also threatened. The deplorable interactions of a child’s siblings to his parents
and his parent having a new partner are examples that fall under the mesosystem setting—the interaction
among microsystems or the immediate systems that affect an individual such as families, school, and peers.

These four systems, together with chronosystem, affect an individual’s social context. As for me,
an 18-year-old, generation Z, I see today’s world closer together but further apart. Living in a country where
social issues remain steadfast, I am deeply affected and alarmed of their prevalence. As we progressed from
a primitive communal society, master/slave society, and feudal system to a capitalist system, I’ve witnessed
how today’s social structure has disaggregated us into social classes unequally. Despite the good benefits
of capitalism, including progressive competition and innovation, its negative effects are irrefutably
obstructive. With the increasing rate of monopoly power of private ownerships, consumers tend to be
exploited and laborers become underpaid, sometimes even without labor protection and benefits. Inequality
dominates as it creates economic instability, only making the rich people richer and the poor people poorer
overtime. Just recently, news regarding labor workers experiencing injustice labor surfaced on the internet.
NutriAsia workers made protests about their situation in their workplace. Having reported that they earn
lower than the minimum wage, have no provided protective gears or free uniforms, and work 12 hours per
day, these people endure all of the misfortunes only to make a living and provide needs to their family.
These illegal labor practices, not only in NutriAsia but all over the Philippines, are reasons that make
surviving from poverty more difficult. That is why more and more people dream of working abroad instead,
just like my mother who chose to work in Singapore as a domestic helper. Even though I am not directly
affected by unjust labor and poor implementation of labor laws, I could sense the sentiments these workers
experience. As someone who has a parent working overseas, it is hard to grow when your family is
incomplete. There are times that I long for affection from a mother yet I couldn’t convey my feelings
properly because of the distance and conflicts in schedules. Worrying for her is inevitable, especially every
time an OFW maltreatment news make headlines. I am happy that she, together with my house painter
father, could provide enough for our six-member family. As much as I would want her to be here, the
opportunities in our country is less and I don’t like her to also experience illegal labor practices. In our
contemporary world, underprivileged people just like us need to strive harder and sacrifice more only to
make a little leap towards a better future.

Another issue that I am affected is the lack of access to education and poor education system. I
believe that education is a right, not a privilege. But in some areas across our country, many children suffer
from ignorance because of the insufficiencies our government throughout the decades could not provide.
The expense of education, lack of classrooms and other school facilities, inadequate teachers, and
incomplete learning materials hinder other children to learn. Education is important, especially to us
Filipinos, because having one increases our chances to establish a better future. It is everyone’s sword to
poverty yet not everyone could receive it. Throughout my educational years, I’ve been studying in public
schools. In spite of being lucky compared to those who completely don’t have access to education at all, I
am not exempted in experiencing learning barriers. Torn-out pages and outdated books, crowded
classrooms, unconducive learning atmosphere, and insufficient facilities are only some of the things that
I’ve been experiencing since elementary until now in college. Upon studying at the Polytechnic University
of the Philippines (PUP), I knew and accepted already immediately what type of school I am spending my
four years of college. Despite the poor-funded classrooms, facilities, and materials, I looked at the bright
side and chose to study at PUP since there’s nothing else I could do. My family could not afford to enroll
me in a private university which has good and complete facilities. Nonetheless, even if most students of
PUP accept their fate of enduring these insufficiencies to study, I believe that we still deserve a chance to
have excellent and functional facilities in order to create a better environment for learning.

Studying in PUP has widened my perspective even more about the social and political issues our
country has now. In just two months, I have already witnessed how a lot of people, especially the
underprivileged, suffer from our society. Being able to experience diversity, I learned not only to fight for
the issues that I am directly affected but also for the issues that people around me, especially my new
friends, battle with. An example of this is the widespread presence of discrimination, mostly towards the
LGBTQIA+ community. At a recent time, a transgender woman named Gretchen Diez was discriminated
for using the woman’s restroom in a mall in Quezon City. She was harassed, verbally bullied, and treated
as if she was a criminal by handcuffing her. The staffs of the mall violated the city’s Gender-Fair Ordinance
which forbids any form of discrimination to sexual orientation. Despite the ordinance, LGBTQIA+
members still experience discrimination because of poor implementation of laws and the continuous stigma.
That is why, I believe that it is much important to immediately turn SOGIE (Sexual Orientation and Gender
Identity and Expression) Equality Bill into law so more people will be educated about the LGBTQIA+
community, resulting to acceptance and anti-discrimination. The rights of LGBTQIA+ members must also
be acknowledged and given to them for they are also part of our society. As citizens of one nation, the law
must also protect their rights and provide them justice whenever they experience violations. I have gay,
lesbian, and bisexual friends and it is inconsolable every time they are attacked only because of their gender.

Aside from discrimination towards the LGBTQIA+ community, I also fight for women’s rights.
Throughout the years, women have already proved how strong and powerful they can also be just like men.
Women are not only for household chores; they also play an important role in our society. Aside from being
a wife and a mother, they can also be someone else: a police, firefighter, doctor, engineer, and community
leader. Gender stereotyping must be resolved because women have already been fighting for their rights
for so long, persistently proving their abilities when in fact they are not supposed to be doing it at all. In
addition to this, sexual harassment towards women is high and alarming nowadays that is why Republic
Act 11313 or the "Safe Streets and Public Spaces Act" was made. The law seeks to prevent sexual
harassment including catcalling, cursing, unwanted invitations, and sexual gestures. However, even if
President Rodrigo Duterte signed this into law, it is disappointing how the country’s leader doesn’t even
know how to respect women. It’s ironic that he commits things that are sexually harassing towards women,
such as catcalling and shaming them. His masochistic and misogynistic actions are mortifying and upsetting
especially that he is the President of the Philippines. His disrespect to women is only one of the many things
that I don’t like about him and the current administration. Beyond this, I also dislike his war-on-drugs
campaign—primarily because of the extrajudicial killings that have already stolen so many lives of innocent
people; loyalty to China because of his selective sovereignty; fascist dictatorship; build-build-build projects
that are poorly budgeted and debt funded; and cowardice to fight for our territorial rights.

Above all, despite the abundant issues our contemporary world has, I am glad for the few things
including the advancements in technology which help learning, work, and service providing faster and
reliable. The availability of internet provides easy access to information. However, not everyone is
privileged enough to access it. Also, the constant spreading of fake information hinders people to know the
truth. I am also glad to see the founding of several agencies and organizations with the objectives to serve,
help, and fight for advocacies that are often exploited. Seeing the efforts of how different people come
together to help each other, outcry for justice, and create solutions symbolizes hope and strength, continuous
progress and development, and unity—which are all essential for change.