Tadeo, Fernando IV F.

ESSAY NO. 01 Current Issues in National Development

PA 307

Question: The main goal of the Updated National Development Plan is to attain
a “matatag, maginhawa at panatag na buhay para sa lahat.” Why not
a “masaganang buhay” or “maunlad na buhay,” since, I guess, they
are more related to development aims?

SECURITY, STABILITY,
or SOCIAL MOBILITY?
In figuring out the vision for the Philippines, the National Economic Development
Authority (NEDA) facilitated a nationwide extrapolation of the citizens’
aspirations in which close to 10,000 respondents took part in a national survey.
More than 300 citizens participated in subsequent FGDs (focus group discussions)
to flesh-out the results of survey and to further fine-tune the vision statements
that would reflect the hopes and dreams of the Filipino people (National Economic
and Development Authority, 2016; UNTV News, 2016).

Two visions statements were later developed and released by the National
Economic and Development Authority (2016):

Vision of Filipinos for Self

“In 2040, all Filipinos will enjoy a stable and comfortable

lifestyle, secure in the knowledge that we have enough for our
daily needs and unexpected expenses, that we can plan and
prepare for our own and our children’s futures. Our families live
together in a place of our own, yet we have the freedom to go where
we desire, protected and enabled by a clean, efficient, and fair
government.”

Vision of Filipinos for Country

“By 2040, the Philippines shall be a prosperous, predominantly

middle-class society where no one is poor. Our peoples will enjoy
long and healthy lives, are smart and innovative, and will live in
a high-trust society.”

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Key Takeaways from the Two Vision Statements
The “Vision of the Filipinos for the Country” is obviously parallel to how the
Filipinos envision their status in life by the year 2040. It appears, however, that
the “Vision of Filipinos for Self” reflect the genuine aspirations of the people in
layperson’s terms; mentioning, for example, the realistic desires of an ordinary
citizen: they are financially secure, they have the propensity to save for their
offspring’s future, they live in a place of their own choosing in a country governed
by a clean government. It seems that the “Vision of Filipinos for Country” was
prepared via a more technocratic paradigm—a bureaucratic fine-tuning of the
people’s vision for themselves—with highfaluting terms in use, such as “high-
trust” “middle-class” society” in which poverty is non-existent wherein “smart and
innovative” peoples live “long and healthy lives” (National Economic and
Development Authority, 2016).

Regardless of the rhetorical differences, nowhere in those statements can be found

the words “prosperous” or maunlad, and “abundance” or masagana. It begs the
question as to why people, and the technocratic machinery of government, would
exclude those seemingly vital words that would more likely and faithfully
enunciate “development” aside from settling on stability and economic security.

Tempering Ambitions
The Cambridge Dictionary describes stability as “a situation in which something
is not likely to move or change.” Prosperity, on the other hand, refers to “the state
of being successful and having a lot of money” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2022).
Economically speaking, stability in terms of an individual’s finances refers to the
ability to pay off bills and the living basics and set aside money for unexpected
emergencies and future uses (Kunsman, 2021); meaning, a person is financially
resistant to economic shocks or cleavages.

Instead of aiming to scale a higher economic stratum, the study revealed that
Filipinos would rather “want a simple and comfortable life in 2040.” This meant
that citizens would settle on a “comfortable and simple life” with a “medium-sized
home” and “at least one car or vehicle,” with the financial means to sustain daily
needs, support their children’s higher education, and spend for domestic holidays.
Remarkably, only a few aspired to be wealthy (UNTV News, 2016). It appears that
Filipinos have levelled their expectation and assuaged their appetite for affluence
and success: settling on what is enough to survive comfortably rather than opting
for upward social mobility to live in prosperity (kaunlaran) and abundance
(kasaganaan).

In all likelihood, Filipinos today aspire for “horizontal” rather than “vertical”
movement in the socio-economic hierarchy or stratification (The Editors of
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020) based on their obvious choice of roosting down
rather than climbing up. It should be noted that horizontal mobility occurs with
the individual’s physical or territorial, political, or occupational movement without
changes in their vertical economic hierarchy or social prestige and lifestyle
(Corporate Finance Institute, 2020; Schaefer, 2012) as evidenced by the Filipinos’
temperance of ambition, i.e. building their own house and establishing a home at
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the location of their preference with the ability to travel domestically (territorial
movement or settlement), and with the sufficient means of subsistence
(occupational movement without changes in social class but achieving a level of
sufficiency) rather than acquiring more properties and wealth or stepping above
their current social class ladder (UNTV News, 2016).

The Filipino Mental Model

Dutch social psychologist Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory might
explain the Filipino’s tendency to content themselves to their present situation
albeit with hopes of a financial security and stability. Hofstede, Hofstede &
Minkov (2010) inferred that a people have an indelible pattern of behavior based
on its cultural dynamics. These patterns can be categorized in dimensions,
namely: (1) power distance or “the extent to which the less powerful members of
institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is
distributed unequally”; (2) individualism or “the degree of interdependence a
society maintains among its members”; (3) masculinity or “what motivates people,
wanting to be the best (Masculine) or liking what you do (Feminine)”; (4)
uncertainty avoidance or “the extent to which the members of a culture feel
threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and
institutions that try to avoid these”; (5) long-term orientation or “how every society
has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of
the present and future”; and (6) indulgence or “the extent to which people try to
control their desires and impulses” (Hofstede Insights, 2021). Collectively, they
form a people’s mental model or paradigm.

Figure 1: Hofstede Cultural Dimension of the Philippines.

In the power distance dimension (fig. 1), the Philippines is indeed a hierarchical
society. This means that people accept a vertical social order in which everybody
has a place in which no further justification is necessary. This might explain why
Filipinos would rather settle on financial security and stability but not to the point
of advancing from one socio-economic status to the next to achieve wealth or
prosperity. Relative to that, in the indulgence dimension, the Filipino people is one
of restraint; meaning, they have a “tendency to cynicism and pessimism.”
Combining the two, we can create a partial picture of the Filipino mental model
relative to the two vision statements they have formulated: whether by cynicism
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or pessimism, the Filipino is accepting of his/her present lot; however, s/he
somewhat intends or attempts to AT LEAST secure their families financially
without expecting more from life, i.e. wealth and prosperity to cater to wants or
excesses (Hofstede Insights, 2021).

This mindset is further peppered with ambiguity. In the uncertainty avoidance

dimension (fig. 1), Filipinos have “low preference for avoiding uncertainty” and
that means that they simply let the future happen without exercising much control
(Hofstede Insights, 2021). This might explain why Filipinos today—while aspiring
to live a comfortable lifestyle with a certain level of sufficiency but neither pushing
hard for abundance nor prosperity—is placing their hope on their children’s
education to achieve upward “intergenerational mobility” or the “social mobility of
children in relation to their parents” (Macionis, 2012) rather than in upward
“intragenerational mobility” or the “vertical mobility within a person’s own
lifetime” (Barkan, 2012) though short of acquiring prosperity or wealth. We can
thus assume that Filipinos bank on the success, not of their present generation,
but of the next; and that success, however, is limited in its scope at best.

The propensity to invest in the next generation’s future is reflective of the

masculinity dimension (fig. 1). Masculinity, in this context, does not refer to gender
assignments but to motivational drivers of competition, achievement and success.
In a masculine society such as the Philippines, success is “defined by the
winner/best in field–a value system that starts in school and continues throughout
organisational life” (Hofstede Insights, 2021). This is evident in the fact that the
Filipinos want their children to be the best in their own field via the attainment
of education. For example, in a group of health workers, a Filipino would want to
see his/her child to be the best among those health workers. This is a clear
manifestation of horizontal rather than vertical mobility in which the movement
of individuals or groups is limited from one position or role within the same socio-
economic stratum but not to the higher (American Psychological Association,
2020).

This mental model may be attributed to the Filipino experience of

intergenerational transmission of poverty. Poverty is not transmitted however as
a “package”, but as a complex and interrelated set of positive and negative
variables—whether institutional, systemic and cultural—that affect the chances
of experiencing either poverty or prosperity (Bird, 2007) that has chronically
affected centuries of generations without chance of escape.

There is therefore an obvious general acceptance that prosperity will not occur in
their lifetimes but perhaps on the future generations, but such likelihood of
prosperity is tempered still by intergenerational transference of socio-economic
conditions; the reason why the Filipinos of today opted for what is achievable and
realistic rather than dreaming on to climb the socio-economic ladder. This is what
Ambisyon 2040 clearly spells out.

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Works Cited
American Psychological Association. (2020). horizontal mobility. Retrieved from
APA Dictionary of Psychology: https://dictionary.apa.org/horizontal-
mobility
Barkan, S. E. (2012). Sociology: Brief Edition (v. 1.0).
Bird, K. (2007). The Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty: An Overview.
Chronic Poverty Research Centre Working Paper(99).
Cambridge Dictionary. (2022, January 12). prosperity. Retrieved from Cambridge
Dictionary: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/prosperity
Cambridge Dictionary. (2022, January 12). stability. Retrieved from Cambridge
Dictionary: s://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/stability
Corporate Finance Institute. (2020, May 18). Social Mobility. Retrieved from CFI:
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/other/social-
mobility/
Hofstede Insights. (2021, June 21). Country Comparison. Retrieved from Hofstede
Insights: https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/the-
philippines/
Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and Organizations:
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%2C%20and%20your%20future%20retirement.
Macionis, J. J. (2012). Sociology (14th ed.). Pearson.
National Economic and Development Authority. (2016). About AmBisyon Natin
2040 – AmBisyon Natin 2040. Retrieved from Ambisyon Natin 2040:
https://2040.neda.gov.ph/about-ambisyon-natin-2040/
National Economic and Development Authority. (2016). The Vision. Retrieved
from Ambisyon Natin 2040: https://2040.neda.gov.ph/the-vision/
Schaefer, R. T. (2012). Sociology: A Brief Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2020, May 22). social mobility.
Retrieved from Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-
mobility
UNTV News. (2016, March 31). NEDA Releases ‘Long-Term Vision’ of Filipinos for
Self, Country. Retrieved from UNTV News & Rescue:
https://www.untvweb.com/news/neda-releases-long-term-vision-of-
filipinos-for-self-country/