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Philippine Social Science Council and
Social and Human SciencesCommittee
UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines
Philippine Social Science Center
Diliman, Quezon City
Copyright 2004
The Philippine Social Science Council
No part of this book may be reprinted or
quoted without permission.
Recommended entry:
Miralao, Virginia A.
Filipino youth in special high schools: a ..... ,
I
survey of senior students at the Philippine C

Science High School, Philippine High School for
the Arts and OB Montessori High School /
Virginia A. Miralao.. Quezon City: Philippines,
c2004
1v
1. Youth - Philippines - Social aspects.

2. Youth, Filipino. 1. Philippine Social
Science Council. I. Title.
HQ799.P5 305.23509599 2004 P044000171

ISBN 971-8514-25-2
Cover design and Layout:

PSSC Technical Services and Information Section
TABLE OF CONTENfS
PREFACE vii
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUOlON
CHAPTER 2
I FAMILY LIFE, SCHOOL AND RELIGIOUS
INFLUENCES ON THE YOUTH 15
, CHAPTER 3
PEER GROUP EXPERIENCES AND MEDIA
EXPOSURE AND USE 33
CHArTER 4
ROLE MODELS AND COMMUNITY
CONSCIOUSNESS AMONG THE YOUTH 53
CHArTER 5
THE YOUTH'S LIFE GOALS AND FUTURE
ASPIRATIONS 71
CHArrER 6
THE YOUTH'S SENSE OF SELF 93
CHArrER 7
CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION
OF FINDINGS 101
List of Tables
CHAPTER 1
Table 1. Selected background characteristics of survey
respondents by school 12
CHAPTER 2
Table 2. Respondents' family background characteristics
by school 18
Table 3. Selected data on respondents' family life and
relationships by school 21
Table 4. Related data on respondents' schooling
experiences 26
Table 5. Related data on the students' religious beliefs
and practices 30 ,I
CHAPTER 3
Table 6. Related data on respondents' peer experiences 36
Table 7. Related data on respondents' media use and 1
exposure 42
Table 8. Respondents' use of Internet and cellular phone 48
CHAPTER 4
Table 9. Related data on respondents' role models 55
Table 10. Number of respondents citing certain traits
as those that they admire most in their role
models (multiple responses) 58
Table 11. Related data on the respondents' involvement
in community organizations and in electoral
and political process 62
Table 12. Related data on respondents' views on service
to country/citizenship. nationalism and ~.,
Philippine culture 67
Table 13. Words or phases associated by students with
"citizenship," "nationalism." and "Philippine
culture" 68
iv
CHAI'TER 5
Table 14. Students' educational plans and aspirations 74
Table 15. Respondents' long term educational goals 78
Table 16. Respondents' employment and career goals 80
Table 17. Respondents' marriage and childbearing goals 84
Table 18. Respondents' long-term residence goals 86
Table 19. Respondents' aspirations at age 25 89
CHAI'TER 6
Table 20. Mean scores and percentile distribution of self-
esteem, locus of control, independent and
interdependent self-construal scores among
special high school students 97
Table 21. Mean scores/ratings on values-motivational
themes by special and regular high school
students 98
v
PREfACE
As a response to the call for a more holistic study of the Filipino youth,
the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines' Social and Human
Sciences Committee (UNACOM-SHSC) and the Philippine Social Science
Council (PSSC) in late 2002 embarked on A Study of Filipino Youth
Transitions. The study entailed the collection of information on various
aspects of youth life and the transitions that today's youth negotiate
towards adulthood.
The UNACOM-SHSC and PSSC brought in a team of social scientists

from the University of the Philippines to develop the survey instrument
and help conduct the survey. The pilot surveys were conducted by the UP
team and the PSSC in December 2002 and March 2003, respectively. The
UP team covered four regular high schools, namely, Pasig Catholic High
School, Ramon Magsaysay High School, Angeles City High School and
Angeles University Foundation High School, whereas the PSSC covered
three special high schools, namely Philippine Science High School,
Philippine High School for the Arts, and the OB Montessori High School.
Youth respondents totaled 4·86, of whom 402 came from the regular high
schools and 84 from special high schools.
The preliminary findings of the study :.vere presented before an

audience of academics, researchers, youth workers in government and
the private sector, media professionals, advertising executives and
representatives of youth organizations on 15 May 2003 at PSSC's Fifth
National Social Science Congress titled "What's with the Filipino youth:
Perspectives from the Social Sciences." The preliminary papers from the
study subsequently became the bases of the Philippines' country paper
on the state of the Filipino youth presented at the 15th Biennial General
Conference of the Association of Asian Social Science Research Councils
on "Asian Youth in Transition" in November 2003 in Canberra, Australia.
vii
The final results of the study are contained in two volumes. Volume I
entitled Filipino Youth in Transition: A Survey if Urban High School Senior
Students, contains the results of the UP team's survey on senior students
of regular high schools. Volume II entitled Filipino Youth in Special High
Schools, meanwhile, features the results of PSSC's survey on senior students
of some of the country's foremost high schools.
The two-volume publication is our own contribution to UNESCO's

goals of making the youth visible and mainstreaming their views and
concerns in the national agenda. It is our hope that the information
contained in the two volumes will serve as guide to our policy- and
decision-makers in the formulation of more responsive social policies and
programs for the youth.
FELICE P. STA. MARIA

Chair
Social and Human Sciences Committee
UNESCO National Commission
of the Philippines
FLORENTINO H. HORNEDO
Vice Chair
Social and Human Sciences Committee
UNESCO National Commission
of the Philippines
viii
CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION
1
BECAUSE the youth phase in a person's life is commonly seen as a

transitional stage marking the passage from childhood to adulthood,
much of youth research seek to study the transformational processes
and experiences that the youth undergo during this period in their
lives. In particular, there is interest in knowing how the youth cope
with the problems unique to their age (as their conflicts with parents
and difficulties at school); and how they deal with the developmental
challenges of their generation (as developing a sense of self and forming
a vision of their future and life-goals). Youth research/studies are thus
expected to contribute to our knowledge and understanding of those
factors that aid or impede the youth's ability to go through this
transition successfully and become responsible adults.
But beyond the interest in youth as a transitional phase is an interest

in the broader sociocultural changes occurring in societies themselves,
which impinge on the youth's maturation and socialization into adult
roles and responsibilities. Many have noted that if the youth are
undergoing a transition, societies too are always in a state of transition
or change. The youth therefore are seen as imbibing the social influences
of the day and bearing the imprint of the conditions of their time. It is
then assumed that the behavior and views of the youth of today
prefigure what societies and cultures would become in the not too
distant future when the youth themselves have become society's adults.
Undertaken periodically or longitudinally, youth studies allow us to
document and track those generational shifts that occur in social norms,
values and behavior.
Chapter 1. Introduction
Often, interest in the youth as harbingers of change and in

intergenerational change is heightened during periods of perceived
rapid and/or radical social transformations. In China for example, a
recent issue of The Asian WallStreetJournalfeatures an article by Leslie
Chang (The AWSJ 4< December 2003) describing how vastly different
from their parents are today's Chinese children and youth as a result
of the almost complete turnaround of Chinese society in the last two
to three decades from a Communist State to one that has now embraced
a free enterprise economy to take advantage of today's globalizing
markets. Reflecting the one-child policy imposed by Communist China
to limit its population growth in the early 1980s, China today is
described as having shaped a generation of "individualists" as against
the more "other-oriented" personalities shaped by the country's larger
family sizes of previous decades. Today's Chinese youth moreover, are
being trained to excel in many fields (regular schoolwork plus extra
classes in English, Math, essay writing, the piano etc.) and to compete
well in a job market, the nature and requirements of which are a far
cry from the "work units" that employed parents of barely a generation
ago in China's traditional (State-run) economy. The article then goes
on to describe how today's Chinese youth are increasingly becoming
versed in English, the computer and the Internet. They are also fast
developing a taste for Western cuisine (pizza, iced tea, chicken wings),
music, entertainment (hip-hop and MTV) and consumer goods. In turn,
these developments are weakening the remaining value of Confucian
teachings (as respecting elders/parents and obeying them) in the
socialization of the youth and engendering changes in parental-youth
relations. As parents struggle with the increasing autonomy of the
youth and the latter with the traditional authority of parents and elders,
upbringing practices and intrafamilial and intergenerational relations
are being redefined in China at present.
In Japan likewise, a study of today's Japanese youth (Ushiogi 2003)

highlights the impact of recent changes in Japan's economy and society
on the behavior and aspirations of the country's youth. Ushiogi argues
that Japan's "de-industrialization" (i.e., the transfer of a large number
of its manufacturing plants overseas) in the 1980s and 1990s has left
Japanese youth with far fewer employment opportunities than
2
Virginia A. Miralao
previously, causing continuing increases in youth unemployment rates

(in 2000, as many as 44% of four-year college graduates in the country
were unemployed). Consequently, many of Japan's youth are remaining
in school and proceeding to college but with little interest and
motivation. Though most eventually find work, these are part-time
jobs that contrast markedly with the lifetime employment security that
Japanese companies were known to provide their work force and enjoyed
by their parents' generation a few decades ago. Owing in part to their
lack of earnings, many Japanese youth today continue to live with
their parents and are not marrying, earning them the label "parasite
singles." The declining value of marriage (and building a family with
children) among Japanese youth and in Japanese society in general is
reflected in the increasing numbers remaining single at later ages.
Whereas typically over 50 percent of women 20 to 24 years in the
1960s and 1970s would have been already married, as many as 54
percent of older women now in the age-bracket 25 to 29 remain
unmarried in Japan. The emerging lifestyle of Japan's younger
generation-staying longer in school, holding part-time or short-term
jobs, staying at home, not marrying and not having children/families
of their own-foreshadow radical changes in, among others, Japan's
work ethos, its family structure and values and the country's
demographic trends and composition. (The grim prospect of a rapidly
aging national population has prompted the Japanese government to
enact laws to encourage couples to have children and slow down the
decline in the national birth rate.)
In still neighboring South Korea which attained industrialization

in an even shorter period of time (beginning only in the 1970s) than
Japan's already compressed modernization in the last 100 years, Whang
(2003) writes about how Korea's technology-driven economy is creating
a "cyberspace culture" among the country's youth. Now also a leading
producer of cars, electronic goods, computers and the new ICTs, South
Korea has been expanding its high speed Internet infrastructure since
the 1990s and this has increased greatly Koreans' access to online games
and activities. It is estimated that online game users in Korea currently
exceed IO million, of which the large majority is the country's youth
(by way of comparison, Internet users in the Philippines today is
3
estimated to comprise less than a million population). Unlike standard

pre-programmed video games, online multi-user dimensions (MUD)
games provide the youth with opportunities for interacting and building
relationships in cyberspace. Since it is not unusual for a Korean youth
to go online for as long as four hours per day, Whang argues that
"online games have become a major medium for cultural expression"
among the youth. To many of the youth moreover, the game world in
cyberspace functions not as a virtual world but as "a real living space"
where they carryon much of their daily social relationships and leisure
activities and choose the characters and identities they wish to play
and become. The implications of this for intergenerational relationships
in Korea are far-reaching, considering that members of the country's
adult generation (like their counterparts in most other countries) can
hardly conceive of the virtual game world as reality, and are more
likely to view the youth's long hours online as manifesting no more
than a form of addiction to the Internet.
'The PSSC-UNACOM studies on the Filipino Youth

Similar concerns with the youth's transition to adulthood and with
intergenerational changes (as well as an interest in future country
scenarios) guided the conduct of the Philippine Social Science Council
(PSSC) and the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines'
(UNACOM) research project on the Filipino youth that consisted of
two related surveys of Filipino high school students.
The first of these surveys was conducted among a total of 402

students in one public high school and one private high school in
Metropolitan Manila (Ramon Magsaysay High School and Paco
Catholic School, respectively); and another public-private pair of high
schools in nearby Angeles City in Pampanga (the Angeles City High
School and the Angeles University Foundation-High School,
respectively). The findings of this survey are contained in the
publication Filipino Youth in Transition: A Survey of Urban High School
SeniorStudents edited by Josefina Natividad (2004) with articles prepared
by her and her co-authors and researchers from the University ofthe
4
I
l Virginia A. Miralao
Philippines' College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Nestor Castro,

Joy Page and Joseph Puyat.
The present publication presents the findings of the second survey,

which was undertaken among the country's pre-eminent high schools,
namely, the Philippine Science High School in Quezon City, Metro
Manila; the Philippine High School for the Arts in Mt. Makiling, Los
Banos, Laguna; and the OB Montessori High School in Greenhills,
San Juan, Metro Manila. Though the coverage of the two PSSC-
UNACOM surveys is limited to the National Capital Region and nearby
provinces, the inclusion of regular public and private high schools as
well as premier high schools in the research captures some of the
heterogeneity of the high school student population in the country,
with perhaps the important omission of rural high schools. Nonetheless,
it was felt that the PSSC-UNACOM surveys would still serve as useful
benchmark studies against which to compare the results of other studies
• on the Filipino youth undertaken contemporarily (or in the future), or
in places and regions outside Metro Manila and its nearby environs.
Both the PSSC-UNACOM surveys sought to look into the shaping

experiences of today's Filipino youth, as represented by the surveys'
senior high school respondents who were 16 to 17 years old when the
surveys were conducted in March 2003. They thus belong to the post-
Martial Law generation of Filipinos born around the time of the
successful overthrow of President Marcos' authoritarian regime by
"People Power" for which the Philippines gained international acclaim.
Politically, the immediate post-Martial Law period was characterized
by efforts to restore the country's democratic political institutions and
processes, and to break away also from its longstanding colonial
relations/dependence on the United States. The Congress of the
Philippines, which was re-convened in 1988, voted to terminate the
US-Philippines Bases Agreement, while landmark natural disasters (a
disastrous earthquake in 1990 and the devastating eruption of Mt.
Pinatubo in 1991) hastened the closure of the US military bases in
Subic and Angeles, the last remaining symbols of US imperialism in
the country. Since then, the Philippines has managed to abide by its
constitutional framework of government holding regular elections
5
when these are due, although in January 2001 by the time the PSSC-
UNACOM study respondents had entered high school, the country
witnessed again a second People Power-led overthrow of a president
(Joseph Estrada) perceived to have become too abusive and inept.
Politically therefore, the Philippines was (and is) exper-iencing
difficulties in establishing a workable or viable democratic system of ,
government.
But while the late 1980s and the 1990s, which correspond to the
formative years of the survey respondents finally saw the Philippines
severe its colonial ties with the US, the period also ushered in a new
era of globalization that lihked the Philippines to foreign/external
economic and sociopolitical developments. Perhaps the most common
manifestation of the so-called "globalizing world" to ordinary Filipinos
has been the outflow of Filipino migrant workers to foreign shores
(and no longer solely to the US). This movement of overseas workers
grew in numbers in the 1980s and continued to remain at high levels
through the 1990s and to the present. Perceived initially as a response
to the deteriorating economic conditions of the country (and less so
as a response to the demand for foreign labor by other countries), the
movement of overseas workers has-since become a common and
enduring feature of Philippine national life. The notion of a globalized
labor market is no longer alien to Filipinos, but particularly so among
young Filipinos, many of whom grew up with family members, friends
and acquaintances working and living in countries spanning the various
continents of the world.
If overseas work and travel and a globalizing labor market has

made the rest of the world much more familiar and accessible to
Filipinos generally, so too have the rapid technological developments
of recent decades. In particular, computer technology and the new ICTs
have revolutionized the transmission of news and information across
the globe and fostered the development of a host of interactive media
and entertainment forms beyond the imagination of most of the older
generation Filipinos.But the young Filipinos of today (i.e., those under
25 years old) were born well into the time of the PC (personal computer)
and grew up in a world increasingly accustomed to the Web and the
6
Virginia A. Miralao
Internet. Much more than their parents/elders moreover, today's young

Filipinos are avid users of cell phones and have become experts in
SMS (short message service) and MMS (multimedia messaging service).
It is largely because of them that the Philippines has gained the
reputation of being the "texting capital" of the world today.
Quite apart therefore from the generational shifts in sociocultural

practices and institutions (as in marriage, the family and religious
practice) arising from ongoing urbanization/modernization and
economic change, we note certain historical occurrences in the country
since the late 1980s which defined the growing up years of today's
young cohort of Filipinos. The late 1980s and the 1990s marked the
beginning of a post-Martial Law and post-colonial Philippines with
the country's struggle against authoritarian rule and US colonial
domination receding from popular consciousness and memory. The
period marked instead a growing awareness of the country's difficulties
in effecting its own democratic transition. It also marked a growing
awareness of the Philippines as part of a "global world" that was
becoming increasingly reachable through the travel of large numbers
of Filipinos who left the country to work elsewhere, came home and
left again for another foreign work. By the 1990s, it was not difficult
for Filipinos to think transnationally, i.e., that fellow Filipinos-perhaps
one's family or kin, friends and neighbors-are to be found working
and residing in various places of the world and hence influencing events
both domestically and internationally. The new ICTs moreover, have
widely expanded the coverage of media and made possible the instant
transmission of news and images from different places on earth. In
this changing milieu, the younger Filipinos' receptivity to and adeptness
with new technologies are enabling them to keep pace with ongoing
developments worldwide, which in turn may also be changing their
world views and mindsets.
This awareness of the unique socio-historical period surrounding

the formative years of today's young Filipinos formed much of the
background of the PSSC-UNACOM surveys undertaken among senior
students of selected urban high schools and special high schools. Both
surveys were concerned with what might have been the impact of
7
changing events and conditions on the lives and lifestyles and views
and aspirations of the present generation of young Filipinos. How
different have they become from their parents and elders? Is it really
the case, as some observers would lead us to believe, that today's youth
are spoiled and fast losing the important values of hard work and
industry, religion and family and love of country? Or are these simply
expressions of the popular fear and anxiety of parents and adults who
see in the youth's changing lifeways the adverse impact of current-
day influences? It has been noted that in every age, the adult generation
tends invariably to act as the guardians of the established social order
and hence see the youth's changing lifeways as challenging existing
tradition, morals and values.
Both surveys of the PSSC-UNACOM employed the same data

collection instruments consisting of 1) a survey questionnaire and 2) a
series of self-rated personality scales. The survey questionnaire sought
.
-:-.,.
v
to obtain information on several aspects of the lives of senior high

school students including the following: their family background,
residential/living arrangements and relationships with parents and
siblings; their association and activities with peers; their life and work
at school; their religious/spiritual beliefs and practices; their exposure
to different media forms and preferred ways of spending leisure; their
heroes, role models and people they generally admire; th~ir aspirations
and future life goals with regard further schooling, employment and
marriage and children; and their notions of civic responsibility and
sense of social/political involvement. The self-rated personality scales
on the other hand, were meant to elicit information for assessing the
high school students' sense of self, i.e., as their self-esteem or self-
worth, their value priorities and what they think they can and cannot
do.
The PSSC-UNACOM surveys meant to analyze and use the

information obtained on the foregoing items to describe in general'
terms the world and lives of contemporary Filipino youth. But more
specifically, the survey data are used to note a) how the respondents
are undergoing the youth transition phase of the life course and the
likely trajectories of their lives in the foreseeable future; and b) how
8
Virginia A. Miralao
different are the views and behavior of contemporary Filipino youth

from their counterparts of earlier periods and from what their parents
and the older generation of Filipinos expect of them at present. Finally,
because the survey data come from a cross-section of the Filipino youth,
the PSSC-UNACOM surveys also utilize these to pursue comparisons
between different groups or categories of youth. The articles written
on the first PSSC-UNACOM survey and appearing in Natividad (2004)
for example, pursue various comparisons between students of public
and private high schools, those studying in Metro Manila and those
doing so in Angeles City, between male and female students, and
between students in regular sections and those in high (honors) sections.
The survey of students in special high schools

This second survey of students from special high schools provides
us, with still another group for observing and comparing the lives of
Filipino senior high school students. Coming from the country's leading
high schools, this group constitutes a special category of the Filipino
youth representing the "creme de La creme" of the country's high school
students. As such, it is not unlikely that students from these special
high schools would count among the country's leaders and achievers
in the future.
To begin with, students are recruited into these high schools

primarily on the basis of talent and intellectual ability and particularly
so in the case of the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA) and
the Philippine Science High School (PSHS). Both are state-run
institutions that seek to develop and nurture local talents and assure
the Philippines of a continuing pool of artists and scientists of
excellence. The students who enter PHSA are selected by a Search
Committee tasked with locating and identifying artistically gifted young
individuals from all regions and provinces nationwide. Entry to PSHS
likewise is done through a highly competitive exam participated in by
only the top graduates of the country's best elementary schools.
Students of both PHSA and PSHS then become national scholars and
are provided free tuition and a monthly stipend and allowance. PHSA
9
students are additionally provided with board and lodging since they
live within the school's isolated campus in Mount Makiling, Laguna.
Although admission to the OB Montessori High School in

Greenhills, San Juan may not be as highly selective of superior talent
and intellect, entrants still have to hurdle competitive admissions tests.
OB Montessori-Greenhills is among the country's leading private high
schools known for its quality teaching and learning methodologies
that are informed by the Maria Montessori educational curriculum
and philosophy. (PHSA and PSHS likewise have their own unique
curricula designed specifically for arts and science students,
respectively. )
In brief, students in these special high schools exhibit certain
advantages over other high school students, beginning with their innate
abilities and on to the special traininglinstruction and opportunities
that are provided them by premier high schools. Hence, when looking
at the present survey results and those of the survey of students in
regular high schools (Natividad 2004), our interest lies in noting how
Filipino students of differing personal states and circumstances go
through their youth years and cope with or respond to the challenges
of their time and age. Do the unique circumstances of students in
special high schools make them markedly different from other youth
and students of their age? If so, how are these differences manifested?
Questions like these underlie the presentation of the survey results in
the subsequent sections of this volume.
Respondents' profile
The present survey has a fewer 84 respondents (as against the 402
respondents of the survey conducted among regular high schools)
consisting of the graduating seniors belonging to the sole 4th year
section of the study high schools: PHSA, PSHS and OB Montessori.
Over a third (31) of the 84 students are from OB Montessori, about a
third (29) are from PSHS, and slightly fewer than a third (24) are from
PHSA.
10
Virginia A. Miralao
As with the sample of students from the regular high schools, there
are somewhat more females (3 out of 5) than males among the
respondents of the present survey. Collectively, they likewise exhibit a
mean and median age of 16 years. Disaggregated by school however,
there are noticeable differences in the age and sex distribution of the
respondents as well as in their places of birth or origin.
Table 1 shows OB Montessori high school students to be

predominantly female with a ratio of some 3 females to 1 male. They
are also older than the typical senior high school student who is 16
years old. Only 7 of the 31 OB Montessori students are 16 years old,
while 18 of them are 17 years old and still another six are 18 years old
or over. A large majority (90%) of OB Montessori students too, are
from Metro Manila. Except for one student who was born in a Luzon
province, and two others who were born abroad, all the rest (28 out of
31) were born and raised in the National Capital Region or Metropolitan
Manila.
In contrast, the student-respondents from PSHS are dominantly

male (with a ratio of close to 2 males to 1 female), suggesting that
males are more likely to self-select themselves into the science fields
than females. The majority of PSHS senior students are 16 years old
but a good number of them too (13 out of 29) are one year older or 17
years old. A two-thirds majority are from Metro Manila, while as many
as six are from different provinces in Luzon, two are from the Visayas,
and one other from Mindanao.
The senior students of PHSA are mostly female (17 out of 24)
suggesting this time that females tend to self-select themselves into
the arts than males. PHSA students are also generally younger than
their counterparts at OB Montessori and PSHS: a much larger 71
percent of PHSA students are 16 years old or younger when compared
to the students of the other two schools. Also, because there is only
one national high school for the arts while there are now several regional
science high schools, PHSA has a wider regional representation among
its students. Only nine of the 24 student-respondents from PHSA are
from Metro Manila, whereas six are from Mindanao, another five are
from Luzon, two are from the Visayas,and two others were born abroad.
11
Table 1. Selected background characteristics of survey respondents by

school
08 All
Montessori PSHS PHSA %
A.Sex
Female 21 10 17 51
(61.0)
Male 7 19 7 55
(59.0)
Total 51 29 21 81
( 100.0)
B.Age
15 0 0 1
( 1.0)
16 7 16 16 59
(46.0)
17 18 15 5 56
(15.0)
18 and over 6 0 2 8
(10.0)
Total 51 29 24 84
(100.0)
C. Place of birth
NCR 26 19 9 54
(64.0)
Other Luzon 6 5 12
(14.0)
Vizayas 0 2 2 4
(5.0)
Mindanao 0 6 7
(8.0)
Abroad 2 0 2 1
(5.0)
No Answer 2 0 5
(4.0)
Total 51 29 21 81
(100.0)
12
Virginia A. Miralao
Following in the next sections of the volume are the findings from
this second PSSC-UNACOM survey on the Filipino youth prepared
by the principal author with the assistance of Ma. Luisa Fernan, Joanne
Agbisit, Carlota Francisco and Isagani Lachica of PSSC's Technical
Services and Information Section. In succession, these sections present
the survey results bearing on family life, school and religions influences
on the youth; peer group experiences and media exposure and use;
role models and community consciousness among the youth; the youth's
future aspirations and life-goals; and self. The volume concludes with
a summary of the study's more salient findings and a discussion of the
implications of these on intergenerational continuity and change.
13
CHAPTER
lFAMilY UlFlE, SCHOOL AND

2 IRlE.UGllOUS llNlFlUIENCIES
ON tlH!IE YOUfH
FAMILIES and schools provide the immediate social settings in which

children and the youth grow and develop. The family and the school
along with churches are the major social institutions tasked with the
care and upbringing of the young-beginning with their physical
survival and health and their emotional/psychological well-being, to
their intellectual growth and social and moral development. As the
main agents of socialization, it is also these institutions that transmit
society's cumulated stock of knowledge, values and culture to the
younger generation. As such, families, schools and churches are
popularly perceived as exerting so-called "traditional influences" on
the youth, and which serve as a counterpoint to the "liberalizing
tendencies or influences" coming from the outside particularly from
the youth's peer groups and the mass media.
This section of the report presents the survey data and findings
bearing on the student-respondents' family life, schooling and adherence
to religious beliefs and practices. In the presentation and discussion,
an attempt is made to note the known generational shifts that have
occurred in the basic institutions of marriage and the family, the
educational system and religion, and how these changes are affecting
the upbringing of today's Filipino youth.
15
Chapter 2. Family Life. School and Religious
Influences on the Youth
Family
The pertinent data on the students' family background are given
in Table 2, which reveal considerable differences between the family
life and upbringing of today's youth and those of their parents. First,
Table 2-A shows that like their fellow students from the regular high
schools, students from the special high schools come from smaller
families when compared to their parents' generation. While their
parents likely come from families with over 4 children, today's students/
youth typically come from families with a fewer 3 to 4 children. Table
2-A in fact shows that overall, the proportion of students coming from
even smaller families with only 1 to 2 children is a substantial 39.3
percent, whereas those coming from bigger families of 5 or more
children constitute less than 10 percent. Across the three premier high
schools however, it is the students from OB Montessori who come
predominantly from small-sized families with 1 to 2 children only, as
against the more typical 3 to 4 children-families among students at
PSHS and PHSA. This family size differential across schools likely
reflects a class differential between the richer families sending their
children to OB Montessori and the less affiuent (but not necessarily
poor) families sending theirs to PSHS or PHSA. As a private exclusive
school, OB Montessori charges much higher tuition fees than the
regular private schools in the country; whereas, as noted earlier, PSHS
and PHSA (being state institutions for particularly talented students)
charge no tuition fees of students. As is well known, higher-income
families (as those of the OB Montessori students) tend to have fewer
children than lower-income families.
':.t.
In terms of the education of parents, the data show both the mothers
and fathers of the student-respondents to be well educated with most
completing college or more than a .college education. However, given
the less affiuent background of PHSA students, there are a few of
them whose fathers and mothers had less than a college education
(8.33% and 7.14% respectively). The lower socioeconomic ranking of
PHSA students when compared to PSHS students and particularly to
the OB Montessori students is also consistent with data showing a
greater diversity in the regional/provincial backgrounds of PHSA
16
Virginia A. Mlralao
students. (As mentioned earlier, the large majority of PSHS and OB

Montessori students are from the richer Metro Manila area, whereas
PHSA has more students coming from the provinces.)
Most of the respondents' parents too are gainfully employed.

Expectedly however, the proportions currently working remain higher
among fathers than among mothers but one notes that the proportion
of students reporting their own mothers to be currently employed
consists of a two-thirds majority, leaving only a third whose mothers
are full-time homemakers. In brief, we note that compared to the more
traditional families of some 30 to 50 years ago, our student-respondents
from special high schools typically come from smaller-sized families
where both the father and the mother have gone to college and are
currently working. The respondent's families too, are generally not
poor and appear upwardly mobile. Nonetheless, there are distinctions
in the socioeconomic status of the students across schools: OB
Montessori students exhibit the most affluent backgrounds, followed
by PSHS students and finally by PHSA students.
Consistent with the Philippines' rather conservative stance towards

marriage and family life, the next set of data presented in Table 3
shows that as many as 83 percent of the students have families that
are complete (i.e., with both parents still alive) and intact (with parents
remaining married or still staying together as spouses). Even among
the generally conservative countries in the Asian region, the 83 percent
figure for intact families probably remains high considering that other
Asian countries have legalized divorce and the Philippines has not.
But if the country has been less susceptible to the spread of marital
break-ups, it has not been completely unaffected by the liberalizing
views and attitudes on marriage and divorce. One notes that of the
remaining cases of incomplete/broken homes among the students'
families, the number of marital dissolutions owing to the separation
of parents is higher (9 cases) than that owing to the death of a spouse
(5 cases). The latter cases which involve students losing their fathers
are distributed quite evenly across schools (2 cases each from OB
Montessori and PSHS and I case from PHSA have been orphaned by
their father); but cases of parental separation are more common at OB
17
Influenceson the Youth
Table 2. Respondents' family background characteristics by school
OB All
A. No. of children
(Siblings + R)
1-2 17 7 9 33
(39.3)
3-4 10 21 12 4·3
(51.2)
5-6 40 6
(7.1 )
over 6 2 2
(2.40)
Total 31 29 24- 84-
(100.0)
B. Are parents still

alive?
Both alive 29 27 23 79
(94.0)
Only mother is alive 2 2 5
(6.0)
Total 31 29 24 84-
() 00.0)
C. Father's educational
attainment
Elementary graduate 1
('I. 2)
Some college 2 3 7 12
(140.3)
College graduate/
post graduate 26 25 15 66
(78.6)
No data 2 2 5
(5.9)
Total 31 29 24- 84-
(100.0)
18
Virginia A. Miralao
Table 2. Respondents' family background characteristics by school

(continued)
08 All
D. Father's employment
status
Currently working 2'~ 26 18 68
(81.0)
Not working,' S 5
looking for work (5.9)
No data 4 2 6
(7. I)
Not applicable
(father deceased) 2 2 5
(5.9)
Total SI 29 24 81·
(100.0)
E. Mother's educational
attainment
No education I
( 1.2)
Some high school 2
(2.4)
High school graduate I

( 1.2)
Some college 4- 5 10
( I 1.9)
College graduate/
post graduate 25 25 16 66
(78.6)
No data 2 2 4
(1-,8)
Total SI 29 24 84
( 100.0)
F. Mother's employment
status
Homemaker II II 6 28
(ss.s)
Student I
( 1.2)
Currently working 19 18 18 55
(65.5)
Total 31 29 24 84
( 100.0)
19
Montessori. Close to a fifth (or lout of 5) of the richer students there

have parents who are separated. (Six of 9 cases of parental separations
in the survey are reported by OB Montessori students, 2 others by
students at PHSA and I from PSHS.)
Although the majority of students in all three schools have parents

whose marriages are still intact, it is interesting to note that relatively
fewer of them say they were raised by both parents, except among
PSHS students where the number with intact families equals the
number saying they were raised by both parents (see Tables 3-A and
3-D). But at OB Montessori and PHSA, the proportions raised by
both parents are lower than those with intact families (55% vs. 74% at
OB Montessori and 67% vs. 83% at PHSA). The explanation for this
discrepancy is traced to the impact of overseas work on Filipino families.
While none of the PSHS students report having a parent working
abroad, 6 of the OB Montessori students and 2 at PHSA have one or
both of their parents working abroad. The latter therefore were raised
by one parent only or with the assistance of other relatives (i.e., a
grandparent, aunt/ uncle or an older sibling). It is also quite significant
that none of the student-respondents in all three schools claim to have
been raised or cared for by a "yaya" alone.
Because the students' families remain intact for the most part, it is
also not surprising that the majority of students should view the
relationship between their parents to be quite good, claiming that their
parents get along well with each other most of, if not all, the time.
This majority however, is lower among both OB Montessori.and PHSA
students (67.7% and 58.3% respectively) considering the higher
incidence of parental separations, being orphaned or having a parent
working abroad among the respondents in these schools. At PSHS,
where the incidence of the above is lowest, a markedly higher 86 percent
of students describe the relationship between their parents to be quite
good.
Even higher proportions of the students (between 75% to 93%)

describe the relationship between their parents and themselves (along
with their siblings) to be similarly good, suggesting that even if
20
Virginia A. Miralao
Table 3. Selected data on respondents' family life and relationships by school
OB All
N= 3/ N=29 N=24 N=84
A. % with both parents alive 74.2 93 83.3 83.3

and living together as (23) (27) (20) (iO)
spouses
B. % orphaned by father 6.4 3.4- 8.3 6.0
(2) (I) (2) (5)
C. % with parents separated 19.+ 3.'~ 8.3 10.7
(6) (I ) (2) (9)
D. % raised by both parents 54.8 93.1 66.7 71.+
( 17) (27) ( 16) (60)
E. % raised by mother 45.2 33.3 26.2
primarily/ relatives (I'~ ) (8) (22)
F. % saying parents get along 67.7 86.2 58.3 71.4
well most/ all the time (21 ) (25) ( 14) (60)
G. % saying parents and
siblin~s get along well 80.6 93.1 75.0 83.S
most all the time (25) (27) ( 18) (70)
H. % saying they get along
well with mother most/ 77.4 79.3 75.0 i7.'~
all the time (24) (23) ( 18) (65)
l. % saying they get along
well with father most/ 67.7 75.9 62.5 69.0
all the time (21 ) (22) (16) (68)
1. % saying they get along
well with siblings most/ 77.4· 76.9 70.8 75.0
all the time (24.) (22) ( 17) (63)
K. % saying they feel closer M.5 51.7 58.3 58.3
to mother than father (20) ( 15) ( 14) (49)
L. % saying they feel closer to 6.5 6.9 16.7 9.5
father than mother (2) (2) (4) (8)
M. % saying they feel equally 19.4 31.0 12.5 21.4·
close to mother and father (6) (9) (3) ( 18)
O. % saying they do not feel 6.5 6.9 25 11.9
close to mother or father (2) (2) (6) ( 10)
""N or number oj cases in ( ).
21
Chapter 2. Family Life, School and Religious
relations between some parents may have soured, this has not come
between them and their children. Put another way, the students (and
their siblings) whose parents have separated have not allowed this to
negatively affect their relationship with either parent.
Describing next their own personal relationships with their father

and then with their mother, the majority of students too rate these as
good. Only 1S of the 84 respondents admit that they do not get along
well with their fathers and a fewer II students say they do not get
along well with their mothers, The students' relationships with siblings
are also non-problematic except for a few who do not get along well
with anyone of their siblings or who are not in good terms with some
siblings but get along well with the others.
Finally, when asked which parent they feel close or closer to, the
findings here are very similar to those reported by Natividad and Castro
(2004) from their survey of students in regular high schools and where
more students say they feel closer to their mother than to their father.
Likewise, 58 percent of respondents in the special high schools say
they feel closer to their mothers while only 9.5 percent feel closer to
their fathers. The closer relationship between mother and child is
expected considering that fathers spend less time at home and in caring
for children than mothers. In cases of marital separations moreover,
children tend to stay/remain with their mothers than with their fathers.
Various studies also show that Filipino fathers, similar to fathers
elsewhere, tend to be emotionally distant from their children even when
they are physically present in the home (Tan 1994; Ventura 1994).
The stronger bond between mother and child notwithstanding, it

is still interesting to note that lout of 5 respondents claim they feel
equally close to their father and their mother, while fewer than a tenth
of the students admit that they are not close to either their mother or
their father. In sum, it probably is a measure of the strength or cohesion
of the Filipino family that despite the changing conditions and
characteristics of families (smaller sizes, cases of marital separations,
with one or both parents working abroad or away from home, and
being raised by one parent only or by other relatives), the data on
22
Virginia A. Miralao
intrafamilial relationships show these to remain enduring and close-

knit. The majority of students in both regular and special high schools
continue to rate the relationships within their families as generally
harmonious and good.
Schooling
Unlike their parents' generation who probably began schooling
when they entered Grade I at age 6 or 7 years, today's youth are more
likely to have attended preschool and began schooling at a much earlier
age. Natividad and Castro (2004) report that over half (53%) of their
sample from the regular high schools spent time in preschool prior to
entering Grade I also at ages 6 or 7. But among students in special
high schools, preschool attendance is almost universal: all of the
student-respondents from PSHS and PHSA report attending pre-
school, while only I of the S I respondents from 08 Montessori say
they did not go to preschool. Typically, they began preschool at age 4
although not a few (21 students out of 84) began school at even the
earlier ages of 2 or 3 years.
The practice of sending children to preschool has become

increasingly common following the employment of more and more
mothers outside of the home. In the last few decades as well, early
childhood education programs have been promoted by various
educational groups and agencies as contributing significantly to
children's cognitive and intellectual development. It is thus worth
noting that all respondents from the country's elite high schools for
t scientists (PSHS) and artists (PHSA) report spending on average

between 2 to 3 years in preschool.
Now that they are in their mid-teens and senior year in high school,
I the students were asked what subjects in school they like best and
least. Table 4 shows a diversity in their responses to these questions
but there are some noticeable differences by school and by gender.
Among 08 Montessori students, most of whom are female, the best
liked subject is decidedly English and the least liked is (also decidedly)
Mathematics. Filipino, Science and other subjects do not figure
•
23
Chapter 2. family Life, School and Religious
prominently as a favorite or least liked subject among OB Montessori

studen ts.
Among the mostly male students at PSHS on the other hand,

Science expectedly emerges as their favorite subject but they have little
agreement on the subject that they least like. In contrast, the arts
students at PHSA more of whom are female, have no clear favorites
with roughly the same number naming Science and English as the
subject they best like, but they exhibit greater consensus in choosing
Mathematics as the subject they dislike.
With a few exceptions, students in all three schools report being

active in extracurricular undertakings. Sports is a common extra-
curricular activity among students across schools but following the
particular strength of each school, there are proportionately more PSHS
students joining a Science/Math Club for their extracurricular activity
while relatively more PHSA students are into drama/theatre and related
arts activities. At OB Montessori where English is a clear favorite of
students, several students too, are active in English/Literary clubs
and in debating and elocution activities. Overall or across the three
schools however, sports is the most common extracurricular activity
of students, followed by involvement in drama/theater and arts
activities. participation in the student council/student paper or
yearbook and in their schools' community outreach and volunteer
activities.
Religious beliefs and practices

The majority of the senior high school students in all three schools
are Catholics. But consistent with the more diverse regional and
socioeconomic backgrounds of the arts students at PHSA, they also
exhibit a greater diversity in their religious affiliations when compared
to the students at OB Montessori and PSHS. Two-thirds of the arts
students at PHSA are Catholic, while the remaining third belong to
different Protestant denominations, or are Born Again Christians, and
one other student is a member of Iglesia ni Cristo.
24
Virginia A. Miralao
In contrast, all the students at OB Montessori are Catholic with

the exception of three who are Muslims. A three-fourths majority of
PSHS students too, are Catholic, while the remaining fourth consists
of some six Protestant students and one other student of the Islamic
faith. It is worth noting that regardless of school, all students consider
themselves as being a follower of or belonging to a particular religion.
It is therefore not surprising that nearly all the students (97%)

believe in a God or a Supreme Being, with only a few doubters or
agnostics comprising of one student each from OB Montessori and
PSHS but as many as three students from PHSA. For the most part,
they also believe in an afterlife (71 %) and in the teaching that individuals
pay for the consequences of the wrongdoing that they do in this life.
Comparing the students across schools however, PHSA is shown to
have a greater share of students who are skeptical of spiritual matters
or religious teachings. Aside from having more students who are
agnostic, PHSA also has noticeably fewer students who believe in
eternal life (50% as against 86% among PSHS students and 74,% among
OB Montessori students).
Likewise, in terms of religious/spiritual practice, a 71 percent

majority of PHSA students say they pray regularly (i.e., at least once
a day), and while this proportion is high, it is still lower than the
comparable figures obtained among OB Montessori and PSHS students
(87% and 86% respectively). In all three schools the proportions
attending church services regularly (i.e., on Sundays or once a week)
are lower, around 55 percent among OB Montessori and PSHS students
but again a markedly lower 25 percent among the PHSA students.
This lower incidence of church attendance among the latter is
consistent with the higher level of skepticism observed at PHSA
although this too may owe to the fact that PHSA students live away
from their families (which could encourage and lend support to their
religious practice) and in dormitories on campus which is some distance
away from churches.
The present study findings on the religious beliefs and practices

of students are generally in line with those reported by other recent
25
Table 4. Related data on respondents' schooling experiences
A. Age when respondent

started preschool!schooling
2-S
OB
Montessori
I1
PSHS
5
PHSA
5
Male
5
All
Female
16
Total
%
21
(25)
1
4-5 16 24 19 26 SS 59
(70.24)
Did not go to preschool 0 0 0 I
(1.19)
No data S 0 0 2 S
(3.57)
N Total N SI 29 24 SS 51 84 ('l
0\ zr
-
( 100.0) III
B. Best liked subject- lJ
~
English 16 6 6 10 18 28
r-
(33.S3) .."
III
Science 4 13 7 II 13 24
~.
(28.57) '<
Mathematics S 3 4 9 10 r-
( I 1.9)
-;;
:J •
::tl
Filipino 5 7 4 7 9 16
ro
Vl
c ('\
;:r
( 19.05) :J 0
Social Studies/HEKASI 2 2 2 S S 6 @0
VI -
(7.14) o III
:J ~
Practical Arts/Computer '2 2 2 S S 6 9-75'
(7.14) ro /1)
PEHM/ CAT 2 2 2 3 5 o-<$
_.
c 0
(5.95) - c
;:rVl
<
~.
5'
iii·
C. Least liked subject- ?"
Mathematics 16 5 12 9 24 33 s:
(39.29) [
l\I
Filipino 4 6 2 7 5 12 0
(14.29)
English 0 3 7 2 8 10
( I 1.9)
Social Studies/HEKASI 3 3 3 4 7
(8.33)
Science 3 3 2 5
(5.95)
IV PEHMI CAT 4 3 0 4 3 7
"oJ
(8.33)
Practical Artsl Computer 0 4 0 3 4
(4.76)
Others 0 0 0 I
(1.19)
None 0 2
(2.38)
t:<multiple responses
Table 4. Related data on respondents' schooling
D. Involvement in extracurricular
OB
Montessori
exped~nces (continued)
PSHS PHSA Male

All
Female
Total
%
1
activity"
Sports 18 12 8 11 27 38
(45.24)
Student council/paper/ 12 9 7 10 18 28
yearbook editorial board (33.33)
Service community out- 9 9 10 12 16 28
N reach/school volun teer/ (33.33) ()
co zr
Red Cross/dorm mayor/
catering/prayer group ...
~
u
~
Drama/glee club/choir/ 15 12 15 9 33 42
dance club/piano/music/ (50.00)
r-
..."
~
radio production/reader's 3
theater/art club/drawing ~
CAT/officer corps/marching 15 0 2 14 16 r-
band/pep cheering squad (19.05) S@'
:::%l -
Science/Math club 4 14 0 8 8 16 c: ~ .
~ ~
(19.05) 0
::J
English/literary club/ 9 7 5 12 9 21 ~ 0
11\ -
debating/elocution (25.00) o ~
Social science club/computer 0 2 6 3 5 8 ... 6-

::J
~;;;c
club/Quiz Bee (9.524) ~ /1)
With no extra curriculars 2 3 4 4 5 9 o-<~

_.
c: 0
(ro. 71) ... c:
~II\
rt _ '-... *';
-
E. Whether respondent has a teacher <
that he/she admires
~:
::J
Yes 17 19 18 22 32 54- iii·
(64-.29) ?>
No 14- 10 6 I 1 19 30
(35.71) ~
ill
Total N 31 29 24- 33 51 84- iii"
0
(100.0)
E Traits respondent admires most
in teacher-
Intelligence 16 15 12 18 25 4-3
(51.19)
Good in teaching II 13 9 12 21 33
(39.29)
Kind/ understanding/ friendly / 10 12 10 16 16 32
N down to earth/good adviser/ (38.1 )
\0 inspiring
Talented/artistic/creative 6 3 8 6 II 17
(20.24-)
Successfu II famous/honorable I I 5 3 4- 7
(8.33)
Good adviser/inspiring I I 3 a 5 5
(5.95)
Excellent in everything s/he I I 1 I 2 3
does/ well-rounded (3.57)
Others (self-discipline, 6
generosity, passion for the 1 2 3 S 3 (7.1 )
arts, maturity, not boring)
-multiple responses
Table 5. Students' religious beliefs and practices
1
OB All Total
Montessori PSHS PHSA Male Female %
A. Religious affiliation
Catholic 28 22 16 27 S9 66
(78.5)
Protestant 0 6 5 4 7 II
(I S.I)
Born Again Christian 0 0 2 0 2 2
(2.38)
Iglesia ni Cristo 0 0 I I 0 I
(1.19)
Muslim 3 I 0 I 3 4
(4.76)
UJ
Total 31 29 24 33 51 84 ()
:::T
0 (100.0) !lI
B. Does respondent believe in God/ u....
Supreme Being? ~
r-
Yes 30 28 21 31 48 79
~
(94.05) ~.
Not sure I I 3 2 3 5 '<
(5.95) r-
Total SI 29 24 33 51 84 ::r~
:n0
c:: VI
(100.0) (1) ('l
:::J :::T
C. Does respondent believe in eternal life? ('l 0
(1) 0
V> -
Yes 23 25 12 24 36 60 o !lI
:::J :::J
(71.43) .... 0..
No 2 I 3 2 4 6 :::T;;>;l
(1) (1)
,.
(7.14) o-<~
_.
Not sure 6 3 9 7 II 18 c:: 0
....c::
(21.4-3) :::Tv>
Total SI 29 24 33 51 84-
(100.0)
_ .. .~
~.'
. -~-.;~_....-:-....:--- .-....
--
<
~.
5'
D. Does respondent believe that one pays !ii'
for one's wrongdoing in this lifetime? ?>
Yes 27 19 18 24 40 64 ~
(76.19)
;r
1i>
No 3 8 1 5 7 12 0
(14.29)
Not sure 1 2 5 4 4 8
(9.52)
Total 31 29 24 S3 51 84
( 100.0)
E. Does respondent pray regularly
(at least once a day)?
VJ
Yes 27 25 17 26 43 69
(82.14)
No 4 4 7 7 8 15
( 17.86)
Total 31 29 24 33 51 84
(100.0)
F. Does respondent attend church
regularly (at least once a week)?
Yes 17 16 6 16 23 39
(46.43)
No 14 13 18 17 28 45
(53.57)
Total 31 29 24 33 51 84
(100.0)
studies including the National Filipino Catholic Survey of 2002

conducted by the Episcopal Commission on Youth of the Catholic
Bishops' Conference of the Philippines. This survey similarly shows
that the large majority of today's Filipino youth are believers of spiritual
matters (i.e., the existence of God, a soul, eternal life) but that only
about half of them "actively live their faith" by attending church
services. In contrast to their parents and the older generation of
Filipinos whose religiosity centered more on going to church and
following church teachings and doctrines, the present generation of
young Filipinos appear more personal in the expression of their faith,
praying and worshipping on their own rather than participating in
church rituals or services. This development in turn, likely reflects the
ongoing liberalization in the beliefs and practices of institutional
churches and the increasing acceptance and tolerance of a diversity of
religious/spiritual expression among people, cultures and countries
worldwide.
32
CHAPTER
PEER GROUP EXPERIENCES

3 AND MEDIA EXPOSURE AND USE
IF families, schools, and churches are seen as the primary institutions

that socialize the younger generation into the norms, values and rules
of the existing social order, the peer group and the media are generally
considered the major sources of liberalizing influences on the lives of
the youth.
From adolescence onwards, peer group relationships are known to

assume special significance in the social and psychological maturation
of the youth. Peer groups provide the youth the experience of relating
with friends and equals outside the familiar circle of family members
and the reach of conforming/authority pressures exerted by parents
and the family in general. For many of the youth, it is their relationships
with friends and peers that first expose them to the viewpoints and
varying ways and practices of the wider world, against which they can
then compare/contrast what they learn from family, school, and church.
It is through a process like this that the youth come to develop their
own views, attitudes and opinions about various matters.
It is also with or among equals and peers that the youth begin to
tryout new things (i.e., as fads and fashions, new forms of music and
entertainment, etc.) and develop common ways of thinking, feeling,
speaking, behaving and relating, and which set their age and generation
distinctly apart from the worlds of adults and children. The peer group
thus constitutes the social context for the formation of what is often
referred to as the youth subculture. It is within this subculture that
each generation of the youth come into its own, although it is also
33
Chapter 3. Peer Group Experiences and Media Exposure Use
widely recognized that youth subcultures may embolden not a few of

the youth to defy or test the limits of existing rules and authority
structures (i.e., as by engaging in drug-use, drinking and other forms
of delinquent behavior).
Being the carrier of new and varied kinds of influences on the other
hand, the mass media hold a particular attraction for the youth who
are precisely at that point in their lives when they are seeking new
knowledge and information and wishing to experiment with alternative
ways of behaving and doing things. The youth therefore are commonly
portrayed as avid users/consumers of media and related advertising
industries. Both media and advertising exert a pervasive influence on
the lifestyle of the youth often shaping their preferences for goods,
clothes, food, music, movies, books and leisure/entertainment activities.
Following are the related survey findings on the students' peer group
relationships and exposure to media.
Peer group experiences

In the Philippines, peer relationships among the youth are best
exemplified in the activities and the life of the barkada. Consistent with
common observations, almost all our student-respondents report being
a member of, or having a barkada. The only exceptions are two students
at PSHS and three others from PHSA who probably are loners and
who say that they do not have (and never had) a barkada. Otherwise,
the proportion of students with a barkada stand at a high 90 percent,
although across schools fewer students from PHSA say they are actively
involved with a barkada at present. Again, this is probably because
PHSA students stay in dormitories on-campus and away from where
their friends and barkada live. (This also suggests that one's barkada
need not always be one's classmates or schoolmates.)
As with their parents in their youth, today's youth as typified by

the respondents also spend quite a bit of time with their barkada. The
respondents relate engaging in activities with their barkada similar to
what their parents probably did with theirs-hanging out together,
eating out, going to the movies or parties, playing basketball and other
34
Virginia A. Miralao
sports and games. But some of the more popular activities that the
youth today do with their barkada are unique to their own historical
time. These include going to the mall together (and which they term
"mailing") and spending time in computer shops/Internet cafes.
Because playing billiards has also become a recent fad, Table 6 shows
that this too registers among the more common activities that the youth
do with their barkada.
"MaIling" is evidently a common, if not the favorite, activity of
today's youth. Both the results of the survey of students from regular
high schools (see Natividad and Castro 2004) and the present survey
show this to be the case. Even among the PHSA students who live on-
campus in isolated Mt. Makiling, as many as half report mailing as an
activity they do with their barkada. A higher 62 percent of the PSHS
students who reside in Metro Manila do the same, while the incidence
of maIling is expectedly highest among OB Montessori students (95%)
given the proximity of their school to the malls in the Greenhills-
Ortigas area (and possibly also, their richer socioeconomic background
which affords them more money for shopping).
Like their counterparts in the regular high schools too, a
considerable number of students from the special high schools say they
meet up with their barkada for group study sessions. This incidence
of studying with the barkada is noticeably high among students at
PSHS (72%) and lower among PHSA (50%) and OB Montessori (40%)
students.
Other data from the survey also suggest that the barkada may exert
countervailing influences on the youth. Going to church or attending
church services for example, is an activity that about a third of students
from PSHS say they do with their barkada and which seven students
from OB Montessori and one other from PHSA similarly say they do
with theirs. But drinking (mag-inuman) is also an activity that some
students admit they commonly do with their barkada. Some 27 percent
(or around lout of 4) of the students say this although the incidence
of drinking with the barkada is higher among students at OB
Montessori than at PSHS and PHSA. (Again, this difference might
35
Table 6. Related data on respondents' peer experiences
A. Whether respondent has a barkada

Ever had a barkada
Have a barkada at present

OB
Montessori
31
31
PSHS
27
27
PHSA
21
15
Male
29
27
All -
Female
50
46
Total
%
79
(94-.05)
73
1
()
::r
(86.90)
Never had a barkada 0 2 3 4- 1 5 ...
~
-0
~
(5.95) w
B. Activities that respondent does
with barkada" "
n
~
w MaIling 29 18 12 20 39 59 o
0\ (80.82) ac:
Hang out 27 20 9 19 37 56 -0
(76.71) ~
-0
Eat out 23 17 12 17 35 52 n
~.
(71.23) ::J
Watch movies, concerts 22 16 11 14- 35 4-9
(67.12)
s
VI
~
Group study 13 21 12 15 31 4-6 ::J
0-
(63.01) 3:
Go to parties 23 15 6 15 29 4-4- n
0-
(60.27) ili·
r'1
Play basketball/other sports 10 15 11 19 17 36 x
-0
(4-9.32) 0
VI
Mag-inuman 15 3 5 8 15 23 c:
(31.51) ib
C
Go to computer shops 9 10 3 12 10 22 VI
n
(30.14-)
<
~.
5"
Play billiards 13 5 3 5 16 21 ru
(28.77) ?>
Go to church 7 10 I 7 I I 18 s:
( 240.66) ~
ru
0
C. Topics most commonly talked about
with barkada"
Current concerns
Love life/crushes 27 18 12 21 36 57
(78.08)
School work/ school matters 22 240 9 20 35 55
(75.340)
Lives of other friends 20 18 10 15 33 408
w (65.75)
'" Beauty/fashion 19 I I 9 12 27 39
( 53.402)
Family matters 18 9 II 10 28 38
(52.05)
Travel 140 9 12 7 28 35
( 407.95)
Politics/economic situation 9 140 7 12 18 SO
(401.10)
Showbiz 9 40 5 6 12 18
(240.66)
·multiple responses
Table 6. Related data on respondents' peer experiences (continued)
Future concerns
OB
Montessori PSHS PHSA Male
All
Female
Total
%
1
('l
:::r
Future work/career employment 31 27 15 27 4-6 73 111
( 100.0) ....
"0
~
Future education 24- 20 13 21 36 57 VJ
(78.08)
Fears in the future 18 10 13 10 31 4-1 ~
~
(56.16) o
w Future family life 8 7 12 6 21 27 (3
co c
(36.99) "0
/'T1
x
D. Respondent's closeness with his/her "0
barkada ~
~
:l
Very close 18 5 9 8 24- 32 ('\
~
(4-3.84-) VI
111
Close 13 21 6 18 22 4-0 :l
Q.
(54-.79)
Not so close 0 I 0 I 0 I
s:
~
Q.
(1.37) iii'
Total with barkada at present 31 27 15 27 4-6 73 /'T1
x
(100.0) "0
0
VI
C
~
C
VI
~
<
E. Frequency of sharing problems ~:
::;,
with barkada iii
»
All the time 15 3 5 2 21 23
3:
Frequently
(31.51 ) ;"
10 7 5 10 12 22 iii
0
(30.14-)
Sometimes 6 a 3 12 11 23
(31.51)
Seldom 0 1 1 1 1 2
(2.74-)
Does not share problem 0 2 1 2 1 s
(4-.11)
Total with barkada at present 31 27 15 27 46 73
( 100.0)
F. Person/s respondent will most likely
\.IJ
\D share personal problems with
Barkada 15 6 4 9 16 25
(34.25)
Select friends 6 12 7 9 16 25
(34-.25)
Parents 5 3 1 1 8 9
(12.33)
Siblings 0 1 2 1 2 S
(4.11 )
Boyfriend/girlfriend 1 3 1 3 2 5
(6.85)
Depends on nature of problem 3 0 0 2 1 3
(4.1 1)
Does not share problem/NA I 2 0 2 I 3
(4.1 I)
Total with barkada at present 31 27 15 27 46 73
( 100.0)
;
owe to the richer background of OB Montessori students who are

probably exposed to more parties and occasions for social drinking.)
Table 6 further shows that when asked what do they commonly

talk about with their barkada, one can categorize the responses of our
youth respondents broadly into those topics that concern them at
present and into matters that have more to do with their future. Among
the current concerns that students commonly discuss with their barkada
are their crushes and love life, closely followed by school work and
school matters, and by updates on the lives of other/common friends.
Some also report talking about their families, beauty and fashion,
showbiz, and even about the country's political and economic situation
(although discussion of the latter topic is more common among PSHS
students).
Possibly because they are now in their senior year of high school,
the respondents likewise say that they do talk quite a bit about their
plans and views about the future with their barkada. Almost all the
students in the three schools for instance, say that a common topic of
their conversations with their barkada has to do with their work or
employment plans in the future (i.e., suitable/ideal careers for
themselves, alternative ways of earning an income). Several respondents
also report talking about their educational plans (i.e., what courses/
educational paths they would like to pursue); and not a few admit
sharing their fears and apprehensions about the future with their
barkada. For still some others, their visions and thoughts of what their
family life would be like in the future is also something they share and
talk about with their barkada.
Finally, the survey data lend ample support to the closeness of the
youth with members of their barkada. With only one exception, all
the students who are presently involved with a barkada say they feel
close, if not very close, to their friends/peers in the group. Almost all
further admit sharing confidences and their personal problems with
their barkada or with select friends in the barkada. Significantly, the
survey data reveal that very few senior high school students are into a
romantic relationship with a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Table 6-F shows
40
Virginia A. Miraiao
that only some 5 students in the three schools name a boyfriend or

girlfriend as that person they would likely share their personal problems
with.
The socio-emotional and psychological support that friends and

peers (or the barkada) provide the youth can be deduced partly from
the data in Table 6 showing that between parents or siblings on the
one hand, and their barkada or select friends on the other, respondents
are more likely to share their personal problems with the latter than
with the former. Parents and family members are not always the
preferred (or the best) confidants of the youth who clearly seek and
need the views of friends and peers and non-family members to arrive
at their own opinions and truths.
Media exposure and use

In terms of media exposure and use, Table 7 next shows that very
much like their counterparts in the regular high schools (see Page 2004)
and the national population in general, students from the special high
schools exhibit very high levels of radio listenership and TV viewership.
Given the ubiquitousness of the radio and the fact that one can
listen to the radio simultaneously while doing other activities, a high
86 percent of students in the special high schools listen to the radio
frequently, i.e., everyday or several times a week. Sixty-nine percent
and 63 percent respectively, also indicate watching TV and MTV daily
or frequently. The proportions watching TV infrequently (once a month
or less) is a low 15 percent, and MTV, 20 percent. Across schools
however, OB Montessori students exhibit the highest levels of exposure
to radio, TV and MTV. PHSA students on the other hand are more
MTVthan TV viewers (perhaps because more of them are into music/
the arts), whereas their counterparts at PSHS tend to be more of TV
viewers and are not keen followers of MTV.
On weekdays, the TV/ MTV viewers among the students in the

special schools report spending on average some 3.2 hours per day
watching television and this stretches to as much as 5 hours each day
41
Table 7. Related data on respondent's media use/exposure
A. Frequency of listening to radio

everyday/ several times a week
OB
Montessori
N=31
26
PSHS
N=29
24
PHSA
N=24
22
Male
N=33
27
All
Female
N=51
45
Total
%
N=84
72
(85.71)
1
n
once a week/several times a month 2 3 I 5 I 6 ::r
(7.14) ~
-0
once a month/ seldom 3 - I 0 4 4
~
(4.76) ~
never - 2 - I I 2
(2.38) "~
~
.j::. B. Frequency of watching TV o(3

/'oJ
everyday / several times a week 28 21 9 23 35 58 c:
(69.05) ...,
-0
x
once a weeki several times a month 1 5 7 6 7 13 -0
( 15.48) ~
::J.
once in a while/ seldom - 2 7 2 7 9 ~
:::J
(10.71 ) n
~
VI
never - 1 I I I 2 ~
:::J
(2.38) a.
no answer 2 - - 1 I 2
(2.38) a3:
C. Frequency of watching MTV ...,x~
everyday/ several times a week 26 14 13 19 34 53 -0
0
(63.10) VI
c:
once a weeki several times a month 1 5 8 6 8 14 ;n
( 16.67) C
once a month/seldom 3 8 2 6 7 13 ~
(15.48)
never I 2 I 2 2 4 ,
j
(-1-.76)
j
D. Frequency of watching movies s
everyday/several times a week 6 I - 2 5 7 ~
(8.SS)
:r
~
once a week/several times a month 21 15 15 16 S5 51 ?>
( 60.71)
once a month S 14
~
5 6 7 7 ii:l
seldom I 4
( 16.67)
II
~
8 2 7
(IS.IO)
never - - I I - I
( 1.I9)
E. Frequency of reading newspapers
everyday/ several times a week 27 19 19 25 40 65
(77.S8)
once a week/several times a month S 6 I S 7 10
-l:> (11.90)
w once a month/seldom - S 2 S 2 5
(5.95)
never I I 2 2 2 4
(4.76)
F. Frequency of reading magazines

everyday/ several times a week 10 7 10 12 15 27
(S2.14)
once a week/several times a month 9 8 5 8 IS 21
(25.00)
once a month/ seldom II 14 6 10 21 31
(S6.90)
never I - S S I 4
(4.76)
Table 7. Related data on respondent's media use/exposure (continued)
OB
Montessori
N=31
PSHS
N=29
PHSA
N=24
Male
N=33
All
Female
N=51
Total
%
N=84
1
G. Frequency of reading comics ()
:::T
~
everyday/several times a week 9 8 4- II 10 21 v
(25.00) ""
~
once a week/several times a month 4- 5 6 5 10 15 !J"
once a month/seldom 13 8 8 9 20
( 17.86)
29 ~
"
I'll
(34.52) C'l
t never 5 6 6 7 10 17 ac
(20.24- ) v
rTt
no answer - 2 - I I 2 ><
vI'll
(2.38) :::!.
I'll
H. Frequency of reading books :J
n
I'll
everyday/ several times a week 16 9 13 13 25 38 \II
~
~ (45.24-) :J
0-
once a week/several times a month 5 9 4- 7 11 18
(21.43) 3:
I'll
0-
once a month/ seldom 9 10 6 II 14- 25 ~
(29.76) rTt
><
never I I I 2 I 3 v
0
(3.57) \II
C
til
c\II
I'll
Virginia A. Miralao
on the weekend. Comparison across the three schools however, reveals

that students from PHSA in Mt. Makiling are the lightest television
viewers, with an average daily viewing time of 2.4 hours on weekdays
and less than 5 hours and weekends.
The viewing fare of the student-respondents runs a whole range
of genres from cartoon shows to sports programs. But the preferred
programs of majority of the students are imported ones in the fantasy-
drama genre such as Smalluille, Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
and followed by sitcoms like Friends and That '70s Show.
When one compares the findings of the present survey on the
youth's exposure to radio, TV and MTVwith those of other studies,
we note first that taken as a group, there are fewer students in the
special high schools who watch TV/ MTV daily or frequently (69%
and 6S% respectively as noted earlier) than students in the regular
high schools, a high 86 percent of whom watch TV, and 70 percent,
MTV daily or frequently (Page 2004). Second, among TV viewers,
students in the special high schools (and particularly the PHSA
students) spend somewhat less time watching TV-around 20 to 25
hours per week as against other study findings showing most Filipino
youth to spend some so hours per week watching TV (McCann-
Erickson 2000). Third, in terms of viewing fare, students in the special
high schools are more likely to watch foreign shows, while students
from the regular high schools are more likely to watch local shows as
Eat Bulaga and Click (Page 2004).
Going to the movies too, is a popular pastime or activity of students,
although understandably they do not watch movies as frequently as
they do TV/ MTV shows. Only some 12 out of the 84 students from
the special schools (8 from PSHS, S from PHSA and 1 from OB
Montessori) say they seldom go to the movies, leaving large majorities
(between 72% to 97%) of students in the three schools who go to the
movies quite regularly or at least once a month.
Contrary to the popular view that today's younger generation do
not read, the data on the respondents' readership of various print
materials show otherwise, although their propensity for reading may
45
actually be a function of their being enrolled in elite high schools that

encourage students to read or develop in them a liking for reading.
Hence, while 3 out of 4 or some 77 percent of the students in special
high schools say they read the newspapers everyday or several times a
week, the comparable figure among students in the regular high schools
is much lower at 32 percent (Page 2004). Likewise, lout of 3 students
in the special schools say they read magazines everyday or several times
a week whereas the comparable proportion among students in regular
schools is again a lower 27 percent. Even for comic books, twice as
many students in the special high schools report reading these when
compared to their counterparts in regular high schools.
The foregoing differences in readership also extend to the area of
reading books, other than textbooks. Close to half of those in special
high schools are habitual book readers, i.e., they say they read books
everyday or several times a week for leisure, or as a pastime, or for new
information and knowledge. Among students in the regular high
schools however, habitual book readers comprise a low 32 percent.
Finally, while only 3 out of the 84 students (or 4%) in the special high
schools admit they are non-book lovers/readers, a considerable 24
percent of students in the regular high schools admit they have not
developed a liking for books or for reading.
The next set of data presented in Table 8 pertain to the students'
use of new ICTs. The data here reveal that today's youth are very .
much a product of their own time and that regardless of whether they J
are studying in special or regular high schools, most are technologically ~
savvy. But if levels of ICT use are already quite high among students
in the regular high schools, these are again even more so among students
of special high schools. One notes that these differences likely owe to
class differences between the two groups of students as well as to
differences in the learning environments and requirements between
regular high schools and special high schools.
Beginning with Internet use, Page (2004) reports that 3 out of 4
students (or 76%) in the regular high schools have used the Internet,
with most of them having learned this when they were 13 to 14 years
46
Virginia A. Miralao
old. In contrast, all the student-respondents in the special high schools

have used the Internet and half of them began using this when they
were 12 years old or younger (see Table 8). The universal knowledge
and use of the Internet among students in special high schools suggest
that computers are readily available in the students' schools and/or
their own homes.
In terms of Internet use frequency moreover, about a third of the
students in special high schools use the Internet or go online everyday,
while more than half (56%) go online several times a month, leaving
only 12 percent who are not as frequent users of the Internet.
Once online, most of our student-respondents report spending 2
to 4 hours on the Internet. The most common activity that they do
online is to email and communicate with friends (70%). Ninety percent
in fact admit having their own email address, most of which are free
web-based email. The respondents also use the Internet frequently to
gather/obtain information that they need or are interested in. Over
half mention doing research online for example, and 42 percent claim
using the Internet to download things. Close to 40 percent also use
the Internet to chat.
The mobile phone too, has become a popular icon of the Filipino
youth who have gained the reputation of being the world's leading
"texters" or SMS users. Studies also reveal the mobile phone to have
become a priority good or a "must have" item among the youth (Estuar
2003). Among students in the regular high schools for instance, Page
(2004) reports that over half of them own cell phones and ownership
I of the item reaches as high as 78 percent among those studying in

regular but (richer) private high schools. Among students in the special
high schools, cell phone ownership is again almost universal, with only
two students from PSHS saying they have no mobile phone of their
own. Most of the mobile phone owners (77%) subscribe to prepaid
accounts. About a third spend up to P500 per month on their cell phone
bills and another 23 percent use up to PI ,000 per month. A considerable
40 percent spend even more than Ptooo/rnonth on their cell phone
bills however, with many of this latter group coming from the richer
47
Table 8. Respondent's use of Internet and cellular phone
A. Exposure to Internet
Yes
No
OB
Montessori
31
0
PSHS
29
0
PHSA
24
0
Male
33
0
All
Female
51
0
Total
%
84
( 100.0)
0
1 n
(0.00) ';J
Total N 31 29 24 33 51 84
( 100.0)
...
"C
~
~
B. Age of respondent at first use of the ~

Internet (?
(1)
9-12 16 17 9 17 25 42
....
& o
13-15 12 . 12 13 15
(50.0) a
l::
22 37 "C
15 and above
(44.05) ....><
3 - 2 1 4 5 "C
(1)
(5.95) ....
Total N 31 29 24
iir
33 51 84- ::J
n
(1)
( 100.0)
c. Whether respondent has own
(II
~
::J
e-mail address a.
Has own email address 27 27 22 30 4-6 76
s:
(1)
a.
(90.48) ill
No email address 4 2 2 3 5 8 ....><
(9.52) "C
Total N 0
31 29 24- 33 51 84
(II
c
(100.0) ;;
C
~
D. Frequency of Internet use
Several times a day 6 3 0 3 6 9
(10.71 )
Once a day
<
~o
10 6 2 11 7 18
(21.43) S' o
Several times a week 10 12 4 6 20 26 lii

(30.95)
»
Once a week 3 4 7 6 8 14 ~
( 16.67) ~
iii
Several times a month 0 3 4 3 4 7 0
(8.33)
Once a month 0 1 3 2 2 4
(4.76)
Less than once a month 2 0 4 2 4 6
(7.14)
Total N 31 29 24 33 51 84
(100.0)
E. Time spent online
~
\0 0> 120 minutes 7 15 11 14 19 33
(39.29)
120>240 minutes 20 13 10 15 28 43
(51.19)
More than 240 minutes 4 1 3 4 4 8
(9.52)
Total N 31 29 24 33 51 84
( 100.0)
E Activities respondent does
on the Internet"
E-mail 18 21 20 19 40 59
(70.24)
Research 13 19 13 17 28 45
(53.57)
Download things 15 12 8 18 17 35
(41.67)
Chat 19 7 6 12 20 32
(38.10)
"multiple responses
Virginia A. Miralao
OB Montessori students. Cell phone bills are usually paid by the

students (from their allowances) and additionally by their parents. The
monthly cell phone bills of many of the students exceed the P22 per
day estimate appearing in recent news accounts as the amount that
young "gentext" Filipinos spend on sms/cell phone use (see Pinoy Kids:
Big Spending Power, Text Savvy in the Philippine Star 23 March 2004).
The higher cell phone bills of the present study's respondents are likely
again a function of their more privileged economic backgrounds and
their current status as scholars or students of special high schools.
Excelling academically and meeting perhaps parental expectations of
children as good students, the parents of our respondents from the
special high schools are probably more generous with their children's
allowances or in assuming payment of their mobile phone bills.
Briefly summarizing then the present survey findings on the youth's

peer group experiences and their exposure and use of media, we note
first the importance of the peer group or the barkada in the lives of
our student-respondents from the special high schools. With very few
exceptions, all admit having a barkada, the members of which perform
many roles for each individual student. The barkada meets the youth's
needs for "buddies," "confidants" or "best friends" with whom they can
openly share their views and problems, and who in turn will be
sympathetic and understanding precisely because they belong to the
same subculture and age group and are undergoing the same
experiences. As in their parents' time, today's youth report hanging
out or eating out with their barkada or going to parties or the movies.
But mirroring developments in their own time, a favorite activity of
the barkada of contemporary youth is going to the malls, today's large
shopping, eating and entertainment complexes. Finally, the barkada is
found to exert somewhat countervailing influences on the youth, and
not only those so-called negative influences that parents and adults
worry about. Hence, even as several of the survey respondents mention
that drinking (mag-inuman) is an activity they commonly do with their
barkada, several too mention meeting up with their barkada to study
together or even to go church together.
51
1I
With regard their exposure to and use of media and the new ICTs,
there is little question that the respondents' generation or today's youth
has been reared very much surrounded by these influences and
technologies. Consequently, they exhibit very high levels of exposure
to various media forms (print, radio or television) and are adept at
using the new ICTs (computers, the Web and cellular phones). While
students in the regular high schools display very similar media exposure
and use patterns, of particular interest is the noticeably higher incidence
of reading various print materials (from newspapers and books to
magazines and comic books) among the special high school students
when compared to their counterparts in the regular high schools. In
addition, almost all the students in the special high schools are frequent
computer and Internet users, and are owners of mobile phones. The
advantages shown by special high school students in these areas owe
both to their richer class standing and to the quality environments of
their schools which make media and ICT facilities available and
encourage their use by students. Often, these advantages translate to
better intellectual training and development and to the students' better
preparation for today's increasingly knowledge-based and technology-
driven societies.
52
CHAPTER
ROLE MODELS AND COMMUNITY

4 CONSCIOUSNESS AMONG THE YOUTH
IT is widely recognized that ongoing changes in society's basic

institutions (as those noted earlier in marriage and the family, schooling
patterns, religious values and media exposure and use) have far-ranging
effects on the upbringing of the young. Given these changes and their
likely impact on the youth, a question that is often asked is how the
youth of today envision themselves and the roles that they play not
only within their immediate families and barkadas but in the larger
society. Owing to the weakening of traditional social institutions over
time (beginning with the family but extending as well to the schools
and the educational system, churches and religious institutions, and
government and the political system) and the drift towards materialism
and secularism in current-day societies, there are those who fear that
today's youth no longer have heroes and/or role models whom they
can look up to and who can inspire them to noble goals, causes and
deeds. The rise of individualism in contemporary societies moreover,
has made others skeptical over how well today's youth have developed
a sense of civics or a consciousness of a wider community and a
common good.
It has been argued however, that the foregoing views are but
expressions of worry or alarm coming from members of the adult
generation who expectedly are more conservative and see themselves
as the defenders of tradition (Lanuza ~2003). Thus, it has been pointed
out that alternatively, one can view the changes in the thinking and
Chapter 4. Role Models and Community Consciousness
Among the Youth
behavior of the young as part of social adaptation processes that

contribute over the longer term to social innovation and progress.
It is against such questions and arguments as those above that this

section analyzes the survey data bearing on the student-respondents'
role models and notions of community and civics. The assumption is
that the youth's choices of role models and concepts of a bigger social
whole (i.e., as that of a community, a nation or a shared humanity)
would draw from their experiences in and exposure to the varying
social contexts and milieus presented by family, school, church, peer
group, media and so forth.
Role models
Compared to the students in regular high schools where 90 percent
report having a role model (Page 2004.), a lower 83 percent of
respondents from the special high schools claim to have people they
admire and whom they consider worthy role models. For some reason,
the proportion saying they have no role models among the special
schools is perceptibly higher among PSHS students at 28 percent, as
against the 13 percent and 8 percent figures obtained for OB Montessori
and PHSA students respectively.
As with their counterparts in the regular high schools however,

the family remains the principal source of role models for students at
OB Montessori, PSHS and PHSA. Table 9 shows that the students'
most frequently cited role models are their own mothers (67%) and/or
fathers (49%), with even a few (5) students naming a grandparent as a
role model as well. Overall therefore, the data indicate a continuing
and still relatively strong influence of parents and family on the youth's
choices of personalities or figures whom they admire.
Between fathers and mothers, there are somewhat more respondents

naming their mother as a role model than their father. This might be
expected in view of the stronger bond between mother and child than
between father and child, and the findings already reported in Chapter
2 showing the student-respondents generally to feel closer to their
mother than to their father.
54
Table 9. Related data on respondents' role models
<
~
08 All Total S·
~
?>
A. Whether respondent has/ever had s:
a role model ;r
~
Yes, respondent with role model 27 21 22 25 45 70 0
(83.3)
No, respondent never had a role model 4 8 2 8 6 14
( 16.7)
Total N 31 29 24 33 51 84
(100.0)
B. Whether respondent considers _
as role model-
Mother 21 16 10 16 31 47
'"
'" (67.1 )
Father 14 15 5 13 21 34
(48.6)
Grandparent 3 2 a 3 2 5
(7.1 )
Teacher 11 6 9 9 17 26
(37.1 )
Female/male artists 12 3 6 6 15 21
(30.0)
Sports figure 4 4 3 6 5 II
(15.7)
Local historical/political figures 2 7 1 5 5 10
( 14.3)
International/foreign historical &
contemporary figures 4 I 4 4 5 9
( 12.9)
-multiple responses
Among the Youth
Although the foregoing findings attest to the family's important

role in shaping the youth's ideas and choices of heroes and admirable
people, members of the older/adult generation and the more
conservative sectors of society may find the current survey proportions
of the youth looking up to their fathers and mothers as role models (at
49% and 67% respectively) somewhat too low, preferring perhaps to
see a figure in the order of 80 to 90 percent as a measure of strong
family cohesion and the closeness between the youth and their parents.
The lower figures obtained in the survey can be traced to some of the
changes noted earlier in family structures and environments, including
the preponderance of working mothers among the students' families;
other instances where the father or mother or both are working overseas
or away from home; as well as cases of marital separations among the
students' parents. Under these circumstances, it is unrealistic to expect
that 8 to 9 students out of IO will continue to consider their fathers
and mothers as role models. What appears important in the current
data is that students or the youth continue to choose at least one of
their parents (but seldom both) as an ideal person worth emulating in
their own lives.
Also attesting to the school's considerable influence in shaping the

youth's views of ideal and admirable people, the survey data show a
"teacher" to be the next frequently cited role model of students, after
"mother" and "father." Slightly over a third (37%) of students look up
to one of their teachers as a role model. But across schools, the tendency
to look up to a teacher is greater among the PHSA students living on
campus in Mt. Makiling than among students at OB Montessori or
PSHS. There are in fact more PHSA students naming a teacher rather
than their father as a role model. This can be attributed to the greater
propinquity between students and teachers at PHSA resulting likely
to more interaction and closer teacher-student relationships at the
school.
The next set of role models cited by students reflects the influence
of media-particularly TV/ MTV, radio and newspapers and magazines
-on their ideas of exceptional personalities and figures. Among such
figures are female and male artists and sports figures. Table 9 shows
Virginia A. Miralao
that lout of 4 students know of an artist (a singer/recording artist,

actor or actress) whom they consider as a role model, while lout of 10
students know of an athlete whom they regard highly to be a role
model. In view of the preference of students from the special high
schools for foreign TV shows/media, the role model artists and athletes
that they name are also foreign, with only one local talent (but
internationally-acclaimed Lea Salonga) making it to their list of role-
model artists.
Finally mirroring the students' knowledge of or familiarity with

history and/or current events, a few (around 14%)cite a local historical
or political figure as Melchora Aquino, Ramon Magsaysay and Gregorio
del Pilar also as a role model; while 13 percent name an international
historical or contemporary figure as Bill Gates, Mahatma Gandhi,
President Bush and Martin Luther King among their role models as
well.
Interestingly, Table 10 shows that when asked what are the traits
they admire most in the role models that they name, the responses of
students vary according to the role model they are referring to. Thus,
when talking about their mother as a role model, student-respondents
overwhelmingly cite several positive personal qualities or character
traits (compassionate, patient, hard-working) of hers that are worthy
of emulation. Indicating that working mothers are appreciated as well,
mothers too are cited for their successful careers and other achieve-
ments in life. A few students also admire their mothers for their looks
and fashion sense.
There are indications that fathers are also admired primarily in

their role as parent. As with mothers, fathers are cited for their positive
personal qualities and character traits and somewhat less so for their
success and achievements in their careers and in life. The same pattern
generally holds true for teachers as role models, although here one
notes that all students who name a teacher as a role model cite a career-
related achievement or skill of the teacher as among the traits they
admire most in him/her.
~7
Among the Youth
In contrast, when citing artists and sports personalities as their

role models, students are more likely to cite as the traits they admire
most in these figures their successful careers and achievements in their
chosen field of work and secondly their beauty, wealth and lifestyles
which are often featured or highlighted by media. Expectedly, the traits
most admired among the local and international historical or
contemporary figures cited by students as their role models have to do
with the lifetime achievements of these individuals and their association
with important historical events or noble causes.
Table 10. No. of respondents citing certain traits as those that they admire
most in their role models (multiple responses)
Mother Father Teacher

N=47 N=34 N=26
Traits admired in mother/

father/teacher as role
model
Personal qualities/
character & principles 77 47 44
Career/life achievements 49 14 26
Looks/fashion sense/material
wealth 52 6 7
Popularity 10 5 4
Local/ International/
Historical
& Contemporary
Artist Sports Figures
N=21 N=ll N=19
Traits admired in female/

male artists/sports figure/
local figures & international
figures
Personal quality/
character & principles 14 5 24
Career/life achievements 26 15 27
Looks/fashion sense/material
wealth 19 9 5
Popularity 11 7 7
58
Virginia A. Mlralao
Finally, being avid TV viewers and movie watchers and also readers
of books (including comic books), it should be mentioned here that the
student respondents admit to admiring certain fictional characters. Two
out of 5 (41%) respondents say they do have some favorite characters
from the materials that they watch and read including mythical or
super beings from the recent Lord if theRings and Harry Potter books
and movies, other characters from TV sitcoms and Japanese anime (as
Kenshin, Hurokama), and cartoon superheroes (as Batman, Rugrats).
Sociocivic consciousness
One of the concerns expressed by the various groups that
commission youth surveys/studies and also by the public at large has
to do with the extent to which the Filipino youth of today has developed
a sense of service and responsibility to society in general and to the
country in particular. As mentioned earlier, there is some apprehension
that today's youth may not have the same, or as strong feelings for
community and country as their elders have in view of the rise of
individualism, the erosion of traditional social institutions and the
continuing outmigration of Filipino workers to other shores prompted
in part by the country's economic woes and aided further by
globalization processes. Admittedly, an investigation into this topic-
the youth's sense of civics and patriotism-would require a separate
research specially designed to capture the nuances of how the youth
are evolving and constructing their own notions of civics, nationalism,
and social responsibility. Nonetheless, a few questions were attempted
in the current survey to look into the students' involvement in
community activities and political and electoral processes, and to have
a sense of their views about service to community and country.
The first set of data given in Table 11 pertains to the students'

involvement in community-wide organizations and in the Sangguniang
Kabataan or SK, the organizational vehicle set up by government to
mobilize the youth's participation in state and sociopolitical matters.
The data show that beyond their family group, their classmates and
schoolmates, and their barkada, the student-respondents are not big
59
Among the Youth
joiners of other community or sociocivic organizations. Only seven

students-2 from OB Montessori, 3 from PSHS and 2 from PHSA-
mention being an active member of a special purpose group (as a sports
association, a religious group, a sociocivic organization and a musical
chorale); while the large (92%) majority of the students are non-
organization members. There may be several reasons for this, one being
the students' still relatively young age which has not allowed them the
time and opportunity to develop social ties in the broader community.
Being students and scholars of elite high schools moreover, the
respondents are probably too preoccupied with schoolwork and their
studies to have enough time for other sociocivic/community activities.
The survey question too, on the students' involvement in the SK
and which focused on their participation in SK elections may not have
been quite appropriate considering that not a few of them would have
been too young (less than 15 years old) to vote in the last SK elections
of 1999. Nonetheless, the survey findings are generally consistent with
other reports showing a lack of popular support for the SK from the
youth themselves and a low voter registration and turn out in SK
elections (Magno 2003). In the survey of students in the regular high
schools, less than a third (31%)voted in the SK elections with perceptibly
more students from the public schools doing so than those in private
schools (Natividad 2004a). In the current study, only 10 students-6
from PSHS, 3 from OB Montessori and 1 from PHSA-voted in the
SK elections while the rest claimed they did not register for this, or
they are not aware of the SK, or are not too interested in the SK and
its elections (see Table 1 1).
The students however, are not apathetic towards the conduct of
national elections as they are about the SK elections. Here, 4 out of 5
students expressed their intention to vote in the coming (2004) national
elections which is not too different from the 86 percent figure obtained
among the students in the regular high schools (Natividad 2004a).
The remaining few who claimed they were still unsure or will not vote
in the 2004 national elections cited varying reasons for their anticipated
non participation. The more common of these are the students'
uncertainty over who the candidates will be; skepticism over the whole
60
Virginia A. Mlralao
electoral exercise (i.e., waste of time, do not trust politicians); and

personal constraints (i.e., not of voting age yet, will be out of the
country). But the high percentage of students who intend to vote in
the forthcoming elections is indicative of the students' awareness of
their right to vote and of their civic duty to do so. The data suggest
that the national elections are better understood and appreciated by
students.
Interestingly moreover, when asked what desirable qualities they

would like to see in politicians and candidates, the students put much
value on the ethical behavior and moral character of candidates and
politicians (expecting them to be honest, principled, and not to steal),
followed by intelligence, and leadership and performance in that order.
More personalistic or relational values as being kind, helpful and
sympathetic are not very high on the students' list of the desirable
qualities they would like to see in politicians and candidates; whereas
"popularity" and "being rich/wealthy" are hardly mentioned by students
as positive characteristics for politicians.
The results from the survey of students in regular high schools

are very similar to the above. Natividad (2004a) reports that honesty,
the demonstrated ability to lead, and intelligence are the three foremost
qualities that students in the regular high schools would look for in
candidates and politicians. These findings reassure us that despite
perceptions to the contrary, the youth in any age are very much the
carriers of society's ideals, not having been disillusioned yet or tempered
by experiences/realities to the contrary. Natividad however, notes that
the students' choices of what they consider as admirable traits in
politicians may reflect a reaction to the Presidency of then extremely
popular ex-movie actor Joseph Estrada who was overthrown by a
civilian uprising at EDSA in 200 lowing to the perceived ineptness
and corruption of his administration. In general, the students' idealism
as expressed partly in the qualities that they value most in political
candidates is a welcome antidote to the country's currently celebrity-,
popularity- and media-driven politics.
61
Table 11. Related data on the respondents' involvement in community organizations and in electoral and political
processes
A. Is respondent a member of a
community organization?
Yes
OB
Montessori
2
PSHS
S
PHSA
2
Male
1
All
Female
6
Total
%
7
(8.S)
1
No 29 26 22 22 55 77
(91.7) nzr
Total N SI 29 24 23 61 84 III
(100.0) ....
-0
.,
~
B. Respondents' participation
~
in SK election
o-
i'.)
Voted
.... ..
.,-
-;:'''-
~
S 6 1 8 2 10
s
is'
(1 1.9) ~
Did not vote 28 2S 2S 42 S2 74 0
a.
~
(88.1 ) Vi"
Total N SI 29 24 50 34 84 III
:J
(100.0) a.
C. Reason for not voting n
0
in SK election" 3
3
Not aware of SK election 4 6 4 4 10 14 c
(19.0) » 2.
Did not register 42
3-<
19 19 4 17 25 on
:J 0
(56.7) CIQ :J
Did not like any of the candidates 2 2 14 7 11 18 g; !S.
~ 0
(24.S)
Does not believe in SKI got lazy/forgot/ 6 2 5 7 6 13 o-<Iii
C
:J
~
no time ( 17.6) ....
V!
=rV!
Not of voting age yet/not a Filipino 5 1 2 2 6 8
citizen/served in another area ( 10.8)
D. Respondent will vote in the
2004 national election
Yes 21 28 18 28 39 67 <
~.
(79.8) S·
No 8 I 4- 2 II 13 ill
(15.4-) »
Not sure 2 0 2 3 I 4- 3:
(4-.8) [
Total N 31 29 24- 33 51 84- ~
( 100.0)
E. Reason why respondent will not
participate in the coming election
No reason to vote/ ayaw (do not want to)/
sayang lang (just a waste of time) 2 a I I 2 3
( 17.6)
Walang mapililwalang tiwala sa politiko I I I a 3 3
(no one to choose from (do not trust ( 17.6)
0- politicians)
~
Not familiar with the candidates/cannot

make the right decision yeti
not sure yet 3 I 4- 2 6 8
(4-7.1)
Will not be in the Philippines by then/
not yet the right age by then I I I I 2 3
( 17.6)
Total 7 3 7 1- 13 17
( 100.0)
"multiple responses
1
Table 11. Related data on the respondents' involvement in community organizations and in electoral and political
processes (continued)
OB All Total
F. Desired qualities of a politician
Intelligence 6 6 10 10 12 22
(26.2)
Demonstrated leadership/ 9 8 4 II 10 21 ("\
':J"
performance/good track record (25.0) 11I
Good moral character/honest/will IS IS 9 II 24 S5 ....
"0"
- not steal/religious (41.6)

..,
~
Kind/helpful/sympathetic . 0 I I I I 2 "'"
fi
~ Others: popular/rich I S
(2.4)
ib
S I 0 4
(4.7)
s:
0
Total SI 29 24 S4 50 84 a.
~
(100.0) ii'
11I
G. Desire to be a politician ::J
a.
Wants to be a politician 6 0 0 2 4 6 ("\
0
(7.1 ) 3
Doesn't want to be a politician 25 29 24 SI 47 78 3
I:
(92.9) »~
Total SI 29 24 SS 51 84 3-<
o ("\
( 100.0) ::J 0
OQ::J
....
':J ~
_.
"~0
-<I:
o ~
I: ~
.... '"
':J",
,,":::..;,.,.
Virginia A. Mlralao
Finally, despite being enrolled in special high schools that perhaps

are expected to train tomorrow's future leaders, none of the student-
respondents from PSHS and PHSA aspire to become politicians or
candidates someday. But as many as six students (2 males and 4 females)
out of the 31 at OB Montessori are not averse to pursuing a political
career in the future. One mentions that she belongs to a political family
while the others say they wish to enter politics to change the system,
help the country, and help improve the lives of their fellow Filipinos.
With regard service to country, the students were asked whether

they have ever thought of serving the country and how they can render
such service, and whether or not they think they are good citizens of
the Philippines.
A 60 percent majority of the students say they have thought about
serving the country, but not an insubstantial 40 percent admit they
have never thought about this or that this has not crossed their minds.
(In the regular high schools, an even lower 45 percent of students have
thought of serving the country; see Natividad 2004a). Of those who
have given some thought to serving the country, the greater number
say they will be doing this soon after finishing college or when they
are already working and well into their careers; while a few others
believe that they are already at present serving the country or will be
doing so soon after their graduation from high school (see Table 12).
To most students, serving the country is synonymous with being/

doing the best that they can be/do, and so they say that they are or will
. be serving the country by using/sharing their own talents and abilities
and by practicing the professions and the careers that they will train
for in the future. Additionally, not a few others envision serving the
country in various other ways as engaging in volunteer work and
sociocivic activities (outreach programs, medical missions); charities
and philanthropies (setting up scholarships or orphanages); being a
good citizen and bringing honor to the country; or by advocating social
causes and working for the preservation of Philippine culture.
About a two-thirds (67%) majority of students in the special high

schools believe that they are good citizens although this proportion is
65
Among the Youth
lower than the 75 percent reported by Natividad (2004a) for the survey
in regular high schools. Of the three special high schools, it is the arts
students at PHSA who are most confident in saying that they are good
citizens, followed by students at OB Montessori and lastly by those at
PSHS. For some reason, PSHS has the most number of students (11
out of 29) expressing doubt on whether they fit the bill or definition
of a "good citizen."
In another attempt to draw the students' feelings and views about
the Philippines or the country as a whole, they were asked to indicate
what word readily comes to their mind when they hear or see the words
"citizenship," "nationalism," and "Philippine culture." Their responses
have been categorized and are presented in Table 13.
From the Table, one notes that the word "Filipino" is the single
most common word (51%) that students associate with the term
"citizenship" suggesting that today's Filipino youth continue to be aware
of their national identity and define themselves as citizens of the
republic. The other words associated with "citizenship" reflect references
to the country as a place or as a nation-state (21%), i.e., where you live,
with its own people, army, voting processes etc.); whereas to still a few
others (15%) the term evokes feelings of nationalism or patriotism (i.e.,
loyalty, allegiance, service and responsibility to country).
On the other hand, students most commonly (33%) associate the
term "nationalism" with words that express patriotism (i.e., makabayan,
love of country, loyalty, devotion, service to country), followed again
byjust the words "Philippines," "Pilipinas" or "Filipino" (24%), or other
references to the country as a place or nation-state. To several other
students, "nationalism" evokes notions of tradition and history, national
struggles (labanan) and heroes and heroines both past and contemporary
(i.e., from Rizal and Bonifacioto the NPA and OFWs) and other symbols
of national identity and unity (i.e., Lupang Hinirang, the national flag
and EDSA). Only two students had no ready words or expressions to
associate with "nationalism."
66
Table 12. Related data on respondent's views on service to country/citizenship, nationalism and Philippine
culture
<
~
OB All Total S-
Montessori PSHS PHSA Male Female % sr
?"
A. Has respondent, .. ~
Ever thought of serving the country 16 18 16 19 SI 50 ~
~
(59.5) 0
Never thought of serving the country 15 11 8 14- 20 S4-
(4-0.5)
Total SI 29 24- SS 51 84-
( 100.0)
B. How will respondent serve the country?
Through her/his own talent/job/ 0 7 11 - - 18
career/work (21.4-)
0- Involvement in volunteer work, outreach 6 5 0 - - 11
""'-I programs, medical missions (1 S.I)
Donating scholarships/putting up an 4- 2 0 - - 6
orphanage (7.1 )
Advocating causes/preserving 1 S 1 - - 5
local culture (6.0)
Being a good citizen/public service/ 4- 1 2 - - 7
bringing honor to country (8.S)
CO Does respondent thinks he/she
is good citizen?
Yes 20 16 20 19 S7 56
(66.6)
No 5 2 S 4- 6 10
( 12.0)
Don't know/No answer 6 II I 10 8 18
(21.4- )
Total SI 29 24- SS 51 84-
(100.0)
Table IS. Words or phrases associated by students with "citizenship," "nationalism," and "Philippine culture"
A. Citizenship
Country as identity: Filipino
OB
Montessori
17
PSHS
17
PHSA
9
Male
17
All
Female
26
Total
%
1-3
1
(51.2 )
Country as place/people/nation-state/
mga tao/army/voting/bansa/ 9 7 2 I I 7 18 ()
tr
residence/ where you live
Nationalism, patriotism, loyalty
to country / allegiance/responsibility /
nationality
3 4- 6 3 10
(21.1-)
13
(15.4-)
-
~
'"0
~
~
0-
OJ Others 2 I 7 2 8 IO f1
ii"
( 12.0)
3:
Total 31 29 24- 33 51 84- 0
0-
( 100.0) Il>
iii"
B. Nationalism ~
::l
Love of country/patriotism/loyalty/ 16 4- 8 8 20 28 0-
devotion/love/service (33.3) ~
Philipines/Pilipinas/Filipino 3 12 2 10 7 17 3
(20.2) 3
c::
National history/hero/heroes/Jose Rizal/ »2-
Bonifacio/ national struggles/labanan/ 3-<
EDSA/ Lupang Hinirang/ composer/ 5 7 8 9 II 20 s~
(jQ ::l
flag/NPA/OFWs
Country as place/people/nations state/
(23.8) -,..,'"_.
~
II> 0
country of citizenship/living in the 5 1- 4- 6 10 -<c::
I o ~
country/ iba't-ibang tao ( 12.0) c:: II>
-'"
~'"
Others 1 2 2 5 7 <
(8.3) ~
:;
None 1 0 1 0 2 2 ~
(2.4) ?-
Total 31 29 24 33 51 84 3:
( 100.0) [
Co Philippine culture ~
Uniq ue/wonderful/liberated/diverse/varied
makulay/complex/very broad/ rich/ maka-
bayan/very good/ magaling/ the best/ 9 8 6 9 14 23
nationalism/ mix combination (27.4)
Conservative/ tradi tional val ues/practices/
family / religions/pagmamano/
pagtatangkilik ng Pilipino/practices/ 5 7 2 4 10 14
0- bahala na/values/ bayanihan/fiesta ( 16.6)
-0
Historical people/ traditions/Filipino/
origin of Filipino/old/history/ 8 2 0 3 7 10
Philippines/heritage ( 12.0)
Indigenous people/natives/Aeta/ 1 4 5 5 5 10
Igorot/Cordillera/Tribes/ Bagu io ( 12.0)
Heroes/icons/jeep/carabao/ kulintang/
bahay kubo/ food/ arts/sculpture/ 3 6 9 10 8 18
dances/ tinikling/ talk/comic book (21.4)
Others: nawawala na/ nadedegrade 0 I 2 0 3 3
(3.6)
malabo/weird/corny/ magulo 3 1 0 2 2 4
(4.7)
Clueless/Don't know 2 0 0 0 2 2
(2.3)
Total 31 29 24 33 51 84
(100.0)
Among the Youth
Lastly, the term "Philippine culture" evoked a range of feelings

and images to the students. But more often than not, students view
Philippine culture in a positive light, describing this as unique,
wonderful, rich, varied, makulay, very good, magalingand so forth (27%);
od.inking this with the traditional and rather conservative values and
institutions that the country is known for (i.e., family, religious,
pagmamano, bayanihan, fiesta and the like, 17%). Still others associate
"Philippine culture" with the country's heroes, arts, food, icons and
other material national symbols (21%); or with its indigenous peoples
(Aeta, Igorot, tribes, 12%); or with Philippine history, tradition and
heritage more generally (12%). Very few have negative images of
Philippine culture (i.e., malabo, magulo, weird, corny) and only two
students had nothing to say (clueless, don't know) about Philippine
culture.
70
CHAPTER
THE YOUTH'S LIFE GOALS

5 AND FUTURE ASPiRATIONS
As senior high school students, the survey respondents are arguably at

an important threshold in their lives where the decisions and choices
that they make now (or soon after their graduation from high school)
would have much bearing on their life-course trajectories. Deciding on
whether or not they should continue schooling and what course they
should pursue requires the students to anticipate and consider in part
what jobs and careers they would like to have in the not too distant
future as well as what other plans and ambitions they would like to
attain in their own lives.
To have some idea of how they envision themselves in the future,

the students were asked about their short term plans and longer term
aspirations and goals. These questions which were included in the
survey were formulated around those life-course events that are
commonly known to mark the transition from youth to adulthood.
These events include completing school (college) and beginning
r employment, getting married, having children, and settling down to
work and/or live in given areas or locales. Additional questions too
were asked regarding specific ambitions, desires or accomplishments
(i.e., as living independently from parents, owning a car, building a
house, being employed/having own job, etc.) that the students hope or
wish to have achieved by the time they turn 25 years old. Their responses
to these questions which are presented in this section allow us some
understanding of how the youth envision their own transition to
adulthood, and how similar or different their anticipated life-course
trajectories might be from those of their parents.
71
Chapter 5. Future Aspirations and Life Goals Among the Youth
Educational plans and aspirations

Over the short term, the overwhelming majority of the students
in the special high schools see themselves as continuing school and
proceeding to college after their high school graduation. This majority
consists of 78 students (or 93%) of the 84< survey respondents, although
4< of these students see themselves as not only going to college but also
working at the same time. Only some 6 students have no plans to go to
college as yet, with 2 saying they expect to be working instead, while
the 4< others hope to be doing other things meanwhile (i.e., as traveling
or attending special!summer workshops, etc.). The students moreover,
are generally optimistic about pursuing their plans: 3 out of 5 are
quite certain they will be able to carry out their plans after graduating
from high school while the remaining express some uncertainty saying
that some unexpected things may happen which can thwart their plans.
In contrast to the above, Natividad (2004<a) reports somewhat lower
proportions of students from the regular high schools who plan to go
to college (77%). More of them too are planning to study and work at
the same time (10%), or to just work and stop schooling altogether
(10%). Students from the regular high schools also do not exhibit the
same levels of optimism or confidence about pushing through with
their plans after graduation. Only 37 percent (vs. 62% among students
in the special high schools) are certain they will be able to do so. These
differences between the students from the regular and special high
schools can once more be traced to differences in their socioeconomic
backgrounds and in their personal talents and abilities. Natividad notes
that even among the students in regular high schools, those from the
(relatively poorer) public high schools account for more of the students
who plan to work rather than go to college after high school and who
feel uncertain about their plans when compared to students from (the
richer) private high schools.
Students from the regular high schools and the special high schools
differ further in their choices of courses to pursue in college.
Understandably, coming from more diverse backgrounds, the courses
chosen by students from the regular high schools are also quite varied
72
Virginia A. Mlralao
(Natividad 2004a). The choices of students from the special high schools
on the other hand, tend to cluster more around the areas of
specialization that their schools are known for. Hence, with the
exception of four students, all respondents from PSHS hope to pursue
related courses in the natural and exact sciences as Mathematics,
Computer Science, Engineering, Physics and the like; whereas the
greater number of students from PHSA hope to enroll in Fine Arts,
Architecture, and Humanities courses, with a few hoping to go into
Communications where they probably hope to use their talents in
performing or producing shows or programs. It is the students at OB
Montessori that display more varied choices with respect to the courses
they wish to pursue in college. About equal numbers of OB Montessori
students hope to earn their college degrees in fields of the natural and
exact sciences; the medical and health sciences; business administration
and commerce; and mass communications and the social/behavioral
sciences (see Table 14).
Most of the students at PSHS and PHSA hope to pursue their
college courses at the University of the Philippines, with a few planning
to go to either De La Salle University or Ateneo de Manila University
or a foreign university. More students from OB Montessori on the
other hand plan to enroll either at De La Salle, Ateneo or other private
universities in Metro Manila, with also a few hoping to go to college/
university abroad.
In all three special high schools, the students' main consideration
in choosing the courses they plan to pursue in college is their own
liking for, or personal interest in the course and the job that this would
train them for. A considerable number however, (37% of the college-
bound) indicate that in making their choice, they also took into account
the advise/suggestions of parents and other family members. In
general, not too many of the special high school students were
concerned about other considerations, e.g., as the prospects for overseas
employment and labor market demands, in choosing the courses they
would pursue in college.
73
Table 14. Students' educational plans and aspirations
A. Plans after high school

Continue schooling
OB
Montessori
so
PSHS
28
PHSA
16
Male
29
All
Female
4-5
Total
H
%
(88.1 )
1 ()
::T
Continue school and work at the same time 1 2 1 S 4-
1
(4-.7) ...~
til
1J
Work 0 0 2 2 0 2
!J1
.......cc
(2.4-)
Do other things 0 0 4- 1 S 4-
(4-.7) ~
"oJ
Total SI 29 24- SS 51 84- )-
III
~ (100.0) "0
B. Course that respondent plans to study
in college
...0-~
::J
III
Engineering/Math/Computer Science/ 7 25 0 17 15 S2 til
::J
Natural Sciences (4-1.0) 0..
Medical/Health Sciences 7 1 0 1 7 8 r-
( 10.2) if
Fine Arts/Architecture/Humanities 1 0 11 5 7 12 fitil
(15.4-) iii
Business Adm. & related programs 7 0 0 S 4- 7 )-
(9.0) 3
0
::J
Science Education/Teaching 2 S 1 2 4 6 OQ
(7.7) :T
~
Mass Communication 5 0 6 I 10 11
Social/Behavioral Science 2 0 0 0 2
(14-.1)
2 ...sc
::T
(2.6)
Total SI 29 18 29 49 78
( 100.0)
. -----. -- ---- ....... - _......_- ._-- .-.....-- ~ -- ...-.._-~_ .... --- _. ...... ~
c. Where respondent plans to go to college
University of the Philippines 3 25 12 21 19 40
(5l.3)
De La Salle University/Ateneo de 12 2 3 4 IS 17 <
Manila University (21.8) @
:J
Other NCR private universities 14 1 0 4 11 15 ~
(19.2) ?"
Foreign universities 2 1 2 1 4 5
(6.4)
s:
Outside NCR universities 1 0 1 1
~
0 0 ~
(l.3) 0
Total 31 29 18 30 48 78
(100.0)
D. Reason for choosing desired
course in college-
Likes the job the course will train her/ 28 26 14 - - 68
him for (87.2)
Personal inclination/interest 4 7 10 - - 21
(26.9)
"
VI Chosen/advised/suggested by parents/
family / relatives
12 12 5 - - 29
(37.2)
Prospect of overseas employment 7 5 2 - - 14
( 17.9)
Good financial returns/will make him/her 1 3 3 - - 7
sucessfulilifestyle course will provide (9.0)
Others: friends will enroll/with scholarship 5 4 6 - - 15
( 19.2)
E. Whether respondent feels certain/
uncertain in carrying out plans after
high school
Certain 17 24 11 20 32 52
(62.0)
Uncertain 14 4 12 12 18 30
(35.7)
No answer 0 1 1 1 1 2
(2.3)
Total 31 29 24 33 51 84
(100.0)
'f/.multiple responses
,.
Finally, it is worth noting that the students from the special high
schools have far higher education goals than their counterparts in the
regular high schools, the majority of whom expect to complete just
one college degree (Natividad 2004a). Among the special high school
students, about a fifth hope to obtain a second degree and over half
(51%) are aiming to earn a master's degree, and another 15 percent, a
doctorate degree. In total, only some 10 students (12%) from the three
schools are aspiring to earn just one college degree. Again, the
University of the Philippines is a popular choice among those aiming
for additional!advanced university degrees, but so are universities
abroad, and the Ateneo de Manila and De La Salle universities in Metro
Manila.
The student-respondents however, do express some apprehension
over their ability to achieve their high and long-term educational goals.
As many as 60 percent are uncertain about completing the high
educational levels that they desire, with some saying they might change
their minds over time. Still others feel they may not have the money/
resources to pursue the advanced degrees that they wish to have, or
that they may not do well in school and not be able to handle the
requirements of graduate studies. Those who feel relatively certain
about attaining their highest educational ambitions comprise a lower
39 percent of the students. But it should perhaps be mentioned that
even among the 60 percent who are uncertain, most mention that they
will work and strive very hard, focus and concentrate on their studies
and keep themselves inspired so that can attain their desired level of
education.
Employment and career goals

Considering their high educational aspirations, it is not surprising
that the special high school students should set equally high goals for
themselves in terms of their future employment and careers. When
compared to the survey results among students in the regular high
schools, what is striking about the current survey results is that almost
all the students in the special high schools see themselves as eventually
occupying high level positions in their chosen fields of study and work
76
Virginia A. Mlralao
(see Table 16). Those from PSHS for example, typically envision
themselves as practicing professionals in the fields of the physical/
mathematics/engineering sciences or the life/medical/health sciences;
while those from PHSA see themselves as pursuing professional careers
in the fields of writing and the other creative and performing arts.
Because OB Montessori does not have an area of specialization similar
to PSHS and PHSA, students there have more varied occupational
choices but all these too are at the level of the professions. Hence, many
see themselves as variously embarking on professional careers in
business and law, the social sciences, communications and journalism
and the medical and health sciences. OB Montessori likewise, has the
greater number of students who see themselves as eventually setting
up their own businesses and becoming entrepreneurs; while seven other
students (4 from PSHS, 2 from PHSA and 1 from OB Montessori) are
hoping to occupy top-level executive and managerial positions in the
future. In contrast, although the greater number of students in the
regular high schools also aspire to become pro~essionals in various
fields of work, there remain others whose work aspirations are for
lower-level jobs and occupations as clerical workers, service workers
and production/manufacturing workers, among others (Natividad
2004a).
In general, students in the special high schools say they plan to

pursue their careers or practice their professions in-country, but
overwhelmingly so in Metro Manila. Still, a considerable third (32%)
plan to work or pursue their careers abroad (primarily in the US or
Canada but with a few others choosing Europe or other places in Asia).
When all students were further asked whether they would like to
work abroad sometime in the future, Table 16 shows a large 70 percent
responding in the affirmative suggesting that plans/ideas about
working overseas have become commonplace among today's young
Filipinos. Interestingly however, among those who wish to work abroad,
about half say they plan to do so for only a few years (less than 5
years), while about a fourth plan to work abroad longer than 5 years,
leaving just about a fifth who plan to leave the country and work
overseas permanently.
77
Table 15. Respondents'long term educational goals
OB All Total
Female
1
Montessori PSHS PHSA Male %
A. Level of education respondent
wants to achieve
Finish a college degree only .... S S 6 .... 10
(I 2.0)
()
Finish a second degree 9 5 S 5 12 17 ::r
lI>
(20.2) "0
Finish a masters degree 18 15 10 17 26 ....S ~
(51.2) ~
Finish a doctorate degree 0 5 8 .... 9 13 ...,
( 15 .....) ...cc
Don't know 0 1 0 1 0 1 ~
-...J
( 1.2) »
VI
ce Total SI 29 2 .... SS 51 84- "0
( 100.0) ~
::t
B. University where respondent wants to 0
::J
finish desired level of education VI
lI>
University of the Philippines .... 16 .... IS I1 2 .... ::J
a.
(28.6) r-
Ateneo de Manila University! ~
De La Salle University 15 S 0 6 12 18 C\
0
(21.....) lI>
.... Vi
Other NCR private universities 10 2 2 10 1....
( 16.6)
»
3
Foreign universities 2 5 1.... 7 I .... 21 0
::J
Outside NCR universities 0 0 I 0 1

(25.0)
I
...::r
CJQ
(l)
( 1.2)
Don't know!No answer 0 S S S 3 6
(7.1 ) ...::rdc
Total SI 29 2 .... SS 51 8 ....
(99.9)
--
C. Respondent's certainty of completing
desired level of education
Certain 12 12 9 14 19 33 <
(39.3) ~
Uncertain 19 17 15 19 32 51 5"
(60.7) ~
Total 31 29 24 33 51 84 ?>
(100.0) s:
D. Obstacles in realizing desired level ~
of education ~
0
Might change mind/career shift 9 5 7 - - 21
(25.0)
Might not finish course/might not be
admitted/low grades/cannot handle/
own shortcomings 5 7 6 - - 18
(21.4)
She/he might get married/does not want
to stay alone & be separated from family 8 5 2 - - 15
""-l ( 18.0)
\0 Other unexpected events 3 0 S - - 6
(7.1 )
Lack of money 2 10 5 - - 17
(20.2)
Other: Lack of interest 4 2 I - - 7
(8.S)
Total 31 29 24 - - 84
( 100.0)
E. What can be done to ensure the desired
level of education will be completed'"
Focus on studies/work hard/strive hard 17 S3 36 34 32 66
(78.6)
Seek the help of parents/relatives/ 5 6 3 5 9 28
influential people (33.3)
Pray I 10 3 9 5 14
(16.7)
Others 2 0 7 2 7 18
(21.+)
~multiple responses
Table 16. Respondents' employment and career goals
A. Career that respondent wants to pursue

Physical, Math, Engineering, Science
OB
Montessori
1
PSHS
12
PHSA
5
Male
IS
All
Female
5
Total
%
18
1(")
::r
professions/Associate professions
Life science/Health professions
(21.4-) u...~
ll>
8 7 2 5 12 17
(20.2) !J1
Other professions 10. 0 IS 6 17 23
.....
c::
social science profession (27.S) C
nl
legal profession/writing/ »
00
0 creative and performing arts u
\II
Business 8 1 1 S 7 10 ;f
...
( 12.0) o'
:::J
Executive/Ma"nagerial 1 4- 2 2 5 7 \II
ll>
(8.3) :::J
0-
Teaching profession S 0 0 1 2 S r-
(3.6) ~
Overseas employment 1
~
0 0 1 0 1
( 1.2)
iii
Don't know 0 3 0 2 1 3
(3.6)
»
3
No data 0 2 0 1 1 2 0
:::J
Total 31 29 24- 3S 51
(2.4-)
84-
...
CIQ
::r
11)
(100.0)
...::rc~
..
B. Where respondent wants to work
NCR 17 21 10 22 26 4-8 <
~
Other places in-country 1 1 2 3 1
(57.1)
4-
s
~
(4-.7) ?"
Abroad 10 6 11 7 20 27 ~
(32.1 ) ~
Don't know 1 1 1 0 3 3 ~
0
(3.6)
No data 2 0 0 1 1 2
(2.4-)
Total 31 29 24- 33 51 84-
(100.0)
C. Whether respondent desires to
work abroad
Yes 23 17 19 21 38 59
ce (70.2)
No 6 8 1 7 8 15
( 17.9)
Don't know 2 4- 4- 5 5 10
(11.9)
Total 31 29 24- 33 51 84-
( 100.0)
D. Desired duration of work abroad
Short term (less than 5 years) 7 12 10 12 17 29
(4-9.2)
Long term (more than 5 years) 6 5 5 7 9 16
(27.1)
Permanent 10 0 4- 2 12 14-
(23.7)
Total 23 17 19 21 38 59
( 100.0)
While working abroad has crossed the minds of the special high
school students, students in the regular high schools appear more eager
or interested in overseas work. Higher proportions of them plan to
work abroad soon after college (50%) and to work there for longer
periods or permanently (Natividad 2004a). One would expect the lure
of overseas employment to be stronger in fact among the regular high
school students considering their poorer or less privileged backgrounds
when compared to the students in the special high schools.
Long-term marriage and childbearing goals

If the influence of overseas employment is now reflected in the
employment goals and career plans of the youth, the impact of
liberalizing attitudes on mar-riage and the family is also evident in the
youth's expressions of their long-term goals with regard marriage
and childbearing. While current statistics show that almost all Filipinos
eventually get married (the proportions remaining unmarried among
Filipino men and women by age 45 being less than 10%), as many as
15 percent of the special high school students have no plans of getting
married ever, and another 14 percent are not too sure whether or not
they want to get married eventually. This leaves 70 percent who want
to get married or who see themselves as married adults in the future.
Already far less than universal, this 70 percent figure is also considerably
lower than the 84 percent reported by Natividad (2004a) as the
proportion of students from the regular high schools who plan or
desire to get married in the future.
It is also very evident that today's youth are in no hurry to get

married. Among students in the regular high schools, Natividad reports
the desired marrying age to stand at 26.2 years on average, while the
data among special high school students indicate a similarly late if not
an even older preferred age at marriage. Table 17 shows that only
some 12 percent of the special high school students plan to marry in
their early 20s. A third (S2%) each plan to do so in their mid-sos (25 to
26 years) or in their late 20s (27 to 29 years). Finally, at 14 percent, the
proportion desiring to marry in their SOs is larger than the proportion
of those wishing to marry in their early 20s.
82
Virginia A. Mlralao
Students from the special high schools appear also somewhat

cosmopolitan in their choices of a future spouse. Although 63 percent
mention that they would prefer a fellow Filipino for their future spouse,
a substantial third (34%) are open to marrying either Filipinos or
individuals of other nationalities. Only a few others (4%) expressly
prefer to marry foreigners. (Among students in the regular high schools,
those preferring to marry fellow Filipinos comprise a significantly
higher 79 percent, and those with no nationality preference, a lower 15
percent.)
If fewer of the special high school students want to get married in
the future, fewer of them too plan on having children (84%) when
compared to their counterparts in the regular high schools where a
high 94 percent would like to have their own children in the future.
But the pattern of having more students who want to have children
than the number who want to get married holds true in both regular
and special high schools. Natividad (2004a) notes a 10 percent difference
between those wanting to get married (84%) and those desiring to
have children (94%) among regular high school students; whereas in
the special high schools, this difference translates to some 14 percent
more students wanting to have children without getting married. In
general, these trends signal perceptible and significant changes in the
Filipino youth's views and attitudes towards marriage and childbearing.
To the extent that they will be able to carry out their plans, one can
expect changes in the nature of male and female liaisons or partnerships
in the not too distant future, and more generally in the social
arrangements surrounding marriage, childbearing and family-building.
Based on the students' preferred number of children moreover,

one can expect a continuing decline in average family sizes (or the
average number of children per woman) with the generation of today's
youth. A 53 percent majority of the students in special high schools
expect to have no more than 2 children, leaving a lower 42 percent
who prefer to have 3 to 4 children, and only 3 percent desiring to have
more than 4 children. Overall, the desired number of children among
special high school students is again lower than the 2 to 3 children
preferred by students in the regular high schools (Natividad 2oo4a),
83
Table 17. Respondents' marriage and childbearing goals
08 All Total
1
A. Whether respondent wants to get

married in the future
Wants to get married 29 17 13 .42 17 59
(70.2)
Doesn't want to get married 1 6 6 5 8 13
( 15.5) ()
Don't know yet 1 6 5 4 8 12 ::r
~
( 14.3) 't:l
Total 31 29 24 51 33 84 1!
( 100.0) ~
....
B. Preferred age at marriage
Early 20's (20-24) 3 1 3 2 5 7
...c
c
~
(1 1.9) )0-
Mid 20's (25-26) 13 3 3 3 16 19
~
\II
't:l
(32.2)
Late 20's (27-29) 9 6 4 4 15 19 ...0-~
(32.2) ='
\II
30 and above 3 5 0 5 3 8 ~
(13.5) ='
0-
Don't know yet 1 2 3 3 3 6 r-
( 10.2) if
Total 29 17 13 17 42 59 ~~
( 100.0) iii'
C. Preferred nationality of future spouse )0-
3
Fellow Filipino 20 11 6 11 26 37 0
='
American/Canadian I 0 0 0 1
(62.7)
I
OQ
...::r
n
(I. 7)
~
European 0 I 0 1 0 I
(I. 7) ...::r
c
No preferred nationality 8 5 7 5 15 20
. (33.9)
Total 29 17 13 17 42 59
(100.0)
- ---.- -----
.. , ----
D. Whether resc,0ndent wants to have

children in t e future
Wants to have children 51 23 17 27 44 71 <
Doesn't want to have children 0
(84.5) ~
I 3 2 2 4 :;'
(4.8) iii'
Don't know yet 0 3 3 2 4 6 ?>
No answer
(7.1 ) 3:
0 2 I ~.
2 I 5
(S.6) sr
0
Total 51 29 24 33 51 84
( 100.0)
E. Preferred number of children
1-2 17 12 9 16 22 38
(53.5)
3-4 12 II 7 9 21 30
(42.2)
More than 4 2 0 0 I I 2
00
VI (2.8)
No preference 0 0 I I 0 I
( 1.4)
Total 31 23 17 27 44 71
(100.0)
E Preferred gender mix
Equal number of boys and girls I4 10 9 16 17 33
(46.5)
No gender mix preference 7 8 5 6 14 20
(28.2)
More boys/all boys 6 I I 3 5 8
(11.2)
More girls/all girls 4 4 2 2 8 10
(14.1 )
Total 31 23 I7 27 44 71
(100.0)
Table 18. Respondents' long-term residence goals
A. Where respondent hopes to reside

permanently
NCR
OB
Montessori
20
PSHS
21
PHSA
5
Male
20
All
Female
26
Total
%
46
1
("'\
::r
(54.7)
Abroad 6 0 6 2 10 12
( 14.S)
-
III
"C
~
VI
Outside NCR 0 0 4 1 S 4
Don't know yet/unspecified 5 6 9 9 II

(4.8)
20
(23.8)
-
......
c
c
~
)-
~ No answer 0 2 0 1 I 2
III
-
"C
(2.4) iif
Total SI 29 24 SS 51 84 cr
:J
( 100.0) III
III
B. Distance of respondent's permanent :J
0-
address from parents' house r-
Near 22 14 12 17 SI 48 ~
(57.1 ) ~
III
Far 7 6 7 7 IS 20 Vi"
(2S.8) )-
Don't know 2 9 5 9 7 16 3
0
(19.1 ) :J
Total SI 29 24 SS 51 84
( 100.0)
-
OQ
::r
~
~
-
c
::r
..A &
Virginia A. Miralao
due to the differences in the socioeconomic standing between these

two sets of studen ts.
Not only do students in the special high schools desire fewer
children than those in the regular high schools, they also have less
biases with regard to the sex/gender of their future offsprings. Forty-
six percent say they would like to have an equal number of boys and
girls and 28 percent have no expressed preference for the gender mix
of their children. Finally, of the remaining few, there are slightly more
students biased towards having female children (14%) than those who
would rather have more boys or all boys for children (II %). The survey
results from the regular high schools show students there to exhibit
more pronounced biases for male offsprings (the mean preferred number
of male children is 1.6 as against 1.3 for female children; see Natividad
2004a).
Long-term residence goals

The students were also queried on where they want to live and
settle down permanently. Influenced perhaps by the places where they
plan/hope to work, one notes that there are roughly the same
proportions of students saying they hope to be working or pursuing
their careers in-country and those who see themselves as residing in
the Philippines permanently. Some 55 percent of students from the
special high schools expect to establish their permanent residence in
Metro Manila while another 5 percent see themselves as residing
permanently in other places and provinces in the country, bringing the
total of those who wish to remain permanent residents of the
Philippines to 60 percent. A fewer 14 percent of the special high school
students are more definite about wanting to reside and settle abroad
permanently, whereas a considerable 24 percent are undecided as yet
on where they would live or stay, saying this would depend on their
future circumstances or how their lives and plans for work and family
would unfold in the future. (Briefly comparing the responses of the
special high school students with those of the regular high schools,
there are again more of the latter who plan to emigrate to other
87
countries and live there permanently (22%) just as there are more of
them who plan to be working overseas.)
A final question asked of the students on their desired residences
asked how far or near they wish to live from their parents' house. Here,
the responses suggest that those hoping to reside in the Philippines
permanently also expect to be living near their parents' residences
(some 57%). Those who expect to be living far away from their parents
or who still do not know whether they will be living near or far from
their parents' houses appe~r to also come from the ranks of those who
hope to settle abroad permanently or those who remain undecided with
regard their own permanent residence. In general, the results point to
a continuing closeness with parents and family, at least among the youth
who see their futures as ineluctably based in the Philippines.
Aspirations at age 25
In the nearer term, the student-respondents were asked what they
wish to have accomplished by the time they reach 25 years of age.
They were thus presented a list of possible achievements from which
to choose which ones they expect to attain by their 25th birthday. The
items included in the list centered again on significant events or markers
in the life-course-e.g., as finishing school, landing a job, living apart
from parents, owning a car and the like.
The survey responses to this list are shown in Table 19 which
reveal that the students' most salient aspirations by the time they turn
25 years old are that they would have been done with school, are living
independently from their parents, have found a permanent job and have
bought their own car, in that order. Fewer than half (42% to 46%)
aspire to have established their own business, to be financially
independent of their parents, and to be working abroad; while only
about a third (S 1% to S4%) hope to be free of parental influence in
their own decision-making, and to have built or bought their own house.
Students in the special schools give the lowest priority to getting
married and having a child. Only lout of 5 students aspire to be married
by age 25 and fewer than a tenth aspire to have a child by then.
88
:us »... • . •_ • ill LE • a e .
•»• •0
'W _
. . ..
. pea
F • •
5• e.
- -
'--v---~-"""~
~.
<
Table 19. Respondents' aspirations at age 25
S'
~
OB All Total »
~
~.
Aspires to finish schooling 27 22 19 28 40 68 ~

0
(80.9)
Aspires to have permanent employment 19 16 19 16 38 54
(64.3)
Aspires to have own business 16 13 10 16 23 39
(46.4)
Aspires to work abroad 11 10 14 9 26 35
(41.6)
Aspires to have bought own car 17 14 11 11 31 42
co (50.0)
\0 Aspires to have built own house 11 19 27
11 5 8
(32.1)
Aspires to be financially independent
of parents 16 13 10 13 26 39
(46.4)
Aspires to live independently from parents 22 18 21 22 39 61
(72.6)
Aspires not to follow parents' wishes
about important decisions 10 9 10 11 18 29
(34.5)
Aspires not to consult parents on
important decisions 12 6 8 7 19 26
(31.0)
Aspires to get married 12 0 4 4 12 16
( 19.0)
Aspires to have a child 4 I 3 3 5 8
(9.5)
Students from the regular high schools share with the special high
school students the priorities given to finishing school!completing one's
education and finding employment/landing a job as among the most
important achievements they would want to attain by the time they
are 25 years old. But beyond these, there are notable differences between
the regular and special high school students' expressed aspirations at
age 25. Among these differences are the greater emphasis/value placed
by regular high school students on measures of material success (buying
a car-63%; building own house-66%) as among those they would like
to have achieved by age 25 when compared to their special high school
counterparts. Consistent with the stronger lure of overseas
employment among regular high school students, more of them too
aspire to be working abroad by the time they are 25 years old (54% vs.
42% among special high school students). On the other hand, special
high school students exhibit stronger aspirations with regard living
independently from their parents (73% vs. 61% among regular high
school students) and no longer following their parent's' wishes on
important decisions (35% vs. 27%) and no longer consulting parents
on important decisions (31% vs. 17%). Finally, consistent also with the
patterns in their long-term marriage and childbearing goals, much
lower proportions of the special high school students aspire to be
married and/or to have a child by age 25 (19% and 9% respectively)
when compared to the regular high school students as many as 48
percent of whom aspire to be married when they are 25, and 28 percent
to already have a child (Natividad 2004a).
In sum, the data on the students' life goals and aspirations in the
near and longer term reveal that the students see themselves as
following a life course trajectory not too different from conventional
exceptions of how the youth move or pass on adulthood and maturity.
With very few exceptions, the student-respondents from the special
high schools see themselves as proceeding next to college and
eventually landing ajob so that by age 25, they expect not only to have
completed college and begun working but also to be earning enough
to live apart from their parents and to buy their own car. There is thus
a desire to come into their own and gain the independence enjoyed by
the adult members of society.
90
Virginia A. Miralao
But unique to their own historical time and personal circumstances

(including that of being privileged enough to be studying in one of
the country's select high schools), the respondents generally have very
high goals in life. In terms of education for example, a substantial 66
percent are aiming to earn a masters' or a doctorate degree and another
fifth to pursue a second degree, leaving only 12 percent who do not
expect to obtain additional degrees. In terms of employment likewise,
all the students aspire to become high-level specialists, professionals
or managers and executives in their chosen fields or careers as scientists,
artists, engineers, doctors, writers or business-entrepreneurs. None of
the students see themselves ending in lower-level jobs as office/clerical
workers, sales workers or production workers and the like.
The impact of globalization, travel and the country's out-migration

history is now evident in the respondents' expressed aims in life. Going
abroad to study or to work or to do both is no longer an uncommon
aspiration among today's Filipino youth. Many of the special high
school students hope to pursue their graduate studies abroad and
experience working abroad. Although the majority plan to practice
their professions or pursue their professions in the Philippines, a large
70 percent mention they wish to experience working overseas at some
point in their careers perhaps for around 5 years prior to returning
and settling permanently in the Philippines. Not a few of course plan
to work and emigrate and live permanently overseas. But rather than
view the desire of today's youth to study, work or live abroad
permanently or temporarily as reflecting a lack of love/loyalty to
country, this appears more the natural outcome of the Philippines'
labor migration history. With other family members and relatives
already working and/or residing abroad, one can expect increasing
numbers of today's youth to also want to follow their steps and join
their family members and relatives abroad.
The impact of liberalizing views on marriage and family life is

also clearly evident in the students' vision of their lives. Compared to
previous generations, the proportion of today's youth wanting to get
married eventually is now far less than universal. As many as 15 percent
do not see themselves as getting married ever, and about the same
91
percentage are undecided about the matter. And among the 70 percent
who wish to marry, marriage does not emerge a priority until they are
much older-in their late 20s or after they have turned so years old.
More of today's youth however, would like to have their own children
than the number of them who want to get married, foreshadowing
likely changes in social arrange~ents for childbearing and family-
building. Finally, those among today's youth who are looking forward
to marrying and/or having children in the future are most likely going
to have fewer children than the families they come from, in the order
of some two children only.
92
CHAPTER
THE YOUTH'S SENSE

6 OF SELF
IN much of the social psychological literature on the youth, getting to

know who one is or arriving at a sense of self is considered one of the
central developmental tasks faced by adolescents and the youth (see Liwag
2003). It is during adolescence and one's youth years that "Pivotal
events .... precipitate self-development and reorganization: biological
changes alter the physical body and self-conceptions; cognitive
development allows adolescents to conceive of the self in new ways
through the tools of formal, hypothetical thought; new social roles,
experiences and demands provoke and necessitate questions about self
and identity" (Pena-Alarnpay !'W03).
To lay people and the popular mind, interest in the youth's conception
of their selves seems to derive from the fact that in the life-course, the
youth (quite normatively) undergo a stage of confusion and anxiety (and
sometimes even depression) in the process of evolving their self-concept.
People thus are interested in how the youth handle various forces that
impinge on their image of the self-e-their cognitions, feelings/emotions,
relationships. behaviors and experiences that in turn are shaped by their
membership in groups and by prevailing sociocultural norms and practices.
It is widely recognized that those who are able to integrate the various/
differentiated aspects of the self (i.e., cognitions, beliefs, attitudes, feelings,
behavior, etc.) emerge as functional human beings who can direct their
lives and relate well with other members of society. Some knowledge or
understanding of the youth's self-concepts therefore, offers us also with
measures of the socioemotional health of the youth and the degree of
93
Chapter 6. The Youth's Sense of Self
negativities or psychological disturbances among them as a social category

or group.
Aspects of the self

This section presents the study findings drawn from the self-
administered questionnaire given to the special high school students
containing items designed to assess various aspects of the self. As
mentioned in the introductory section, this questionnaire is the same as
that given to the regular high school students and which was designed
and put together by Joseph H. Puyat for the PSSC-UNACOM research
on the Filipino youth. A more complete description of this self-
administered questionnaire and the self-measures drawn from it appear
in Puyat's (2004) own article on the self-ratings of students from the
regular high schools.
Briefly, the self-administered questionnaire sought the students'

agreement-disagreement responses and yes or no answers to sets of items
designed to assess some four aspects of the self. The first of these aspects
is self-esteem, defined as the totality of one's feelings about the self which
therefore can range from negative/unfavorable (low self-esteem) to
positive/favorable (high self-esteem). Puyat writes that studies seem to
show that self-esteem has two important dimensions, namely self-liking
(general feelings of worth that one is likable); and self-competence (the
overall sense that one is able to accomplish what one sets out to do). In
the self-rated questionnaire, the scores on self-esteem range from a lowest
possible score of I (very low level of positive regard) to a highest possible
score of 40 (very high level of positive regard).
The second aspect of the self measured by the questionnaire is the

locus if control which ..... sums up one's general belief that happenings
around are under one's direct control" (Puyat 2003). Again, there are two
dimensions to this: the internal which refers to the perception that things
or events happen as a result of one's own actions and hence that these are
under one's personal control; and the external which refers to the
perception that occurrences/events are unrelated to one's own behavior
and thus beyond personal control. In the self-ratings, scores for locus of
94
Virginia A. Miralao
control range from 0 representing a very internal sense of control to ,\·0

representing an extremely external locus of control.
The third aspect is self-construal or how individuals see themselves in

relation to others. Construals of the self may vary from so-called
independent to interdependent construals. The former entails a conception
of the self as a bounded and stable entity quite separate from others or
unaffected by other people; whereas an interdependent self-construal sees
I
I
the self as intricately connected with others and is thus defined primarily
through one's social roles and relationships. Independent self-construals
are believed to be more salient in "individualistic cultures" while
"collectivist cultures" tend to promote interdependent construals. The
self-construal scale in the questionnaire yields two scores for each
respondent measuring his/her independent and interdependent construals
of the self with the value of each score ranging from a low 1,\· to a high
of 98.
The fourth aspect refers to the self's value priorities which in turn are
taken as those guiding principles that motivate people and serve as the
foundations of their judgments and actions. In the self-ratings, the student-
respondents were scored in terms of their tendency towards certain
motivational themes as power(social power, authority, social recognition);
achievement (inf1uential, ambitions, successful); stimulation (exciting life,
varied life); self-direction (creativity, freedom); universalism (protects the
environment, unity with nature); benevolence (helpful, honest); tradition
(accepting my portion in life, devout); conformity (obedient, honoring of
parents and elders, politeness); and security (family security and sense of
belonging). The values part of the questionnaire included some 56 items
from which mean indices were then calculated for each motivational theme
to measure the strength or importance of the foregoing values among
the student-respondents.
Findings
The results of the self-ratings on the various aspects of the self are
shown in Table 20. In terms of self-esteem ratings where the highest
possible score is 40, one notes that the overall mean for the special high
95
school students is a relatively high 30.23 (with students at PSHS exhibiting

a mean lower than the overall mean, those at PHSA approximating this
mean and those at OB Montessori exhibiting the highest self-esteem
average rating of 30.40). All three special schools display scores higher
than the 29.92 overall mean obtained among the students in regular high
schools. Puyat (2004) further reports that the self-esteem of Filipino
regular high school students is quite high when compared to that of
Korean Americans in New York City whose mean self-esteem rating has
been shown by other studies to stand at 26.72. Considering that as a
concept, self-esteem captures elements of both self-liking and self-
competence, the current findings lend support to the internal validity of
l
I
the study's self-esteem measure: it is quite logical that students in the
special high schools (with their more privileged background and superior
talents) should display a higher positive regard of the self than students
from the regular high schools.
With regard the locus of control measure, various studies consider

scores below 15 as normal and indicative of an internal locus of control.
(The scale values here also range from 0 to 40, with lower values indicating
more favorable results, i.e.,with a sense that things happen as a consequence
of one's actions, than higher values which indicate a feeling that
occurrences are beyond one's control.) Higher locus of control scores as
15.3 for example have been associated with individuals/youth at risk; 15.6
with delinquent youth; and 17.54 with the emotionally disturbed. With
these as bases for comparison, Puyat (2004) reports the overall mean
score among regular Filipino high school students to stand at a favorable
12.) 5 and to be even better among the students of the regular high schools'
honor or star sections, whose mean score stood at 11.24. The percentile
distribution of the locus of control scores among regular high school
students further suggest that a 20 percent minority exhibit scores that
fall out of the normal range (i.e., over 15) and associated with at-risk,
delinquent or emotionally disturbed students.
The locus of control scores obtained for the students in the special
high schools put them in a more favorable position in comparison to their
counterparts in the regular high schools. The figures in Table 20 show
their mean locus of control score to stand at 10.62; with as many as 50
96
Virginia A. Miralao
percent of them in fact exhibiting scores of 10.0 or lower. Students at

PSHS display a very high internal locus of control averaging 0,4'1), followed
by those at OB Montessori at 10.68 and last by PHSA students at I 1.0~.The
percentile distribution of the locus of control scores moreover reveal only
10 percent of special high school students (vs. ~o% in the regular high
schools) undergoing emotional difficulties at present, or scoring over If)
in this measure.
Table 20. Mean scores and percentile distribution of self-esteem and locus
of control; and mean independent and interdependent self-construal scores
among special high school students
Self· Locus of Independent In terdependen t

N esteem control self:' construal self-construal
Valid 82 84 84 8')·
Missing '2 0 0 0
Mean
(overall ) 30.'23 10.62 78.301·9 7+.506')·
OB Montessori 30.4 10.68 81.5249 7+.70(H
PSHS 30.07 9.48 75.6649 75.H6'J.
PHSA 30.22 11.92 77.3349 73.IIG4
Mean
(overall ) 29.92 1'2.15 78.7349 77.'2311·
Regular high
school students
Percentiles:
Special high school
students
10 '2'k30 5.00
20 26.00 6.00
30 28.00 8.00
40 30.00 9.00
50 30.50 10.00
60 31.80 11.00
70 32.10 13.00
80 33.40 15.00
90 36.00 17.00
97
Turning next to the self-construal scores, the results obtained from

the special high school students do not show them to be too different
from their counterparts in the regular high schools. Both sets of students
show high levels of independent and interdependent construals. Hence,
on a range of 14 to 98, Filipino students in the regular and special high
schools exhibit mean independent and interdependent self-construal scores
in the 70s (around 78 t079 for independent self-construal and 74 to 77 for
interdependent self-construal). However, the scores which are shown in
Table 20 indicate that students from the special high schools are somewhat
less collectivist and more autonomous in their self-construals, their
independent self-construal scores averaging a higher 78.S than their
interdependent self-construal score of 74.5. But overall, the findings
support Puyat's (2004) observation that among Filipino youth, "both
aspects of the self are equally developed and that the students are able to
effortlessly switch from one mode to another, or perhaps even to function
simultaneously in both modes, depending on the demands of the social
situation .... Independent and interdependent self-construals are part of
the meaning systems of individualistic and collectivistic cultures that may
be activated by relevant symbols or objects encountered in various social
situations. Being high in both dimensions of construals probably may be
Table 21. Mean scores/ratings on values-motivational themes by special

and regular high school students
Values Special High Schools Regular High Schools
Self-direction 5.70 5.29

Benevolence 5.67 5.45
Conformity 5.52 5.52
Achievement 5.29 5.03
Universalism 5.27 5.27
Stimulation 4.82 4.51
Security 4.64 4·.83
Tradition 4.47 4.63
Hedonism 4.31 4.2
Power 3.37 4.07
98
,
Virginia A. Miralao
more advantageous. There is some support that being high in both

dimensions of construals is a mark of a well-adjusted individual." In
general, the findings from the self-construal scores are also consistent
with the known flexibility and adaptability of Filipinos to various
conditions.
Finally in terms of value priorities, Table '21 presents the mean ratings
obtained from the special and regular high school students for specific
value items, assumed to direct, motivate or guide one's thoughts and
actions. It is interesting to note that both types of students broadly share
the same value priorities, in that the values with the highest and lowest
mean-ratings are similar among both groups of students. Hence the more
important values to the students are self-direction, benevolence,
conformity, achievement and universalism, whereas those less salient are
stimulation, security, tradition, hedonism and power. In .terms of the
absolute value of the mean ratings however, we note differences between
the two groups of students that tend to be consistent with our expectations
for students studying in the elite schools. We note for example that "self-
direction" emerges as the most important value for students in the special
high schools, whereas "conformity" is what is most salient among regular
high school students. Likewise, special high school students display higher
mean ratings for "achievement," "benevolence," and "stimulation" than
regular high school students, whereas the latter have higher mean ratings
for "security," "tradition," and "power" than the former.
99
I
,
I
;
CHAPTER
CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION

1 Of FINDINGS
THE survey of Filipino students in special high schools which forms

part of the PSSC-UNACOM research project on the Filipino youth
sought to collect new information on and further our understanding
of contemporary youth-their life and world views, their notions of
themselves, their goals and aspirations and their visions of the future.
Keenly aware that the world changes as time passes, the survey
adapted an intergenerational perspective to highlight the changes (as
well as continuities) in the upbringing and life-experiences of today's
youth when compared to their counterparts of earlier generations. But
knowing too, that today's youth do not share the same socioeconomic
and personal circumstances, the research project likewise looked into
variations in the views, behaviors and lifestyles among today's
generation of Filipino youth, i.e., as between this survey's respondents
from special high schools and its companion survey of students from
regular city high schools. By drawing attention to the unique socio-
historical period surrounding the upbringing and development of
contemporary youth and also to the diversity in their social and personal
circumstances, the study hopes to promote a better understanding and
acceptance of differences within the youth sector itself, and between
the youth and their elders. This concluding section thus presents and
discusses the survey's main findings against the foregoing perspectives
and in the light of those concerns and issues commonly expressed and
heard about today's Filipino youth.
101
Chapter 7. Conclusions and Discussion of Findings
Family life, schooling and religious practice

Reflecting the long-term decline in the national birth rate (from a
high children-ever-born figure of 5.97 per woman in the 1970s to about
3.73 in the late 1990s), both the PSSC-UNACOM surveys of students
from special and regular high schools reveal that today's Filipino youth
come from smaller families typically consisting of 3 to 4 children.
Expectedly, the survey results also show differences in the youth's family
sizes by social class, with more of the richer students (e.g., as those
from OB Montessori and the private high schools) coming from families
with a fewer 2 to 3 or 1 to 2 children, but as a group, today's youth
have fewer siblings than their own parents.
In most cases too, the parents (fathers and mothers alike) of today's
youth are relatively well educated and are both working, the proportions
of fathers and mothers not reaching college and not gainfully employed
now comprising minorities among the parents of today's youth.
Moreover, given the growth of overseas labor migration in the country
since the 1980s, it is also no longer unusual among today's young
Filipinos to have a parent or both parents working abroad or away
from home. Reflecting as well other modernizing/liberalizing influences
on marriage and the family, considerable proportions of today's high
school students (around 11% of those in special high schools and fewer
than 10% of those in regular high schools) have parents who have
separated or are no longer living together. Consequently, the numbers
of our high school survey respondents who mention being raised by
only one parent appear on the rise as result of the employment of one
or the other parent abroad or away from the family, or because of the
marital separation of parents.
Still, the strong family ties and the cuI tural conservatism that
Filipinos are known for are reflected in the continuing large majorities
of high school students whose parents are still both living and not
separated (83% in special high schools and 84% in regular high
schools); were raised by both parents (over 70% whether in regular or
special high schools); and continue to reside with parents (also over
70% with the understandable exception of students at the Philippine
102
Virginia A. Miralao
..
High School for the Arts who live in the school dorm). When compared
to Western societies and even perhaps to other Asian countries, which
like the Philippines have had to grapple with liberalizing/modernizing
influences on its traditional institutions, the above figures appear
remarkably high and attest to the importance that Filipinos generally
attach to family and family life. It is thus not also surprising that today's
Filipino high school students, whether in public or private or special
or regular high schools, should rate intrafamilial relationships within
their own homes to be quite good, if not very good. This is true of the
students' assessments of their parents' relationship with each other
(i.e., they get along well most of, if not all, the time); their own
relationships with their fathers and mothers (although the youth
generally feel closer to their mothers than to their fathers); and their
relationships with each of their siblings. The proportions of students
expressing dissatisfaction with family relationships comprise generally
insignificant minorities.
In terms of schooling experience, preschool attendance has become

the norm among today's Filipino youth. Some 53 percent of the
respondents from the regular high schools attended preschool, while
preschool attendance among students of special high schools is close
to universal. Unlike their parents therefore, who probably stayed at
home until they were old enough to enter Grade I at 6 or 7 years old,
an increasing number of contemporary youth are in school before they
turn 5 years old. This now all too common practice of sending children
to preschool owes to the growth in women's/mother's employment as
well as to the increasing awareness of the benefits of early childhood
education. One notes that indeed. significantly more of the students in
the special high schools (where entry is also more competitive) attended
preschool and began doing so even earlier (at ages 2 or 3) than their
fellow students in regular high schools.
Currently as high school students, they differ quite widely in terms

of the subjects that they best and least like, but they generally have a
teacher whom they look up to or admire, and most are involved in one
or another extracurricular activity. More commonly, such activity will
be in sports and followed next by involvement in special purpose clubs
103
representing the students' favorite subjects or areas of interest (i.e., "

I
I
Math or Science or English clubs, debating and elocution, drama and (
theatre, a choral group, etc.). Volunteering for community work and/

or charity is rare as senior high school students may still be too young
to exhibit such involvement.
Finally, it is notable that today's Filipino youth consider themselves

as belonging to or a follower of a given religion-,-more frequently as
a Catholic but with several others also professing membership in
Protestant and Born Again Christian groups, Islam and Iglesia in
Cristo. Almost all therefore believe in a God and the large majority
also in an afterlife. Very few are religious doubters who consider
themselves agnostics.
While belief in a Supreme Being and matters of the spirit remain

high, there appears to be an ongoing generational shift in the expression
of one's religiosity and spiritual practice towards something more
individual and private. Whereas older Filipinos were more observant - ~'.
of church doctrines and rules on church attendance, the younger .\.,
generation today do not attend church services as much, although a
large 71 percent to 87 percent of the students in the various special
high schools indicate that they pray regularly everyday. Those attending
church services regularly at least once a week comprise a lower 25
percent to 55 percent of students in the different special high schools.
Peer group experiences and mass media exposure and use

f
The peer group or the barkada as a source of friendship, camaraderie
and socio-emotional support remains as important for today's young
•
Filipinos as it did for their parents' or elders' generation. The same
can be said of the media as a source of news, information and enter-
tainment for the young in any age. But today's rapid economic changes
and new technological advances have changed the milieu of the youth's
peer group experiences and their exposure to and use of various media
forms. And here we note that today's young Filipinos are a product of
their time.
104
Virginia A. Miralao
With regard the activities of the peer group for example, "mailing"
emerges as the most common (and perhaps the favorite), activity of
the youth's barkada at present, whether they come from regular high
schools or special high schools. The incidence and regularity of going
to the maIls-a late 20th century development in shopping experience
-are expectedly higher the closer the students' schools are to the
malls and the richer are their families.
Outside of maIling, the youth today do very similar things with

their barkada as did their parents and even their grandparents did
with theirs: hang out, eat out, go to the movies or to church together;
study together and do each other's homework; chat about beauty,
fashion, and their favorite stars; share secrets, their insecurities and
confidences; and begin to experience new things that adults and parents
may not necessarily approve of, including drinking. The incidence of
the latter is not insignificant. One out of 4 students in the special high
schools and a higher 2 out of 5 students in the regular high schools
mention that drinking (inuman) is a common/regular activity of their
barkada. The incidence of drinking with the barkada is higher too,
among male than female students and among richer ones than poorer
ones. But if a case is to be made about curbing drinking among the
youth, it is that students' performance in high school (which of course
affects their success in later life) can be adversely affected by drinking.
One notes that the incidence of drinking with the barkada is much less
among the high-performing students in the special high schools than
those in the regular high schools. Among students in the regular high
schools moreover, the survey data show the incidence of barkada
drinking among those in the high (honors) sections to be significantly
less than among their fellow-students in the regular sections.
Our study findings on the youth's exposure to media and use of

the new IC'Ts also reveal some patterns that parents and the adult
generation may not feel comfortable with. One such pattern is in the
youth's TV/ MTVviewership, which compared to earlier periods, is at
an all time high among today's generation of children and the youth.
In the special high schools, close to 70 percent of students (the figure
105
is a higher 86% in the regular high schools) watch TV / MTV everyday,

averaging .'3.2 hours per day on weekdays and a longer 5 hours per day
on weekends. In the light of new research suggesting that regardless
of content, prolonged TV viewing among children and the youth may
adversely affect their mental and psychological growth'and well-being,
there is probably a need to raise public awareness of these undesirable
trends.
With regard readership of printed materials, the survey findings
reveal students in the special high schools to read far more than students
in the regular high schools. Over 75 percent of the former indicate
reading the newspapers daily, a third mention reading various other
magazines during the week, half are habitual book readers (i.e., they
have a book that they read everyday for their leisure and pleasure), and
only 4 percent admit not being book lovers. The comparable figures
for the regular high school students are significantly lower at ss percent
for newspaper reading, 27 percent for magazines and .'32 percent for
books, with as many as 24 percent admitting they have little love for
reading. Aware of the greater benefits of reading than TV viewing on
the development of young minds, society probably has much to gain
by encouraging a shift in the youth's predilection for watching TV
towards book/newspaper reading.
In the area of leT use, our research lends ample support to the
known technological savviness of today's young generation of Filipinos.
All students in the special high schools use the Internet and learned to
do this when they were 12 years old or younger (a high 76% of students
in the regular high schools also use the Internet which they learned
when they were 1.'3 to 14 years old). About a third of the students in
the special high schools go online everyday, spending between 2 to 4
hours online, emailing and communicating with friends, chatting,
downloading materials and also doing research on the Internet.
Almost all the students in the special high schools (and depending
on their socioeconomic background as many as 50% to 78% of students
in the regular high schools) own a cell phone. Current-day highschool
students are heavy cell phone and SMS users, with most spending over
P500 per month on prepaid accounts.
106
Virginia A. Miralao
With their facility in the use of the new ICTs, today's high school
students appear well positioned for tomorrow's technology-driven
societies. But to maximize their benefits from the new ICTs, the study
findings suggest likewise that students and the youth learn to manage
their use of new technologies so that these do not distract them from
their studies and their longer-term goals of becoming independent
and productive adults.
Role models and community consciousness among the youth

Contrary to the popular view that today's young Filipinos no longer
have heroes and consistent with the saying that "today's youth are
tomorrow's hope," it is refreshing to note from the study findings that
underlying the youth's choices of role models and their notions of
national leaders are society's ideals of good citizens and exemplary
individuals. Unlike in the area of TV viewing and the use of new ICTs
and related technologies, there is probably less of a generational divide
between younger and older Filipinos regarding their views on worthy
role models, leaders and heroes.
To begin with, the large majority (over 80%) of today's senior high
school students have a role model or role models-person/s they admire
highly and whom they consider worth emulating. Highlighting the
role of the family in shaping the youth's notion of an ideal person,
over half of students name their mothers and close to half name their
fathers as their role models. Many students cite their mothers and/or
fathers as their role models because of their warm parenting care and
admirable personal qualities: they are compassionate, understanding,
patient and hardworking and in some cases, also successful in their
jobs and involvements outside of the home.
Over a third of students also name a teacher among their role

models citing too, her/his exceptional teaching skills, ability to advise/
guide students, and other personal qualities and achievements. Next
to parents and teachers, students name various artists and athletes as
their role models, citing their special talents and skills and successful
careers as their reasons for choosing them as role models and less so
107
because of their beauty, wealth and fabulous lifestyles. Finally, over a

tenth each of students name national heroes and patriots (as Melchora
Aquino and Ramon Magsaysay), and international historical or
contemporary figures (as Bill Gates and Mahatma Gandhi) among their
role models. These latter figures are admired primarily for their lifetime
achievements, historical roles and association with noble causes and
social movements.
In terms of community involvement, it may be expecting too much
I
of senior high school students to actively engage in community work
and volunteerism. Beyond joining the extracurricular activities or the
Science, Math and English clubs, and drama and singing groups in
school, the special high school senior students are not big joiners of
other community groups and organizations. Neither are they aware
of the Sangguniang Kabataan (or SK), the organizational vehicle set up
by government for the sector. Senior high school students from both
the regular and special high schools express little interest in learning
more about the SK or in participating in SK elections. Because of its
seeming irrelevance to the youth, the SK as an organizational body for
mobilizing the youth's involvement in community matters must be re-
examined and re-thought.
The youth see expressions of community/civic consciousness more

in terms of participating in national elections than in the SK and its
activities. Though a fifth of the students are skeptical about national
elections and politics in general, 4< out of 5 intend to vote when they
come of age, considering this their right and civic obligation. Whether
in special or regular high schools, students express the same ideals as
broader society when asked about the qualities they would like to see
in political candidates and the country's leaders. The youth think that
politicians and the country's leaders should exhibit ethical behavior,
be of good moral character, be intelligent and possess leadership and
performance abilities.
Most senior high school students in the special and regular high
schools believe that they are good citizens and have given some thought
to how they could be of service to the country. To many, service to
108
Virginia A. Miralao
country means being the best that they can be, or using their talents
and abilities well. Some others associate service to country with the
work they hope to be doing in the future, i.e.,as successful practitioners
in their chosen professions or careers.
Finally, the students' word association responses to the terms

citizenship, nationalism and Philippine culture generally reveal them to
exhibit a sense of place and rootedness. They seem aware of their
Filipino bloodline and ancestry, of the Philippines as their country,
and of themselves as Filipino citizens. They show awareness of the
country as a nation-state with its own people, territory and rules
(Constitution), and to which citizens give their allegiance and loyalty.
They associate nationalism with patriotism or love of country, heroes
and heroines and tradition and history. Most view Philippine culture
as rich, unique and varied and distinguishable by its indigenous/
traditional arts, values, food, customs and practices.
In sum, based on their choices of role models, the qualities they

look for in politicians and leaders, their views on elections, citizenship
and related concepts, the students seem to display basically the same
sociocivic and political values and ideals as mainstream society but
which the older generation does not seem to have duly credited the
youth for. Too often, adults are known to bemoan the youth's loss of
values and civics. But Imowing that the youth do in fact adhere to
many of society's norms and ideals (vs. defying societal rules and
traditions as promoted by youth stereotypes), the challenge now
probably lies in encouraging everyone, both youth and adults alike to
"live" their civic ideals in their day-to-day behavior (keep ing
surroundings clean, following traffic rules, working/studying hard)
and relationships with family members, friends, neighbors and other
people (being polite, considerate, true, honest with self and others).
The youth's life goals and future aspirations

One similarly notes the impact of tradition and prevailing values
as well as current-day socioeconomic developments on the youth's
expressed goals and aspirations in the future. The value placed by
109
Filipinos on a tertiary level education for example, is readily reflected

in the high proportions of senior high school students (93% and 77%
in the special and regular high schools respectively) who plan to go to
college soon after graduation. Even among those who plan to work
and stop schooling, or who intend to work part-time and study part-
time, the desire to get a college degree eventually is high, leaving only
a minimal 2.5 percent of regular high school students with no plans of
ever going to college.
Because of their greater resources and unique talents, special high
school students are far more optimistic and confident about their plans
of pushing through college than the regular high school students, many
of whom express concern about passing college admissions tests and
having enough money to finance their college education. Expectedly,
the students of the Philippine Science High School and the Philippine
High School for the Arts intend to pursue college degrees in their
schools' fields/areas of specialization-math, the exact sciences and
engineering among PSHS students, and the arts and humanities among
PHSA students. The choices of OB Montessori students for their
college courses are more varied and include business administration,
the health sciences, communications, and the social and behavioral
sciences. In all three schools, the students' choices of what to pursue
in college is a function primarily of their personal interests. Students
in the three schools moreover, generally see themselves as entering
the country's top universities (UP, Ateneo de Manila and De La Salle).
Attesting further to their high educational goals, almost all special
high school seniors see themselves proceeding to further studies
preferably abroad to obtain a second degree, a master's or a doctorate.
In the regular high schools on the other hand, students also base
their choices of college courses on their personal interests, although
labor market demands and the prospects of overseas employment are
likewise important. This is particularly true among about a quarter of
the regular high school students who plan to earn their degrees in the
medical sciences (mostly nursing and physical therapy). Their next
common choices for their college courses are business administration/
commerce (23%), and engineering (15%).
110
Virginia A. Mlralao
Employment- or career-wise, the special high school students

envision themselves as occupying high-level positions as specialists or
managers or executives in their chosen professions. For the most part,
students from the regular high schools similarly see themselves as
becoming practicing professionals and businessmen/women in the
future. A considerable number however, do have much lower job
aspirations as becoming an office/clerical worker, a service worker or
a factory/production worker. But on the whole, there is little in our
survey of high school students that corroborates the impression that
today's Filipino youth are interested only in becoming singers,
basketball players, actors or actresses or politicians.
Going abroad to study, work or to live there temporarily or
permanently is another goal that most (some 70%) high school students
from both special and regular schools would like to pursue in the future.
This of course comes as no surprise given the chain migration sparked
by the Philippines' long out-migration history so that large numbers
of Filipinos now have family members and/or relatives in various places
overseas. The idea thus of going abroad sometime in their life has
become a most normal/natural longing of the youth. To many of them,
going abroad has more to do with following or joining friends and
relatives who have gone overseas or with their desire for travel and
adventure. The survey data indicates that the youth's plans or intentions
of going abroad have less to do with the country's economic and
political woes or with the youth's lack of patriotism and sense of
identity as Filipinos.
With regard their marriage and childbearing goals, the survey

findings reveal that following worldwide trends towards non-marriage
and having fewer children, today's young Filipinos are also not as
desirous of getting married and having children in the future. A
considerable 30 percent of students in the special high schools and as
many as 15 percent of those in the regular high schools do not wish to
get married or are undecided about marrying. Among those who plan
to get married (70% and 85% respectively of special and regular high
school students), most do not intend to marry until their late 20s or in
their 30s. The numbers of students who plan to have children however
111
(84% and 94% of students in special and regular high schools

respectively), are greater than those who plan to marry, suggesting
that some hope to have children without marrying. But today's young
Filipinos will not have many children. Students in the special high
schools want no more than 2 children, while those in the regular high
schools expect to have 2 to 3 children only. In the near future therefore,
the Philippines can expect a decreasing marriage rate, further delays
or postponement in the age of marriage, and continuing declines in
the national fertility/birth rate. ,
Finally, in the nearer term, the study findings reveal that regardles~""""'--)
of school, today's high school students desire to become independent
and functioning adults. By the time they turn 25 years old, most expect
to have finished schooling and found employment, and many too hope
to be living independently of their parents or to have bought/built
their own houses by then.
The youth's sense of self

Findings from various measures of the self which were administered
among the high school students show them tOI exhibit relatively well-
balanced and integrated personalities. When 'compared with results
obtained among the youth of other countries moreover, our findings
show the Filipino youth to have a greater sense of personal stability/
equanimity and resiliency. The results further indicate that between
students in the special high schools and those in the regular high
schools, the former, as might be expected, consistently emerge with
more positive or favorable ratings on all aspects/measures of the self
Hence, on the measure of self-esteem which subsumes a dimension

of self-liking (a feeling of worth that one is likable) and a dimension
of self-competence (a sense that one can accomplish what one wants
to do), the special high school students display an overall mean of
30.23 on a scale of 1 (very low regard of the self) to 40 (very high
positive regard). The overall mean for Filipino students in regular high
schools is a slightly lower 29.92 but which is noticeably higher than
t 12
Virginia A. Miralao
the 26.72 figure obtained among Korean American high school students
in New York City.
The locus if control aspect of the self also has two dimensions, the
internal (the perception that things happen as a result of one's actions
or are under one's control) and the external (the perception that events
are unrelated to one's actions or are beyond one's control). The scores
here also range from 0 to 40, with lower values indicating more favorable
results (a sense that things happen as a consequence of one's actions
vs. higher values which indicate a feeling that events are beyond one's
control). Scores below 15 are regarded normal while scores beyond 15
are problematic (15.S is associated with youths at risk; 15.6 with
delinquent youth; and 17.54 with emotionally disturbed youth). The
mean score of Filipino students in the regular high schools is again a
favorable 12.15, with those in the honors' sections displaying an even
more favorable 11.24. Students in the special high schools average a
still slightly better 10.62, and only 10 percent of them as against 20
percent in the regular high schools are "at risk" or display locus of
control scores of over 15.
The third measure is of self-construal which seeks to assess how

students see themselves as independent of or interdependent with
others. The self-construal scale yields two scores for each student
measuring his/her independent and interdependent self-construals.
Here, the findings show that both aspects of the self among Filipino
students, whether in special and regular high schools, are well developed
although students in the special high schools tend to have a more
dominant independent self-construal relative to their independent self-
construal. But, on the whole, the findings show that students regardless
of school are able to shift from an independent to an interdependent
mode (or vice versa) as circumstances may require. These findings are
also consistent with the known flexibility and adaptability of Filipinos
to changing conditions.
In sum, we note that there are inevitable changes that have occurred
and are occurring in the upbringing and experiences of today's youth
as a result of current day sociocultural and economic developments in
113
the country and in the world. Although the older generation may not
approve of some of the changes noted in the views, attitudes and
behavior of the youth (many in fact may be offended by these given the
tendency of adults to judge the youth by their own standards and
rules), it is well to remember that ongoing changes are part of-societal
adjustment processes to today's 21 st century realities which the
country's youth must now face, adapt to and grapple with.
In the process of growing up in a world of accelerating changes,

we also note that the youth are exposed to a variety of forces and
influences, some of which they might not be able to manage well or
deal with. We note for example, their constant exposure to a
consumerist environment and culture-shopping malls, various
entertainment and advertising on TV and other media and the new
ICTs. These influences can adversely affect the mental/intellectual and
socio-emotional development of the youth, particularly among those
with psychological weaknesses. The study findings on the youth's sense
of self reveal that between 10 percent to 20 percent of Filipino youth
are probably undergoing some emotional difficulties and may require
the attention and assistance of parents and families, teachers and
schools, and the broader community.
But by and large, we note that the youth share much of their elders'
and mainstream society's ideals and values. Today's youth for instance
value their relationships with parents and family members, they aspire
for an education and desire to finish schooling, they hope 'to land a job
in the not too distant future, earn their own keep, buy their own houses
and become independent of parents. In brief, following basically the
same paths as their parents and earlier generations, the youth see
themselves as effectively making the transition to adulthood. Thus,
even as we note many differences between adults and the youth, there
is more that connects and coheres the generations than divides them.
114
REFERENCES
Chang, Leslie
2003 "Children Like Bella Zhou are growing up quickly in middle-
class China." The Asian Wall Street Journal, 4 December.
Estuar, Maria Regina E.

2003 Let's talk about TXT! Understanding the texting culture of
the Filipino youth." In Philippine Journal of Psychology, vol. 36,
2, July-December.
Liwag, Emma, Liane Pena-Alampay and Alma de la Cruz

2003 "Research on adolescent development in the Philippines: A
review and evaluation of the past two decades." Philippine
Journal of Psychology, Vol. 35, No.2, July-December.
Lanuza, Gerardo
2003 "The state of Filipino youth and youth study: Current trends
and future directions." Unpublished paper commissioned by
the Philippine Social Science Council.
Magno, Christopher
2003 "Wakas ng SK? (Isang pag-aaral sa kaangkupan ng SK bilang
lunsaran ng pulitikal na partisipasyon ng kabataan sa Carnarin,
Caloocan City." Unpublished paper commissioned by the
Philippine Social Science Council.
McCann-Erickson Philippines
1993 "Portrait of the Filipino as a youth: The Metro Manila findings."
Highlights. October.
Natividad, Josefina (ed.)

2004 Filipino youth in transition: A survey of urban high school senior
students. Quezon City: Philippine Social Science Council and
UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines.
115
1
References
Natividad, Josefina
2004a "Life course expectations: Aspirations, goals, and anticipated
political behavior," Filipinoyouth in transition: A survey cf urban
highschool senior students. Quezon City: Philippine Social Science
Council and UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines.
Natividad, Josefina and Nestor Castr.o

2004 "Family, peer and school influences among urban senior high
school students." In Natividad, ed. Filipino youth in transition:
survey rif urban highschool senior students. Quezon City: Philippine
Social Science Council and UNESCO National Commission of
the Philippines.
Page, Joy
2004 "Patterns of mass media exposure and the role models of urban
senior high school students." In Natividad, ed. Filipinoyouth in I
•
transition: A survey rif urban high school senior students. Quezon
City: Philippine Social Science Council and UNESCO National
Commission of the Philippines.
Pena-Alampay, Liane
2003 "Self complexity, self-construal and negative emotion in Filipino
adolescents." Philippine Journal rif Psychology, Vol. 36, No.2,
July-December.
Philippine Star
2004 "Piney Kids: Big Spending Power, Text Survey," 23 March.
Puyat, Joseph
2004 "Some aspects of the self of selected high school students." In
Natividad, ed. Filipinoyouth in transition: A surveyof urban high
school senior students. Quezon City: Philippine Social Science
Council and UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines.
116
Virginia A. Miralao
Tan, Allen
1994 "Four meanings of fatherhood" in Philippine Sociological Review
Vol. 42, 1-4, January-December.
Ushiogi, Morikazu
2003 "Youth in transition in Japan." Paper presented at the 15th
Biennial General Conference of the Association of Asian Social
Science Research Council (Asian Youth inTransition), Canberra,
Australia, 10-15 November.
Ventura, Elizabeth
1994 "What are families for?" In Philippine Sociological Review, Vol.
42, 1-4, January-December.
Whang, Sang-Min
2003 "Youth culture in on-line game world: Emergence of cyber
lifestyles in Korean society." Paper presented at the 15th Biennial
General Conference of the Association of Asian Social Science
Research Council (Asian Youth in Transition), Canberra,
Australia, 10-15 November.
117
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Virginia A. Miralao is Executive Director of the Philippine Social

Science Council (PSSC). She holds a PhD. in Sociology from Cornell
University, specializing in Demography, Rural Sociology and Southeast
Asian Studies. She sits in the executive committees of various social
science institutions as the Institute of Philippine Culture, Statistical
Research and Training Center, Multi-Sectoral Advisory Board of the
Philippine National Volunteers Service Coordinating Agency and the
Philippines' Human Development Network. She likewise serves as
Commissioner of the Social and Human Sciences Committee of the
UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines. Over the last 30
years, she has written extensively on family planning and health,
agrarian reform and rural development, population studies, gender
issues, youth and the family, and education and curriculum reform.
PSSC GOVERNING COUNCil
2003-2004
RONALD D. HOLMES
CHAIRPERSON
(Political Science)
MARIA CYNTHIA ROSE B. BAUTISTA
VICE-CHAIRPERSON
(Sociology)
CARMELITA N. ERICTA
TREASURER
(Statistics)
MEMBERS
MA. LUISA L. FERNAN CONCHITA V. UMALI
(Anthropology) (Psychology)
MARY EBITHA Y. DY JOEL V. MANGAHAS
(Communication) (Public Administration)
NIMFA B. OGENA FINARDO G. CABILAO
(Demography) (Social Work)
GILBERT M. LLANTO ERNESTO R. GONZALES
(Economics) (Associate Members)
JEAN CHRISTOPHE GAILLARD JOSE c.i. MAGADIA, S.J.
(Geography) (Associate Members)
BERNARDITA R. CHURCHILL ALEX B. BRILLANTES, JR.
(History) Ex-officio
ISABEL P. MARTIN VIRGINIA A. MIRALAO
(linguistics) Secretary
SECRETARIAT
VIRGINIA A. MIRALAO
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Technical Support and Information Section
JOANNE B. AGBISIT, HEAD MA. LUISA L. FERNAN, IFP PHILIPPINES

MILAJ. TOLENTINO, BOOK CENTER/CSS MANAGER PROGRAM DIRECTOR
MA. RAMONA L. JIMENEZ, PROJECTS COORDINATOR CRISELDA F. DOBLE, IFP PHILIPPINES
ERNESTO S. ACOSTA, TECHNICAL ASSISTANT PROGRAM OFFICER
ELVIRA S. ANGELES, TECHNICAL ASSISTANT LAUREN NERISSE R. SAMAC, IFP PHILIPPINES
KAREN B. BARRIOS, TECHNICAL ASSISTANT PROGRAM ASSISTANT
ISAGANI A. LACHICA, TECHNICAL ASSISTANT
EDITH G. LABRADOR, UTILITY WORKER
Financial Management Section
DOLORES G. CRUZ, HEAD NOEMI A. OBRERO. ACCOUNTING CLERK

EMILY T. DE DIOS, ACCOUNTING ASSISTANT CECILIA M. OLEZA, ACCOUNTING CLERK
Center Management and Administrative Section
DIOSCORA M. BOLONG, HEAD PACHOLO V. BENOZA, BUILDING MAINTENANCE AID

IRMA DJ. GONZALES, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT RONALD G. LABRADOR, BUILDING MAINTENANCE AID
SUSAN A. EVANGELISTA, OFFICE CLERK WILFRED P. LUBGUBAN, JANITOR
MARY ANN B. BLAS, OFFICE CLERK MARTINO R. RALLOS, JANITOR
MARCIAL D. TALDO, DRIVER/MESSENGER CRESENCIA L. TAG HOY, JANITOR
ALEXANDER REBUA, BUILDING MAINTENANCE ASSISTANT CLARITA M. MARAYA, JANITOR
EDMUND L. CAIS, BUILDING MAINTENANCE ASSISTANT
UNESCO NATIONAL COMMISSION Of THE PHILIPPINES
2003-2004
Hon. Della Domingo A1~rt

Chairperson
Usa MacuJa-E11za.1de
Vice-Chairperson
Predosa S. Sollven
Secretary-General
SOCIAL AND HUMAN SCIENCES
Felice P. Sta. Marla

(Chair)
FIorentino H. Homedo
(Vice-Chair)
Victoria A. Bautista
Aurora J. De 0105
Jose David Lapuz
Virginia A. M1ralao
Jose C. Sison
CoMMUNlCA11ON
Florangel Rosario Braid (Chair)
EDUCATION
Erllnda C. Peftanco (Chair)
CuLlURE
Cannen D. Padilla (Chair)
SaENCE AND TEOtNOLOGf
Leonarda N. Camacho (Chair)

UNESCO NATIONAL COMMISSION Of THE PHILIPPINES
2003-2004
Hon. Della Domingo A1~rt

Chairperson
Usa MacuJa-E11za.1de
Vice-Chairperson
Predosa S. Sollven
Secretary-General
SOCIAL AND HUMAN SCIENCES
Felice P. Sta. Marla

(Chair)
FIorentino H. Homedo
(Vice-Chair)
Victoria A. Bautista
Aurora J. De 0105
Jose David Lapuz
Virginia A. M1ralao
Jose C. Sison
CoMMUNlCA11ON
Florangel Rosario Braid (Chair)
EDUCATION
Erllnda C. Peftanco (Chair)
CuLlURE
Cannen D. Padilla (Chair)
SaENCE AND TEOtNOLOGf
Leonarda N. Camacho (Chair)

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"

survey of senior students at the Philippine C

1. Youth - Philippines - Social aspects.

HQ799.P5 305.23509599 2004 P044000171

Cover design and Layout:

The UNACOM-SHSC and PSSC brought in a team of social scientists

The preliminary findings of the study :.vere presented before an

The two-volume publication is our own contribution to UNESCO's

FELICE P. STA. MARIA

BECAUSE the youth phase in a person's life is commonly seen as a

But beyond the interest in youth as a transitional phase is an interest

Often, interest in the youth as harbingers of change and in

In Japan likewise, a study of today's Japanese youth (Ushiogi 2003)

previously, causing continuing increases in youth unemployment rates

In still neighboring South Korea which attained industrialization

estimated to comprise less than a million population). Unlike standard

'The PSSC-UNACOM studies on the Filipino Youth

The first of these surveys was conducted among a total of 402

Philippines' College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Nestor Castro,

The present publication presents the findings of the second survey,

Both the PSSC-UNACOM surveys sought to look into the shaping

If overseas work and travel and a globalizing labor market has

Internet. Much more than their parents/elders moreover, today's young

Quite apart therefore from the generational shifts in sociocultural

This awareness of the unique socio-historical period surrounding

Both surveys of the PSSC-UNACOM employed the same data

to obtain information on several aspects of the lives of senior high

The PSSC-UNACOM surveys meant to analyze and use the

different are the views and behavior of contemporary Filipino youth

The survey of students in special high schools

To begin with, students are recruited into these high schools

Although admission to the OB Montessori High School in

Table 1 shows OB Montessori high school students to be

In contrast, the student-respondents from PSHS are dominantly

Table 1. Selected background characteristics of survey respondents by

lFAMilY UlFlE, SCHOOL AND

FAMILIES and schools provide the immediate social settings in which

students. (As mentioned earlier, the large majority of PSHS and OB

Most of the respondents' parents too are gainfully employed.

Consistent with the Philippines' rather conservative stance towards

Table 2. Respondents' family background characteristics by school

B. Are parents still

Table 2. Respondents' family background characteristics by school

High school graduate I

Montessori. Close to a fifth (or lout of 5) of the richer students there

Although the majority of students in all three schools have parents

Even higher proportions of the students (between 75% to 93%)

Table 3. Selected data on respondents' family life and relationships by school

A. % with both parents alive 74.2 93 83.3 83.3

Describing next their own personal relationships with their father

The stronger bond between mother and child notwithstanding, it

intrafamilial relationships show these to remain enduring and close-

The practice of sending children to preschool has become

t scientists (PSHS) and artists (PHSA) report spending on average

prominently as a favorite or least liked subject among OB Montessori

Among the mostly male students at PSHS on the other hand,

With a few exceptions, students in all three schools report being

Religious beliefs and practices

In contrast, all the students at OB Montessori are Catholic with

It is therefore not surprising that nearly all the students (97%)

Likewise, in terms of religious/spiritual practice, a 71 percent

The present study findings on the religious beliefs and practices

A. Age when respondent