Prelims

Half Title Page

RESILIENCE AND FAMILISM

Series Page

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY RESEARCH

Series Editor: Sampson Lee Blair

Previous Volumes:

Editorial Board

• Anja-Kristin Abendroth

  Bielefeld University, Germany

• Clarence M. Batan

  University of Santo Tomas, Philippines

• Eli Buchbinder

  University of Haifa, Israel

• Yu-Hua Chen

  National Taiwan University, Taiwan

• Patricia Neff Claster

  Edinboro University, USA

• Teresa M. Cooney

  University of Colorado-Denver, USA

• Rosalina Pisco Costa

  University of Évora, Portugal

• Alda Britto da Motta

  Federal University of Bahia, Brazil

• Olufemi Adeniyi Fawole

  University of Ilorin, Nigeria

• Veronica L. Gregorio

  National University of Singapore, Singapore

• Ana Josefina Cuevas Hernandez

  University of Colima, Mexico

• Man-Yee Kan

  University of Oxford, UK

• Timothy J. Madigan

  Mansfield University, USA

• Marion Müller

  University of Tuebingen, Germany

• Josip Obradović

  University of Zagreb, Croatia

• Christina L. Scott

  Whittier College, USA

• Ria Smit

  University of Johannesburg, South Africa

• Heidi Williams

  Virginia Tech, USA

Title Page

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY RESEARCH VOLUME 23

RESILIENCE AND FAMILISM: THE DYNAMIC NATURE OF FAMILIES IN THE PHILIPPINES

EDITED BY

VERONICA L. GREGORIO

National University of Singapore, Singapore

CLARENCE M. BATAN

University of Santo Tomas, Philippines

and

SAMPSON LEE BLAIR

The State University of New York, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2023

Editorial matter and selection © 2023 Veronica L. Gregorio, Clarence M. Batan and Sampson Lee Blair.

Published under exclusive licence.

Individual chapters © 2023 Emerald Publishing Limited.

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Contact: permissions@emeraldinsight.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80455-415-9 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80455-414-2 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80455-416-6 (Epub)

ISSN: 1530-3535 (Series)

Contents

List of Figures and Tables

FIGURES

TABLES

About the Contributors

Jeofrey B. Abalos is a postdoctoral fellow at the National University of Singapore Centre for Family and Population Research. His research interests include population aging and health, marriage and cohabitation, and divorce and separation.

Sunshine Therese S. Alcantara graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology, cum laude, in 2015 from the University of the Philippines Los Banños. She finished her master’s degree in Sociology with a minor in Development Management and Governance from the same university in 2019. Upon completing her master’s, she worked as a Research Associate at the Asian Institute of Management – Rizalino S. Navarro Policy Center for Competitiveness. Currently, she serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines Los Banños, teaching various sociology courses. Her research interests include family, youth, remote work, and qualitative research.

Clarence M. Batan is a Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology, and former Director of the Research Center for Culture, Education, and Social Issues (RCCESI) from 2015 to 2016 at the University of Santo Tomas (UST), Manila, Philippines. He was instrumental in reorganizing the RCCESI which led to the establishment of two multi-disciplinal-based centers namely, the Research Center for the Social Sciences and Education and the Research Center for Culture, Arts, and Humanities in 2017. He was President of the Philippine Sociological Society (2017–2018) and Vice President for Asia in the Research Committee on the Sociology of Youth (RC34) (2014–2018) of the International Sociological Association. His research interests are the sociology of childhood and youth, sociology of work and employment, sociology of Filipino Catholicism, Global South scholarship, and qualitative and mixed methods. He obtained his AB in Sociology from UST; MA in Sociology from the University of the Philippines Diliman. Having completed his graduate studies in North America (including a PhD in Sociology at Dalhousie University in Canada and an international research fellowship at Brown University in the USA) he has been challenged through his involvement in the Global South youth studies project to center the works of Southeast Asian theorists and Filipino academics in his sociological research. He actively serves as a policy consultant in the Department of Education, and the Commission on Higher Education of the Philippine Government. He continues his istambay (on standby) research on the phenomenon of “waithood and precarity” through the project, Pilipinong Kabataang Naghahabi ng Buhay (Filipino Youth Weaving Lives) and leads The National Catechetical Study: Pastoral Action Research and Intervention Project in partnership with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in the Philippines – Episcopal Commission on Catechesis and Catholic Education, which allows him to investigate more closely the present-day dynamics of the Sociology of Catholicism in the Philippines.

Samuel I. Cabbuag is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of the Philippines Diliman where he finished both his bachelor and master’s degrees. He is also a PhD student in Sociology at Hong Kong Baptist University. His research interests include digital sociology, cultural sociology, media and cultural studies, digital cultures, popular culture, fan studies, and influencer cultures. He has published in the Philippine Sociological Review, Asian Politics & Policy, Plaridel, Katipunan, and Southeast Asian Media Studies Journal. His recent co-authored publication is about pseudonymous influencers and media manipulation in the Philippines in understanding the complicities of the influencer industry with disinformation.

Jerome V. Cleofas is an Associate Professor and the Graduate Program Coordinator of the Department of Sociology and Behavioral Sciences (DSBS), De La Salle University, Manila (DLSU), Philippines. He is a registered nurse and health social scientist with a BS Nursing degree from Far Eastern University, graduating cum laude. He earned his MA Nursing major in Clinical Management degree at St. Paul University Manila, where he previously worked as a Senior Research Associate and University Planning Coordinator. He earned his PhD in Sociology, majoring in Family, Health, and Population Dynamics at DSBS-DLSU, where he is currently a full-time Faculty handling social research and health-related courses. Currently, he is a member of the Research Capability Building Committee of the Metro Manila Health and Development Consortium and a member of the Board of Directors of the Philippine Sociological Society. His research interests and publications are in the fields of health social sciences, youth and emerging adulthood, family studies, gender studies, mixed methodology, nursing studies, and social media.

Carla Krishan A. Cuadro is a Medical Speech-language Pathologist at the Memory Center and the Voice and Swallowing Center at St. Luke’s Medical Center in the Philippines. She is an adjunct Research Assistant Professor at the Institute of Aging, National Institutes of Health, University of the Philippines-Manila, where she conducts research on dementia care in the Philippines and aims to lend an anthropological eye to investigations on food (in)security among Filipino elderly, particularly in dysphagia management, dysphagia, and dementia, and the use of artificial feeding tubes. She collaborates with colleagues in the country and abroad on studies highlighting Filipino cultural considerations to the life participation approach in aphasia, the role of identity and personhood in the management of aphasia and dementia, and creating select, culturally appropriate testing material for local use. Her advocacy work sees her coordinate actively with the Dementia Society of the Philippines and the Philippine Association of Speech Pathologists. She is presently working on her dissertation investigating cultural concepts of death and dying in end-of-life conversations of older Filipinos with their families, leading toward a Doctorate in Philippine Studies, specializing in anthropology.

Tisha Isabelle M. de Vergara earned her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology (magna cum laude) from the University of Santo Tomas and is currently taking up a Master of Arts in Sociology at the University of the Philippines Diliman. Her research interests include the sociology of Catholicism and religion, social health, and environmental sociology.

Dennis Erasga is a Senior Faculty and Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Behavioral Sciences, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines. He was a Visiting Professor at the Mahidol University, Department of Health and Society, Salaya Campus, Thailand (2014); a Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow in Austria (Biography as Mirror of Society, 2012), and a Lecturer in the Quality Management in International Health Program of the University of Heidelberg, Department of Tropical Health and Public Hygiene, Heidelberg, Germany (2017). His range of publications included topics in grassroots sociology, social theory, ecoconstructionism, sociology of literature, science/fiction, futures studies, as well as on qualitative research methodology. His forthcoming book explores (i) the formative issues, (ii) the phenomenological stance, and (iii) methodological affordances of an emerging nativist sociology by Filipinos, the Pilipinong Sosyolohiya. His notion of Pakiramdaman conceives the idiosyncratic features of Filipino interactions as constitutive of a “mutual sense of kapwa.” His book – From Grain to Nature (2015) narrates an alternative genealogy of the environmental discourse in the Philippines through the biography of rice (palay). He is a Fellow of the university’s Social Development Research Center, where several of his major field research was implemented. He is a member and once served as Board Secretary of the Philippine Sociological Society. He is currently a member of the Canadian Sociological Association, the American Sociological Association, the International Sociological Association, and the European Sociological Association. He obtained his BA and MA (Sociology) and PhD (Environmental Science) from the University of the Philippines at Los Baños. He was born in the historic town of Calamba (Laguna) where he lives and plans to spend the rest of his professional life.

Rizason L. Go Tian-Ng started her practice in 1998 as a play therapist under her former mentor, Dr Maria Lourdes A. Carandang. Her practicum work with children had opened her eyes to children who acted out family stresses or personal struggles. She then worked on her graduate thesis on the criterion validation of a Tagasalo personality using the Panunukat ng Pagkataong Pilipino by Dr Annadaisy J. Carlota, a personality test that assesses 19 traits in terms of various Filipino personality trait constructs. Many years later, she taught Theories of Personality to undergraduate students and realized that the Tagasalo personality is a good illustration of Sikolohiyang Pilipino as an indigenous psychology within the Filipino family. She thought of engaging her students on a small project that gave way to her chapter in this volume. As mentioned earlier, she is a part-time Faculty member of the Departments of Psychology at Ateneo de Manila University and at the University of the Philippines Diliman. Her interests in teaching are Theories of Personality, Developmental Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, and Introduction to Counseling. She is also invited to speak on topics on Parenting and on Child Development. She is also a Clinical Psychologist who works with the adolescent and up to middle adulthood group. In many of her cases, clients manifest Tagasalo behavior and this has inspired her to pursue writing about Tagasalo to give rise to this unique Filipino coping behavior and personality development.

Veronica L. Gregorio received her PhD from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, National University of Singapore where she is currently a Teaching Assistant. Her research on rural transformation, gender and sexuality, and youth and family relations has been published in journals like the Asia Pacific Social Sciences Review, Current Sociology, Review of Women’s Studies, and Simulacra Jurnal Sosiologi. In 2021, she was named Sociologist of the Month by the International Sociological Association. In 2018, she was named by the Philippine Sociological Society as the first awardee of the Gelia Tagumpay Castillo Research in Community Engagement. In 2015, she received the 5th Lourdes Lontok-Cruz Award for Best Thesis in Women and Gender Studies.

Carlo S. Gutierrez obtained his PhD in Comparative Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore in 2022. His current research interests include area studies, social theory, institutionalism, rural studies, semiotic analysis, and demography. His PhD dissertation tackles the interactions among institutional actors resulting in current policies (realities) in communities (broadly speaking). His chapter in this volume focused on the role of the family as an institutional actor in the community. He has a multicultural academic background. He obtained academic degrees from different countries: PhD (Singapore), MA (Japan), and BA (Philippines). Furthermore, he has almost a decade of formal experience as a faculty member before his PhD pursuit – teaching sociology and international studies courses. In the future, he wishes to engage in academic careers sharpening his competence in social theory and critical analysis of institutions.

Joselito G. Gutierrez, PhD, is a Faculty member of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Institute of Religion (IR). He is a Research Associate of the UST – Center for Theology, Religious Studies, and Ethics and the Chair of the Certificate on Religious Education program of UST-IR, which gives free training for the catechists and religious educators of partner dioceses. He finished his PhD in Family Studies at Miriam College and obtained his MA in Theology, majoring in Pastoral Ministry from St. Vincent School of Theology, Adamson University. He is a Bachelor of Science in Management and Industrial Engineering graduate of Mapua Institute of Technology. He is also a Licensed Professional Teacher. Before joining UST, he was the Director of the Office of Student Affairs of Colegio De San Lorenzo. He is also a volunteer parish pastoral worker, marriage and family specialist, retreat facilitator, and resource person in various topics such as catechesis, parenting, leadership training, community organizing, and faith formation. His research interests include fatherhood, parenting, marriage, and family in the field of sociology, as well as Christology and Catholic social teaching in the field of theology.

Derrace Garfield McCallum is an Assistant Professor of English and Cultural Studies in the Department of Global Liberal Arts at Aichi University in Nagoya, Japan. His main research interests include migration, transnationalism, family life, race/ethnicity, multiculturalism, gender, care, and social policy. He is the author of several journal articles and book chapters that examine various aspects of social policy and the experiences of transnational families. He is also the co-editor of the recently published book entitled Children and Youths’ Migration in a Global Landscape. He is currently conducting research regarding the transition of Japan into a more multicultural society, primarily focusing on the experiences of relatively new migrant groups. His current research focus also includes the individual and collective experiences of members of transnational families.

Belen T. Medina obtained her BA (cum laude) and MA from the University of the Philippines Diliman where she majored in Sociology, after which she took postgraduate courses in sociology/anthropology and Southeast Asian Studies at Cornell University as a Fulbright/Smith-Mundt scholar. She trained in the Sociology of Development at Delhi University as a UNESCO Fellow and obtained a Certificate in Social Research for Developing Societies (With Merit) at the University of London. With a Ford-Rockefeller Grant, she visited the University of California at Los Angeles and Irvine, Wright State University, University of Cincinnati, and Miami University for enrichment studies in the sociology of the family. She also visited the Chulalongkorn and Thammasat Universities, Rangoon University, the University of Malaya, the University of Singapore, and the University of Indonesia on an Asia Foundation Grant for Southeast Asian Studies. She taught for 53 years at the Department of Sociology of the University of the Philippines Diliman where she served as Chairperson twice. She is the recognized expert on the Filipino family and the author of the only textbook on the sociology of the family in the country, The Filipino Family, published by the UP Press (1st ed. in 1991, 2nd ed. in 2001, and 3rd ed. in 2015). She has published many articles and books and has read papers at conferences in the Philippines and abroad on this topic. She is an elected member of the Phi Kappa Phi International Honor Society and the Pi Gamma Mu International Honor Society in the Social Sciences. She is a founding member and now a recognized Honorary Member of the Philippine Sociological Society. She is also an elected Regular Member and awarded as Member Emeritus of the National Research Council of the Philippines.

Maria Cecilia T. Medina holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology, cum laude (1983) and Master of Arts in Asian Studies (1991) from the University of the Philippines. She also has a second master’s degree in Religious Studies (2020) from the Maryhill School of Theology and a doctoral degree in Sociology from Xavier University (2004). She is an Associate Professor of Philippine and Asian Studies at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines, and previously served as Assistant to the Dean for Administration and Public Affairs, Coordinator of the Tri-College PhD Philippine Studies Program, and Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia. She is currently an Associate Editor of Social Science Diliman: A Philippine Journal of Society and Culture, the flagship journal for the social sciences at the University of the Philippines Diliman. She also served on the board of the Philippine Sociological Society and is an elected member of the International Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi and the International Honor Society of Pi Gamma Mu for excellence in the Social Sciences. She is also a member of the Research Committee on Sociology of Religion (RC 22) and the Research Committee on the Sociology of Disasters (RC 39) as a member of the International Sociological Association. Her publications and research interests are on Asian religions, cultures, and development, indigenous peoples and ethnic relations, disaster studies, and Southeast Asian studies. She is also a regular member of the Division of Social Sciences of the National Research Council of the Philippines.

Romulo Nieva Jr. is a health sociologist, policy researcher, and public health advocate. He is a faculty member at the UP-Manila College of Public Health. His broad teaching and research interests are the intersectionality of health, biopower and health, gender, and health systems, health and social policy, and prison health. He holds a doctoral degree from the University of Otago in New Zealand on an Otago doctoral research scholarship. He also obtained a master’s degree in Health Social Science from De La Salle University as a Ford Foundation scholar and a bachelor’s degree in Nursing (cum laude graduate) from Bukidnon State University. His PhD research explores the nexus between women’s imprisonment and reproductive well-being in the Philippines. In this qualitative study, he applied sociological and feminist criminological approaches to examine the lived experience of reproductive health among Filipino women in prison. Before pursuing a PhD, he worked as a Health Policy Research and Advocacy Officer for the Zuellig Family Foundation in the Philippines. He was chosen as the 2020–2021 Policy Fellow of the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), where he underwent policy development and advocacy training and worked with PRB for policy research and advocacy on the reproductive health of women in prison. He was a finalist in the 2022 International Sociological Association Worldwide Competition for Junior Sociologists engaged in social research for his academic paper discussing Filipino pregnant prisoners’ childbearing experience.

Janus Isaac V. Nolasco is University Researcher IV at the Center for Integrative and Development Studies (CIDS), University of the Philippines, where he is also Deputy Editor in Chief of the Philippine Journal of Public Policy, which is published by UP CIDS. He dabbles in popular culture, philosophy, political thought, Asian/Area Studies, premodern West Asian history, and literary criticism. His writings have appeared in Suvannabhumi: Multi-Disciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Asian Politics & Policy, Pelikula: A Journal of Philippine Cinema, New Mandala, Inquirer, and the Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia. He has a BA in Comparative Literature and an MA in Asian Studies (majoring on West Asia), both from the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Ryan Michael F. Oducado is a registered nurse, midwife, guidance counselor, and licensed professional teacher with a PhD in Education major in Psychology and Guidance. He is an Assistant Professor at the College of Nursing, West Visayas State University, Iloilo, Philippines. His research interests are in the fields of nursing education, public health, and mental health.

Enrique G. Oracion is concurrently Professor of Anthropology and Sociology and the Director for Research of Silliman University in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental. He earned his Bachelor (1980, cum laude) and Master of Arts (1985) degrees majoring in Sociology from Silliman University while he completed his PhD in Anthropology (2006) from the University of San Carlos in Cebu City. He was also a United Board Fellow assigned at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (2011) and Baylor University, Texas, USA (2012). He is a regular member of the National Research Council of the Philippines and a past Board Member of the Anthropological Association of the Philippines or the Ugnayang PangAghamtao and the Philippine Sociological Society. He was a zonal and qualifier recipient of the REPUBLICA (Research and Publication Award) of the Commission on Higher Education in 2005 and 2016, respectively. He is the Community Specialist of the Silliman University South Negros BFAR-USAID Fish Right Program (2018–2023). Specifically, he coordinated the development of the Right Fishing Modules to augment science lessons in basic education, the Fish Tiangge initiative that introduces livelihood to women through fish consolidation and fish processing, and the rapid fish stock assessment tool based on fishers’ perception. His disciplinal interest is environmental anthropology and he covers various issues and dimensions related to human–environment interaction. Related to his contribution to this book, he had published about child labor in fishing and intergenerational support to marine conservation. His other publications include Negrito adaptation, gender and women issues, education and service-learning, ecotourism and marine protected area management, cultural heritage management, aging and health, and culture of disaster and resiliency.

A. M. Leal Rodriguez is a PhD candidate currently affiliated with the University of Auckland as a Faculty of Arts doctoral scholar. A product of the Department of Sociology and the School of Critical Studies in Education, her PhD project focuses on masculinities in the global south, gender, and higher education, or universities (University of Auckland Doctoral Research Fund). Working as a feminist activist with almost 10 years of experience in the development and education sector led her to decolonial and post-structuralist theory. She has presented her work to numerous organizations across the globe (the New Zealand Association for Research in Education Conference, the Sociological Association of Aotearoa New Zealand, the Contacts and Continuities: 500 Years of Iberian-Asian Relations Conference, the American Education Research Association, and the Women’s and Gender Studies Association of the Philippines). The textbook she co-authored, Gender and Society: The Whys of Women, Their Oppressions, and Paths to Liberation, is being used by higher education institutions for their curriculum on gender studies. She has also worked on projects focusing on ethnicity and youth achievement in education (Performance-Based Research Fund, Tertiary Education Union New Zealand) and exploring political gift-giving in the context of (Marsden Fund, Royal Society of New Zealand). She now resides in Aotearoa New Zealand where she burns rubber through cycling and touches rocks through climbing, to chase inspiration.

Tricia Olea Santos is an adjunct Professor at Baylor University, Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Her primary area of expertise is in healthy aging and adult cognitive-linguistic disorders. Over the past decade, she has been involved in research that explores discourse in healthy aging, dementia, and aphasia, cultural differences in illness narratives, renegotiating identity in aphasia, caregiving in dementia, health literacy in minority populations and stroke patients, and life participation after stroke. In addition to teaching at the undergraduate, graduate, and clinical levels, she also provides professional continuing education webinars for speech-language pathologists. She maintains a clinical caseload in acute care and inpatient rehabilitation hospital settings involving the assessment and intervention of adult neurogenic disorders. She has co-authored journal articles and a book chapter on topics pertinent to discourse in healthy aging, aphasia, and dementia. She has published her works in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, such as Aphasiology, Folia et Phoniatrica, Topics in Stroke Rehabilitation, Journal of Aging and Social Change, and International Journal of Speech-language Pathology. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally at speech-language pathology and gerontology conventions.

Hanna K. Ulatowska is Professor Emerita at the University of Texas at Dallas, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Callier Center for Communication Disorders. Her primary area of research is neurolinguistics, and more specifically, investigations of discourse in aphasia, dementia, and advanced aging. The focus of her research is the characterization of the communicative competence of these populations and how it relates to preservations and impairments of both linguistic and cognitive functioning. Another research focus deals with the effects of different language types on the disruption of language in aphasia which stems from my investigations of aphasia in Polish. In the past, she has investigated discourse in African American, Hispanic-American, and Filipino American elderly. She has also been involved in studying the representation of camp experiences in narratives told by elderly camp survivors in Poland. Her recent research has involved how communication in testimonies from American World War II veterans can be used in collective memory by examining autobiographical memory, emotional memory, and life review of the veterans in evaluations of war experiences. She is presently studying patterns of recovery from aphasia in writers from different cultures.

Jofel D. Umandap was a marketing professional, with a Management undergraduate degree from Ateneo de Manila University and a post-graduate degree in Commerce from Macquarie University, before deciding to pursue a career as a psychologist. She completed her MA in Psychology from the Ateneo de Manila University and is currently pursuing her PhD in Clinical Psychology, also at the same university. Her areas of interest are marriage and family therapy, personal growth, mindfulness, and self-compassion. She is also involved in developing programs and modules, as well as in facilitating workshops for psychoeducation and brief intervention programs. She is currently a licensed psychologist practicing therapy and training at the Ateneo Bulatao Center for Psychological Services, the research and training arm of the Psychology Department, at UGAT Foundation, an organization with psycho-spiritual interventions for Filipino grassroots families, and at the Life Science Center for Health and Wellness. She is also a part-time Lecturer at the Department of Psychology at Ateneo de Manila University, teaching Abnormal Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and a core formation course, Understanding the Self.

Foreword

The evolving nature of families across the world is continuously subjected to social changes, cultural shifts, and global flows. In our contemporary world, the dynamics and confluence of factors shaping and influencing “families” remain an intriguing facet of both scholarship and policies. This sociological fascination roots in the central interest of/in knowledge and/or the lack of it in understanding the nature, contours, and textures of families, especially in societies that are historically colonized and persistently marred by problematic socio-political and economical tensions such as the Philippines.

The Philippines is a unique country, and its distinct history and culture provide an intriguing context for families. Comprising over 7,000 islands, the Philippines has been visited by numerous groups in its prehistoric times, while over the past five centuries, Spanish colonization influenced the course of Filipino culture, particularly regarding religion. Even after the formal establishment of the Republic of the Philippines in 1946, American cultural influence persisted. Its long history, coupled with its peculiar population distribution across thousands of islands, has resulted in a culture which is decidedly familistic. Filipino families maintain perhaps the strongest family bonds of any culture and have shown a unique ability to persevere, even when faced with the direst of circumstances.

This multidisciplinary volume of CPFR brings into focus a comprehensive collection of the dynamic nature of families in the Philippines. Generally, we ask: Why do Filipino families maintain perhaps the strongest family bonds of any culture? How has this shown a unique ability to persevere, even when faced with the direst of circumstances?