Steps of Social Analysis

(a) Politics:

 How is power distributed?

 Who makes then decisions?
 Who participates?
 Who benefits from the decisions? Who suffers losses?
 What is the process and the manner of decision making?
 Which groups of the society (formal or informal) have political influence?
 Who owns and controls the power structures (legal institutions, the police and the
army)? What is the role of the constitution?
 What pattern of organization and authority is adopted?
 In what form can people participate in politics?
 Are there different political affiliations?
 Who fights for which ideology and which political goals?
 What is the relationship between the state and religions?

(b) Economy:

 How can production (organization and technology), trade, distribution and

consumption of goods and services be managed?
 What kind of economic system and policy is relied upon?
 What is the relation between capital and the labor?
 Who benefits from the economic structure and police? Who suffers losses?
 What are the roles of money, interests and the like?
 Who controls the natural resources? How is the wealth distributed?
 Who owns the production tools (land, capital, technology and education)? Is there
any concentration of economic power?
 What are the effects of production and consumption on the living and natural
environment?
 How influential is the international economy?
(c) Socio-culture:

 What are the values, traditions and symbols that are adopted and relied upon by
each group in the society?

In a society there is social stratification on whether who is the rich, middle class
and poor. Every year the gap seemed to increase. The values that we Filipinos have
are we seemed to stick with our family in times of hardship (2001, 2002, 2003,
etc...). The tradition that we can’t stop are the vices and illegal stuff/doing. The
Philippine has a high percentage of having illegal stuff like unlicensed gun, illegal
drugs, human trafficking, cigarette and alcoholic products. A lot of symbols that
are negative are shown by the media like the children that are working, illiterate
individual and the unemployment rate are increasing rapidly.

How are these represented in their daily language?

In our daily languages we talk about our country that as if it was like somehow it is
hell. If you will look all around Metro Manila you can see a lot of squatter area.
When we watch the daily news there is always a crime present. Most of the reason
of the crimes is poverty. In the Philippines crime and poverty are very common
discussion in our everyday life.

 What kind of influence do religions and ideologies have?

The Philippines is said to be the most predominantly Catholic Christian Religion in

Asia. The corrupt politicians that are ruling us are also Christian, then why are we
one of the most corrupt countries. Every time we go to church we see the priest
telling us to become good but then why are we not able to overcome these
challenges. Faith is one thing we believe for it brings us a hope that someday we
can able to get by all this problems.

 Which values, ideologies and myths determine politics and the economy?
 The values, ideologies and myths are being united in standing up against bad
governance, graft and corruption. We have become united when we overthrow the
two wrong Politicians that have caused our country badly. Our economy is based
on who is ruling us because they can create more jobs and help business that can
grow our GDP.

What are the basic attitudes and expectations found in the society?

The basic attitudes the found in the society are very bad. We don’t know who to
believe in, during the election the Politician always promise and when they won
they will just ignore it. We always expect the best for ourselves but not the whole.
People don’t know who to vote for. Politics have become dirty in will do anything
just to win the election even thought in illegal things like cheating and killing.

 What is the most important social relation in the society? In which social structure
and institution is the relation realized?

The most important social relation in society is our relation to the government and
the rest of our people. An alarming percentage of our population are poor and
illiterate. I think that we are all responsible on results for our own country. The
social structure has a wide gap of the rich and the poor. The government
institutions are not that very good in handling us like most of our police officer are
poor that lessen the crime.

 Is there any particular social problem?

For me the most particular social problem is ourselves not able to follow what God has
thought us. Corruption is a problem but for me the main problem is being good and
loving person to our own neighbour. Most of would have a negative view on the country
that can affect our fellow Filipino and other foreign person. Most of us want to escape the
poverty and get out the country as soon as possible for us to become rich. The Philippines
is a rich country but the people who lived in it have to realize that.
(8) Searching for similarities and differences among the relations (cross analysis) by comparing
the results of the vertical analysis in each column. For this purpose, the following questions can
be raised:

 What are the specific characteristics found in all aspects of social life?
 What finally establishes the whole society?
 Is there any dominant field or aspect?
 Is there tension or conflict between one field and another?
 Is there any indication of a conflict or a problem in the future?