 Asgumain mo pa nipo, wag kang sasubo Di gianam mo sasang si gaw nang masak Ang pag-asahan Baga nang araw po sa inyong lahat I am Dennis Kailala from the Department of Political Science In this presentation, I will be focusing on the concept of citizen or mawamayan and why it is important for the National Service Training Program This is the fifth topic of the TATAP UPD NSTP Common Module The learning objectives of this topic are the following First is to understand the concepts of nation, nationalism, nation-building and citizenship Second, to recognize the roles of an individual as a citizen and three, to know the importance of cultural sensitivity In order to meet these objectives, firstly, there are three foundational concepts that I will discuss namely, the nation, culture and citizen Secondly, we will be discussing some issues regarding these concepts Thirdly, I will attempt to explain why learning these concepts is important for NSTP Lastly, I will also be recommending some activities that you could do in order to deepen your understanding of these foundational concepts In a survey conducted by Paul's Asia Survey in 2018 it found out that most Filipinos know little or have little knowledge of the 1987 Philippine Constitution 74% of the respondents do not know or have little knowledge of the Constitution There are only 5% of the respondents who know a great deal of the Constitution There are probably lawyers, judges, justices, maybe even students of the law or political science I would not include our present crop of politicians to that 5% Maybe our politicians will be part of the 21% of the respondents who have sufficient knowledge of the Constitution I do hope that it is not sufficient enough to question and then sidestep the Constitution If I am correct about those people who know about the Constitution we may have a people who would think that the Constitution is only for those who are in business of law I really do not think this is the case As long as you are a citizen of this country, you should have some knowledge of the Constitution It is your duty to do so In all economic classes according to the survey majority have little or no knowledge of the basic law of the land 54% the ABC classes, 70% the D class, and 83% the E class The poorer you are, the less likely you would have knowledge of the Constitution What explains this? Knowledge of the Constitution is free, but maybe the instruction so that you would have some knowledge of the Constitution is not This is something that we have to think about Have you yourself read the Constitution? If you were at the false Asia survey question Paano ninyo isa sa larawa ng inyong kaalaman sa Constitution ng 1987 ng Pilipinas How would you answer this question? A great deal of knowledge? A great deal but sufficient? A little knowledge? Or almost none or no knowledge at all? As a political scientist, this is disheartening for me What have you done when it comes to informing our citizens about the 1987 Constitution? If people do not know much about the Constitution If people do not know about how it works Then it will be the minority who will dominate the discussions about politics If people have little knowledge of the Constitution How would they be able to protect themselves and others from threats against human rights? What is worse is that in the same year that the survey results were released Another survey was revealed that Pilipinos Are the third most ignorant when it comes to issues But among the most confident when it comes to answering these questions It seems that 2018 is not the year to be confident when it comes to political knowledge Please remember these As we now continue to discuss the different foundational concepts for the NSTP topic What is nation? O ano ba ang bayan? According to Benedict Anderson, a nation is an imagined community that is limited and sovereign This definition has four elements It is imagined, it is a community, it is limited, and it is sovereign I will start with discussing the term sovereign According to Benedict Anderson, the concept of nation was a product of the Enlightenment period and of revolution It attacked the idea of the divine rights of kings or monarchs to rule And have dreamed to replace it with a people that could govern themselves Independent of other groups of people A nation ultimately needs to be organized into a state with its own government Able to make possessions for its own people That's what makes a nation sovereign The nation is also limited because of its membership It could not include everyone, it could not include the whole of humanity Think of an Indian nation for example or a Chinese nation with more than a billion members Even those nations have limits and could not dream of including everyone in the planet And in those nations, we also see differences within the group As a concept, fortunately, there will be others who are not part of the group The nation is also a community It is a group of people that feels in the words of Anderson A deep horizontal comradeship That allows them to not only interact with one another But also to sacrifice for the sake of the community Even sacrifice in their life The fourth element is that the nation is also imagined On the one hand, being an imagined entity means that it is invented or fabricated And therefore it is thought that it is not true However, Anderson clarifies that imagined here should be understood as something that is created He is arguing that people create these limited and sovereign communities Based on a set criteria Moreover, it is an imagined community because while you feel the comradeship And that you know you are part of a particular community It may be impossible to know each and every member of the nation May be an apt example would be the feeling of meeting someone in a foreign country Who speaks the same language and is familiar with the society that you are part of We have not met this person at all before But there is a warm feeling which is based largely on an imagined community The nation is that imagined community There are some related concepts that need to be defined as well Nationalism, for example, is an ideology that is based on the belief That the nation is the central principle of political organization If you are going to be building a state, that political organization The most important thing to consider is the nation, the imagined community In making decisions for that state If the nation's interest is the main basis Then you would have nationalist decision makers If in your decision to buy a local product Your main basis is to help the local economy And keep our resources within our boundaries To benefit your fellow national members Then probably you are also a nationalist Part of Keywood's definition of nationalism Is related to Anderson's definition of nation For one, nationalism's assumption that humankind Is naturally divided into distinct nations Basically refers to the element of limitedness of Anderson's definition Also, Anderson's discussion of the nation's element of being sovereign Is related to Keywood's discussion of nationalism's assumption That the nation is appropriate and legitimate unit of political rule Nation building is another concept that we have to discuss It is a concept that calls for people to contribute to the strengthening of the nation It may be through improving health, education, infrastructure Things that can primarily be done by government It may be through putting up strong businesses by the private sector That will ultimately benefit that country It may be through this course, the National Service Training Program When you craft projects that will support or benefit the community Our contributions in imagining and reimagining our community Are also important contributions to nation building In a textbook that my colleagues in the Department of Political Science wrote We adopted the definition of culture as a set of beliefs, ideas, values Practices, knowledge, history, and shared experiences Attitudes and also material objects and possessions Accumulated over time and shared by the members of the society Or of the nation of this imagined community Culture helps cement the imagined community The practices that we share as a people binds us together There are some issues in culture that we need to be aware of One is the issue of ethnocentrism We might have the idea that our culture is the best And see other cultures as inferior Centnocentrism is another concept Which is basically the belief that one's culture is inferior compared to others A possible implication of this is to see everything fine as better Compared to one's own culture It is important for us to be sensitive with the differences in culture We also have to think about being more respectful Of different cultures as well Now, let us discuss some issues regarding the concepts of nation and even culture The Philippines is a young nation While it has officially claimed the whole of Nundanao and the islands near it The morals have for long contested that they are Filipinos With the signing of the Bangsa Moro Autonomous Region in Muslim Nundanao Law It is hoped that we could re-imagine a different Philippine nation Again, there is a question of what is the Philippine nation Can you identify elements of the Philippine nation? What makes us distinctly Filipino? Is it the food? What part of our culture makes us distinctly Filipino? The difficulty in identifying these elements May be because of the presence of many nations Or many imagined communities within the Philippines My friends, for example, are from Ilocos And I grew up saying words that may Ilocanos The way Ilocanos would pronounce them including the rolling Rs As I have said earlier The Morals in Nundanao claimed a distinct nation Which for the most part is defined by religion And also because of a distinct history We can also look at the different indigenous peoples' groups in the Philippines And the different ethnolinguistic groups in the Philippines These groups have imagined themselves as communities Distinct of other communities This is not to say, however, that there is no Filipino or Philippine nation It is possible that we are still in the process of re-imagining And imagining it For me, this is very exciting And there is so much to learn from this as NSTP students As NSTP students And a lot of opportunities to build this nation Also, if we are still in the process of imagining the Philippine nation It is possible that our country is not a nation state That is, a state comprised of only one nation But rather, the Philippines can be aptly described as Nation's state It may be more appropriate for us to think of our country As having multiple nations When we consider this concept of nation state We could adjust the way we make decisions Decision-making in government should be more inclusive If it is knowledgeable of the presence of nations And the differences among nations Related to the discussion of the presence of different nations We should also probably look at the issue of Philippine culture Like the nation that we are still building Philippine culture may also be in the process Of making itself distinct from other cultures Even Filipino as a language continues to evolve Filipino, Filipino, Philippinex, Philippinex While many Filipino understand it It may not necessarily be the first language Of many Filipinas Students in the Philippine universities Find learning a foreign language That is a language originating outside There are so many language in the Philippines That could be learned Learning a foreign language has utility But I think that learning other Philippine languages Contribute to nation building As NSDP students It is important for us to be aware Of the culture of communities that we will be engaging Be culturally sensitive Let me give you an example A group of students from CSSP NSDP Thought of preparing food for a particular community They learned that in that community There is a cultural group A Philippine cultural group that has food restrictions They failed to take this into account And some members of the Filipino community Were not able to eat Good intentions are definitely welcome However, it is important that we are well aware Of cultural differences There are different issues about nation and culture However, these are some of the important ones For an NSDP student We now proceed to another concept Who is a citizen? What is a citizen? A citizen is someone with legal rights in a state In a democratic state, a citizen would have rights That need to be protected I like the definition of Aristotle of a citizen He argued that while a legal standing At state is important A more important element of the definition Is the citizen's participation In the political life of the state We go back to the false Asia survey And think about Aristotle's definition How could one participate In the political life of the state If the person does not even know How the state works The person does not know about the constitution The constitution that the country should tell us Of how ideally the state should function This is the reason why I started The false Asia survey in this presentation It has a lot of implications from you As citizens for us As citizens and for us as a nation It is important that we have the political knowledge To meaningfully participate in the affairs of the state Otherwise, we may end up participating In state rituals And worse, we get manipulated by those who know And by those who don't know And play with our ignorance Seward also has an interesting take On citizenship He argued that citizens are not born They are made He's arguing that the type of democracy as a state Would determine what kind of citizens The country would have If the country follows the example The thin model or the liberal democratic model Citizens will be those in legal and physical borders This is the basic definition of the state That we discussed earlier For Seward, citizenship is defined As a basic member of the nation state That carries rights to freedom, redress And political participation This rights have often been won Through bloody struggle by members of groups Excluded partially or fully from citizenship status While most of us take it for granted Based on the false Asia survey The rights that we have right now The rights that we do not know Have been products of people who fought To have those rights People have died to have those rights To honor their memories Because at least read the Bill of Rights In the 1987 Philippine Constitution To a certain extent We meet this thin model of citizen In article 4, section 1 of the Constitution The Filipino citizen Ang malmayan is defined So a sign for being born in the Philippines And having Filipino parents We can be Filipinos through a naturalization process This explains why we have athletes Playing as Filipinos in international competitions Who do not have typical Filipino physical features For Seward, there's also a second type of citizen And this is a citizen from a deliberative democracy model Citizens are expected to talk, dialogue Reason together Reflecting and making decisions together This is more than a thin model of citizen Citizens in a deliberative democracy Is expected to participate More much like the definition of Aristotle And is typical of the citizens of some Greek city states In the Philippines We also follow a similar model I hope that you have heard of the Barangay Assemblies I also hope that you have participated in one In Barangay Assemblies Barangay officials are supposed to present to the community The things that they have done to the budget It is also an opportunity for the people To give their feedback and suggestions To the Barangay officials In that assembly, we can talk, dialogue, reason Reflect and make decisions together There are opportunities in the Philippine politics To do just that A different democracy's citizen Is someone who acknowledges Different perspectives, different groups And there are plurality of spheres In this model, a citizen is not expected To agree with the community When it comes to decision making They accept the differences And probably make decisions Based on some sort of majority rule What is interesting about this model Is that citizens are not only expected To be active in the political sphere But also in other social spheres Like the school, the church, and the like Lastly, there is a cosmopolitan citizen This citizen challenges Anderson's idea That nations are limited There's no limit Everyone can be part of a community Beyond the nation We could imagine regional or global community For me, this is important for issues That cannot be solved within the nation alone How do you solve climate change, for example Or this pandemic National efforts would have an effect But in order to solve this A global effort is needed And this model, a citizen Sees that the world is his, his, or her community So it argues that different conceptions Of democracy make different types of citizens For you, what do you think Is the kind of citizen needed By our buy-in, by our nation? These are my recommendations Number one, be informed citizens It is appalling that 74% of Filipinas Have little knowledge Or no knowledge of the Constitution You do not have to memorize the Constitution I'm not asking you to memorize the Constitution I haven't memorized the Constitution Leave that to those who make the law of their business As citizens, I think it is important For you to know at least the spirit Of the Constitution For example, we are all assumed To become, to be political animals You cannot argue that you are not political You are affected by government policies Whether you know it or not Whether you like it or not In the World's Value Survey conducted in 2000 They found that 60% of the respondents Did not find politics important Are you part of the 60%? This may be the reason Why people do not participate Or even want to know about it It is important to know politics Be politically literate It is important to know that the Philippines Is ruled by just a few families Do they decide for the benefit of the people Or just for the benefit of their family and friends More importantly If the next mayor, governor, president Will be replaced by a family member Do you think they can be made accountable? You are very powerful The Constitution has empowered you And we also empower the Constitution Read the preamble of the 1987 Philippine Constitution And it tells you that you are the one Who promulgated the basic law of the land Use your power to implement Fully the spirit of the Constitution Another principle Basic principle about Philippine politics Is that the government is there To serve the people Make the people who work in government Accountable to the people Who have access to the money of the people And their actions should benefit the nation And not selfish interests My second recommendation Is for you to become active citizens There's this book on the 12 little things That you could do to help the country You can use it as guide But you can go beyond it But more importantly, I guess that While you are students of NSDP Make most out of it By crafting the best projects that you could think of For our community For our buy-in For donation As an activity Will you please answer this question What for you Is an ideal Philippines After coming up with a list Of an ideal Philippines You can discuss your answers With someone taking the same mojo And try to consolidate your answers One or three people would be ideal Like, you know A deliberative democracy style After consolidating your idea Of an ideal Philippine nation You can identify things Simple things Things that you can do every day That you can help That you can do And be able to inspire others To achieve your ideal Philippines You don't have to make Things that are so complex Or things that are difficult to do You can start with simple things In the book, they say that Just follow the law Don't cross the street On a red light, for example Those are simple things That I think can help our nation And this module and the NSDP As a whole does not aim To make you ideal citizens After only just one year Of this program The aim I think is for you to have a taste Of how it is to engage With the different members of your nation Anderson said that the nation Is imagined because we do not know All its members NSDP allows you to engage The other members of our nation And build with your classmates And with them a nation that we want It would be much better If you do this as well in form Citizens and culturally Sensitive citizens as well It is not an easy process But we do hope that NSDP Could start the process in you If you have any questions Or if you want to partner In building our nation To aid more politically literate citizens Please do not hesitate to contact me It will be, my email address Will be shown in this presentation Thank you very much Bye