REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES

PROVINCE OF NORTH COTABATO

MUNICIPALITY OF MAKILALA
MAKILALA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
CONCEPCION, MAKILALA, COTABATO

Program: Bachelor of Public Administration

Course
PA 223 – POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION
Number/Title:
Credit: 3 Week #: 1 – 4
Instructor: Mr. John Martin P. Alvero

Contact Email: [email protected]

Information: Messenger: JOHN MARTIN P. ALVERO

General instruction: Read the content of the module carefully. This will help you
understand the topic for each module and will greatly help you answer the
exercises or activities at the end of each module. Each module is assigned within
a specific time period. You are expected to finish the module within the period
allotted. Should you have any queries and clarification regarding the module,
use the contact information available above. Kindly reach the instructor during
working hours from Monday to Friday. Do not forget to be courteous when
addressing your questions.

MODULE I. INTRODUCTION TO POLITICS

Overview:
It is important to understand the concepts of political behavior and political
culture together with the concepts of attitude. This chapter will help better put a
clear distinction between these concepts and what are their only overlaps. By
understanding clearly political behavior and culture, it will shed a clearer light on
why certain phenomena happens in a certain countries.

I. LEARNING OUTCOMES:
At the end of this Chapter, you are expected to:
1. define and differentiate political behavior from economic and social
behavior;
2. examine and define political culture; and
3. determine how political behavior and culture shape personal attitude;
and
4. differentiate different types of leadership.

PRE-TEST.

Give an example of a political action.

________________________________________________________________________

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 II. TOPICS
Lesson 1: Political Behavior
Subtopic 1: Political Participation
Lesson 2: Political Culture
Subtopic 1: Political Culture and Political Behavior
Subtopic 2: Attitudes and Values

III. REFERENCES

 Munroe, Trevor (2002), “An Introduction to Politics: Lectures for First-year Students”, Third
Edition. Stephenson’s Litho Press.

IV. COURSE CONTENT

TOPIC I. POLITICAL BEHAVIOR

This is the beginning of the end. For this semester, I have decided to thoroughly
discuss POLITICS and ADMINISTRATION. This includes the similarities and differences
of the two concepts. (Note: Upon reading this, kindly imagine a deep sexy voice.
Like the voice of Bradly Cooper or Ashton Kutcher. If you don’t know who they
are then you are missing half of your life. Or in any case, Google them. If imagining
is difficult for you, you can always put my image in your head. Continuing. . .)
Since this is the first of my five series of modules, I will take this time to welcome
everyone to our class. If you have forgotten who I am, then you must have slipped
and bumped your head really hard to forget how amazing I am. I am the
almighty, at least in this class, Mr. John Martin Alvero. You might be wondering
why I am writing so much stuff and not directly leading to the topic of this module.
This is to see who really among you are reading. Of course, there might be
instances that you will just share this information to your classmates and spare their
time reading this awesome message of mine. Anyway, to put some worth to the
effort of reading this, I will give ten points if you include in the submission of this
module the phrase “I am politics”. Put it at the upper right corner of your paper.
Happy? Okay, let us start our discussion. . .

Political behavior may be defined as any action regarding authority in general

and government in particular. This authority includes church, school, and any
others but in particular governmental authority. An obvious example of an act of
political behavior is the act of voting. In casting your vote you are, in a
democracy, relating to government by voting for whom you feel should form the
government. In this act of political behavior, you also decide who you do not
want to form the government. To sharpen our understanding it is necessary to
distinguish political behavior from two other types of behavior, economic
behavior and social behavior.

Economic behavior may be defined as any action relating to the marketplace:

any act of production, consumption, or distribution – the producing, buying, or
selling of goods and of services. When you go into the bookshop and purchase
the Introduction to Politics text, you are engaging in an act of economic
behavior. Any action relating to the market is appropriately called economic

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behavior. Social behavior is more general. Social behavior relates to interaction –
interrelationships not involving economic transactions or authority of any kind,
governmental or otherwise. For example, after you have read this module you
might post on Facebook, “Mr. Alvero is so cool” and engage into conversations
with other people or for the hell of it you smack you sibling in the head just to
annoy him or her, what takes place there is social behavior. Social behavior is a
very important part of life, because it is how we deal with one another. If we have
an argument or a difference of opinion, how do we deal with that difference of
opinion? Do we curse, exchange violent words or deeds, or do we seek to come
to some understanding of each other’s views? Social behavior is very crucial to
setting the tone of life around us.

Having made these distinctions, we need to recognize that there are relationships
among these categories of behavior. So, while we understand that they are
separate we must also understand that they are connected. There is a
connection between political behavior and economic behavior. For example,
many people may choose not to vote – an act of political behavior. They may
choose not to vote because of their particular economic situation – whether they
voted, or their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before them voted,
that political behavior sometimes has not changed their economic situation.
Hence, they have a disinclination to vote. Therefore, the economic condition
feeds back into making them not vote. Therefore, we should understand that
political behavior and economic behavior are connected. The opposite example
is of those who benefit from contracts to build a sidewalk or to clear a patch of
ground, or help to build a school, engaging in an economic activity and by virtue
of benefiting from that economic activity may also engage in political behavior.

If we are economically distressed and frustrated, unable to find work, unable to

purchase food, we are not likely in our social interactions with others to be gentle
or understanding. Hence, at times we tend to be aggressive, as a result of
frustration with our inability to meet basic needs. We see that social behavior is
often connected to economic circumstances. On one radio talk show it was
acknowledged that, while Jamaica’s suicide rate is increasing, it is also a fact that
the rate is one of the lowest in the world, much lower than that of the United States
and Trinidad. This increase is being attributed to economic frustrations and
personal loss of various kinds. This example is given in order to dramatize the link
between social behaviors, in that case, a very personal form of social behavior in
which someone takes his or her own life, and the economic dimension of the
circumstances in which we find ourselves.

A. POLITICAL PARTICIPATION.
A major form of political behavior is political participation. Political participation is
defined as the extent to which citizens use their rights, such as the right to protest,
the right of free speech, the right to vote, to influence or to get involved in political
activity. Political participation can be subdivided into:

1. Conventional political participation, which takes place within the norms

and traditions of a particular country; therefore, we say it is normal,
conventional, and customary. By and large it is the less aggressive of the
two. The best example is the act of voting. Other forms of conventional
political participation include attending a political meeting, being a
member of a political group or a political party.

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 2. Unconventional political participation tends to move outside the norm,
move outside the traditional, and be more aggressive, more assertive,
and may even break the law. It is also more radical. The best examples
are protests and demonstrations that are confrontational rather than
peaceful.

Voting (conventional) and roadblocks (unconventional) are forms of political

participation because in each case the citizen is using a right to act: in one case
the right to vote and in another case the right to assembly and the right to march.

TOPIC 2. POLITICAL CULTURE

Political culture means the attitudes, feelings, ideas, and values that people have
about politics, government, and their own role, and more generally about
authority in all its various forms. When we put it that way, we immediately see that
every country has a political culture. I suppose too that there is no country without
a music culture – people having a different attitude towards a certain type of
music and a certain attitude towards music they do not like. Similarly, political
culture is a universal phenomenon and it varies from one country to another; thus,
the political culture in the United States is different in some ways from the political
culture in the Philippines because the attitudes, feelings, and values of those
people towards politics and towards their own roles is different from ours. The
attitude of US citizens toward politics may be different from that of the British or
the French. Therefore, you cannot understand the politics of any country without
looking at the political culture of the people.

It is important to clarify this at the very beginning because otherwise we may get
confused. We will say things like England has the same form of government as
Jamaica – they have the same governmental structure; they have a prime
minister, both have a prime minister; both have a parliament. In that sense the
governmental structure is very similar, if not identical. But if we were to move from
that to say that because the governmental structures are very similar, even
identical, the politics are very similar, we would be making a serious mistake
because between the structures and the politics is the culture – how people feel.
How an English person feels about his or her political party, prime minister,
parliament, or elections may be very different from how the Jamaican feels about
these, even though they are very much the same type in the two countries.

Similarly, it is very important to understand that political cultures change in the

same country over different periods. The political culture in one country is different
from that in another country, although there may be common factors. In addition,
the political culture in Philippines in 2012 may be very different in many respects
from the political culture today.

REFLECTIVE WRITING.
Compare the changes that you observed in the Philippines the last 10 years. Do
you notice changes? If yes, what are those? Write your answer on a separate
sheet. Limit your answer to 150 words.

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A. POLITICAL CULTURE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOUR
Political behavior refers to action or inaction – what you do or do not do in relation
to politics and government. Political culture, in contrast, refers to the dimension of
ideas and beliefs, which are in your head and are not easy to see. Political
behavior is easy to track. Political culture, because it refers to a belief system, to
attitudes and feelings, is a little more difficult and complex.

Again, we see that, while these two concepts are different, they are also related.
We are all aware of the maxim, “by their deeds we shall know them”; perhaps
one could say, “by their political behavior (their deeds), we can know their
political culture (their beliefs)”. This would be too simple, however, because we
may also say that very often we behave in ways that are not consistent with our
beliefs. Very often, we do things that we justify as being caused by circumstances
rather than our convictions. For example, if I said that Filipinos are undisciplined, it
could mean that Filipinos do not behave in a disciplined way – referring to the
dimension of behavior. It could also mean that Jamaicans do not value discipline
at all. Therefore, if they are put in a framework that requires discipline they will
rebel.

Until today there is still a “siksikan” practice in the Philippines, if we were to

conclude on the character of the people from their approach to getting onto
the buses, jeeps, and other transportation means, you would say they were a
bunch of hooligans who did not believe in order and rejected any kind of
discipline. Were this true, however, we would have had a rebellion against a more
disciplined approach when the minibus system changes. Circumstances make us
behave in a particular way, which may not be consistent with our beliefs. While
behavior, and political behavior in particular, is related to beliefs, they are not the
same, because behavior may arise out of circumstances, whereas belief arises
out of conviction. This is important not just in terms of analysis but in terms of policy
if the intention is to change behavior.

Changing behavior is generally much simpler and less complex than changing
values and convictions. For example, if we state that Philippine political culture is
violent, that is a different statement from saying that Philippine political behavior
is violent. Political behavior may be violent, especially in certain communities, but
people may not necessarily want to conduct their politics by violence. It may be
because of the political circumstances of the communities in which they live. If
you move these people from Tondo, Manila to Tokyo or Seoul, they may not
necessarily have the same orientation toward violence, because that is not their
conviction. It is more the circumstances in which they find themselves that lead
some of them to resort to violence.

Therefore, public policy has to be different, if you are trying to change political
beliefs or any other belief. A massive educational effort is necessary to achieve
this aim. Trying to change behavior is more related to modifying the framework –
the circumstances. For example, once we had a one-year system at the University
of the West Indies, where there were exams once each year, in May. The
beginning of the academic year was in September/October and there were no
mid-semester or end-of-semester exams. How did students behave? Because of
this framework, little or no work was done by the majority of students until April
each year. The framework provided the incentive to work in May. The library was
more or less empty up until March or April; the study spots on campus were empty.
The change to the semester system meant mid-semester exams in October, end-

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of-semester exams in December, mid-semester exams in March, and end of
semester exams in May. The behavior of students changed dramatically. Their
behavior changed, not so much because their beliefs and values had been
modified but the circumstances or the framework had shifted.

In our examination of political culture, we shall look at four dimensions:

1. Attitudes and values in general
2. Attitudes to political and national institutions
3. Attitudes to political identity
4. Attitudes to leadership

B. ATTITUDES AND VALUES

These two words, attitudes and values, mentioned in the definition of political
culture, may seem to be more or less the same on first encounter, but they are
somewhat different. The difference is that attitudes are relatively temporary. A
person’s attitude today may be different from his or her attitude tomorrow,
because attitudes may change over time. Values are more enduring. For
example, attitudes to voting on a particular occasion may be very negative, for
any number of reasons. Voters may not see the candidates as worth voting for,
but at some time in the future a candidate or group may inspire the confidence
of voters and that attitude toward voting could change. The value placed on the
right to vote is quite a different matter.

The majority of students in this course over 18 years old may consider not voting,
because they do not see anyone worth voting for at the present time. Suppose,
however, that there was a military take-over and Filipinos could no longer exercise
the right to vote. You would find quite a negative response from a large number
of Filipinos, who would not be prepared to have their right to vote taken away.
You can see that your attitude to voting may change, depending on whether
there is anything you regard as worth voting for, but the value you place on the
right to vote is high and is one that endures, even though you may not exercise it.
Attitudes change and values remain and political culture is made up of both.
Political culture is an extremely important dimension of politics that has not been
adequately studied.

Political Values
Value means that which is considered worthwhile. Generally speaking, in the
world of 2002 and for the last decade or two, in our country and around the world
a primary value is placed on democracy. By holding democracy in high regard
we are also choosing not to value dictatorship. In a dictatorship some external
power tells you what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. By and large in the
modern world, values have shifted strongly against dictatorship and in favor of
democracy. However, within that concept of democracy there are a number of
elements that we also value as subsets of democracy.

 Freedom: We value the ability to go where we want, when we want, how

we want, without restriction. We value the ability to say what we want, how
we want, and when we want. We value freedom of worship and freedom
of speech.
 Justice: By justice we mean fair play.
 Better living: Improved living conditions is highly valued.
 Equality: We value equality and not vast inequalities.

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  Rule of law: We value law and order because this is supposed to give us a
certain amount of personal security. We feel secure because the more law
and order there is the more we feel free from being criminally attacked.

In terms of values, democracy in general and these subsets specifically reflect

values that we each accept and uphold to one degree or another. The difficulty
arises when we try to rank these values. What weight would you attach to
freedom as against equality? What weight do you attach to justice as against
personal security and law and order? When you begin to assign weights to these
values you encounter differences among individuals and, more significantly,
differences among social classes, as well as among countries, because each
might rank these subsets of democracy differently.

Understanding how these values are ranked becomes important in

understanding political culture. For example, each of us values our freedom but
we also value our personal security. Suppose you are unable to have both at the
same time, to the same extent, how far would you be willing to give up one for
the other? Would you be prepared to sacrifice your freedom to go out in Makilala
and Kidapawan City because of curfews preventing us from going out after 9:00
p.m. Monday through Sunday, in order to ensure greater personal security? Would
your values allow you to live with less freedom in order to allow the security forces
more opportunity to hold the gunmen? It is important to know your political
culture, therefore. Imagine that you were a policy maker who thought that the
people’s first priority was to get rid of crime and that meant imposing a curfew
after 9:00 p.m. If you pass a law to that effect and that is not what the people
want it would mean you have misunderstood the political culture. Even if this is
the political culture in Nigeria, Pakistan, or Barbados, it would not necessarily be
the political culture in Philippines.

REFLECTIVE WRITING.
If you could only have one, what would you choose in this pandemic, lockdowns
or vaccination? Explain your choice. Limit your answer to 150 words and use a
separate sheet.

If crime and violence continues, and personal freedom has to be sacrificed in

order to address the problem, then the need will arise for analysis of the political
culture. For example, in the Philippines and elsewhere, new laws are being passed
regarding the tapping of telephones. You cannot get at the drug dons and the
international narcotics traffickers unless you are able to intercept their
communication more effectively. But intercepting communications in the interest
of national security and reduction in crime potentially interferes with personal
privacy and personal freedom. Again, you may value your personal privacy and
freedom above the necessity to deal more effectively with crime, however bad
it becomes. We conclude by saying how different people order their preferences
is one distinguishing and defining feature of political culture.

ATTITUDES TO POLITICAL AND NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

We can observe that in recent years, people have been more trusting with the
government here in the Philippines. But we cannot deny the fact that even until
now, a large percentage of the population still trusts the church. In Latin America
77 percent of the people expressed confidence in the church and 20 percent

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confidence in a political party. Similarly in the United Kingdom, the United States,
and other industrialized countries, the value placed on political institutions as part
of the political culture has been falling significantly over the last 20 to 30 years. To
summarize, studies of the second dimension of political culture – attitudes toward
institutions – reveal the general tendency for confidence in political institutions
and trust in political parties to be declining in our region, hemisphere, and,
generally, across the world.

The terrorist attack against the United States, which destroyed the World Trade
Center and part of the Pentagon, was an act of political behavior. Political
behavior is an action or failure to act in relation to government or authority in
general. We saw earlier that political participation was identified as a form of
political behavior, of which there are two types – conventional and
unconventional. The argument that terrorism is an unconventional form of
political participation is justified by the fact that terrorism can be defined as the
use of indiscriminate violence for a political purpose by an individual or group
against innocent people or non-combatants. The argument that terrorism is
unconventional political participation is based on the point of view that it is
seeking to attain a political end and therefore it is similar to a demonstration.

On the other hand, the argument against that point of view is that political
participation involves the use of rights – the right of freedom of speech, the right
to protest, the right to vote – and therefore since terrorism involves violence it is
not a right. No one has the right to use violence against innocent people, and
therefore it is not properly classified as political participation.

Based on the events of September 11, 2001 in relation to values and preferences,
the American people and government are trying to decide how to balance the
value of freedom against the need for security. The World Trade Center attack
was one of the purest forms of terrorism, whereas the attack on the Pentagon
could be seen as somewhat different because it could have been regarded as
directed at a military establishment with combatants and not just innocent
people, as the individuals in the World Trade Center were.

ATTITUDES TO POLITICAL IDENTITY

When we consider the element of identity in political culture we are looking at
three different dimensions:
1. The way in which people define themselves
2. The extent of attachment to a national identity
3. The basis of that attachment

The Primary Points of Reference by Which People Define Themselves

What is the main way in which an individual, the members of a group, or a people
see themselves? This becomes an issue because each of us has different aspects
to our identity. We have a gender aspect, we each belong to a particular racial
or ethnic group, we each are born in some geographic location, we each,
generally speaking, uphold some religious belief, and we each live and work in a
particular country. Therefore, how you define yourself in terms of one or another
of these is of great significance in determining your identity.

For example, if we met in Miami International Airport and I asked, “Who are you?”,
you may say, “I am John Martin from the Philippines” or “I am a Filipino.” You
immediately would turn to the Philippines, Indonesia or Malaysia as your primary

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point of reference. You may say, “Why do you ask me that? I am a fair skinned
man.” Immediately the point of reference is not a nationality, but a color, race,
or ethnicity. If you asked another person who he is, he may say, “I am a Muslim”,
because religious affiliation is that person’s primary self-definition. Therefore, in
analyzing the political culture of any people or the political culture of a people
at different points in time it is important to determine what is their primary
allegiance, what is their primary self-definition? Is it racial, is it religious, is it
geographic, or is it political?

The Extent of Attachment to a Particular National Identity

There are two contending points of view of National Identity. The first is that there
is a strong attachment to national identity. This means that people are usually
attached to the unique identity of their country. Second is the extent to which
they return if they do emigrate. No matter how long people live in other countries
they preserve their identities, their “Filipinoness”, their “Chineseness” or their
“Americanness” character. They preserve it in all kinds of ways – in the food they
eat, the music they love, and the visits they make to their own country when they
have the opportunity.

The Basis of Attachment

In the United States the basis of attachment and pride in country is clear. This has
to do with the so-called American Dream: the belief that the United States is a
land of opportunity, a land of the free, and the idea that no matter where you
were born you can reach to the top. In the United Kingdom the basis of
attachment is different. People identify with the historical achievements of Britain.
In our case, studies have shown that the basis that makes us proud of our identity
is not politics or economic achievement. The basis of identity is our resilience and
close-family-ties attitude. In addition, we take pride in the beauty of our islands
(environment).

ATTITUDES TO LEADERSHIP
A working definition of leadership would be the ability of an individual or group to
move others to action, or to agree on a particular course, mainly by non-coercive
means. This concept of leadership involves at least two dimensions: followers and
leaders. In looking at political culture as this relates to leadership, we identify two
qualities that define the leader–follower relationship: deference and
egalitarianism.

The Quality of Deference

In a deferential relationship, the follower defers to the leader. Conversely, the
leader expects or demands that the follower will go along with whatever he or
she says. This relationship may be based on one of a number of different types of
leadership. Usually, political scientists recognize three types of leadership that
reflect deference between followers and leaders: charismatic, paternalist, and
managerialist.

Charismatic Leadership
The charismatic leader is one who regards himself or herself as a savior. More
important, this leader is regarded by those who follow as being a deliverer or
savior or, as some would say, a prophet. The charismatic leader is usually
perceived as having a special gift. The nature of this gift will vary according to
cultures and situations. In the Old Testament of the Bible, for example, the
charismatic leaders were regarded as having gifts in so far as they were the

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spokespersons of God. Other charismatic leaders are regarded as having special
gifts to bring about results. Common to charismatic leaders is that they are set
apart and they set themselves apart from the majority of persons who follow
them. It may well be that charisma is associated with eloquence, or with a certain
physical bearing. Whatever the source, the result is that this is a very special
person who requires very special followers because he or she is gifted with special
qualities of leadership and of guidance.

Paternalist Leadership
The term paternalist comes from the original Latin, pater, which means father. We
get the adjective paternalist, which means that this type of leader is a parental
or father figure. Because he is a father or parental figure he must be obeyed,
listened to, and followed. The paternalist may be quite different from the
charismatic leader. The charismatic leader is effervescent and has the gift of
speech and all of the other associated characteristics but the paternalist is simply
regarded as the father of the nation, or as the father of the particular group,
religious or otherwise, and therefore is someone who needs to be given total
obedience and total respect.

Managerialist Leadership
To put it simply, he is the boss. The boss is someone who is set upon a pedestal,
and the followers are beneath, and must listen to him or her and follow orders. In
each of these three cases, the leader knows it all and is wiser, better informed,
more gifted, more experienced and therefore you need to do, think, and feel as
he or she says. In this kind of deferential relationship, disagreement with the leader
is unusual, extraordinary, and when it occurs, is not tolerated. Those who disagree
with the leader do so at their peril. They are expelled from the organization,
disciplined, or suspended. Some form of sanction accompanies disagreement.

Egalitarianism
In an egalitarian relationship the leader and followers regard each other as
relatively equal. The leader is respected and valued but he or she is not seen as
being up on a pedestal with everyone else down below. In egalitarian relations
the followers also regard themselves as having legitimate positions and opinions,
which the leader needs to hear and take into account. This type of leader–
follower relationship is participatory. By this, we mean that the leader expects the
followers to participate actively in decision making. The leader expects the
followers to present their views. The leader not only tolerates disagreement but
values different points of views. In this kind of relationship the leader is not a
general, a prophet or a savior, he or she is more the captain of a team who
understands that the participation of every member of the team is important. This
leader knows that as “team captain”, he or she needs and must encourage the
different skills and talents of the members of the team.

BRAINSTORM.
Name either a community, local, national or international leader for each
leadership type. Write answers on a separate sheet.

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