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Philippines
/ People
The rapid
growth in population is a problem of increasing magnitude and
concern and while the government does maintain population control
centers in every city, these do little good because of the opposition
of the Roman Catholic Church to abortion and any other methods
but 'natural' birth control'. (This will frequently reduce childbearing
to once a year.)
Filipinos
love children and each birth is traditionally regarded as a blessing.
A typical mother will have one walker, one toddler, one in arms
and one in the hopper.
Due to the
extended family concept of Filipinos it is not possible to state
with any degree of accuracy the size of an average family. Any
attempt to do so would find its limitation in the definition of
the family. Different figures for the same 'family' will result
depending on whether one wants to count just those living under
one roof (ten to twenty) or those with first degree relationship
(often twenty to thirty) or those an average Filipino regards
as members of the family he belongs to (easily five hundred).
Ethnic Structure
The Country has 10 major cultural groups and many ethnic minority
groups. Nine of the major cultural groups are of Malay extraction,
while the tenth is Chinese. Eight of the major Malay groups have
adopted Christianity. These include Tagalogs, Cebuanos, Hilongos,
Warays, Ilocanos, Bicolanos, Pangasinense, and Pampangos. The ninth
Malay group are the Muslim Filipinos or Moros, which are subdivided
into ten major groups, some regarded as cultural minorities.
Aside from their distinct languages, the eight Christian Filipino-Malay
groups only partly differ in culture. There are comparatively few
disagreements among Filipinos based on belonging to different language
groups. However, except for Manila which is a melting pot, all nine
major Filipino-Malay groups have geographically distinct areas of
settlement, whereas the Chinese are found in most communities. The
Chinese are integrated to a much higher degree in the Philippines
than in some neighboring Asian countries.On
the other hand, a large segment of the Muslim Filipinos decline
to integrate into the mainstream Philippine society and is at war
with the Philippine state.
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