The Philippines

Although the Philippines is a plural nation with more than 180 indigenous ethnic groups, about 90 percent of its 90 million people share in a so-called Christianized lowland culture. Within this milieu, social networks are often understood as personal alliance systems founded in real kinship, ritual kinship, friendship, and patron-client ties. This article shows that although this presently dominant perspective about social ties is rooted in the Philippines’ pre-colonial era, it is also significantly influenced by the country’s colonial past the under Spanish Empire (from 1521 to 1898) and the United States of America (from 1898 to 1946).