The Five Biggest

Problems Facing The

Philippines Today
Sociology and Anthroplogy

Assignment

Submitted By:

Jasher Dave C. Acabal

Submitted to

Prof. Rosanna Belgera

TOP 1
TRASH
A major problem that comes with the dump sites is the toxic liquid called leachate that seeps into the soil, and most of the
time is released unfiltered into the river system and the groundwater a source of our drinking water.
According to the DENR, 50 of the 421 rivers in the Philippines are already considered biologically dead, among them
the Pasig river. They no longer contain any oxygen and cannot support any but the hardiest kinds of species.

Solution

a. One way to solve this is to address the manufacturers and convince them to use fewer toxic materials from the
start.

TOP 2

POOR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

The Poor Educational System is one of the biggest problem in our country today.Because of our biggest population today.
The Government can`t provide all the needs like in Schools, Lack of Classrooms,Lack of Chairs and; Lack of Things that
will be needed.

Solution

1. Provide good prenatal care for every pregnant woman.

2. Make high-quality early childhood education available to all children.
3. Every school should have a full, balanced, and rich curriculum, including the arts, science, history,
literature, civics, geography, foreign languages, mathematics, and physical education.
4. Reduce class sizes to improve student achievement and behavior.
5. Ban for-profit charters and charter chains and ensure that charter schools collaborate with public schools
to support better education for all children.
6. Provide the medical and social services that poor children need to keep up with their advantaged peers.
7. Eliminate high-stakes standardized testing and rely instead on assessments that allow students to
demonstrate what they know and can do.
8. Insist that teachers, principals, and superintendents be professional educators.
9. Public schools should be controlled by elected school boards or by boards in large cities appointed for a
set term by more than one elected official.
10. Revise actionable strategies and specific goals to reduce racial segregation and poverty.
11. Recognize that public education is a public responsibility, not a consumer good.

TOP 3

HIGH CRIME RATES

The cause of crime is not poverty or the inability of the government to provide basic social needs such as jobs and
education. Crimes are caused by people making wrong moral choices. Yes, lack of employment or food on the table is an
influence but its the lack of moral training that cause an individual to steal, cheat or murder. The government should focus
on this case because lots of innocence people died without justice.

Solution
1. Use and expand drug courts. Drug courts, which combine judicial supervision with substance abuse treatment, are
rapidly gaining popularity as a tool to combat crime and drug use. Based on a five-year study, we found that
people who took part in drug courts had lower relapse rates and committed fewer additional crimes, such as
selling drugs and driving while intoxicated. Forty-nine percent of drug court participants reported committing new
crimes, compared with 64 percent of non-participants.
2. Make use of DNA evidence. By vastly improving our ability to identify and arrest suspects, DNA evidence has
the potential to be a powerful crime-fighting resource. Our research shows that the use of DNA evidence in
burglary cases leads to the identification and arrest of twice as many suspects as traditional investigation tactics.
DNA also helps serve justice: we found that DNA testing can provide evidence to support the exoneration of as
many as 15 percent of convicted sex offenders.
3. Start. a discussion of neighborhood views on weapons in the home, use of toy weapons by children in play,
children and violent entertainment, and how arguments should be settled.
4. Learn. your state and local laws on firearms. Insist that these laws be enforced vigorously but fairly. Support
police, prosecutors, judges, and other local officials who enforce laws designed to prevent gun violence.
5. Emphasize. prevention as the preferred way to deal with violence. Ask what schools, law enforcement agencies,
public health agencies, libraries, workplaces, religious institutions, child protective agencies, and others are doing
to prevent, not just react to, violence. What policies do they have to prevent weapons-related violence? How can
they help the community?
6. Volunteer. to mentor young people who need positive support from adults. Programs ranging from Big Brothers
and Big Sisters to Adopt-a-School include mentoring as a central ingredient.
7. Talk .with children in the neighborhood about what worries or scares them and about where and how they have
felt threatened by violence. Interview teachers, school staff, crossing guards, and bus aides.
8. Promote public service advertising that offers anti-violence programs and services. Get several groups to
cooperate in this effort. Include programs to help kids headed for trouble.
9. Protect domestic violence victims (and their children) through policies as well as laws that offer them prompt and
meaningful response to calls for help and appropriate legal recourse.
TOP 4
DRUGS
A drug is any substance other than food, that when inhaled, injected, smoked, consumed, absorbed via a patch on the skin
or dissolved under the tongue causes a physiological change in the body.The Government must focus on this kind of
Problem because lots of people are using this kind of Illegal Drugs.

Solution
1. Effectively deal with peer pressure. The biggest reason teens start using drugs is because their friends utilize
peer pressure. No one likes to be left out, and teens (and yes, some adults, too) find themselves doing things
they normally wouldnt do, just to fit in. In these cases, you need to either find a better group of friends that
wont pressure you into doing harmful things, or you need to find a good way to say no. Teens should prepare
a good excuse or plan ahead of time, to keep from giving into tempting situations.

2. Deal with life pressure. People today are overworked and overwhelmed, and often feel like a good break or a
reward is deserved. But in the end, drugs only make life more stressful and many of us all too often fail to
recognize this in the moment. To prevent using drugs as a reward, find other ways to handle stress and
unwind. Take up exercising, read a good book, volunteer with the needy, create something. Anything positive
and relaxing helps take the mind off using drugs to relieve stress.
3. Seek help for mental illness. Mental illness and substance abuse often go hand-in-hand. Those with a mental
illness may turn to drugs as a way to ease the pain. Those suffering from some form of mental illness, such as
anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder should seek the help of a trained professional for
treatment before it leads to substance abuse.
 4. Examine the risk factors. If youre aware of the biological, environmental and physical risk factors you
possess, youre more likely to overcome them. A history of substance abuse in the family, living in a social
setting that glorifies drug abuse and/or family life that models drug abuse can be risk factors.
5. Keep a well-balanced life. People take up drugs when something in their life is not working, or when theyre
unhappy about their lives or where their lives are going. Look at lifes big picture, and have priorities in order.

TOP 5
POVERTY
Poverty and Inequality in the Phils. remains a challenge.In the past four decades,the proportion of households living
below the official poverty line has declined slowly and unevenly and poverty reduction has been much slow.
There is weak local government capacity for implementing poverty reduction programs. Poverty levels are strongly linked
to Educational attainment. The poor have large members of the families, with six or more members.

Solution
1. The people directly affected by the problems or issues of poverty in the community have to be actively and
authentically participating in the efforts to fight poverty. This means that the affected people themselves will be
the major participants of the intervention to fight poverty. Not only the formal leaders need to be consulted, but
also the affected themselves. Their worldview and situation should be taken into consideration and through
facilitation they become part of the process of addressing and resolving their problems.

2. Create an organized group within the community to help many people rather than working with a few individuals.
Rather than working with individual persons, it is more effective to facilitate collective and organized actions to
help strengthen and empower people in poverty through an organization. This means that it is not enough to
provide assistance to individually affected persons alone but through a collective organization each individual is
developed and steps are taken to address their problems and other problems in the future.
3. The people affected need to identify the issues. It is more effective when issues and problems are identified by the
people. They then begin to gain self-confidence and acquire capabilities in working together on simple issues and
problems. This means that their initial efforts and experience can be used towards addressing more complex
problems and issues. It is in identifying and acting on their initial simple issues or problems that the affected
people gain their self-confidence and capability to identify other issues or problems which need to be addressed.
Though externally, well thought introduced projects can help fight poverty, without the peoples active
involvement and linking these projects with their own situation, identified issues and problems, such projects will
most likely not be sustained.

4. People in poverty need to understand that they can often address and solve their own issues. The affected people
going through the process of fighting poverty should have a raised level of consciousness about their situation and
their capabilities in order to sustain their collective efforts and also to address other issues and problems.

5. Fighting poverty takes time. The process of fighting poverty is not a simple and shorttermed process, especially
if we want a deep transformation to take place to those affected. It takes time to enable and facilitate the affected
people so they can break the culture of silence and become actors of their own development.