Research

As the national university, we champion and support innovative research that addresses the country’s most pressing challenges.

24 Nov 2023

UP Diliman

Filipino women exposed to violence between their parents are likely to be both a perpetrator and a victim of intimate partner violence

Violence can be transferred from one generation to another through social learning. Social learning theory posits that behaviors and values...

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22 Nov 2023

UP Diliman

Children’s writers can present issues to young readers through words, linguistic structures and literary devices

This research focuses on the analysis of five stories for children written by Filipino authors and published in the Philippines...

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17 Nov 2023

UP Los Baños

Study looks at how Filipino researchers write articles in Philippine English and its implications for academic writing

For over half a century, Philippine English has existed as a linguistic issue in the Philippines. Despite the numerous studies...

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14 Nov 2023

UP Los Baños

Tools and methods in establishing lake resource vulnerability and assessing pollution abatement technologies towards a water quality improved Laguna Lake

Laguna Lake is an important water resource and...

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10 Nov 2023

UP Los Baños

The local Chinese population helped make Iloilo the textile capital of the Philippines in the 19th century

Textiles played a significant role in Philippine economic history. In this study, archival materials and records have shown that the...

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07 Nov 2023

UP Cebu

Knowing whether initiatives are employee-led, leader-led, organization-led or HR-led can increase organization citizenship behavior in the service industry

Most studies about organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) focus on actions that employees, supervisors, or owners of organizations should exhibit. OCB...

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03 Nov 2023

UP Cebu

Public lecture to tackle challenges to democracy and politics in a post-truth era

The University of the Philippines Cebu Central Visayas Studies and College of Social Sciences in cooperation with the Critical Policy...

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27 Oct 2023

UP Diliman

First and most extensive study in the Philippines shows diagnostic accuracy of a multivariate index assay alone and in combination with ovarian imaging for ovarian cancer prediction

This study determined the utility of ovarian imaging and a second-generation multivariate index assay in predicting  the risk of ovarian...

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23 Oct 2023

UP Baguio

Covid-19 caused more psychological distress on women and young people than older persons

The results of this study represent 14,133 participants across 6 continents, with data from 19 nations. The most consistent finding...

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19 Oct 2023

UP Diliman, UP System

Children as young as two months are exposed to digital media for an average of two hours every day

The dramatic increase in the touchscreen exposure of very young children has raised issues regarding the potentials and perils that...

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11 Oct 2023

UP

Caves require greater management as important, but seldom studied, nonrenewable resources

Caves are significant nonrenewable resources that provide a variety of ecosystem services with varying sensitivities to disturbance. In the Philippines,...

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10 Oct 2023

UP Los Baños, UP Open University

Small islands in Northern Samar are linked by political, economic and social reasons

The Philippines as an archipelago is made up of many islands. Most of these islands are characterized as small, isolated,...

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Research

In the Philippines, there have been rising incidences of harassment directed at Filipinos who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+). These experiences of harassment and violence are reflections of prejudice and discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression (SOGIE) that have been ingrained and cultivated in social systems, such as the family, education, health, and the law. Because the Philippines does not have a national anti-discrimination legislation that explicitly protects against SOGIE-based discrimination, the burden to address SOGIE-based harassment is left upon the LGBTQI+ community and their allies. This study sought to understand and explore the reasons why Filipinos would or would not intervene in incidences of SOGIE-based harassment. Analyzing five interviews with Filipino university students who had previously witnessed SOGIE-based harassment surfaced two important findings about bystander intervention. First, bystanders consider the contexts and implications of intervening in SOGIE-based harassment, such as the nature of the harassment, the threats to bystander safety, and the victim’s obvious need for help. Second, although bystanders expressed hesitations in intervening because they were considered outsiders in the victim perpetrator interaction, acknowledging the bystander’s shared identity (kapwa) with targets of harassment facilitated intervening. That is, because SOGIE-based harassment is considered inhumane by bystanders, intervening, then, is an act of acknowledging and protecting the humanity of targets of harassment.

Significance

This study describes the behavioral responses of Filipinos to harassment based on an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression (SOGIE) and explores salient interpersonal and socio- cultural contexts that inform when, how, and why Filipino bystanders intervene in incidences of SOGIE-based harassment. The findings of the study emphasize the importance of kapwa—or shared sense of identity with others—in bystander intervention as Filipinos are more likely to intervene when they associate with targets of SOGIE-based harassment (i.e., acknowledging them as friends or as fellow human beings).

Taking these socio-cultural norms and values into account, the study draws attention to the importance of institutional mechanisms that not only empower bystander intervention but prevent incidences of SOGIE- based harassment in the first place. In universities, these may look like integrating social justice-oriented courses in the curriculum, establishing gender-sensitive programs, and enforcing anti-discrimination policies across the university. Across social institutions, similar initiatives may be implemented, ensuring that these programs center kapwa—or underscoring the inhumanity of SOGIE-based harassment and further emphasizing the humanity of the victims of SOGIE-based harassment.

Author: Luis Emmanuel A. Abesamis (Department of Behavioral Sciences, University of the Philippines Manila)

Read the full paper: https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2023.2241863