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Family Ties and Peso Signs: Challenges For Career Counseling in The Philippines
Family Ties and Peso Signs: Challenges For Career Counseling in The Philippines
Historical Perspective
Career counseling in the Philippines can best be understood from an
economic-political perspective (Pope, 2000) and in light of Filipino cul-
tural traditions. Its evolution can be divided into five periods, roughly
corresponding to stages in the nation's political history.
Challenges
These concerns and other prevailing conditions pose several challenges
for career counseling in the Philippines today.
Family ties and peso signs. The matter ofchoosing a career in the Philip-
pine setting is clearly a family affair. Most studies on career choice (Suba,
in press) reveal the crucial role of parental influence in the career choices
of Filipino adolescents. This reflects the high value Filipinos place on
close family ties, to the point of making sacrifices for the family welfare
(Go, 1994). For the vast majority, who pin their desire for economic im-
provement (another valued characteristic; Church, 1986) on a son or
daughter's completion of a degree, this often means arriving at career
choices for their children, regardless of the factors considered by person-
environment fit theories. The primary consideration of many a parent be-
comes "What college education can we afford that can make you finish
quickly, get a job, and start helping with family finances?" In other words,
their concern is not finding guideposts in a career path, but peso signs that
would lead them out ofpoverty. In a country in which quality education is,
for the most part, inaccessible to the poor, this approach results in students
getting into low-quality schools or programs that will not give them a com-
petitive edge in the labor market. The options open to such people cannot
be too many, notwithstanding the continuing preference for white-collar
jobs. This situation raises a challenge for career counselors who work on
the Western-based assumption "that individuals are able to economically
afford choice" (Gysbers, Heppner, & Johnston, 1998, p. 34).
Employability. Studies done in different periods of career counseling in
the Philippines (e.g., Agana, 1982; Cunanan, 1968; Salazar-Clernena,
1992; Tritz, de Blanco, & Pagaduan, 1965) show common reasons for
the curricular choices ofcollege and high school students: interest in the
field, opportunity for employment, personal or family welfare, financial
returns, and influence of role models (mostly family members). Other
factors that emerged in more recent studies include prestige, admiration,
status, ability, influence of media (Osdeg, Salvilla, & Sinajon, as cited in
Salazar-Clernena, 1992), security, peer and family (other than parents)
influence, and opportunity to go abroad (Salazar-Clernefia, 1992).
Given the continuing mismatch between training and employment, the
employability of graduates who choose to enter fields that have a low
demand is another challenge. In dealing with it, career counselors will
have to take into account the family's values, their (mis)perceptions of
employment opportunities, and the importance they place on economic
factors in career decision making. This will probably mean helping fami-
lies see "peso signs" in roads that are vital to the country but where the
majority of students had previously feared to tread or where roadblocks
due to stereotyping had been set up.
Appropriateness ofcareercounseling models. As it was in the U. S., the term
vocationalguidance was used earlier in the history ofcareer counseling in
This concept seems to be based, for the most part, on Super's (1957) model.
Super's (1957) model was also the basis ofworks that focused on women
(e.g., Villarosa, 1987; Ybanez, 1985). Villarosa, however, likewise used
the career choice theories of Holland (1959) and Roe (1956) as well as
Lofquist and Dawis's (1969) Theory of Work Adjustment (TWA). The
TWA similarly formed the basis of Salazar's (1981) study on the satisfac-
tion and satisfactoriness ofcounselor training graduates, which provided
evidence for the cross-cultural validity of the model.
Three surveys (Villar, 1997) have shown that many Filipino counselors
are familiar with the Trait-and-Factor Theory (Williamson, 1950) but
use it to a moderate extent. It is, however, one of the most widely misun-
derstood and misused models; many counselors equate it with simple
advice giving (being "directive"). Furthermore, it seems that most prac-
titioners and even counselor educators are not aware of the evolution of
trait-and-factor counseling into person-environment correspondence/fit
counseling (Chartrand, Lofquist, & Dawis; Rounds & Tracey, as cited in
Swanson, 1996). There is, in fact, the misconception that the trait-and-
factor approach seems "to encourage the expectation that accurate infor-
mation about the individual ... can only be obtained by having him [or
her] take a battery of standardized tests" (Santamaria, 1975, p. 44). As
Brown (as cited in Swanson, 1996) stated, "Williamson never advocated
a test-and-tell approach or a simplified approach" (pp. 98-99).
Another model that is popular among Filipino counselors is Walz's Life/
Career Development System(Waiz & Benjamin, 1983). This can be probably
explained by their exposure to workshops on this topic organized by the
Philippine Association for Career Guidance and Development
(PHICGUIDE, 1988; Santamaria, 1979). This model is used in schools
as well as in companies, particularly in those undergoing reengineering
(Villar, 1998).
Studies on the effectiveness of career guidance/counseling programs have
been based on theories of Super, Tiedeman and O'Hara, Holland, Gellatt,
and others (Suba, in press). Suba's (1996/1997) study used the career coun-
selingmodelsofBrownand Brooks(1991) and McDanielsand Gysbers (1992).
The popularity of the aforementioned models among Filipino counselors
basically reflects the ease with which practitioners take to ideas and
approaches that are learned abroad or are brought in by foreign experts.
These approaches, however, seem to focus on individuals making choices
by themselves and for themselves. This is a basic tenet of Western psy-
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