ABSTRACT

Various approaches to defining the middle class, such as the use of gradational or relational concepts, yield different estimates of its size and distribution in society. In recent decades in the Philippines, the growth of the middle class has been fueled by two sectors: professionals and skilled workers employed abroad as well as the local business processing outsourcing industry. Noteworthy in the Philippine experience has been the prominent role of middle class leaders and activists in organizing political movements of different political and ideological orientations particularly in the country’s postwar history. This significant political role of the middle class is largely rooted in the confluence of a weak central state and the establishment of formal political institutions that have allowed for the greater degree of independent political action by broader civil society and peoples’ organizations.