From April to October 2025, Kellogg Doctoral Student Afiliate Jeremi Panganiban (anthropology & peace studies) traveled to the Philippines on a Kellogg Institute Graduate Research Grant to conduct research for her project “Utang na Loób in Philippine Fishing Villages.” Upon her return, she sent the following summary of her work.
This research is part of my dissertation project on utang na loób (debt of goodwill) and how people rely on, reinterpret, or distance themselves from it as they face mounting environmental, economic, and political crises. My broader goal is to understand when relationships of debt and reciprocity sustain people’s lives, and when they become constraining or harmful. In this phase of my fieldwork, I focus on one coastal fishing village in the Philippines to examine how everyday practices of borrowing, helping, and obligation are shaped by seasonal scarcity, tourism, and land insecurity.
One of the first things that became clear to me is how deeply social life in the village is structured by kinship. There are only four main families in the village, and nearly everyone is embedded within these networks. One family, in particular, currently dominates many formal positions of authority, for example as elected village officials, church patrons, and owners of key businesses in the village. But power also operates through informal channels. Family ties are reinforced through utang na loób, which shows up in daily acts of tulong (help/assistance): sharing rice or cooked food, helping a relative deal with paperwork, or giving rides to the hospital.
At the same time, residents repeatedly told me that borrowing money from relatives is emotionally difficult. “It’s harder to borrow from family than from a stranger,” one person said, even though small cash loans of between two to five dollars are necessary to get through the day. This tension already points to one of my core research concerns: utang na loób is not simply a positive moral value. It is something people actively manage, limit, and sometimes avoid in order to protect relationships and their sense of self.
Seasonality intensifies these pressures by limiting access to cash. During rainy months, fishing becomes impossible and tourists disappear, leaving many households with few income options. To cover larger expenses, some residents turn to what they call the bangko (the bank), which are microfinance institutions. Others rely on daily lenders known locally as “Five-Six”, who collect payments every day and charge compounding interest when borrowers fall behind. These arrangements are widely recognized as risky, yet they remain necessary for people with limited choices. Residents often describe these transactions as purely financial and intentionally separate them from the moral obligations tied to utang na loób. Still, these debts are far from impersonal. The consequences of defaulting on payments extend beyond money. Borrowers risk damaging their reputations as reliable neighbors and jeopardizing their ability to borrow in the future. As a result, even formally “financial” debt becomes entangled with social standing and everyday moral judgement.
Not everyone in the village has access to strong kin networks. Newcomers, known as dayo, must build support systems from scratch. Barangay officials noted that the number of dayo is increasing as tourism expands. Resorts hire caretakers and workers from outside the village, who then settle with their families. These residents rely more heavily on friendships and informal brokers to access resources, which raises questions central to my project: who is able to claim utang na loób, and under what conditions?
Tourism itself has reshaped the village’s moral and economic landscape. Since the opening of a major road connecting the area more directly to Manila, the village has gradually shifted from fishing toward tourism. This change accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when city workers returned home, and urban residents escaped lockdowns by relocating temporarily to coastal towns. Tourism now brings in most of the village’s cash income, especially from December through April.
Yet tourism also introduces relationships where utang na loób is explicitly unwanted. Residents describe tourists as “guests” with whom they prefer clear, bounded transactions. Lodging, food, and water activities are provided for a fee, not as favors. At the same time, residents resent increasing regulations tied to tourism—restrictions on vending, alcohol consumption, swimming hours, and even where boats can be stored. These rules limit how residents can use their own labor and space, even as outsiders capture most of the value. About 90 percent of beachfront property is now owned by non-residents, while only two resorts belong to families who have lived in the village for generations.
Land insecurity adds another layer of crisis. On the estuary side of the village, a large corporate landholder claims ownership over areas residents say are public or already titled. Security personnel regularly prevent residents from repairing or reinforcing their homes, leaving them vulnerable during typhoons and unable to expand their livelihoods to benefit from tourism. Despite being affected collectively, residents are reluctant to organize. Several people told me they fear being labeled as “rebels,” a fear rooted in the village’s history with armed insurgency and government disarmament programs. Former combatants who surrendered are monitored by the military, and this atmosphere of surveillance seems to discourage collective action.
What surprised me most is the near absence of civic organizations. In many Philippine villages, cooperatives or advocacy groups are common. Here, I found none. This absence suggests that utang na loób, while strong at the interpersonal level, does not easily scale up into collective political action—especially under conditions of land conflict, surveillance, and historical stigma.
These early findings complicate any simple understanding of utang na loób as either solidarity or exploitation. The findings suggest that utang na loob is a flexible and contested framework that people draw on selectively. It can provide crucial support in times of scarcity, but it can also constrain people’s autonomy. Further, people may avoid it when it threatens safety.
My next steps are to focus more closely on the estuary side of the village and to examine how gendered brokers, particularly women who facilitate access to food, credit, and supplies—navigate these tensions. I want to understand how practices of utang na loób are reshaped under ecological decline, expanding regulation, and land dispossession, and how these shifts affect people’s ability to sustain relationships, dignity, and livelihoods in the face of ongoing crisis.