Social Justice: An Outreach-extension Program

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on communities in the Philippines has affected in-person research on community engagement. This paper highlighted the necessity for continuous research on social justice during the pandemic in order to discover ways in which people can survive and thrive through the trying times. The paper is based on the extension program of the Cebu Normal University (CNU) Research Institute of Public Governance on Social Justice. It analyzed Kaangayan, the public education workshop on social justice’s report to the Office of Extension Services and International Linkages. The report is based on an outreach extension service conducted in a barangay (community) in Cebu, Philippines. The pure “fishbowls” qualitative research method was employed to conduct the analysis, and participants were selected through an open invitation that was extended to the barangay. Based on the concluded activity, the report was prepared and submitted to the Office of Extension Services and International Linkages. Subsequently, all data was consolidated, processed, saturated, and finalized toward the qualitative results on policy analysis based on the technical/completion of outreach extension project and the results of the technical evaluation.


Introduction
The extension operations of the past four decades may be the largest institutional development effort the world has ever known (Anderson, Jock, Feder & Gershon, 2003). Higher education institutions are mandated to render extension services together with instruction, research, and production. This is in recognition of the vital role that colleges and universities play in the development of communities, particularly the underprivileged and depressed communities

The research paradigm
Civic engagement refers to the ways in which citizens participate in community life in order to improve conditions for others or to help shape the community's future. This term has been used primarily in the context of younger people. But in the past few years, a new movement has emerged to promote greater civic engagement by older adults (Adler & Goggin, 2005). In discussing civic engagement and community participation, four research paradigms are explored.

The community engagement outreach continuum cased on extension policies
Community engagement can take many forms and partners can include organized groups, agencies, institutions, or individuals. Collaborators may be engaged in health promotion, research, or policy making (McCloskey, McDonald, & Cook, 2013). Engagement activities are defined along a continuum that analyses and represents non-academic stakeholder activities and interactions with academic researchers. Proposed continua begin with none to limited stakeholder inclusion and input into research and continue with descriptions of increasing presence, input, and participation in decision making. Despite some agreement in literature, there is need for the development of consistent terminology and definitions to promote the common understanding of strategies in engaged research (Thompson et al., 2021). According to the authors of the International Association of Public Participation, the Community Engagement Continuum as cited by McCloskey, McDonald, & Cook (2013), the increasing level of community involvement, impact, trust, and communication flow, at the onset, exhibits an outreach that encompasses, (1) some community involvement; (2) communication flows from one community to another, to inform; (3) the coexistence of entities; and (4) the establishment of optimal communication channels for outreach.
According to Jennings (2018), and Jennings and Dawson (2015), community engagement research must recognize moral standing, interdependence, and power of all participants. It must exhibit empathy and mutual concern by balancing respective interests and creating awareness of the structural context of others, and grasp the interactions among individual agencies, institutional structures and community settings within which agencies operate, in order to advocate for benefits to traditionally underserved communities (El-Bassel et al., 2021).
Community engagement requires participation of community members in projects that address issues that concern them. Meaningful community participation extends beyond physical involvement to include generation of ideas, contributions to decision making, and sharing of responsibility. Among the factors that motivate people to participate are the desire https://doi.org/10.7454/ajce.v5i1.1095 186 to play an active role in bettering their own lives, fulfilling social or religious obligations, feeling a need for a sense of community, and wanting cash or in-kind rewards. Whatever the motivation, obtaining meaningful community participation and having a successful, sustained initiative, require that leaders respect, listen to, and learn from community members. An absence of mutual respect and co-learning can result in loss of time, trust, resources, and, most importantly, effectiveness (Henry, 2011;McCloskey, McDonald, & Cook, 2013;Miller & Shinn, 2005;Minkler, 2004).
According to conventional wisdom, education is supposed to increase civic skills and political knowledge that function as mechanisms that trigger participation (Persson, 2015).
Knowledge has always played an important role in society. The role of education in upholding and spreading human rights is widely recognized, but knowledge about actual rights is limited (Quennerstedt, 2020). This holds true especially in relation to social justice advocacy in grassroot communities. Civic consciousness indicates the level of development of democratic consciousness, acceptance by citizens of democratic values, and experience of democratic relations, which determines social and legal collaboration between governmental authorities, civil society institutions, and individuals. It is defined as a special property of a socially active, self-sufficient personality, which is determined by the content of historical, civilizational, and socio-cultural development. The process of acquiring civic qualities is considered in a sociocultural context, when the demonstration of individual behavior is shown as a combination of subjective and objective factors. It is noted that the ontological existence of citizenship requires the development of qualities associated with political functions, for instance, the ability to be included in the system of power relations, the ability to collaborate with others for the sake of common goals, and the ability to place common interests above interests (Riezanova, 2020).
The theoretical roots of "empowerment" as a critical element of community engagement can be traced back to Brazilian educator Paolo Freire (Freire, 1970;Hur, 2006;McCloskey, McDonald, & Cook, 2013). As articulated by Maton (2008), empowerment is "a group-based participatory, developmental process through which marginalized or oppressed individuals and groups gain greater control over their lives and environment, acquire valued resources and basic rights, and achieve important capacity building to improve health involves the development of sustainable skills, resources, and organizational structures in the affected community, 16 life goals and reduced societal marginalization." Ideally, empowerment is both a process and an outcome of community engagement (McCloskey, McDonald, & Cook, 2013).
Social justice advocacy has been defined as organized efforts aimed at influencing public attitudes, policies, and laws to create a society guided by the vision of human rights, including https://doi.org/10.7454/ajce.v5i1.1095 187 political, economic, and social rights (Cohen, 2001 as cited by Nilsson, & Schmidt, 2005).
While this focus may translate into justice for future generations, there seems markedly less regard for justice for others in an intragenerational space (Mason, 2014).
As pointed out above, translating social justice to the grassroots on community engagement is a challenge. Key informants perceived justice in the Philippine political and socioeconomic environments more negatively than positively. This varies based on the benefit each one gets from the government. Since there are more negative perceptions, the government needs to put in more effort to strengthen its current political and socioeconomic programs that are vital for the nation's progress (Lapiz, 2016).
In understanding the context, there is a need to align extension and education to policies that will suit the needs of all governments toward civic participation including the Philippines as a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the community of nations in the world.
Human rights education is a prominent concern of a number of international organizations and has been dominant on the United Nations' (UN) agenda for the past 20 years (Cassidy, Brunner & Webster, 2014). The UN asserts that children and young people should have access to human rights education (HRE) and that schools are one of the key means through which HRE should be made available (Robinson, Phillips & Quennerstedt, 2020. This claim should also be universal across citizens of all ages. In September 2015, the General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Building on the principle of "leaving no one behind," the new Agenda emphasizes a holistic approach to achieving sustainable development for all (un.org). This supports the claim that, "sustainable development, however, goes beyond liberal theories of justice in many respects" (Langhelle, 2000). The framework consists of 17 goals for environmental sustainability, social inclusion, economic development, peace, justice, good governance, and partnership: the main issues for the world population in the 21st century.
Each goal has several targets that better define its aims. The total number of targets is 169.
The SDGs replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which expired in 2015 and were implemented over 15 years. The MDGs experience underscored the importance of updated datasets for achieving the goals. Indicators are the backbone for monitoring progress toward the SDGs at local, national, regional, and global levels. Sound indicators can make the SDGs and their targets instruments that help countries highlight their strengths and weaknesses and monitor their progress after implementation of policies. https://doi.org/10.7454/ajce.v5i1.1095 188 Goals and targets are interdependent and must be pursued together as far as possible.
Achieving sustainable development has been hampered by trade-offs in favor of economic growth over social well-being and ecological viability, which may also affect the SDGs adopted by the member states of the United Nations. In contrast, the concept of inclusive development emphasizes the social, ecological, and political dimensions of development (Gupta & Vegelin, 2016). Similarly, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, reaffirmed at the recent World Conference on Human Rights, provides an authoritative definition of human rights standards, and is increasingly referred to as customary international law. It should provide an adequate starting point for HRE, which should facilitate a "human rights culture" (Wronka, 1994). This should serve as a basis for the adoption of human rights and social justice education in community engagement.  The technical report showed that an extension that will add value to social justice advocacy and impact society should encompass instruction, production and research capabilities reflected under the National Budget Circular (NBC). This paper has exemplified social justice through research and extension. The next stage in the process is to expand the advocacy by teaching recipients in the classroom and disseminating information through seminars and training.
The growing demand for and debates about democratization and political participation from the majority of the citizenry, along with increased pressure from civil society, go beyond the legalistic definition of 'citizenship' to encompass the more multidimensional meanings of the concept, including justice, belonging, tolerance, and intercultural understanding. Teaching democratic citizenship can serve as the touchstone to guarantee social harmony, civic https://doi.org/10.7454/ajce.v5i1.1095 190 engagement, democratic practices, and a mentality of difference or tolerance inside and outside classrooms (Drissi, 2014). Cochran-Smith et al. (2009) state, "We argue that teaching for social justice, or what we title 'good and just teaching,' reflects an essential purpose of teaching in a democratic society in which the teacher is an advocate for students whose work supports larger efforts for social change." The question of how to teach effectively from a clear social justice perspective that empowers and encourages students to think critically, and model social change has been a consistent challenge for progressive educators (Hackman, 2005).
The results of teaching will serve as basis for further research. This will lead to a rational program development and contribute to increasing output per the CNU's mandate, agenda, strategic directions and/or goals. This supports Forman's (1903) claim that states, "To train for good citizenship-which, we are told in season and out of season, is the chief function of the school-is therefore, a most ambitious task." It has become increasingly common for education scholars to claim a social justice orientation in their work. At the same time, education programs seem to be adding statements about the importance of social justice to their mission, and a growing number of teacher education programs are fundamentally oriented around a vision of social justice. Despite all the talk about social justice, it is often unclear in any practical terms what one means when he or she invokes a vision of social justice or how this influences such issues as program development, curricula, practicum opportunities, educational philosophy, social vision, and activist work (Hytten & Bettez, 2011). Universities increasingly cast themselves as engaged institutions committed to building collaborative relationships with community-based stakeholders (Dempsey, 2010). Divergent paradigms operate in SUCs, which influence the performance of extension projects toward attainment of full empowerment as the ultimate goal implied by the universally accepted definition of community development (Ontoy & Paspasan, 2016).

Program development contribution to increasing
The Cebu Normal University's vision is to become, "A leading multidisciplinary research university of education committed to build a strong nation" and its mission to develop high- Kaangayan as an outreach-extension program about social justice contributes to increasing output in line with the Cebu Normal University's thrust to sustain its tradition of excellence and cultivate significance and in answer to its mandate to contribute to nation building, the delivery of quality higher and advanced higher education, significant contribution to knowledge generation in the nation and relevant extension services to the community are facilitated by excellent resource management and a healthy fiscal condition. Acknowledging its vital role in nation-building through contributing to the development of human capital in the country, CNU functions to provide broad and general and highly specialized education that assists each learner to attain his or her full potential as a human being, enhance the range and

Methods
This research employed the pure "fishbowls" qualitative method of data collection according The derivation of all data that emanated from the community is guided by The Republic Act No. 10173, otherwise known as the Data Privacy Act, is a law that seeks to protect all forms of information, be it private, personal, or sensitive. It is meant to cover both natural and juridical persons involved in the processing of personal information. The participants' demographic profile and other information were left undisclosed for their protection and undue influence from any interference thereof.

Results and discussion
In the past two decades, many countries have seen a shift from a managerial or top-down approach toward a revitalized emphasis on building institutional bridges between government leaders and the citizenry, often termed "community engagement" (Head, 2007) MANUAL that serves as an opportunity for establishing more conduits that will promote social justice and design more outreach-extension programs that will help the https://doi.org/10.7454/ajce.v5i1.1095 195 community widen more dissemination and heighten awareness and participation on all government civic programs that will benefit them.
The current condition limits face-to-face research about community engagement due to the COVID-19 worldwide phenomenon and crisis that affected the small-medium-to-large communities in the Philippines. The strength and novelty of this paper is "rooted" upon the need for a research "continuum" about social justice along the pandemic that shall sustain research for extension to thrive and survive in recent times.

4.1.Kaangayan social justice as an outreach extension program: The community involvement
As previously stated, political participation is important in improving cooperation among participants. This can be applied to the community, especially in the barangay level as the main setting of this research-based outreach extension program about social justice.
Under Table 1, Sector (Purok) J and I with 22 and 20 respectively, had the highest turnout upon invitation while 10 from Sectors A and B were undisputedly the lowest. Using the fishbowl technique, this may mean that dissemination of information may have been high in Sectors I and J. On the other hand, participation depends on the cooperation among the community concerned based on the call from the barangay leaders. Although Sector B turned out to be the lowest due to non-attendance, Sector A participants were only a few as they included only the barangay Health Workers (BHWs). The BHWs ratio per the constituents remained small since they are the barangay service providers. The government limits the number of workers per the constituents' standard ratio. This is in line with the barangay's limited budget from the government and other sources. Participatory governance seeks to deepen citizen participation in the governmental process by examining the assumptions and practices of the traditional view that generally hinders the realization of a genuine participatory democracy (Fischer, 2012). The research paradigm manifests the preparation of the Technical Report that encapsulates the feedback from the community and their support in the completion of the program. The preparation allows people in the community to cascade how social justice comes to play in the realization of government programs that are for the people. This, in fact, is participatory governance as reflected in the modified technical/completion Kaangayan report.
This encouraged community involvement and allowed local exchanges on social justice advocacy among the 150 participants, clearly showing their eagerness to attend the outreach.
This was evident in the community training on civic engagement, whose rationale objective was to heighten the awareness of the barangay constituency. The methodologies that were utilized within community were diversified. They included exposition, corporativism, group discussions, deduction-induction, reportorial, and case studies to create a connection with the members of the community. Such connection encourages the community members to share their thoughts about social justice with the objectives at hand.
The resource persons were chosen based on their technical expertise, experience, and specialization to enable them effectively to interact with people from diverse backgrounds and age brackets. This contributed to establishing a rapport between the resource persons and the This engenders the process by which the outreach program was implemented on the ground towards its realization. Its results were submitted to the university's extension office with the results in line the constituencies' evaluation as to the conduct of the program on social justice.
Participatory governance, as a subset of governance theory, emphasizes democratic practices. Grounded in the theory of participatory democracy, more generally, it offers a theory and practice of public engagement through deliberative processes. Advanced largely as a response to a democratic deficit in contemporary political systems, it extends the citizens' role beyond that of voters or watchdogs to include direct deliberative involvement with pressing policy issues (Hirsch & Shulman, 1976). The diverse participation of all citizens of all ages exemplifies social justice as part of their lives in different aspects to empower them to express their support to the government for as long as there are avenues for them to be informed about the process, systems, and programs that will benefit the society's common good. All barangay constituencies participated and rated the outreach extension program "agree to strongly agree;" Considering the data, this is a clear manifestation of democracy wherein people assemble to discuss social justice through community engagement. Thus, participatory governance evidently works when people come together for a common purpose and bond with the interaction of leaders and their constituents for the good of all in a democracy. Such education serves as a reminder for all to support government programs while practicing social justice for the betterment of all. It also demonstrates that citizenship training is vital for the nation's progress both on the micro-and-macro levels of governance. In other words, the awareness and observance of social justice in individuals' daily lives is crucial for the promotion of community participation and support for community-based government program. This means that social justice, which encompasses the rule of law, should be reflected in the daily lives of community members. When all stakeholders collaborate, it can bring the community together, establish cooperation, achieve trust, respect, cooperation, camaraderie, and solidarity among community members.
The qualitative results on policy analysis based on the technical/completion report of outreach extension program and results of the training technical evaluation show that the social justice advocacy aligned its initiative and has complied with the CNUs extension mandate. The technical/completion report of the outreach extension program embodies social justice advocacy vis-à-vis the participants' high rating of 4.66, which positively implies the program's acceptability thereby cascading to the alignment and compliance of the university's extension mandate. The Extension's Qualitative Results on policy analysis resulted in the community's involvement and civic participation toward generating knowledge about social justice that led to the community's satisfaction as indicated in the technical/completion report as stated below.
This is an opportunity for this extension program about social justice in line with McCloskey's theory on community participation regarding Outcomes: Optimally Establishes Communication Channels for Outreach. It means that the members of the community are proactive to express their issues and concerns in the government for it to be "acted upon" by the government to establish connections of which the help people. The channelling of communication is very important, but it has to be aligned with the university's priorities in order for it to design more extension programs and initiatives that are significantly important for the people.
Because the qualitative results are aligned, it is therefore pertinent for the university to technically design more programs for the people in the community that will help them accordingly. In line with the university's mandate, the university's vision, mission and goals, the extension services goals, and objectives, guiding principles, and the extension strategies were aligned and complied with. This implies that all entities co-exist as supported by the