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Traditional Filipino society is based on social groupings rather than political ones, and the failure to develop real political units is an indication of the greater influence of Hindu culture than Chinese in the Philippines. The basic unit of society is the kinship group, and in the more pristine, egalitarian mountain cultures of Luzon, people rely heavily on bilateral genealogies to tell them their place in society. Each family to which an individual belongs has a leader whose status is determined by overall competence, which is mainly indicated by wealth or bravery. Thus a person may be called upon at any time to assist the exploits of either of two family groups, and where their interests conflict, he plays the role of mediator.

Since the competence which determines leadership status is greatly aided by wealth, even in martial endeavors, leadership positions may be inherited as well as achieved, and where differences in wealth are accentuated, this tendency is accentuated as well. The rich simply have more resources to draw on for the sake of accomplishing their ends, and where economic classes are most developed, so is the dependency of slaves (both captured enemies and debt-slaves) and commoners upon wealthy families, and their tendency of the former to be called upon by the latter for assistence in disputes. Among coastal peoples such as the Tagalogs and Visayans, who had the potential to accumulate great wealth, this resulted in the barangay system of powerful families, which obviously represented nascent political units. However, while it often happened that particular families acquired great reputations, and could be ranked hierarchically in this regard, there was little effort to actually subdue and "vassalize" one's neighbors. Therefore ties between families remained so loose that the Spanish were able to effect their conquest with a ludicrously small force, even though by the sixteenth century most coastal Filipinos had acquired cannonry and other modern weapons.

In the south, things were different. For as the Islamic conquerers established Sultanates in the Sulu Islands and over much of Mindanao, they established a tightly knit state control and coordination of the datos, or regional chiefs, in these areas that proved much more effective in fending off Spanish control.

Filipino society is based on economic class rather than on clans or totemic groups. The primary difference is that the former consists of strata that are formally and inherently subservient one to another. While Filipinos take great care to know who their relations and ancestors are, and maintain genealogies that often run back to mythological ancestors at the beginning of the world, they do so primarily for the sake of reckoning their place in the economic class system.