The Historian’s Task in the Philippines

*Understand Rizal and his role in Philippine history by going back to his letters, novels,
and otherwritings → sharing of Rizal’s convictions on the centrality of historical perspective
for a realunderstanding of the problems of the present.
Rizal’s insistence on the need for Filipinos to understand their own past if theywere
effectively to shape the future.
Rizal: most historically minded of all Filipinos of his, and perhaps even of our time.
The knowledge of our past nurtured a consciousness of being a people with a
commonorigin and a common experience constituting the national identity around which
the future nationcould arise. Rizal had succeeded in taking a new look at that Filipino past
and uncovering theroots of what was good and bad in contemporary Filipino society. Above
all, he was able to sharewith his people a sense of national identity, which, as he once
wrote Blumentritt, “impels nationsto do great deeds.”
*Every Filipino historian can share the basic goals Rizal thought capable of achievement by
history—
1) understanding of our past
2) cultivation of our national identity
3) inspirationfor the future.
*Recovering the Past
Rizal had shown that Spanish chronicles could be mined to get beneath the
Hispanocentric outlook of these sources.
W.H. Scott’s “Cracks in the Parchment Curtain,”: much can be learned about Filipino
lifeand society by reading between the lines of Spanish documents. Those unintended
references are often much more enlightening to us than any number of explicit analyses of
Filipino society.
*The Formative Century
A real history of the Revolution, including the war against the Americans, is stillto be
written—one that will study the Revolution not just as it took place in Cavite, Malolos,
orLuzon, but in all the regions of the Philippines. Such a history will show the different
degrees andkinds of nationalist response in different regions. It will explore the variations
in differentsocioeconomic classes of regional societies and the political, economic, religious,
cultural reasonsfor these differences. But, such a history of the Revolution will not be
possible until furtherresearch on a regional basis has been done on the century beforethe
Revolution.
*Nationalist History
A true “people’s history,” must see the Filipino people as the primary agents intheir
history—not just as objects repressed by theocracy or oppressed by exploitative
colonialpolicies. It will refuse to treat the people as an abstraction manipulated by
deterministic forces. Itwill try to understand all aspects of the experience of all the Filipino
people, as they themselvesunderstood it. It will acknowledge what is valuable as well as
what is harmful in the Filipino past.
Sucesos de las islas Filipinas - The book Rizal spent long months in the British Museum coping by
hand and annotating because it contained biased information about early Philippine society.
Antonio de Morga -The author of Sucesos.

Sense of national identity - According to Rizal, this "impels nations to do great deeds."

1. Understanding of our past

2. Cultivation of our national identity
3. Inspiration for the future
The basic goals Rizal thought capable of achievement by history that can be shared by every
Filipino historian.

William Henry Scott -Said that much can be learned about Filipino life and society by reading
between the lines of Spanish documentation, which he himself did in his research for his book on
Igorots.

Critical Historical Method -This requires the historian to base himself on documentation and to
draw the evidence for his assertions or interpretations from the facts found in documents.
Understand our past to be able to cultivate our national identity and inspiration for future -Rizal's
common practice as a true historian

Objective with a consistent point of view -a task in history that most historians take

Scientific History - a method in history few employ since there are too many absolute rules to be
able to write in history

Pedro Paterno - a nationalist historian who only sought to document the positive qualities of our
nation throughout the early nineteenth century (a historian not respected by rizal)

Jose Marco -historian who wrote about pre-hispanic philippines . had a manuscript called
povedano and pavon--focus specifically on article: code of kalitayaw. known to be both dubious and
overly distorted

history of filipino masses and struggles -a truly Filipino history

preliminary hypothesis- what a historian must start with in order to investigate the past

Negros (example of different histories of separate regions have different outcomes) - an atypical
philippine region since it was christianized and organized into fixed settlements much later than
surrounding regions which is why their response to american colonization was different compared
to neighboring regions.
cracks in the parchment- we need to be able to see beyond ethnocentric accounts and biases of the
past to be able to see the real truth