HISTORICAL SOURCES

With the past as history’s subject matter, the historian’s most important research tools are historical sources. In
general, historical sources can be classified between primary and secondary sources. The classification of sources between
these two categories depends on the historical subject being studied. Primary sources are those sources produced at the
same time as the event, period, or subject being studied. For example, if a historian wishes to study the Commonwealth
Constitution Convention of 1935, his primary sources can include the minutes of the convention, newspaper clippings,
sources can include the minutes of the convention, newspaper clippings, Philippine Commission reports of the U.S.
Commissioners, records of the convention, the draft of the Constitution, and even photographs of the event. Eyewitness
accounts of convention delegates and their memoirs can also be used as primary sources. The same goes with other
subjects of historical study. Archival documents, artifacts, memorabilia, letters, census, and government records, among
others are the most common examples of primary sources.

On the other hand, secondary sources are those sources, which were produced by an author who used primary
sources to produce the material . In other words, secondary sources are historical sources, which studied a certain
historical subject. For example, on the other subject of the Philippine Revolution of 1896, students can read Teodoro
Agoncillo’s Revolt of the Masses: The Story of Bonifacio and the Katipunan published originally in 1956. The
Philippine Revolution happened in the last years of the nineteenth century while Agoncillo published his work in 1956,
which makes the Revolt of the Masses a secondary source. More than this , in writing the book, Agoncillo used primary
sources with his research like documents of the Katipunan, interview with the veterans of the Revolution, and
correspondence between and among Katipuneros.

However, a student should not be confused about what counts as a primary or a secondary source. As mentioned
above, the classification of sources between primary and secondary depends not on the period when the source was
produced or the type of the source but on the subject of the historical research. For example, a textbook is usually
classified as a secondary source, a tertiary source even. However, this classification is usual but not automatic. If a
historian chooses to write the history of education in the 1980’s, he can utilize textbooks used in that period as a primary
source. If a historian wishes to study the historiography of the Filipino-American War for example, he can use works of
different authors on the topic as his primary source as well.

Both primary and secondary sources are useful in writing and learning history. However, historians and students
of history need to thoroughly scrutinize these historical sources to avoid deception and to come up with the historical
truth. The historian should be able to conduct an external and internal criticism of the source, especially primary sources
which can age in centuries. External Criticism is the practice of verifying the authenticity of evidence by examining its
physical characteristics; consistency with the historical characteristic of the time when it was produced; and the materials
used for the evidence. Examples of the things that will be examined when conducting external criticism of a document
include the quality of the paper, the type of the ink, and the language and words used in the material, among others.

Internal criticism, on the other hand, is the examination of the truthfulness of the evidence. It looks at the content
of the source and examines the circumstance of its production. Internal criticism looks at the truthfulness and factuality of
the evidence by looking at the author of the source, its context, the agenda behind its creation, the knowledge which
informed it, and its intended purpose, among others. For example, Japanese reports and declaration during the period of
the war should not be taken as a historical fact hastily. Internal criticism entails that the historian acknowledge and
analyse how such reports can be manipulated to be used as war propaganda. Validating historical sources is important
because the use unverified, falsified, and untruthful historical sources can lead to equally false conclusions. Without
thorough criticisms of historical evidences, historical deceptions and lies will be highly probable.
 One of the most scandalous cases of deception in Philippine history is the hoax Code of Kalantiaw. The code was
a set of rules contained in an epic, Maragtas , which was allegedly written by a certain Datu Kalantiaw. The document
was sold to the National Library and was regarded as an important pre-colonial document until 1968, when American
historian William Henry Scott debunked the authenticity of the code due to anachronism and lack of evidence to prove
that the code existed in the pre-colonial Philippine society. Ferdinand Marcos also claimed that he was a decorated World
War II soldier who led a guerrilla unit called Ang Maharlika. This was widely believed by the students of history and
Marcos had war medals to show. This claim, however, was disproven when historians counterchecked Marcos’ claims
with the war records of the United States. These cases prove how deceptions can propagate without rigorous historical
research.

The task of the historian is to look at the available historical sources and select the most relevant and meaningful
for history and for the subject matter that he is studying. History ,like other academic discipline, has come a long way but
still has a lot of remaining tasks to do. It does not claim to render absolute and exact judgment because as long as
questions are continuously asked, and as long as time unfolds, the study of history can never be complete. The task of the
historian is to organize the past that is being created so that it can offer lessons foe nations, societies, and civilization. It is
the historian’s job to seek for the meaning of recovering the past to let the people see the continuing relevance of
provenance memory, remembering, and historical understanding for both the present and the future.

Philippine historiography underwent several changes since the pre-colonial period until the present. Ancient Filipinos
narrated their history through communal songs and epics that they passed orally from a generation to another. When the
Spaniards came, their chroniclers started recording their observations through written accounts. The perspective of
historical writing and inquiry also shifted. The Spanish colonizers narrated the history of their colony in a bipartite view.
They saw the age before colonization as a dark period in the history of the islands, until they brought light through
Western thought and Christianity. Early nationalists refuted this perspective and argued the tripartite view. They saw the
pre-colonial society as a luminous age that ended with darkness when the colonizers captured their freedom. They
believed that the light would come again once the colonizers were evicted from the Philippines. Filipino historian Zeus
Salazar introduced the new guiding philosophy for writing and teaching history: pantayong pananaw ( for us-from us
perspective). This perspective highlights the importance of facilitating an internal conversation and discourse among
Filipinos about our own history, using the language that is understood by everyone.