READINGS IN

PHILIPPINE HISTORY

INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY:
DEFINITION, ISSUES, SOURCES, AND
METHODOLOGY
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

To understand the meaning of history as an academic discipline and to be familiar with

the underlying philosophy and methodology of the discipline

To apply the knowledge in historical methodology and philosophy in assessing and

analysing existing historical narratives.

To examine and assess critically the value of historical evidences and sources

To appreciate the importance of history in the social and national life of the
Philippines
  HISTORY –was derived from the Greek word historia which
means “knowledge acquired through inquiry or investigation”.
 History a discipline existed for around 2,400 years and is as old as
mathematics and philosophy. This term was then adapted to classical
Latin where it acquired a new definition.
 Historia became known as the account of the past of a person or of
DEFINITION: a group of people through written documents and historical
evidences. That meaning stuck until the early parts of the twentieth
century.
 History became an important academic discipline.
 History was also focused on writing about wars, revolutions, and
other important breakthroughs.
It is thus important to ask: What counts as history? Traditional
historians lived with the mantra of “no document, no history.”
 CONTINUATION.

 But as any other academic disciplines, history progressed and opened up to the possibility of valid
historical sources, which were not limited to written documents, like government records, chronicler’s
accounts, or personal letters.
 Restricting historical evidence as exclusively written is also discrimination against other social classes
who were not recorded in paper.
 Nobilities, monarchs, the elite, and even the middle class would have their birth, education, marriage,
and death as matters of government and historical record.
 But what about the peasant families or indigenous groups who were not given much thought about
being registered to government records? Does the absence of written documents about them mean that
they were people of no history or past? Did they even exist?
HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

History as a discipline has already turned into a complex and dynamic inquiry.

Historiography, in simple terms is the history of history. The former’s object of study is the past, the events that
happened in the past and the causes of such events. The latter’s object of study, on the other hand, is history itself (i.e.
How was a certain historical text written? Who wrote it? What was the context of its publication? What particular
historical method was employed? What were the sources used?)

Historiography is important for someone who studies history because it teaches the student to be critical in the lessons of
history presented to him.
CONTINUATION.

Lessons from the past can be

It can be used as a tool to
used to make sense of the
legitimize regimes and forge a
present. Learning of past mistake
sense of collective identity
can help people to not repeat
through collective memory.
them.
 POSITIVISM
 It is a school of thought that emerged between the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
 This thought requires empirical and observable evidence before one can claim that a particular
knowledge is true.
 Positivism also entails an objective means of arriving at a conclusion. In the discipline of history,
the mantra “no document, no history” stems from this very same truth, where historians were
required to show written primary documents in order to write a particular historical narrative.
 Positivist historians are also expected to be objective and impartial not just in their arguments but
also on their conduct of historical research.
POSTCOLONIALISM
 It is a school of thought that emerged in the early twentieth century when formerly
colonized nations grappled with the idea of creating their identities and understanding
their societies against the shadow of their colonial past.
 Postcolonial history looks at two things in writing history:
 First: To tell the history of their nation that will highlight their identity free from that of colonial discourse
and knowledge
 Second: To criticize the methods, effects, and idea of colonialism.

 It is therefore a reaction and an alternative to the colonial history that colonial powers
created and taught to their subjects.
HISTORY AND THE HISTORIAN
 It is an exact and accurate account of the past is impossible for the very simple reason that we cannot go back to the
past. We cannot access the past directly as our subject matter. Historians only get to access representation of the past
through historical sources and evidences.

 It is the historian’s job not just to seek historical evidences and facts but also to interpret these facts. “ Facts cannot
speak for themselves”.

 It is the job of the historian to give meaning to these facts and organize them into a timeline, establish causes, and
write history. Meanwhile, historian is not a blank paper who mechanically interprets and analyzes present historical
fact.

 He is a person of his own who is influences by his own context, environment, ideology, education, and influences,
among others.

 Thus, in one way or another, history is always subjective. If that is so, can history still be considered as an academic
and scientific inquiry?
ANNALES SCHOOL OF HISTORY
 It is a school of history born in France that challenged the canons of history. This school of
thought did away with the common historical subjects that were almost always related to the
conduct of states and monarchs.
 The Annales scholars like Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, and Jacques Le Goff
studied other subjects in a historical manner. They were concerned with social history and
studied longer historical periods.
 For example, Annales scholars studied the history of peasantry, the history of medicine, or even the
history of environment.

 In doing this, Annales thinkers married history with other disciplines like geography,
anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics.
HISTORICAL SOURCES
 PRIMARY SOURCES
 are those sources produced at the same time as the event, period, or subject.
 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, 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.
HISTORICAL SOURCES
 SECONDARY SOURCES
 sources which were produced by an author who used primary sources to produce the material. In other
words, secondary sources are historical sources, which studies a certain historical subject.
 For example, on the 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.

 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.
EXTERNAL CRITICISM
 It 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
 It is the examination of the truthfulness of the evidence. It looks at the context of the source
and examines the circumstance of its production.
 It 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 declarations during the period of the war should not be taken as a
historical fact hastily.

 Internal criticism entails that the historian acknowledge and analyze how such reports can be
manipulated to be used as war propaganda.
CONTINUATION:

 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
precolonial document until 1968, when American historian Willian Henry Scott debunked
the authenticity of the code existed in the precolonial Philippine society.
Ferdinand Marcos also claimed that he was a decorated World War II soldier who led a
guerilla unit called Ang Maharlika.
CONTINUATION:
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.
 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
• It underwent several changes since the precolonial period until the present.
• Ancient Filipino 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.
CONTINUATION:
• Early nationalists refuted this perspective and argued the tripartite view. They saw the
precolonial 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.