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|SANIBLAKAS FOUNDATION

SANIBLAKAS  FOUNDATION PROGRAM THRUST FOR  HUMAN DEVELOPMENT & HARMONY (HDH) LIGHT-SHARE PROGRAM  Lambat-Liwanag. PROJECT TO BUILD A NETWORK OF CENTERS FOR EMPOWERING PARADIGMS PARADIGM-SPECIFIC HANDOUTS

(This page has a CYBER TALK-BACK instant feedback box at the bottom.)

[This presentation by Prof. Ed Aurelio Reyes, who is also the convenor of the Lambat-Liwanag Network Council, was first developed as a talk at the University of the Philippines Manila a few years ago and was later carried in pamphlets the author has been self-publishing.]

THE TERM “three-dimensional” is applied on realities and representations that have thickness and depth, which would differentiate Bonifacio’s face squeezed into the ten-peso bill from the same face represented in his statue in front of the Central Post Office.  But a history book, which has physical dimensions occupying space and therefore three-dimensional is still flat in my own reckoning if it simply lists events with data on dates and on identities of persons and places (or even of boats!) and fails to capture the breathing life and significance of those events chosen to be included as “historical.”

That would only be “good” for a memorization-oriented and grades-indicated educational system where correct answers on exam papers in terms of memorized data eventually translate into diplomas in the hands of graduates who had learned to hate historical subject matters and are only too glad to forget all that they had memorized if they had not earlier done so. Such memorization of data from all the data-rich but essentially flat books represent the first “D” in the “3-D view of history”.  Unfortunately, “D” as in “Detalye” is practically the only “D” in the way history is being taught in our schools.

And so we were made to memorize the fact that the Katipunan had a Code of Behavior known as the “Kartilya” and that it was written by Emilio Jacinto, but we have retained no familiarity at all about its contents and much less were we taught the impact or the basis of such writing. We have been taught that our archipelago had been named Filipinas after Philip II, but we have never been given a backgrounder as to the character of that Spanish monarch, and we learned later and quite accidentally from private reading how historically despicable that monarch was. It’s as if we were forcibly given the collective name “Iscariot” and merely told that the name came from no less than the Bible! 

Fairly recently, even the contemporary government leaders made much of the document “Acta de Independencia” which was read in Kawit, Cavite on June 12, 1898, and on the basis of that document’s title transferred “Independence Day” to June 12 every year and more recently spun a high-impact, broad, expensive, even lucrative, centennial commemoration of that event on the basis of the title and assumed intent of the document and not on the basis of its contrary content.  Ah, but who would bother to read the long texts from the document and see how that Acta merely shifted subservience from Spain to the United States and mandated our own flag to have the same color as a form of saluting the latter’s own Stars and Stripes?

Worse, what we have been made to memorize was not all factual. The textbooks may have been changed but the date the Philippines was supposedly discovered by Magellan is still singing in our minds (to the tune of a song by a popular Visayan comedian-singer) as March 16, 1521. And the Katipunan flags are still being presented as an “evolution” even though they were unit flags that had no real design influence on one another. And the labels that history textbooks have attached with finality to some of our more prominent heroes have not been subjected to critical inquiry as to the validity of the judgments and implications lodged therein.

Considering all these, when a friend who eventually joined Kamalaysayan was asked what he had earlier known of our history, he said, “Nothing really.”  And with all the memorized data having fallen off from his brain, an old expatriate Filipino when his son who was growing up in California asked him pointblank with a sneer, “What is there to be proud of in being Filipino???” could only stare in silent frustration, and then shout out “Basta!” to end the conversation with an assertion of parental authority.  Actually, there is much to be said to answer the child’s question, and it’s there in our history. But the parent, having only memorized and later forgotten details in his old history lessons, could not find answers in his mind.

But details are important in answering such a rhetorical question, if the fibers of fact are woven by critical analysis into a profound comprehension of the second “D” in the framework: Daloy or Flow.  Two questions can immediately be asked once a historical event is established to have happened: first, the inquisitive “Why?” which should unearth and reveal the circumstances, the movements, the motivations, and the forces that led to the event; and, second, the irreverent “So what???” which should establish the consequences of that same event, preferably through a long train of cause-effect developments leading all the way to its relevance to the present-day students being made to recall that event. 

A date in history is proved significant only in relation to another date. This reelation establishes chronology and time lapse. Chronology: the people of Pasig under the Katipunero Gen. Valentin Cruz assaulted and overran the Spanish garrison at Pasig on August 29, 1896; the following day, the victorious Pasiguenos joined the bigger Katipunan group in the Battle of Pinaglabanan, established to have been held on August 30, 1896, but stubbornly still billed as the “First Major Battle of the Katipunan,” a debacle. What a gross chronological inaccuracy, this label, just to be able to say that the first victory of the Katipunan was in Binakayan, Cavite!

This was pointed out in 1996 by Pasig historians led by the recently-deceased Dean Carlos Tech, to then National Centennial Commission chair Salvador H. Laurel, who promised a correction but such correction did not come. Let’s deal with the time lapse, and  consider this: we fully revere the heroism of Gen. Gregorio del Pilar’s last stand at Tirad Pass that delayed by some years Aguinaldo’s oath of allegiance to the American flag, but pay little attention to the fact that heroism at Mactan delayed by 44 years, or almost half a centrury, the Spanish colonization of the Philippines.

The details are to be fully established and proportionately appreciated only by finding their appropriate and actual places within the storyline of history.  Otherwise, the glimpses of scenes do not make up a logical flow in the minds of the students.  Such comprehension of logical flow would be an invaluable factor in making them feel the very real connection between our heroic ancestors of historical chapters past, giving them full reason to be proud of a rich bayanihan and kabayanihan heritage that would surely inspire and guide them in present-day and future chapters in this same lifestory of this same nation. 

Without any sense of daloy or flow, of storyline, our familiarity with Philippine history would be akin to watching the same dramatic slapping, fighting and love-making scenes in a third-rate movie that we had all seen in the television promo and finding no storyline because in the first place the producer had not required the scriptwriter to make one. What kind of historia has no istorya?  Ours, the way we have been teaching this in schools!

The third D pertains to Diwa. This dimension includes point of view and the value of intellectual honesty.  Point of view is important in this question: Whose history are we studying anyway?  The answer should define which viewpoint, what flow and events, which details, are to be given focus in the study.

 Let us deal with point of view. If we are studying the biography of Dr. Jose Rizal, it is important to seek out to the best of our capabilities the truth in the “Retraction” controversy. If we are studying the history of the Filipino people as a whole, the talk about Rizal’s “retraction” can be mentioned but the crucial question would be: what, if any, was the effect on the people of Spanish claims that Rizal retracted. Did the people stop believing in what he wrote?  If we were studying the biography of Ferdinand Magellan, even the name of his brother-in-law who got involved in his project may really be significant. Otherwise… 

And we come to the matter of “discovering” or “rediscovering” the Philippines. From whose point of view do we talk about regarding this 1521 event? From the point of view of Europe, thitherto ignorant of our islands and our people existing beyond what they had thought to be the edge of a flat world, Magellan did discover the Philippines, no ifs, no buts, and no sense “re-discovering” us, either. From our point of view here in what they and only they can have reason to call “Far” East, from the view of Filipinos then, now and to come, we discovered Magellan and whom he represented, a pink-colored people of heavy metal clothing, greedy for gold and with peculiar behavior, symbols and rituals. And we did not have any reason to “rediscover” him, either.

From the point of view of studying the respective local histories of Limasaua and Butuan, as communities, who have been rivals for the controversial distinction of hosting the first mass in these islands, the challenge is to make any connection of relevance to any felt impact in those local histories. Failing to establish any, both communities must admit that the competition pertains not to any noble effort to complete their own heritage but entirely to the lucrative monetary potentials of the claims, used in luring in tourists.

There is the claim that “Enrique of Malacca,” the first man really to circumnavigate the world, was supposed to have been a Visayan because he got by in conversations with the natives here. The idea is an attempt to claim for the Filipino people the circumstantial distinction of one of their ancestors having been brought the full circle around the world as a slave, as if that were really a distinction to be proud of, not to mention the feeble foundation for the wishful claim. (The Filipino nation does not lack in reasons to be proud of itself and its heritage mainly on the basis of the honorable and heroic character.) This would have had some real significance if local history showed a real impact on the local community of an Enrique having come back from circling the world. Otherwise, the wishful claim has actually been a cheap one. 

Indeed, for example, aside from tourism valuie now, what has been the impact on local history and sense of pride of Leytenos in the circumstantial disctinction that a certain incompetent but superstar American general  chose the shores of Leyte to land on in returning to recolonize the Philippines?  With due respect to those who seek a sense of pride from pure luck, the self-respecting Filipino, proud of his own people’s heroic heritage, would find the MacArthur landing hereabouts a cheap kind of glory.

Detalye, Daloy and Diwa. That, in broad strokes, is a brief presentation of the “3-D View of History.” This theme is actually done more justice in a much longer talk.

Intellectual Honesty and Historiography

Intellectual honesty is not the same as “cold objectivity.” History has to have a viewpoint in subject and authorship of interpretation and cannot honesty and logically demanded to be really neutral. But any bias has to be admitted even if by implication.

So with uncertainties that cannot be helped but have to be admitted.  In the same vein, I would like to believe that the more responsible journalists use the word “allegedly” not only to avoid libel suits but more so to be honest, to admit certain degrees of uncertainty.

Relevance is the Key

Many students find history as an irrelevant subject.  Due to this, we have become an amnesiac nation with a glaring lack of sense of history and self-identity.  The challenge for teachers of history is to show the relevance of hisotical events long past and to creatively show this relevance to the personal lives of those students in the classroom.  While we cannot blame the overloaded and underpaid teachers of this country for trying to take the easier paths abd make the students just memoriza details for exams and grades, we should remind them that the victims of this kind of standard practice are the youth of the land, and actually the nation itself.

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