Readings in Philippine HistoryLESSON 2

LEARNING ACTIVITIES
A. Illustrate an analogy that shows the difference of history and historiography and provide a brief
explanation.

Historiography is like a mining company that keeps on digging for something within the depths of
history.
Since history is the study of the past while historiography is the study of historical writing, it looks like
history of history. It doesn’t stop to the outer phase but it digs deeper, it unleashes more information out
of the given written accounts.

B. Do the task and answer the following questions below:

1. What are your insights about “Positivism” school of thought? Do you agree with their stands?
Explain.

I agree with the stand of Positivism since every claims undergo emperical investigation before
considering as genuine knowledge. With this fact, we can be at ease since every information we
acquired were product of thorough investigation that has firm evidences. We tend to believe an
idea if it has evidence. Moreover, the historians who used this type of school of thought didn’t
dwell in prejudices rather they chase for impartiality.

2. Discuss what is the aim and belief of “Postcolonialism” school of thought.

Postcolonialism dealt with the aftermath of the colonialism, it is the reaction of the people under
those colonizing powers to reassess their identity, looking back to their roots and taking back
what was once lost. Postcolonialism generally focused on understanding themselves as they are
far from the hands of the colonizers though it’s somewhat hard since the influence lives on until
now but the people from colonial era were able to criticize the way they are treated and how
they live their lives back then.

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 Readings in Philippine HistoryLESSON 2

3. Do you believe in the statement “The narrative of the past is always written from the bias of the
powerful and the more dominant player”? Defend your answer.

Yes. Prejudices hold a partial perspective that are mainly possessed by the dominant
players. The narrative of the past was based from those historians who live in that moment
but due to their self-centered principles that often put themselves above of others resulting
them to create such written accounts where they have put their attention, more like they
feel like they can benefit more to that side regardless of the way that player did. One best
example of the statement above are those history books during the discrimination of the
black people under the hands of the white ones – apartheid. The written accounts were
mainly focused on how successful, how good the governance of the white people without
mentioning the deprivation of the black people in terms of human rights, neglecting them
from the society as if they did not exist. Of course, we can say that those younger ones tend
to praise more those white ones as the dominant player. Another example are the history
books we used during our elementary years; the books invalidated Marcos. Come to think
of it, only few books acknowledged Marcos’ help to the country on how good the economic
state of the Philippines has during his time instead thousands of books were written about
the next president of the country neglecting Marcos’ effort more like a post martial law
approach.
At some point, historians refused to consider the possible merits of alternative points of
view that they dwell only on what they think has the edge thus forgetting the principle that
history must be written as empirical and objective discipline.

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