GEd 105 (Readings in Philippine History)

Course Rationale
- This course analyzes Philippine History from multiple perspective through the
lens of the selected primary sources. Students are expected to do content and
context analysis such as author’s background and main arguments, compare
different point of view, identify biases and examine the evidences presented in
the document. This discussion will tackle traditional topics in history and
other interdisciplinary themes that will deepen and broaden the students
understanding of Philippine political, economic, cultural, social, scientific
religious history. The end goal is to develop the historical and critical
consciousness of the students so that they will become versatile, articulate,
broadminded, morally upright and responsible citizens.
Lesson 1
History: Introduction and Historical Sources

A. Definition
 History refers to the study and interpretation by a historian on the data and
other source of the past human activity, people, societies and civilizations
leading to the present day. There are three important concepts in the
definition. First history as we all know is based on past events. Second it is
interpreted by someone usually by historian. They gather, discard and
interpret the sources that they encounter. And finally and the most important
history rely on data and documents which historian call as historic sources.

B. History’s Subject Matter

 Like other social science the subject matter of history is the life of people and
humanity. But history has always been known as the study of the past. While
this definition of history is not wrong, it is incomplete. Etymologically, the
word history came from the Greek word Historia which means inquiry.
Clearly the word Historia does not mean past events. It denotes asking
question or investigation of the past done by the person trained to do so or by
persons who are interested in human past. We can say that historical account
 must be based on all available relevant evidence. Therefore a version of the
past that cannot be supported by the evidence is worthless.
Ever heard the taong-ahas story? The half human, half snake creature that
supposedly stalked the ladies room of one of the department store in Manila.
The most famous victim of this creature was supposedly the actress Alice
Dixson. It happened three decades ago when Alice Dixson was only 21 years
old. Because it happened in the past, would that story qualify as history? Or
would that story classify as gossip or urban legend?

C. History and the Historian

 Historian is an expert or student of history, especially that of a particular
period, geographical region or social phenomenon. There are many duties of a
historian. These historians seek not only historical evidence and facts but also
to interpret these facts. He also gives meaning to these facts and organizes
them chronologically. A person who must be able to recognize the evidence,
decide how useful it is and come to conclusion based on what he has found
out. The historian therefore is responsible for reconstructing the past.
According to Gottschalk, historian is many times removed from the events
under investigation. He added that only a part of what was observed in the
past was remembered by those who observed it, only a part of what was
remembered was recorded; only a part of what was recorded has survived,
only a part what was survive has come to the historian attention. Moreover
only a part of what is credible has been grasped, and only a part of what has
been grasped can expounded or narrated by the historian.
Some authors define history as a study of historical perspective. In
reconstructing the past, a historian can be subjective; after all he is human,
fallible and capable error. People’s memories are filled with bias, self-
righteousness, pride, vanity, spinning, obstruction and outright lies. Each has
his own frame of reference or a set of interlocking values, loyalties
assumptions interest and principle of action. The historian is influenced by his
own environment, ideology, education and influence. His interpretation of the
historical fact is affected by his context and circumstances. It’s like the Indian
parable of an elephant and the blind men, historians have different historical
perspective.
Because certain events happened so long ago and because sometimes the
evidence is incomplete, historians have different approaches and views about
what happened in the past. This is the subjective nature of history, one of
historians claims an event happened a certain way, while another disagree
completely. The best approach is to do all we can to reconstruct as fully as
possible our picture of the past. To do this, most scholars use historiography
or what they call history of history. Historiography is the study of how history
was written, by whom and why it was recorded as such. It is concerned with
how historians have presented history. Interpretation about the past can be
objective or true as long as they are free of inherent contradictions, are not
contrary to the laws of nature and are based on actual remains from the time
period referred to. There should also a scientific discourse among historians
on a particular controversial event. If an idea that say Jose Rizal retracted on
being a mason stand up to the critique of historian who are the skeptical of his
retraction then the idea must be true. One big advantage of historiography is
that the liars of history are usually quite transparent.