Introduction

The finest way to appreciate a country is to live in it and to learn about its past. Although there are
many textbooks available on Philippine History, most of them have been written by scholars in
Luzon. Writing history is both an essential part of the learning process and one of the most
important ways that historians communicate their ideas and conclusions to one another.

A big challenge to a classroom teacher is the proper formulation and application of question-
technique skills for the students to answer. Instead of presenting the class unchallenged
statements, the teacher should instead help students dig up the answers and form conclusions by
themselves. This means that the teacher should know to provoke critical thinking in students as
well as able to guide them to achieve real knowledge.

This book will give an overview of how the Philippines grew into a nation and how the Filipinos
struggled to gain independence. It also integrates different issues concerning women
empowerment particularly in nation building.

Women consist half of humanity, but various studies and reviews revealed that they are not given
the necessary opportunities for a more creative and meaningful roles in society. Traditionally, the
only visible role that women play in nation building is shown in the role that they played in the
family as wives and housekeepers. Although is generally recognized that women play a vital role
from “womb to bomb” of a person’s life, its valuation is not evident because they still occupy
subordinate positions in Philippine society.

There is a prevailing belief that one of the benefits brought by the Spanish colonization of the
Philippines was the upliftment of the status of women. The purpose of this book is to investigate
this claim by assessing the position of women in pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial Philippine
society. The influence of Spanish culture and civilization the Filipino women will likewise be
appraised to come to some conclusions regarding the issue.

In response to the demands of the times, this book will serve as a guide to all students and
teachers in Philippine History in their search for the positive features of our Filipino culture, values
and history.

Chapter 1

The Importance of History

What is History?

Etymologically, the word “history” is taken from the Greek word Historia, which means
learning by investigation or inquiry. Thus, in this science, it is a knowledge acquired by
investigation. More specifically, History is a branch of knowledge which deals with the study of
past human experiences and events on earth. It is the record of triumph and tragedy of people’s
strengths and weaknesses in the quest for a better life.

History traces the progress and development of man’s civilization from the ancient to the
modern which is largely based on written records. It is facilitated by the formation of a true
discourse of the past through the production of narrative and analysis of past events relating to the
human race.
 The events of the past prior to written record are considered pre-history. The scholar who wrote
History is called Historian, and the study of the methodology (i.e. writing) of the discipline of history is
called Historiography. History is therefore a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and
analyze the sequence of events, and it sometimes attempts to investigate objectively the patterns of
cause and effect that determine events. It has five major elements namely: Dates, People, Places,
Events, and Values.

Archaeology (Historical Archaeology) also studies human history. It is very important for
learning about prehistoric communities when there are no written records for historians to study, which
makes up over 99% of total human history, from the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) until the advent of
civilization in any given society. Archaeology has various different goals, which range from studying
human evolution to cultural evolution and understanding culture history. Historical Archaeology
involves survey, excavation and eventually analysis of data collected in order to learn more about the
past especially before the invention of writing (pre-history). These could include excavated fossils
(human skeleton) and artifacts (things made by man, like tools jewelry, weapons) that can give some
clues about our past.

The Greeks were the first to view history with an inquiring mind. Herodotus (also known as the
father of Histor4.introduced a colorful and descriptive way of writing eventHis book, The History of the
Persian War, attempted to sift out fiction from fact, and this made him the first true historian.

Why Study History?

History should be studied because it is essential to individuals and to society. There are many
ways to discuss the real functions of the subject-as there are many different historical truths and many
different paths to historical meaning (Stearns, 1993).

Some students today wrongly believe that the study of history is a test of one's power of
memory. That is, the class involves sheer memorization of people, places, and events. Others
question the need of studying the past since according to them, the past is past, thus we cannot do
anything about it.
Some good reasons to study history are as follows:
1. History helps us understand people and societies. History offers a storehouse of information about
how people and societies behave. Understanding the operations of people and societies is difficult,
though a number of disciplines make the attempt.

2. History contributes to moral understanding. History also provides a terrain for moral contemplation.
Studying the stories of individuals and situations in the past allows a student of history to test his or her
own moral sense, to enhance it against some of the real complexities individuals have faced in difficult
settings.

3. History provides identity. Historical data include evidence about how families, groups, institutions
and whole countries were formed and about how they have evolved while retaining cohesion.

4. Studying history is essential for good citizenship. This is the most common justification for the place
of history in school curricula. Sometimes, advocates of citizenship history hope merely to promote
national identity and loyalty through a history spiced by vivid stories and lessons in individual success
and morality.
5. History gives us knowledge of the past that helps us understand the present. Some great world
leaders are known to be good students in history. They study the past in order to gain fresh insights in
solving the problems confronting them.

6. History promotes tolerance of other people and their culture. The study of history enables one to
understand other peoples and their society. It can help prevent conflicts and promote lasting peace.
Ignorance of other cultures can lead to misunderstandings, which may result in a mutually destructive
war.

7. Knowledge of history can make us proud of our own culture and heritage. History can teach us that
our society today is just one phase in the history of our people. Our culture has undergone tremendous
challenges and invasions.

Chapter 2
Methods in Writing History

Historical Methods comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use primary
sources Hand other evidence to research and then to write histories in the form of accounts of the
past. The writing of history is evaluated in two ways: Internal criticism and External criticism. These
styles are means to cross-examine the authenticity and reliability of the sources.

Internal criticism looks within the data themselves to try to determine truth-facts and “reasonable"
interpretation. It includes looking at the apparent or possible motives of the person providing the data.
External criticism applies “science to a document." It involves such physical and technical tests like
dating of document.

External Criticism: Authenticity and Provenance

Criticism is divided into six inquiries. The first four are known as higher criticism; the fifth, lower
criticism; and together, external criticism. The sixth is called internal criticism (Garraghan, 1946).

1. When was the source

written or produced (date)?

2. Where was it produced

(localization)?

3. By whom was it Higher Higher Criticism

External produced
(authorship)? External Criticism

4. From what pre-existing

material was it produced
(analysis)?
5. In what original form was it
produced Lower Criticism
Lower Criticism
(integrity)?

6. What is the evidential Internal Criticism

Internal value of its contents
Criticism (credibility)?

Gottschalk (1950) sets down the general rule: for each particular of a document, the process of
establishing credibility should be separately undertaken regardless of the general credibility of the
author. An author's trustworthiness in general may establish a background probability for the
consideration of each statement, but each piece of evidence extracted must be weighed individually.
Other tools that are useful in order to examine and authenticate historical sources are the following:
1. Epigraphy - (from the Greek: epi-graphē, literally on-writing or inscription) is the study of
inscriptions or epigraphs as writing-that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying
their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions
can be deduced concerning the writing and the writers.

2. Codicology - (from Latin: cōdex which means notebook, book; and Greek: logia, study) is the
study of books as physical objects, especially manuscripts written on parchment (or paper) in codex
(handwriting) form.
3. Genealogy- (from Greek: genea, which means “generation”; and logos, “knowledge”) is the
study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions,
historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family relationship
and the results are often displayed in charts or written as narratives.
4.Heraldry-(from Anglo-Norman herald ,from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, which
means “army commander”) is the study of designing, displaying, describing, and recording coats of
arms and heraldic badges which includes a stylized description of the escutcheon (shield), mottoes,
and other insignia. It encompasses all matters relating to the duties and responsibilities of officers of
arms.
5. Linguistics - is the study of language. It encompasses a number of subfields such as the
study of language structure (grammar) and the study of meaning (semantics and pragmatics).
Grammar encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the rules that
determine how words combine into phrases and sentences) and phonology (the study of sound
systems and abstract sound units). Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the
actual properties of speech sounds (phones), non-speech sounds, and how they are produced and
perceived.
6. Numismatics - is the study of currency including coins, tokens, paper money, and related
objects. Numismatists are often characterized as collectors of coins, the discipline also includes the
broader study of money used to resolve debts and the exchange of goods.
7.Paleography- (from Greek: palaiós, “old” and graphein,“to write”) is the study of ancient
handwriting (script).Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating
historical manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and
books were produced.
8. Papyrology- the study of ancient manuscript or document written in papyrus. Papyrus is an
ancient Egyptian writing material made from the papyrus plant. This plant grows wild in Egypt in the
marshes along the Nile River.
9. Prosopography-is the study of the common characteristics of a historical group, whose
individual biographies may be largely untraceable, by means of a collective study of their lives, in
multiple career-line analysis.
10. Sigillography - is the study of seals attached to documents as a source of historical
information. It concentrates on the legal and social meaning of seals, as well as evolution of their look.
Sources of History

To study history is to do history. And the only way we can do history is to examine the available
records from the past and then write about them. Different types of sources have different uses when
writing historical non-fiction. Any historical research you need or want to do will involve an examination
of many different sources.

There are two classifications of historical sources, the primary and secondary sources. Primary
sources come from the time the event occurred. These could be an old video footage, oral traditions
(testimonies), artwork, fossils (preserved remains of plants, animals, and people), and artifacts
(material equipment made by people of the past).Primary sources could also be written records, such
as letters, autobiography, transaction or business records, diaries, and speeches made by participants
themselves.

Secondary sources, on the other hand, are records that were made after the event happened,
written by people who were not present during the event. These sources include newspaper articles, books,
magazines, journals, pamphlets and replicas of artifacts.

Interview Technique in Oral History

Oral history is a historical source of a special nature. Its special nature lies in the fact that it is
unwritten source of information consisting of verbal testimonies which are reported statements concerning
the past (Gripaldo, 1999).

Oral history is the systematic collection of living people's testimony about their own experiences. It
is not folklore, gossip, hearsay, or rumor. Oral historians attempt to verify their findings, analyze them, and
place them in an accurate historical context.

In oral history projects, an interviewee recalls an event for an interviewer who records the
recollections and creates ahistorical record. Oral history depends upon human memory and the spoken
word. The means of collection can vary from taking notes by hand to elaborate electronic audio and video
recordings.

The basic principle of interview is to provide a frame work where in the research participants will be
able to express their own understandings in their own terms. In effect, there searchers will also be able to
understand the different articulation of the informants, such as the behavioral data, opinions, feelings,
knowledge, and personal background (Ramos and Cuizon, 2010).