LESSON 3

HISTORICAL SOURCES

LESSON OBJECTIVE:

 Differentiate between primary and secondary sources;

 Distinguish the importance of both types of sources;
 Demonstrate the ability to conduct external and internal criticisms; and
 Relate methods of external and internal criticism to the goal of identifying historical truth
and avoiding false historical claims.

INTRODUCTION
In the previous lesson, we have looked at the historian as the primary agent of historical
knowledge. We discussed how the historian is responsible for selecting historical facts and
interpreting and examining the to convert facts to historical knowledge. With the past as
history’s subject matter, historian’s most essential research tools are historian resources. There is
no way for a historian to access the past, aside from looking at its representation through sources.
However, historians often worked in the context of scarcity. There are almost always not enough
documents for them to study and to rely on the create a full picture of the past. Historical sources
as a mere representation of the past are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that can never be
completed. Historians would always have to work on what is only available. Fortunately,
historical methods guide us on the proper ways of handling limited evidence to develop
substantive and logical historical explanations and arguments.

REFERENCE: Candelaria, John Lee et al. Reading in Philippine History

TO DO ASSIGNMENT #1
INSTRUCTION
1. Read lesson 3 on page 16-21
2. To assess learning, do the activity on page 22 “Meet Estelita Dy: A Filipino Comfort
Woman Survivor”.
3. To do assignment, must be submitted on or before SEPTEMBER 16, 2022.
SUMMARY
Primary and secondary sources serve different functions, and both are important for
historians and students of history. Primary sources are important representations of the past that
are analyzed and interpreted by historians. For a source to be classified as primary, it should be
produced in the same period as the subject or by eyewitnesses present in the period being
studied. Secondary sources are historical texts read by the students to gain historical knowledge
and by historians as related texts to their research. These sources are products of historians’ work
using primary sources. Historians should employ internal and external criticism to debunk false
historical claims such as the Code of Kalantiaw and Marcos’ fake war medals.
 LESSSON 4
PHILIPPINE HISTORIOGRAPHY

OBJECTIVE
 Describe and trave the development of history as a disciple in the Philippines;
 Relate how historical context influences in way history in written and interpreted; and
 Differentiate the way colonizers and Filipino perceive history at different periods.
INTRODUCTION
As mentioned in Lesson 1, historiography can be simply defined as the “history of
history.” As a subject, historiography is not introduced until college education. Students of
history in grade school and high school do not usually get this far in their history lessons because
basic historical education merely teaches us about the past. Meanwhile, historiography demands
that we think about how we learn and how we are taught about the past. We are no longer just
concerned about learning what happened in the past; we are already delving into learning about
how history is written and why it is written that way.
Historiography is both philosophical and scientific. It is philosophical because we thing
about thinking, and this exercise of “thinking about thinking” can be broadly defined as
philosophizing. In historiography, we specifically engage in thinking about historical thinking,
i.e., how historians think and why they write what they write. Historiography is also scientific
because scholars who engage in this topic proceed with writing the history of history through
systemic inventory and empirical analyses of historical works.
Initially, historiographers delved into this specific subfield of inquiry because they
wanted to point out earlier historians’ mistakes in the hope that the present and future historians
would improve their methods and perspectives. But later, historiography turned into a more
serious subdiscipline of history because historians started recognizing that there are several pasts
to explore. In learning about historiography, students then will learn to understand history
beyond the details that it recounts. They would have a more prefund sense of the historical
knowledge that has been fed to them in schools and would start seeing past events and historical
facts not as things to memorize, but as thoughts that were produced by certain conditions.
Philippine history can be and illustrative case. The way our history has been defined, viewed,
and written transformed for one period to another.
REFERENCE: Candelaria, John Lee et al. Reading in Philippine History
TO DO ASSIGNMENT #1
INSTRUCTION
1. Read lesson 4 on page 23-32
2. To assess learning, do the lesson assessment on page 32 (Short-response questions).
3. To do assignment, must be submitted on or before SEPTEMBER 16, 2022.
SUMMARY
Philippine historiography transformed from one historical period to another. These
changes reflect the dominant discourse of the time. The Spanish colonizers viewed Philippine
history as divided into parts: the period of darkness and the period of light. They considered the
period before their arrival as dark because of lack of civilization, while marking their appearance
as the dawn of light because they brought in the Christian faith and culture. The Americans also
used history to justify what they called their “benevolent assimilation.” The propagandista and
the katipuneros held a tripartile view of history. The first period was a period of prosperity, the
second period brought about by colonization was a period of darkness, and the period after
colonization will be a period of freedom and redemption. Nationalist historiography emerged as
a reaction to the colonial interpretation of history. Nationalist historians aimed at placing the
masses at the center of history. Pantayong pananaw is the philosophical guide of bagong
kasaysayan. It underscores the importance pf fostering internal dialogue among the people in
writing and teaching history. P.P. adheres to the use of Filipino to reach wider audiences among
the non-English-speaking people.
 LESSON 5
EARLY PHILIPPNE SOCIETY AND THE FORST SPANISH CONTACT
OBJECTIVE
 Describe early Philippine society and its beliefs, customs, and traditions based on existing
accounts and primary sources;
 Locate the most important trade centers and trading partners of early Philippines;
 Assess the impact of the arrival of the Spaniards in the Philippines; and
 Critique the motives of Spain in deciding to colonize the Philippines.

INTRODUCTION
Studying early Philippine societies requires more than just written sources-artifacts, epic,
ethnographies, and all those unwritten-to build a more comprehensive picture of that period. Pre-
sixteenth century sources are scare, and the Spaniards wrote most of them. Blair and Robertson
collected these Spanish documents in 1903 and translated them into English. The result is the 55-
volume The Philippine Islands, a collection of sources ranging from the sixteenth to the
nineteenth centuries. The sources closest to the early Philippine society are Spanish observations
upon the first contacts. As opportunities arose, more sources were discovered in foreign archives
to add to the information in this era. Historians also turned to archaeology and the oral tradition
to supplant their interpretations. The oldest written record in the Philippines in the Laguna
Copperplate Inscription, dated in tenth century. A written record of 1225 also sheds light on
some Philippine islands in the thirteenth century and the conduct of trade. Lastly, the earliest
Spanish record of the Philippines was that of Pigafetta. These three roughly narrate early
Philippine society, Southeast Asian trade, and the dawn of Spanish colonization.
REFERENCE: Candelaria, John Lee et al. Reading in Philippine History
TO DO ASSIGNMENT #1
INSTRUCTION
1. Read lesson 5 on page 35-46
2. To assess learning, do the activity on page 47-48 (Primary Source Analysis)
3. To do assignment, must be submitted on or before SEPTEMBER 16, 2022.
SAMMARY
Early Philippine society had political and social structures, beliefs, a system of writing,
and trade practices. Filipinos regularly traded with China and the rest of Southeast Asia. These
populous thriving communities in the Philippines were the ones that the Magellan expedition
encountered upon their arrival. Analyzing a historical source requires other disciplines. For
example, astronomy was necessary for determining the date of the LCI, while geography allowed
us to locate which places the Chinese traders and Pigafetta identified in their accounts. The
Spanish expeditions were set out to colonize new territory for resources such as spice, gold, and
vast lands to expand their empire. Their motivation was economic gain, more than anything.