Meaning and History

Dr. Ambeth Ocampo

Pambansang Samahan ng mga Guro sa Agham Panlipunan (National Seminar on Social Sciences Teaching)
Philippine Normal University 1 May 1993

The working definition of history with which I live and write was formed in 1986 when the poet Rio Alma
gave me a copy of his book (A)lamat at (H)istorya. It was inscribed, "Para kay Ambeth Tagapagpalaganap
ng (H)istorya." To this day I do not know whether he was praising my work or being sarcastic. This
inscription always reminds me of a writer's reaction when I once toyed with the idea of applying for a
slot in the UP Creative Writing Center Summer Workshop to learn to write fiction. "But" this writer told
me, "aren't your articles fiction passed off as fact?" This same point of view has been propagated by my
critics in academe especially when I was elected by the UP Creative Writing Center as National Fellow for
the Essay (1995-1996). One constipated academic in a public forum thought he was being witty by saying
"Bagay na bagay sa iyo ang fellowship mo sa Sentro ng Malikhaing Pagsusulat dahil lahat ng sinusulat mo
ay pawang likha" (or something to that effect). But then why bother with critics who are neither creative
nor writers?
I don't understand why people think I am writing new things when all materials are at least a hundred
years old. I am most commonly asked, even by academics, "Saan mo ba napupulot ang mga isinusulat
mo?" We all use the same books, but I find something new simply because I ask questions no one has
dared ask before.
I rarely have answers, but I am able to tell a story. This is the first mark of a good historian. One must be
a good storyteller.

If you look at the other European languages, you will discover that the word for history, as in historia
(Spanish), historie (French), and gesichte (German), is the same word in those languages for story. Don't
we in Filipino, sometimes use the Spanish word historia, which sounds the same as istorya? Now what
about the word kasaysayan? I do not know how old the word is, but it is definitely richer than the
Western word for history which is based largely on the Greek historie which means an inquiry.
Kasaysayan as it is taught in the University of the Philippines, Diliman (or at least when I was reaching
there) is rooted in two words: salaysay, which means a narrative or a story and, more importantly,
saysay or meaning.
In my history classes I always propose the working definition of kasaysayan or history as a narrative
(which can be written, visual, oral or a combination of all three) about past events that has meaning to a
certain group of people in a given time and place. These two components of kasaysayan-salaysay and
saysay are inseparable. Without both, you cannot have true history.
I feel more strongly about kasaysayan than the Western words for history because in the latter, history
can be a mere narrative of past events while kasaysayan is not just a narrative or salaysay-it MUST have
saysay or meaning. If we find meaning in history, then it will gain the power to change our lives. Saysay
gives us a way of looking at the world, a Filipino viewpoint that influences the way we see the past, the
present, and hopefully, the future.
Let me give a simple illustration. We usually take memory for granted, seldom realizing how important
and indispensable it is in our lives. I often imagine this morbid scenario. I walk out of a building; I step
out into a busy street, and am run over by a jeepney with a reckless driver. I bump my head on the
pavement and am rushed, unconscious, to a hospital.
From the ID cards that the hospital staff found in my wallet (granting that it hasn't been stolen yet!) they
are able to inform my immediate family. The problem arises when I finally regain consciousness. What if
my memory has been erased, like a valuable computer file damaged by a virus? The only clue to my
identity are the ID cards in my wallet. I am confronted by the worried faces of people who claim to be my
loved ones, but I do not recognize them. Worse, I don't even know who I am. Can you imagine how
painful this will be for both sides?
It is memory that has made the person I am today. Without memory we cannot form relationships, we
cannot know who we are, we cannot forge our identities. The same is true for history. History is not just
memorizing forgettable dates, unpronounceable names, and strange places. History is not just telling our
students funny stories. History is making people see their past, thereby giving them a sense of being
Filipinos. If memory gives us our individual identities, then history will contribute to a national memory
and eventually that elusive thing we call national identity. History gives us a way of looking at the world
and dealing with it and its problems. History contributes to our being Filipino, whatever that is.
In a paper I read at a seminar in London last year, I showed how Jose Rizal in 1890 used history as a
weapon against Spain, how he re-created a pre-Hispanic Philippine past to give his countrymen a sense
of history and a sense of being Filipino.1 In short, an identity. One hundred years later I realized that Rizal
had exaggerated some of his assertions, but then as now history must be used to give a sense of
meaning to our lives. History is the tool that, stealing from James Joyce, "shall forge in the smithy of my
soul, the uncreated conscience of my race." How do we get salaysay and later saysay? First, we must
disabuse ourselves of the notion that history is a closed book.
Our textbooks give us definite data thereby killing off the sense of wonder and curiosity essential to any
thinking person. We could agree about simple facts, like Jose Rizal being born on June 19, 1861. This is
merely salaysay, but where does saysay come in? Facts are a very small part of history, the greater part
of it being made up of judgments of events, situations and characters, which are always debatable.
History is best described by the Dutch historian Geyl as "an argument without end."
Teachers should try the following exercise in their classrooms sometimes. Gather all the newspapers,
including the tabloids for a particular day. Post the front on the blackboard and ask the class to tell you
what the most important news for the day was. As none of the papers will agree on this point, the
students will surely disagree with one another. Now, if we cannot agree on what was important
yesterday, what more on events that happened a hundred or three hundred years ago? The point here is
that history is open-ended and we cannot be sure about the past. So why study history? Because it
teaches us to see connections between events. Knowing how and why a certain event happened is
helpful because in many cases people separated by time and place can sometimes be in similar
situations. They can be mentally contemporaneous without knowing it. History gives us hindsight.
Let us take a concrete example of salaysay and saysay looking into something rather scandalous-the
rumors of Apolinario Mabini's syphilis. I once had an argument with an overzealous newspaper lawyer
who deleted a reference to syphilis and Mabini in one of my columns. I actually threatened to resign the
next time he touched my copy as I am very careful about my data. Because of that deletion, the whole
paragraph built around this historical rumor lost its power and meaning.
I first heard the syphilis rumor from two venerable members of the National Historical Institute, the late
Teodoro A. Agoncillo and E. Aguilar Cruz. The latter even made a pun on the statue of the "Sublime
Paralytic" outside the National Library. He said, "Oh, from the sublime to the syphilitic."

1
See Rotten Beef and Stinking Fish: Rizal and the Writing of Philippine History on p. 94
Years earlier, the novelist F. Sionil José had heard the same rumor. When he got confirmation of it from
historians (one of them Agoncillo) he wrote the novel Poon which, in its final chapters has a conversation
between the village herbolario and Mabini who, after resigning from the Aguinaldo Cabinet, has traveled
to Pangasinan to rest and lick his wounds. The scene is reminiscent of the famous chat between Simoun
and Padre Florentino in Rizal's El Filibusterismo. In both novels the nobility of one-character shines as he
pontificates, but in Po-on the greatness of Mabini crumbles when he admits an indulgence in his youth
that led to venereal disease. I had always been told that syphilis made one blind or raving mad. In my
limited experience I could even imagine the penitent part of the anatomy falling off but losing the use of
one's legs is a bit far-fetched.
A new edition of Po-on is out and it contains an important correction: Mabini's paralysis was caused by
polio. In 1980 a team of doctors from the National Orthopedic Hospital excavated the bones of Mabini in
Tanauan, Batangas and performed an autopsy. They concluded that Mabini's paralysis, which struck him
when he was 31 years old, was a result of polio. I kept this information at the back of my mind and five
years later I saw a connection between Mabini's rumored syphilis and the Malolos Congress. Although I
cannot pinpoint responsibility, I am certain that the syphilis rumor originated from the elite and mestizo
dominated Malolos Congress. On January 14, 1899 Mabini urged Emilio Aguinaldo to ignore the wealthy
mestizo who had wormed their way into power via the constitution they had drafted and approved.
Mabini tried his best to delay the promulgation of the Constitution, at least to get some amendments in,
but Felipe Buencamino threatened Aguinaldo that the latter would lose prestige if he did not approve
the Constitution. Mabini countered by saying:

"Should the constitution be approved without (my proposed) amendments, no one could be appointed a Department Secretary without the
approval of Congress. In my case, for example, because Congress doesn't like me, I will be censured for anything I do until I will be forced to
resign, the members will say that I am a despicable weakling who can swallow all insults. In short, no one can stay in the Department except one
who knows how to regulate the Representatives, do what they want, and be in cahoots with them, even to do such that will be against the
interests of the country and justice. Such Department Secretaries, even if they should do badly, would be in the good graces of Congress, while
the good ones would not be."2

Does this sound strangely familiar? Remember how people appointed by the President to government
posts today are made. to wait for confirmation by the Commission on Appointments! Quotations like the
above make some silly people claim that Mabini is prophetic because he foresaw some of today's
political problems a century ago. The words are as painfully relevant as the ones that follow. Mabini
continues:

"What will you do if the Secretaries you appoint are not acceptable to Congress? You will have to change them. And
should new ones be neither acceptable, change them again, of course. When this happens, no right-thinking person
will accept the position except the one who has an understanding with the Representatives. For this reason, you will
yourself be forced to choose their men whether you like them or not; and since you cannot govern withouta Cabinet,
you will have no other choice except to please the Representatives."3

2
Letters of Apolinario Mabini (Manila: National Heroes Commission, 1965) p. 94
3
Loc. cit.
Perhaps Mabini was protecting his own interests, because at one point Aguinaldo had appointed him
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Congress would not confirm him. They saw that Mabini, the
enemy of Congress, would become acting President in case Aguinaldo died in office. Since Aguinaldo was
a military president, who was often in the battlefield, the chances of Mabini taking over was rather high.
Mabini had to be blocked at all costs.
Representatives remarked that he could not become Chief Justice because he was lame. When Mabini
heard this, he replied, "Why? Does the job entail a lot of walking?" There was more talk about his
paralysis than his intellectual and academic capacity for the office. In the end the syphilis rumor came
out and Mabini's moral character was undermined. To cut a long story short, intrigue eventually pushed
Mabini out of the Cabinet. So what else is new? Mabini and Malolos is not history repeating itself; we
are repeating history. Mabini's relevance today underscores the sad fact that we haven't changed much
in a century.
Some writers oversimplify the factionalism during the revolution, reducing it to a struggle between the
haves and the have-nots. I don't agree wholeheartedly, but if you scan the roster of names in the
Malolos Congress it does read like a society column of that time. All the rich and famous of Manila were
there. At one point it was composed of the following: 43 lawyers, 17 physicians, seven businessmen, five
pharmacists/chemists, three teachers, two engineers, two artists, one priest (Aglipay) and about five
people who could not be classified according to occupation!"4
Note that there were no women in the Congress. What about gays? The so-called representatives did not
represent the people at all, not only because of their wealth and education, but because the
revolutionary government did not have effective control over the entire archipelago. They did not even
hold it in the capital, Manila, (which was then under the American Stars and Stripes). This explains why
Malolos had to be the seat of the revolutionary government. There was no way to hold elections, thus
Aguinaldo had to appoint some delegates to regions they had never even seen! To further complicate
matters, America came in and robbed us of our independence.
Congress was filled with the economic elite. I hesitate to use the term ilustrado, which is synonymous
with wealth and education. Ilustrado literally means "enlightened one"; thus Mabini and Bonifacio were
poor but I consider them ilustrados, in contrast to some people in the Malolos Congress who may have
been rich and educated, but were actually far from enlightened. What I found particularly disgusting was
a bill to float a national loan to finance the government and continue the revolution to its logical
conclusion. The government was authorized to execute an interior loan of twenty million pesos payable
in forty years, with the subscribers being paid annual interest of six percent, payable every six months. If
the treasury found it feasible, interest could even be paid quarterly.
Everything looks alright until you read the fine print and note that the collateral for this loan happened
to be the property of the Republic. What happened then if the government could not pay? The
descendants of the big investors who were, of course, members of Congress stood to inherit the nation.
Imagine owning the Philippines, or at least having the Republic literally indebted to you? In short, the
opportunists hiding under a false patriotism were out to control Aguinaldo and his government. Only
Mabini saw through all this.
In an undated letter, probably written in November 1898, he begins by apologizing for being makulit and
thus taxing the President's patience by telling him the plain and painful truth.

4
Members of the Malolos Congress (List of Pedro Paterno) from the Laws of the Philippine Republic (Q.C., UP Law
Center) Appendix E. pp. 215-220.
Promising "never to bother you again," he asked the President to read the entire letter regarding the
creation of a permanent board of 24 subscribers to manage the national loan.
Aside from the yearly interest, these men would be paid salaries and they would influence, among other
things, the formulation of the national budget. Mabini did not expect Aguinaldo to give the elite too
many concessions.

"We worked without pay; but the rich people will not put up their money without having a voice in the
Treasury. It is probable that members of the board will ask for benefits and the soldiers will remain hungry... The
administrators will pocket part of the money, and only a little will go to the government safe. As the collection will not
be enough to pay the interest and amortization of the loan, the administrators will even retain the collection from
cedula or personal tax."5

Andres Bonifacio, if you will remember, tore up his cedula in August 1896 to signify freedom from
oppression. Knowing this, Mabinis abolished the cedula but this time it was back, not imposed by
Spaniards but by Filipinos. Patriots pa daw. Mabini. warned Aguinaldo that in the end the people would
blame him "and the rich will have a big laugh." Fortunately, nothing came of this national loan.
Was Malolos really a "glorious page in our history"? From my reading of Mabini's papers, I get a view
contrary to what I learned in school. I have seen the photographs of Aguinaldo arriving in Malolos in a
carriage that came complete with liveried footmen and I could not help but laugh knowing that these
footmen were borrowed from the neighborhood funeraria. These undertakers were most apt because
the Malolos Congress was the death of the revolution. It is high time that these so-called "glorious
pages" in our history be reviewed without the rose-colored glasses. Perhaps our country is in such a
mess because we have a distorted history and thus cannot find meaning in and lessons from it.
I have learned the hard way that oftentimes in history it is more fruitful to discuss what did not happen,
or what might have happened, rather than what actually happened. Making our students draw tentative
conclusions develops thinking. If I believed all the things books and teachers told me, then I would not
have become the historian I am today. I am not perfect. I have committed a few errors too, but I rest on
the dictum that we should always be courageous enough to challenge existing beliefs, theories and
"facts". We should try in our own way to push the frontiers of knowledge a bit further and encourage our
students to think-and to think critically.
History is a dangerous-some would say subversive undertaking because by giving meaning to our lives, it
has the power to change and mold it. In our search for meaning in our history we will inevitably make
mistakes. But as English historian A.J.P. Taylor put it so clearly. "Error can sometimes be fertile, but
perfection is always sterile." If we do not care to ask questions, we will never get the answers. The point
to remember is that history does not repeat itself. We repeat history.

5
Mabini, op cit: p. 83