ABEGAIL JANE C.

ALABA SOCIAL MOVEMENTE

BAPHS 2-1 SIR ELISOR GUIEB

HISTORY AND CRITICISM: THE INVENTION OF HEROES BOOK REVIEW

Dr. Reynaldo C. Ileto, a Professor of History, Religion, Postcolonial Studies, Government,
Political Policy is internationally recognized for his expertise on these particular subjects. Ileto
was very known for his different publications including Pasyon and Revolution and the Filipinos
and their Revolution. Andres Bonifacio as one of the revolutionary who fought for the
independence of our country from the hands of Spaniards consider as one of our national hero
who engage in a patriotic movement. We have a lot of heroes and unsung heroes but there has a
debate regarding Andres Bonifacio from Glenn May and the 6 nationalist historians. Reynaldo
Ileto write a book titled Filipino and their Revolution and the chapter 9 called History and
Criticism: The Invention of Heroes that prevailed about the invention of Andres Bonifacio as a
nationalistic hero brought to the limelight by Glenn May in 1997.

Ileto published a book Pasyon and Revolution. In our history books the reason for the trip to
Mount Tapusi by Bonifacio and other Katipuneros was to look for a safe place where they can
stay in case of some difficulties that they may encounter in lowlands. It differs from Ileto’s work
as he use the legendary Bernardo Carpio and incorporate the literary work Historia Famosa ni
Bernardo Carpio in describing Andres Bonifacio and link it to the trip of Bonifacio and other
Katipuneros to the Mount Tapusi because it has been said that the Bernardio Carpio play was his
favorite. In the first part of the article can be seen the disagreement of Milagro Guerrero to how
Ileto use literary documents. Milagro Guerrero disagree with Ileto’s use of awit because it is a
fiction work and consider him as a creative fictionist rather than a historian. Ileto said that
evidences was the bread and butter of the historian and he argues that it is privileged to have
means in written documents that has written our past events. Ileto saw the obvious problem that
he can see in written documents that some of it was been favorable to certain social classes and
sectors. The principal subjects of some records were Spanish officials, Friars, Illustrados,
Mestizos, Explorer, and Principales. Our History documents revolves with them and Ileto
questioned it and say how about the ordinary people the pobres y ignorantes, the masses and
woman who also have a contribution in our history as a Filipino but the archives are silent and
merely talk about them. Ileto also see the possibilities that the colonial and elite records can be
distorted and reverse the story who observe and wrote about them and let it be favor to some
colonizers.

After thirteen years a Professor and a Historian Glenn May published a book Inventing a Hero:
The Posthumous Re-creation of Andres Bonifacio. His work highlights the 6 historians who
posthumously recreated Bonifacio including Epifanio de los Santos, Jose P. Santos Manuel
Artigas, Theodor Agoncillo, Artemio Ricarte and Reynaldo Ileto. Work of May became
controversial for its claims that the sources that supported the image of the national hero Andres
Bonifacio were based on forged documents. His argument brought anguish to Filipino historians
and academics and a lot of negative review appeared its not just because he didn't have mercy for
Bonifacio but how the historians, nationalist, patriotic, and anticolonialist Filipino remembered
the past. May questioned the use of evidences and resources of the historians and the methods
that they use. He describe Ricarte as a liar and Teodoro Agoncillo demonstrate the past in a
peculiar way. He also said that Agoncillo was clearly biased to his work aside from being
nationalist his kinship ties with Aguinaldo's second wife is probably the reason according to
May. Then he questioned Ileto's used of literary work the awit Historia Famosa ni Bernardo
Carpio. The Filipino nationalist or what he called mythmakers are the villains as they introduce
and circulate inventions regarding Bonifacio. Ileto says we can identify the bad guy based on our
notion on what good guys is and said that the "other" mythmakers are supposed to be truth-
seekers or professional historians and May consider himself as the other.

This work of Ileto revolves on how he describe Andres Bonifacio from his book Pasyon and
Revolution and how Glenn May criticize his book on how he puts an image to Andres Bonifacio
as our national hero by using fictive figure Bernardio Carpio and the use of awit Historia Famosa
ni Bernardo Carpio. He also questioned the historians for the use of oral interviews as it may
alter because the event happened half a century already. For May the use of literary work should
not be the basis of historians because it questions the credibility of the work. In Glenn’s book we
can see that its not about Bonifacio itself but an attack to our nationalist/historians who use oral
interview or sources and unable to record their interviews or transcripts. The work of Ileto is
very helpful in the field of social sciences because it gives us the idea of what our history is and
how historians come up with their published documents like books and researches about our hero
Andres Bonifacio. In social science we always look for an answer about our society, history and
the people around us in Ileto’s work it highlights the importance of oral sources like interviews
because in doing interviews we are able to create a deeper connection with our participant
therefore we can fully understand our subject’s experiences, behavior and the phenomenon. The
strength of this book was it is really organize it shows how Ileto respond to Glenn May and
explained explicitly his stand in using oral interviews and sources. One of the strengths of the
book is Ileto’s presentation of May’s arguments and how he responded to them in a critical
manner.

My analysis on this book is if Glenn May questions the oral sources or interviews how come we
used interview as a method in doing research to acquire data that will help us to know more
about our research and might help other researcher. So if may questioned the use of interview
does other research that use interview is not valid or doesn’t have credibility. Interview and
observation is very helpful especially in doing an anthropological or ethnographical research.
Like what Agoncillo said considering the tyranny of the archives where the large documents
were biased to its own school of taught especially during the time of colonizers it will be hard to
depend on written documents because they can change the narrative and make it favorable to
them. I’m not saying not to use written documents somehow written documents can also help us
to gather evidences that will support our research and our thesis statement. I understand May’s
bias towards archival documents because it’s the standard for gathering data. But I cannot
understand that his book title was clearly about Bonifacio but it revolves on how these nationalist
remembered their past and the revolution and his criticism for me its more of an attack to the
nationalist like what Ileto said it revolves on the effects of Philippine-American war and its
impact on responses of nationalist on how they would transmit their memories of the revolution
that our hero fought for to give independence to our Motherland.