University of the East
Doctor of Dental Medicine - College of Dentistry
PRELIMS
READINGS IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY
UNDERSTANDING HISTORY:
A PRIMER OF HISTORICAL
METHOD
HISTORY AND SCIENCE
fut ure
present
HISTORY past
-
-
what now
why
● greek origin historie (ιστορια) = learning ;
systematic account of phenomenon
● German word for history – geshchichte, which
is derived from geschehen, meaning to happen
● Zeus Salazar’s “ang kasaysayan ay isang
●
salaysay na may saysay sa mga taong
nagsasaysay”
kasaysayan
➢ rooted in two words salaysay, which
means a narrative or a story and, more
important, saysay or meaning
➢ a narrative (which can be written,
visual, oral or 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
are inseparable
➢ without both you cannot have true
history (Ambeth Ocampo)
Sometimes, the history of other people may not be a
history to all, but only a piece of information.
According to Zeus Salazar, if it has no meaning for
you, then it is not history.
OBJECTIVITY VS. SUBJECTIVITY
DESCRIPTION
● to be studied objectively (that is, with the
intention of acquiring detached and truthful
knowledge independent of one’s personal
reactions), a thing must first be an object, it
must have an independent existence outside
the human mind
● recollections, however, do not have existence
outside the human mind; and most of history
is based upon recollections – that is, written or
spoken testimony
● objectively
➢ factual; true knowledge not
considered as an opinion
➢ proven already; specific dates cannot
be interpreted
● subjective
➢ a person’s perception; personal bias
ARTIFACTS
DESCRIPTION
● only where relics of human happenings can be
found – a potsherd, a coin, a ruin, a
manuscript, a book, a portrait, a stamp, a piece
of wreckage, a strand of hair, or other
archeological or anthropological remains – do
we have objects other than words that the
historian can study
● these objects, however, are never the
happenings or the events themselves
● if artifacts, they are the results of events; if
written documents, they may be the results or
●
the records of events
whether artifacts or documents, they are raw
materials out of which history may be written
I
● however, a historical context can be given to
them only if they can be placed in a human
setting
event → observed → remembered → recorded →
survived → historian’s attention → credible →
grasped → narrated
● the whole history of the past (what has been
called history-as-actuality) can be known to
him only through the surviving record of it
(history-as-record), and most of history-as
record is only the surviving part of the
recorded part of the remembered part of the
observed part of that whole
HISTORICAL METHOD AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
HISTORICAL METHOD
● process of critically examining and analyzing
the records and survivals of the past
● historical analysis
1. the selection of a subject for
investigation;
2. the collection of probable sources of
information on the subject;
3. the examination of those sources for
genuineness (either in whole or in
part);
4. the extraction of credible particulars
from the sources (or parts of sources)
proved genuine
HISTORIOGRAPHY
● the imaginative reconstruction of the past
from the data derived by that process
● the writing of history
1 I RODRIGUEZ
Louis Gottschalk .
 University of the East
Doctor of Dental Medicine - College of Dentistry
PRELIMS
READINGS IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY
PRIMARY VS. SECONDARY SOURCE
PRIMARY SOURCE
● the testimony of an eyewitness, or of a witness
by any other of the senses, or of a mechanical
device like the dictaphone that is, of one who
or that which was present at the events of
which he or it tells (hereafter called simply
eyewitness)
SECONDARY SOURCE
● the testimony of anyone who is not an
eyewitness – that is, of one who was not
present at the events of which he tells
ORIGINAL SOURCE
● because it contains fresh and creative ideas
● the collection of probable sources of
information on the subject
● because it is in its earliest, unpolished stage
● because its text is the approved text,
unmodified and untampered with
● because it is the earliest available source of
the information it provides
DOCUMENT
DESCRIPTION
● a written source of historical information as
contrasted with oral testimony or with
artifacts, pictorial survivals, and archeological
remains
● human document has been defined as “an
account of individual experience which reveals
the individual’s actions as a human agent and
as a participant in social life”
HISTORICAL CRITICISM
DESCRIPTION
● external
➢ authenticity of the documents, events,
people involved, dates
○ fabricated, forged, fake
○ hoax, misrepresentation
➢ tests:
○ date
○ author’s handwriting,
signature
○ anachronistic reference to
events (too early, too late, too
remote)
■ how the author writes
○ provenance
○ semantics (way it is written)
● internal
➢ credibility
➢ tests:
○ verisimilitude
■ similarity with the
author’s writing style
and dates
○ author’s mental processes
(content)
○ approximate date
○ ability to tell the truth
○ willingness to tell the truth
○ corroboration
TESTIMONY
● as has already been pointed out, every
historical subject has four aspects _ the
biographical, the geographical, the
chronological, and the occupational or
functional
● with a set of names, dates, and key-words in
mind for each of these aspects, the historical
investigator combs his document for relevant
particulars
● 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
HISTORICAL FACT
● may be defined as a particular derived directly
or indirectly from historical documents and
regarded as credible after careful testing in
accordance with the canons of historical
method
● an infinity and a multiple variety of facts of this
kind are accepted by all historians:
● e.g., that Socrates really existed; that
Alexander invaded India…
● in the process of analysis the historian should
constantly keep in mind the relevant
particulars within the document rather than
the document as a whole
● regarding each particular he asks: is it
credible?
➢ it might be well to point out again that
what is meant by calling particular
credible is not that it is actually what
happened, but that is as close to what
actually happened as we can learn
from a critical examination of the best
available sources
● this means verisimilar at a high level;
2 I RODRIGUEZ
 University of the East
Doctor of Dental Medicine - College of Dentistry
PRELIMS
READINGS IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY
● it connotes something more than merely not
being preposterous in itself or even than
plausible and yet is short of meaning
accurately descriptive of past actuality. In
other words, the historian establishes
verisimilitude rather than objective truth
● though there is high correlation between the
two, they are not necessarily identical
PHILIPPINE HISTORY
HISTORY
● a skull cap was discovered in 1962 in Tabon
Cave, Palawan
● several stones believed to have been
intentionally chipped into weapons or tools
were found on the same cave on the same
rock strata with the same age subjected into
carbon dating
➢ believed to have been made by
humans
DR. HENRY OTLEY BEYER
● born on June 13, 1833 in Edgewood, Iowa
● first interest in the Philippines was sparked in
1904 when he visited the Philippine exhibit in
St. Lois, Missouri
● graduated in Chemistry at Iowa State
University, took up his Master in Chemistry at
the University of Denver
● volunteered to go to the Philippines to avail of
the program to teach Filipinos during the
American colonization
● lived in the Cordilleras with the Ifugaos and
married Lingaya Gambuk, the daughter of an
Ifugao chief
DR. ROBERT B. FOX
● born on May 11, 1918, in Galveston, Texas
● earned his Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology
from the University of Southern California in
1941; his Master in Arts in Anthropology from
the University of Texas in 1944; and his Ph.D.
in the same field from the University of
Chicago in 1954
● interest in the Philippines led him to work in
the National Museum in time when this great
find landed on his assignment
● became chief anthropologist of the Philippine
National Museum
DR. F. LANDA JOCANO
● born on February 5, 1930 in Cabuatan , Iloilo
● a product of public school in Iloilo but ran
away to Manila for his parents could hardly
support his schooling
● worked his way to graduate at Arellano High
School but went back to Iloilo to finish his
Bachelor of Arts degree in Central Philippine
University in Iloilo in 1957
● was in Iloilo when he got interested in
Philippine folklore, which led him to write to
Fox and offered him a job at the National
Museum as a janitor
● his typing skills were far better useful than his
cleaning skills that he became a part of the
museum’s typing pool
● this exposed him to museum’s data and led
him to write about Philippine legends
surrounding plant and animal life which were
serialized in Manila Times and which the
Department of Education got interested to
include them in their high school teaching
supplement Diwang Kayumanggi
● was promoted from being a janitor to research
aid to scientist 1
● got a grant to study at the University of
Chicago where he earned his masters and
doctorate in Anthropology
● after a few teaching stints while taking his
Ph.D. in the University of Chicago, he went
back to the Philippines to teach at the
University of the Philippines
● at that time, the Tabon Cave finds have already
been a breakthrough in Philippine
anthropology
DR. WILLIAM HENRY SCOTT
● historian who despised to be called an
anthropologist. Scott was born on July 10,
1921 in Detroit, Michigan to a Protestant
family
● interest in archeology came when he earned a
scholarship in an Episcopalianaffiliated
Cranbrook School in Michigan
● was not able to pursue his interest yet when
joined the US Navy in 1942 and fought during
the Second World War until 1946
● joined the Episcopalian mission in China
where taught and studied in Shanghai,
Yangchow and Beijing until 1949
● was a victim of alien deportation from China
after it fell in the hands of the communists in
1949
● went to Yale University in 1951 where he
enrolled in Chinese language and literature and
took up his masters in Columbia University
3 I RODRIGUEZ
 University of the East
Doctor of Dental Medicine - College of Dentistry
PRELIMS
READINGS IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY

● was recalled back to military service in the

Korean War and after less than a year of
service, he tried to go back to his teaching
career, this time, in Japan, but accepted a
teaching career in the Philippines where he
was assigned in St. Mary’s School in Sagada
under the Episcopalian mission in Sagada,
Mountain province, where he taught English
and history
● earned his Ph.D. at the University of Santo
Tomas which his dissertation Prehispanic
Source Materials for the Study of Philippine
History was published in 1968
● this book was revised in 1984, incorporating
more assumed prehispanic materials that he
debunked including the Code of Kalantiaw

4 I RODRIGUEZ