Readings in Philippine History

History: It’s Meaning, Importance and Relevance

Meaning of History- The word history is derived from the Greek

term “historia” which means “inquiry or research”. Thus , the term
history refers to accounts or inquiries of events that happened in
the past and are narrated in a chronological order.
• According to Aristotle, regarded as the father of
logic, history is a systematic account of a set natural
phenomena which are arranged in their chronological
order.
• The great historians Thucydides and Herodotus
(Father of History)- defined history as learning inquiry
about the past of mankind.
• E. H. Carr- defines history as a never-ending dialogue
of events of what civilized men have thought and
done in the past.
• Jawarharlal Nehru- the theme of history should be
that of man’s growth from barbarism to civilization.
Importance of History

It is said that history is to the human race whereas memory is to

each man. It does not only shed the light of the past upon the
present time. It also :
1. Helps every person to draw conclusion from the past events
helping the person to understand himself by being acquainted
with other people.
2. Helps the person or the government avoid pitfalls of the present
by knowing the rise and fall of the rulers, government and
empires.
3. Makes a person’s life richer and fuller by giving meaning to the
books he reads (especially the history books, the cities and
metropolis he visits and the cultural performances he hears and
listens to).
4. Broaden the persons’ outlook in life by learning and
understanding the various races, cultures, ideosyncrasies, habits,
rituals, ceremonies, etc. of the making of contemporary society
out of the diverse forces of the past.
5. Enable a person to grasp his relationship with the past, such as
to who ordered the killing of Ninoy Aquino or why China insists on
occupying territories claimed by the Philippines- and because of
the events, one has to turn to history for a complete answer.
6. Helps social and political scientists or researchers engaged in
research as for example a political researcher doing a research on
federal form of government has to draw his data from the
materials of history.
7.History preserves the cultural values of a nation because it
guides society in confronting various crisis. As Allen Nerins puts it,
history is like a bridge that connects the past with the present
and “pointing the road to the future”.
Relevance of Studying Philippine History

Some students enrolled in Philippine History subject often asked the

question: What is the use or relevance of studying Philippine History? It is
just an additional payment for an additional 3-unit core subject. Why are we
concerned about what happened a long time ago? The answer to their an
ending questions is that “ history is inescapable” according to Penelope J.
Carfield. The saying “all people are living histories- which is why history
matters” is true in this case. It is not a “dead” subject, as some believed.
History connects things through time and the students are encouraged to
take a long view of such connections. As an example is the legacies of the
past is connected to the present so as to determine what comes in the
future.
Distinction Between Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary sources- are direct firsthand evidence regarding an object,

person, or work of art. They include historical and legal documents,
eywitness accounts, results, experiments statistical data, pieces of
creative writing, audio, video recordings, speeches, and art objects.
Secondary sources- on the other hand describe, discuss, interpret,
comment upon, analyze, evaluate,summarize, and process primary
sources. Secondary source materials are those that can be found in
newspaper or popular magazines, book or movie reviews.
The Difference Between Internal and
External Criticisms
With respect to internal criticisms, these seek to falsify or demonstrate its
discontinuity with an idea by hypothetically assuming its truthin orderto
prove some internal inconsistensy or contradiction with it.
External criticisms, in contrast, seek to falsify an idea without
hypothetically assuming its truth.
According to Dr. Lynn Sims, a history professor at John Tyler Community
Collegenoted two ways of applying a set of data. According to her, internal
criticism looks within the data itself to try to determine truth-facts and
“reasonable” interpretation.
External Criticism and the application of both forms of critique often
require research. Part of research can be oral history.
Repositories of Primary Sources

The main task of preserving in making the primary source of

information on Philippine history accessible to the public lies on the
National Archives of the Philippines. The documents, records and
other primary sources are basic components of cultural heritage and
collective-memory the embodiment of community identities as well
as testaments to shared national experiences. Presently, it is the
home of about 60 million documents from the centuries of Spanish
rule in the Philippines the American and Japanese occupations as
well as the years of the republic.
• The Archiver is created by Republic Act 9470 on May 21, 2017. This
new law strengthened the record-keeping systems and
administration program for archival materials as it is the final
repository for the voluminous notarized documents in the country.

• Other local repositories of primary sources could be found in

museums of provinces, cities, and municipality in the locality.