EXCERPT FROM

“THE HISTORIAN’S
TASK IN THE
PHILIPPINES”
John N. Schumacher
 Learning Objectives :
• Explain the task of historians and the
personal/professional qualities needed to realize these
tasks;
• Distinguish the emphasis of national history from
colonialist and elitist approaches in historiography
• Identify Filipino historians and their writings which were
falsified and distorted;
• Discuss in how attempts in writing a ‘nationalist’ history
obstructed rather than promoted national interest; and
• Enumerate and discuss the characteristics of a true
“people’s history”.
 METHOD IN HISTORY
History
• can never be “objective”
• the narratives are based on all available authentic and reliable evidences.

Historian/s
- an expert in or student of history, especially that of a particular period, geographical region,
or social phenomenon.
- a person who studies and writes about the past, and is regarded as an authority on it.
- are concerned with the continuous , methodical narrative and research of past events as
relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time.
- interprets the historical facts or events truthfully and uses critical
historical method which requires basing one’s interpretation and
assertions from facts found in the documents.
 TASK 3
To arrive at “facts”
• The Historians should have the ability to put proper questions to
documents and determine the exact meaning of such
manifestation of popular thinking and values.
• Historians are demanded to demonstrate in detail how to bridge
the gap between documentation and the conclusion that are
drawn from it.
• The gaps left by the “colonial minded” historiography in the
Philippines has led Filipino historians to make attempts in writing
history from “nationalist”.
 NATIONALIST HISTORY
- writing history based on the historian’s love of country.
- Nation-based histories
*some Filipinos who wrote “nationalist” history, obstructed rather
than promoted national artist

•Pedro Paterno
- “everything good in the 19th century Filipino society and
Christianity was the fruit of some mythical inborn qualities of the
race and had existed before the coming of the Spaniards”.

• Ancient Tagalog Civilization

• Jose Marco
- distorted genuine documents by creating forgeries on pre-
Hispanic Philippines.

• Podevano and Pavon Manuscripts

• Code of Kalantiaw
• La Loba Negra (forged signature of Burgos)

• Diego Lope Povedano and Jose Maria Pavon

- considered hoax and historical distortions

• La Isla de Negros y las Costumbres de los Visayos

• Las Antiguas Legendas de las Islas de Negros
 The Code Of Kalantiaw

• presumed to be the first codified laws in the

Philippines.
• was exposed to be hoax by William Henry
Scott in his Prehispanic Sources for the
History of the Philippines in 1968.
• It proven to be fabricated – a mythical legal
code of Datu Bendahara Kalantiaw.
• The nationalist history of the 1970s
rejects the colonialist and elitist
approaches in writing national
history. It rather takes a stand on
writing “people’s history’ or history
from the point of view of the
masses.
• In making a “nationalist’ history,
historians are challenged to
investigate the real effects of
colonial experience. They have to
free Philippine historiography
from colonial myths.
 IMPLIFICATON :
• Reconstructing a Filipino Past (case of
Paterno and Marco)
- glorious but it is based on false pretenses
thus does nothing to build a sense of national
identity and does not offer guidance for the
present or the future.
 PEOPLE’S HISTORY
A true “people’s history” has the following
characteristics:
- must see the Filipino people as the primary agents
in their history (not as objects repressed or
oppressed by colonial policies)
- will refuse to treat the Filipino people an
abstraction manipulated by deterministic forces
such as religion and imperialism
- will understand all aspects of the
experience of all the Filipino people, as they
themselves understood it.
- will acknowledge what is valuable as well as
what is harmful in the Filipino past.
Filipino historians are called are called and
challenged to present the Filipino past in all its
variety. Not all of the past will provide inspiration
for a better and more just society. But by depicting
the whole of reality, history will make it possible to
reform and reshape every society toward a better
future.