Bicol University

College of Business Economics and Management

Daraga, Albay

Jurmae R. Niverba BSBA Marketing Management 1

“A Walk with History, A Talk with a Historian”

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them. We are the authors of the
present, and who we are today is the product of whom we are in the past. History is about
gathering all the memories and discoveries, collecting accounts, journals and information and
organizing them into one whole great experience. People without knowledge of their past,
origin and culture is like a tree without roots. And this is what I realized on that seminar.

Last November 18, 2019, we met Dr. Danilo M. Geron, a successful Bicolano historian at
BUCENG Gymnasium. The moment he walked up on the stage, I can’seat still, because I actually
saw a historian myself. The reason why I’m being so fidgety, because Madam Ayo, discussed to
us what is a historian first before we jump into our discussion, she taught us the harsdhips and
struggles of a historian. On his lecture, he mentioned that he was first taking up Philosophy at
Ateneo de Manila then shifted to history. How thoughtful of him, because after studying in, he
came back to Bicol and studied about its origin. He taught us National and Local History before
we went to our main topic and his purpose, which is to discuss the history of our beloved Bicol.
There are no guarantees that what we know about history is right or wrong for it came out
from different sources, what you need to do now is to know which are factual information.
Through him, I realized that there are several perceptions that every historian has. I still tend to
listen even though the speakers of BUCENG Gym weren’t that clear.

He wrote several books and showed us his library full of documents and accounts. And I
have found out a lot of information regarding history especially Bicol. I have learned a lot from
him. I was amazed how he would still get such rare and credible pictures of the past. Especially
magazines, documents and articles during Spanish Era.

Dr. Danilo was indeed an incredible historian, his love for the country is shown in his
perseverance to seek for data about our mother land. In my point of view, it is difficult to study
history because it is all about reading, reading, understanding and more reading, because this
stuff is what Filipinos need to see, what they should support. During the seminar he
 Bicol University
College of Business Economics and Management
Daraga, Albay

Jurmae R. Niverba BSBA Marketing Management 1

presented the books he wrote about every province of Bicol and I thought buying them all. And
I realized maybe history isn’t really boring at all.

There are a lot of learning and understandings I got from the seminar. Wherein
Albayanos where seen as the most intelligent people around in Bicol. Newspaper already exists
those times. Bicolanos has the intellect and talent and what they are lacking of is pride. We are
too shy to present ourselves, and we don’t have that much confident to showcase out abilities.
And another realization I had is that there is only one library existing in Albay, that is located at
Penaranda Park, and from what I know that is the only library that Albay has in public. I stand
that the Munisipyo should make a better a bigger library and all the books, and history of Bicol
are included there. And one of the purposes of this is for the Bicolanos to have a new hobby,
which is reading, they’ll know the history of Bicol and the provinces afterwards.

As a student, I’ll use this learning as tool to share it to my children and pass it through
generations. I have realized that grade school students must use updated and detailed books.
Because there are a lot of events that I learned today as a college student, everything that we
learned from Elementary are only in general. I would like this to share to my friends just like
how Dr. Danilo shared it to us. And I am glad that I attended the seminar because this would
only happen to my once in a life. Indeed the experience was walk with history.

“The more you know about the past, the better prepared for you in the future.”