PRE-

HISPANIC/
PRE-
COLONIAL
By Roshban Lopez
Rhovyc loor
THE HISTORIANS TASK IN THE
PHILIPPINES
 a. Outline
Introduction
•Group Introduction

•Topic Introduction
•Objectives
•key Terms

Material Facts
about me vision

/ mission
•timeline (Highlight specific Historical events, personalities, Dates

portfolio contact
•Article Review (Academic/Article) (discussion of a specific time/date)

Page 03 of 15
•Visual Representation (Short Video, Clip, Infographic)

Objectives
b. Objective/s (per subtopic)
1. read accounts ofindigenous and Muslimresistance to Spanish
colonization
2. compare the forms of opposition undertaken by these groups
3. demonstrate critical thinking in evaluating theevidences presented
byprimary sources
4. relate to these historical events as part of the formation of Mindanawon
identity
KEYTERMS and concept
•Spanish Rule- Under Spanish rule, the indigenous families had to cultivate, not only enough food and crops for their own
sustenance, but also great portions which they were forced to hand over to the warlords. Euphemistically, the Spanish called these
forced portions "tributes".
•William Henry Scott- a distinguished investigator into so many facets of the Filipino past; wrote "Cracks in the Parchment Curtain"
•Cracks in the Parchment Curtain- at first sight, conceals from modern view the activities and thoughts of Filipinos and reveals
only those of the Spaniard's
•Formative Century- The problem of the formative century
the problem is not what has been done, but what has not been done - to lay the necessary foundation for the understanding of
the revolutionary period.
•American Rule-The period of American colonialization of the Philippines was 48 years. It began with the cession of the Philippines
to the U.S. by Spain in 1898 and lasted until the U.S. recognition of Philippine independence in 1946.
•Negros Hacenderos - an atypical philippine region since it was christianized and organized into fixed settlements much later than
surrounding regions which is why their response to american colonization was different compared to neighboring regions.
Scientific History- a method in history few employ since there are too many absolute rules to be able to write in history.
•Nationalist- a person who strongly identifies with their own nation and vigorously supports its interests, especially to the exclusion
or detriment of the interests of other nations.
•Hispanocentric- Hispano: a person descended from Spanish settlers + Centric: in or at the center; central.
•Andres Bonifacio- wrote "Ang dapat mabatid ng mga Tagalog”
MATERIAL FACTS
•In 1949, Catholic bishops opposed the use of govern ment funds to publish Rafael Palma's biography of Rizal because of the book's
anti-Catholicism. One could easily have gotten caught up in the instrumentalization of history to score debating points in that
controversy and gone no further.
•It was Rizal's consciousness of the need to know his people's past that made him interrupt his work on El Filibusterismo, which was to
point toward a solution to the country's problems exposed in the Noli me tangere. Before planning for the future, as he insisted in the
prologue to his edition of Antonio de Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, one must unveil that history which had been hidden from
the eyes of Filipinos by neglect or distortion.
•Some modern historians have pointed to the Negros hacenderos' quickly embrac ing American rule as typical of the elite betrayal of
the Revolution. But, as even a casual reading of the history of the Recoleto mission work in Negros during the preceding half-century
makes clear, Negros was one of the most atypical of Philippine regions. The Christianization of the island mostly took place in the
second half of the nineteenth-century. Consequently, the island was only organ ized into fixed settlements during the same period.
•. The so-called Code of Kalantiyaw, in particular, found its way into history textbooks for generations until it was exposed in 1968 by
William Henry Scott in his Prehispanic Sources for the History of the Philippines. This, however, did not prevent a popular college
textbook from republish ing the code in the 1970s, even while adverting to its dubious (better said, nonexistent) authenticity.
• Marco also wrote a series of supposed works of Fr. Jose Burgos. Among these were a pseudonovel, La Loba Negra, an alleged
account of Burgos's trial, and more than two dozen other pseudohistorical and pseudoethnographic works, all furnished with forged
signatures of Burgos. Though the first Burgos forgeries were already questioned before the war, these mixtures of undigested
misinformation and anti-Catholic diatribes continued to be manufactured and published until shortly before the death of Marco.
 MATERIAL FACTS
•What is sadder for Philippine historiography is that even after I published in 1970 a detailed exposure of the forgeries,
including photographs of the true and forged signatures, these falsifications of the beginnings of the nationalist struggle
continue to be used as if genuine.
• Anyone who first studies Rizal's historical writings and then reads Andres Bonifacio's call to his fellow Filipinos in his "Ang
dapat mabatid ng mga Tagalog," will recognize that Rizal's hope that his edition of Morga would lay a foundation for the
building of the nation was not in vain. Bonifacio, Jacinto, and other Filipinos of the Revolutionary generation found much of
their literary and nationalist inspiration in Rizal's writings.
•William Henry Scott, the distinguished investigator into so many facets of the Filipino past, has entitled one of his works,
"Cracks in the Parchment Curtain." There is, he says, a documentary curtain of parchment which, at first sight, conceals from
modern view the activities and thought of Filipinos and reveals only the activities of Spaniards. But many "cracks" in that
parchment allow the percep tive investigator to glimpse Filipinos acting in their own world.
•Paterno distorted genuine documents. But more harmful were the early twentieth-century forgeries of Jose Marco on pre-
Hispanic Philippines, the Povedano and Pavon manuscripts, with the infamous Code of Kalantiyaw.
•Driven by this purpose, Jose Rizal spent long months in London's British Museum, copying out painfully by hand Morga's
account as the basis for his picture of the past. He dug through old missionary chronicles that would help him expand on
Morga's narrative. Thus he would show his countrymen that, from a Filipino point of view, Spanish rule had failed to fulfill its
promises of progress for Fili pinos. Indeed, in some respects they had even retrogressed under Spanish rule. Thus, in the light
of their past, the present lamen table state of the Filipinos provided moral legitimation for the struggle to come.
ARTICLE REVIEW
Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, 1609, by Antonio de Morga
An account of the history of the Spanish colony in the Philippines during the 16th century. Antonio de Morga was an official of the
colonial bureaucracy in Manila and could consequently draw upon much material that would otherwise have been inaccessible. His
book, published in 1609, ranges more widely than its title suggests since the Spanish were also active in China, Japan, Southeast
Asia, Taiwan, the Moluccas, Marianas and other Pacific islands. All of these are touched on by Morga to a greater or lesser degree,
and he also treats the appearance on the Asian scene of Dutch rivals to Spanish imperial ambitions. In addition to the central
chapters dealing with the history of the Spaniards in the colony, Morga devoted a long final chapter to the study of Philippino
customs, manners and religions in the early years of the Spanish conquest. From the first edition, Mexico, 1609. A new edition of First
Series 39.

Cracks in the Parchment Paper by William Henry Scott

Talk today moves from Glenn May's scalding review of Constantino's A Past Revisited ("A Past Revisited, A Past Distorted," Diliman Review 31
[March April 1983]) to the rather general questions involved in doing a "nationalist" history: how does one manage to establish a "people's"
perspective, given the fact that the major documents involved in Philippine history are the records not of the Filipino people,

GRAPHIC DESIGNER PHOTOGRAPHER

The central idea of the title essay, and a major theme throughout the collection, is simply that a Filipino perspective can be established and
main tained through careful attention to the "cracks" in the "parchment curtain," which is, like the Iron Curtain and the Bamboo Curtain, a
metaphor for the type of government control of information which makes it impossible for outsiders to learn much about the "true condition" of
those inside the cur tain. In this case modern Filipinos are cut off from learning much about the state of their ancestors by the fact that their
history is revealed only in Spanish documents, written from a Spanish perspective, and, in fact, center ing on Spanish concerns.

VISUAL PRESENTATION

https://youtu.be/HXCSi6Zo6Hk
Biases, Prejudices, &Fake News
THE HISTORIAN’S TASK

BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Bibliography
Reviewed Work: CRACKS IN THE PARCHMENT CURTAIN by William Henry Scott
Review by: Susan Evangelista
Philippine Studies
Vol. 32, No. 1 (First Quarter 1984), pp. 112-115 (4 pages)
Published By: Ateneo de Manila University
https://www.jstor.org/stable/42632685

Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, 1609, by Antonio de Morga

https://www.routledge.com/Sucesos-de-las-Islas-Filipinas-1609-by-Antonio-de-
Morga/Cummins/p/book/9780521010351#:~:text=Resources%20Support%20Material-,Book%20Descr
iption,would%20otherwise%20have%20been%20inaccessible.

 let's work
together