Chapter 1: Background of the Study

History: Its Meaning, Importance and Relevance

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

1. Determine the meaning, importance and relevance of history;

2. Evaluate primary source for their credibility, authenticity and relevance;
3. Differentiate internal and external criticism;
4. Describe the repositories of primary resources as well as their classifications.

Meaning of History

The word history is derived from the Greek term “historia” which means “inquiry
or research”. Thus the term history refers to account or inquiries of events that happened
in the past and are narrated in chronological order.

According to Aristotle, regarded as the father of logic, history is a systematic

account of a set of natural phenomena which are arranged in their chronological order.
The great historians Thucydides and Herodotus (Father of History) defined history as a
never ending learning inquiry about the past of mankind. E.H. Carn likewise defined
history as a never ending dialogues of events between the past and the present. Will
Durant stated that history is a narration of events of what civilized men have thought and
done in the past. In the words of Jewaharlal 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 conclusions from the past events, helping the person to
understand himself by being acquainted with other people.
2. Helps the person or government avoid the 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 history books) the cities and metropolis he visits and the cultural
performances he learns and listen to.

4. Broaden the person’s outlook in life by learning and understanding the various races,
cultures, idiosyncrasies, habits, rituals, ceremonies, etc. of the making of a
contemporary source 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 insist on occupying territories claimed by the
Philippines – and because of this 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 nationals of history and finally;

7. History preserves the cultural values of a nation because it guides the society in
confronting various crisis. As Allen Nervas puts it, history is like a bridge that connects
the past with the present and “pointing the road to the future”.

Relevance of the Study

Some students enrolled in the Philippine History subject after often 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 concern about what happened long ago?
The answer to their unending questions is that “history is inescapable”, according to
Penelope J. Corfield. 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. An example is the knowledge of the past is connected to the present so as
to determine what comes next in the future.

To understand the linkages between the past and the present is to have a better
grasp of the condition of being human. All human beings are living histories. For example,
the human species speak languages that are inherited from the past. They use
technologies that they have not themselves immersed. Thus an individual is born of an
inherited “genetic template” which has evolved during life span. This, Philippine History is
not only relevant, it is also useful and essential.

Understanding Philippine History is essential to a good understanding of the

condition of being human. People build, people destroy and people-change. Neither of
their options can be understood well without understanding the context and starting
point of all these. All human beings live in the here and now, but it took a long unfolding
history to get everything to “NOW”.

Distinction Between Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary sources are direct or firsthand evidences regarding an event, object,

person, or work of art. They include historical and legal documents, eyewitness
accounts, results of experiments, statistical data, pieces of creative writing, audio and
video recordings, speeches, and art objects. They also include interviews, surveys,
fieldwork, and internet communication via email, blogs, listservs, and newsgroups. In
most natural and social sciences, primary sources are often empirical studies–research
where an experiment was performed or a direct observation was done. The results of
such empirical studies are found in some scholarly articles or papers delivered at
conferences.

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 on articles in newspaper or popular magazines, book or movie
reviews, or articles written in scholarly journals that discuss or evaluate someone else’s
original research.
A comparative analysis of primary and secondary sources in a table format is
shown:
Primary sources are the raw
materials of historical research –
they are the documents or artifacts
closest to the topic of investigation.
Often they are created during the
time period which is being studied
(correspondence, diaries,
newspapers, government
documents, art) but they can also
be produced later by eyewitnesses
or participants memoirs, oral
histories). You may find primary
sources in their original format
(usually in an archive) or
reproduced in a variety of ways:
books, microfilm, digital, etc.
Examples include:
Artifacts (e.g. coins, plant
specimens, fossils, furniture, tools,
clothing, all from the time under
study)
Audio Recordings (e.g. radio
programs, oral histories)
Diaries
Internet communications on email,
interviews (e.g., oral histories,
telephone, e-mail)
Journal articles published in peer-
reviewed publications
Letters
Newspaper articles written at the
time
Secondary sources are analysis
or a restatement of primary
sources. They often describe or
explain primary sources. Some
secondary sources not only
analyze primary sources, but also
use them to argues, persuade the
reader to hold a certain opinion.
Secondary sources are not
evidence, but commentary on and
discussion of evidence.
Examples include:
Bibliographies
Biographical works
Commentaries, criticisms
Dictionaries, encyclopaedias
Histories
Journal articles
Magazine and newspaper articles
Monographs, other than fiction and
autobiography
Textbooks
Websites
 Original Documents (i.e. birth
certificate, will, marriage license,
trial transcript)
Patents
Photographs
Proceeding of meetings,
conferences, and symposia
Records of organizations,
government agencies (e.g. annual
report, treaty, constitution,
government document)
Speeches
Survey research (e.g., market
surveys, public opinion polls)
Video recordings (e.g. television
programs)
Works of art, architecture,
literature, and music (e.g.
paintings, sculptures, musical
scores, buildings, novels, poems,
websites)
Source: Steven Profit, October 4, 2017 (internet)

Difference Between Internal and External Criticism

With respect to the internal criticism, this seeks to falsify or demonstrate to

discontinuity with an idea by hypothetically assuming its truth in order to prove some
internal inconsistency on contradiction with it. External criticism, in contrast, seeks to
falsify an idea without hypothetically assuming its truth.

Dr. Lynn Sims, a history professor at John Tyler Community College noted two
ways of applying a set of data. According to her, internal criticism looks within the data
itself to try to determine the truth–facts and “reasonable” interpretation. It includes looking
at the apparent or possible motives of the person providing the data, whereas external
criticism applies “science to a document”. It involves such physical and technical tests as
dating of paper a document is written on, but it also involves knowledge of when certain
things existed or were possible, e.g. when zip codes were invented. External criticism and
the application of both forms of critique often require research. Part of research can be
oral history.

Understanding the difference between an internal and external criticism is of vital

importance for all people since failing to do this may lead to unfocused conversations
where the topic of investigation is never sufficiently addressed due to the ever–elusive
objective. It is important therefore to conversation by identifying what type of objection
you have or else are confronted with and, as a result, you will be in a better position for
having more fruitful conversation with those whom you may disagree with.
Repositories of Primary Sources

The main task of preserving and making accessible to the public, the primary source
of information in Philippine History 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 testament 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 year of the Republic.

The Archives is created by Republic Act 9470 on May 21, 2017. This new law
strengthened the record keeping systems and administration programs for archival
materials as it is the final repository for the voluminous naturized documents in the
country.

Other local repositories of primary sources could be found in museums of

provinces, cities and municipalities in the locality. The repositories are the Official Gazette
by the National Printing Office. For Supreme Court decisions, the depositories of the SC
decisions are the Philippine Reports. Citation of books, treatises, pleading and even court
decisions are found in the Supreme Court Reports Annotated (SCRA), a secondary
source published by the Central Book Supply.

Related Readings

1. Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History(pp.41–61, 117–170)

2. Howell and Prevenies, From Reliable Sources (pp.17–68)
3. Teodoro Agoncillo, History of the Filipino People (pp.184–187)
4. Robert Fox, The Tabon Caves (pp.40–44, 109–119) – The Human Remains and Artifacts