Saint Louis College

City of San Fernando, La Union

Beacon of Wisdom in the North

GE 2: Readings in Philippine History

Module 1: The Meaning and Relevance of History

Section 1: Distinction Between Primary and Secondary Sources ⮚ In conducting
any historical research, different sources of information are required to gain
extensive knowledge on a particular topic.
⮚ Some researchers rely on written sources while others choose to make use
of oral sources.
⮚ Primary Sources: These sources are considered as contemporary accounts
of an event, personally written or narrated by an individual person who
directly experienced or participated in the said event.
⮚ Primary sources also include materials that capture the event such as
photographs, voice and video recordings, and the like. These materials
are considered as original sources that directly narrate the details of the
event.
✔ Diary

✔ Journal entries

✔ Letters

✔ Memoirs

✔ Speeches

✔ Interviews

✔ Official Records

✔ Minutes

✔ Artworks

✔ Artifacts

⮚ Primary sources mostly include unpublished works of individuals that were

discovered after some time as during historical excavation and historical
researches done in public and private libraries.
⮚ Newspapers and magazine articles are also considered primary sources as
long as they were written soon after the events and not as historical
account.
⮚ Secondary Sources: These resources serve as interpretations or readings of
primary sources. Usually, the author of a piece incorporates his or her
personal insights and interpretations, thus, detaching the original value of
the component of the subject being discussed.
⮚ These sources usually contain analyses of primary sources by experts,
academicians, and professionals.
⮚ These are usually in the form of published works such as journals, articles,
reviews, books, conference papers, and documentaries.
⮚ They can also be based on interpretations of other secondary sources or a
combination of primary and secondary sources.

Saint Louis College

City of San Fernando, La Union
Beacon of Wisdom in the North

⮚ Many historical researches also bank on secondary sources to get different

perspectives on a particular topic. However, relying too much on
secondary sources may blur out the actual details of particular historical
events.
⮚ Therefore, primary and secondary sources should be evaluated. Most
scholars use the following questions in evaluating the validity and
credibility of sources of historical accounts:
1) How did the author know about the given details? Was the author
present at the event? How soon was the author able to gather the
details of the event?
2) Where did the information come from? Is it a personal experience,
an eyewitness account, or a report made by another person? 3) Did
the author conclude based on a single source, or on many sources of
evidence?
⮚ The evaluation of an available source shows any indication that it is an
interpretative work rather than a factual firsthand account, it is
considered as a secondary source.
Section 2: Evaluation of Primary and Secondary Sources
⮚ Primary source provides better and more accurate historical details
compared to a secondary source. However, the authenticity and
reliability of primary sources should be scrutinized before they are used.
⮚ In this day and age, the proliferation of fake news is evident in both print
and digital media platforms.
⮚ Although primacy is given to primary sources, there are instances when the
credibility of these sources are contestable. Garraghan (1950) identified
six points of inquiries to evaluate the authenticity of a primary source:
1) Date – When was it produced?
2) Localization – Where did it originate?
3) Authorship – Who wrote it?
4) Analysis – What pre-existing material served as the basis for its
production?
5) Integrity – What was its original form?
6) Credibility – What is the evidential value of its content?
⮚ Secondary accounts of historical events are narratives commonly passed
on from one generation to the next or knowledge that is shared within a
community. Similar to the usual problem with passing information from one
point to another, details can be altered.
⮚ Louis Gottschalk (1969) emphasized that is impossible for historians to avoid
using secondary sources due to difficulty in accessing primary sources. He
suggested that secondary sources must only be used for:

Saint Louis College

City of San Fernando, La Union
Beacon of Wisdom in the North

1) deriving the setting wherein the contemporary evidence will fit in

the grand narrative of history;
2) getting leads to other bibliographic data
3) acquiring quotations or citations from contemporary or other
sources; and
4) deriving interpretations with a view of testing and improving them
but not accepting them as outright truth.
⮚ Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier (2001) stated that before any source
can be considered as an evidence in a historical argument, it must satisfy
 three preconditions.
1) It must be comprehensible at the most basic level of vocabulary,
language, and handwriting
2) The source must be carefully located in accordance with place and
time. Its author, composer, or writer and the location where it was
produced/published should be noted for the checking of
authenticity and accuracy.
3) The authenticity of the source must always be checked and
counterchecked before being accepted as a credible source in
any historical findings. Subtle details such as the quality of paper
used, the ink or the watermark of the parchment used, and the way
it was encoded.
⮚ Cases of forgery and mislabeling are common in Philippine historiography.

✔ Ambeth Ocampo’s discovery of the alleged draft of Jose Rizal’s third

novel, the Makamisa
✔ Signature of Gen. Urbano Lacuna that led to the captivity of Emilio
Aguinaldo
✔ Signature of Jose Rizal in the great retraction controversy ✔

Josephine Bracken and Jose Rizal marriage under Catholic rites ⮚

Internal criteria set by Howell and Prevenier (2001):
1) The genealogy of the document – refers to the development of the
document. The document may be original, a copy, or a copy of
the copy.
2) The genesis of the document – includes the situations and the
authorities during the document’s production.
3) The originality of the document – includes the nature of the
document whether it is an eye/earwitness account or merely
passing of existing information.
4) The interpretation of the document – pertains to deducing meaning
from the document.
5) The authority of the document – refers to the relationship between
the document’s subject matter and its author.

Saint Louis College

City of San Fernando, La Union
Beacon of Wisdom in the North
 6) The competence of the observer – refers to the author’s capabilities
and qualifications to critically comprehend and report information. 7)
The trustworthiness of the observer – refers to the author’s integrity –
whether he or she fabricates or reports truthfully
⮚ Primary sources: How these sources are directly related and closely
connected to the time of the events they pertain to.
⮚ Secondary sources: Depends on the elapsed time from the date of the
event to the date of their creation. More likely, the farther the date of
creation from the actual event, the more reliable the source is (exhaustion
of all available materials).