READINGS IN

PHILIPPINES
HISTORY
When it comes to our attendance,
when I call your name, open your
camera and instead of saying
present!
Says UWUU…
Introduction to history:
Definition, Issues,
Sources, and
Methodology
Definition and Subject
Matter
 HISTORY:
Known as study of the past.
Derived from the Greek word
“HISTORIA” which means “
Knowledge acquired through
inquiry and investigation.”
 HISTORY
 Became an important academic discipline.
It became the historian’s duty to write
about the lives of important individuals
like monarchs, heroes, saints, and
nobilities.
 It also focused on writing about wars,
revolutions, and other important
breakthroughs.
 Not only the time, history is always in
written documents, some our history came
up with verbal history or history by word of
mouth. The epic and ritual or worship songs
are example of this. Some of the historical
documents burned or destroyed in the
events of war or colonization.
 LINGUISTS
Can also be helpful in tracing
historical evolutions, past connections
among different groups, and flow of
cultural influence by studying
language and the changes that it has
undergone.
Scientists like biologists and
biochemists can help with
the study of the past through
analyzing genetic and DNA
patterns of human societies.
QUESTION AND ISSUES IN HISTORY

1.What is History?
2.Why study History?
3.History for whom?
 HISTORIOGRAPHY
 Is the History of History.
 It is important for someone who
studies history because it teaches
the student to be critical in the
lessons of history presented to
him.
 POSITIVISM
School of thought requires empirical and
observable evidence before one can claim
that a particular knowledge is true.
Positivism also entails an objective means of
arriving at a conclusion. Positivist historian
are also expected to be objective and didn’t
accept any verbal history. They stand for
“no documents no history”.
 ILUSTRADOS

Jose Rizal, Isabelo Delos reyes and Pedro

Paterno wrote history, they intended it for the
Spaniards so that they would realize that
Filipinos are people of their own intellect and
culture.
 White man’s burden
When American historians depicted the Filipino
people as uncivilized in their publications, they
intended that narrative for their fellow Americans to
justify their colonization of the islands. They wanted
the colonization to appear not as a means of
undermining the Philippines’ sovereignty. America
says that they intended only to help Filipino to
develop and enhance the economy of the country,
and to properly use the natural recourses here.
 POSTCOLONIALISM
A school of thought that emerged in
the early twentieth century when
formerly colonized nations grappled
with the idea of creating their
identities and understanding their
societies against the shadow of their
colonial past.
 POSTCOLONIAL HISTORY LOOKS AT 2
THINGS IN WRITING HISTORY
 To tell the history of their nation that
will highlight their identity free from
that of colonial discourse and
knowledge,
 To criticize the methods, effect, and
idea of colonialism.
 “Facts cannot speak for
themselves.”
It is the job of the
historian to give meaning to
these facts and organize them
into a timeline, establish causes,
and write history.
 THE ANNALES SCHOOL OF HISTORY

A school of history born in France

that challenged the canons of history.
This school of thought did away with
the common historical subjects that
were almost always related to the
conduct of states and monarchs.
 THE ANNALES SCHOOL OF HISTORY

Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, and

Jacques Le Goff studied other subjects in a historical
manner. They were concerned with social history and
studied longer historical periods.
 HISTORICAL SOURCES

 PRIMARY SOURCES:
Are those sources produced at
the same time as the event,
period, or subject being studied.
 HISTORICAL SOURCES
 SECONDARY SOURCES
• Are those sources, which were
produced by an author who used
primary sources to produce the
material.
• historical sources, which studied a
certain historical subject.
 SECONDARY SOURCES
 EXAMPLE:
On the subject of the Philippine
Revolution of 1896, student can read
Teodoro Agoncillo’s REVOLT OF THE
MASSES: The story of Bonifacio and the
katipunan published originally in 1956
EXTERNAL CRITICISM
Practice of verifying the authenticity of
evidence by examining its physical
characteristics
Consistency with the historical
characteristic of the time when it was
produced, and the materials used for the
evidence.
 INTERNAL CRITICISM
 The examination of the truthfulness
and factuality of the evidence by
looking at the author of the source
its context, the agenda behind its
creation, the knowledge which
informed it and its purpose among
others.
THE HOAX CODE OF KALANTIAW
One of the most
scandalous cases
of deception in
Philippine history .
PHILIPPINE HISTORIOGRAPHY
Underwent several
changes since the
precolonial period until
the present.
Historiography of the Philippines refers to
the studies, sources, critical methods and
interpretations used by scholars to study the
history of the Philippines. The Philippine
archipelago has been part of many empires
before the Spanish empire has arrived in the
16th century.
The pre-colonial Philippines uses the Abugida writing
system that has been widely used in writing and seals on
documents though it was for communication and no
recorded writings of early literature or history. Ancient
Filipinos usually write documents on bamboo, bark, and
leaves which did not survive unlike inscriptions on clays,
metals, and ivories did like the 
Laguna Copperplate Inscription and Butuan Ivory Seal.
The discovery of the Butuan Ivory Seal also proves the
use of paper documents in ancient Philippines.
 The arrival of the Spanish colonizers, pre-colonial
Filipino manuscripts and documents were gathered and
burned to eliminate pagan beliefs. This has been the
burden of historians in the accumulation of data and the
development of theories that gave historians many
aspects of Philippine history that were left
unexplained. The interplay of pre-colonial events, the
use of secondary sources written by historians to
evaluate the primary sources, do not provide a critical
examination of the methodology of the early Philippine
historical study
 ZUES SALASAR
Filipino historian who
introduced the new
guiding philosophy for
writing and teaching
history: PANTAYONG
PANANAW.