The Historian’s task in the Philippines Formative Century It is said that Philippine history has been more devoted to the revolutionary and the American colonial period. 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. (For instance, much attention has been given to the agitation concerning the friar lands) (But relatively little has been done to explore the much bigger growth of the non-friar haciendas both Spanish and Filipino and the impact of Filipino life of the 19nth century commercialization of agriculture.) Some modern historians have pointed to the Negros Hacenderos’ quickly embracing American rule as typical of elite betrayal of the revolution. Negros is one of the most atypical regions of the Philippines, meaning they are a not very representative type of group. In fact, the Christianization of the island mostly took place in the second half of the 19nt Century. Hence, weather or not the negros Hacenderos were typical of the Filipino elite, negros society was quite different from other regions, even nearby Iloilo. To illustrate the point Most of the Iloilo socioeconomic elites were close relatives and associates of their counterparts, like the negros Hacenderos, many of the Iloilo elite soon went over to the Americans. The war continued in Panay well into 1901, long after negros was flying the American flag. The difference in response was not due to different elites, but to a different society below them, the provincial principals, the Filipino clergy, the wider population. A true history of the revolution, including the war against the Americans, is still being written—one that will look at the revolution not just in Cavite, Malolos, or Luzon, but in all degrees and types of nationalist responses across the Philippines. It will look into the distinctions between regional societies' socioeconomic groups, as well as the political, economic, religious, and cultural reasons for these differences. But such a history of the revolution will not be possible until further research on a regional basis has been done on the century before the revolution. Nationalist history Pedro Paterno had a bizarre and ingenious lucubration on the supposed prehispanic past at the turn of the century. He sought to explain that everything positive he discovered in 19th-century Filipino society, including Christianity, was the result of mythological inborn characteristics of the race that existed before the arrival of the Spaniards. Of course, contemporary Filipinos like Rizal secretly laugh Paterno's so-called history. Unfortunately, his books had an impact on textbook writers in the future. Paterno distorted genuine documents. but more harmful were the early 20th century forgeries of Jose Marco on Prehipanic Philippines, the Povendano and Pavon manuscripts, with the infamous code of Kalantiaw. These products of a perversely created imagination were not only accepted but also commented on very respectable American and Filipino historians. the so-called code of Kalantiaw, 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 republishing the code in the 1970s, even while advertising to its dubious (better said, nonexistent) authenticity. Nor did it prevent older studies based on Marco’s pseudohistory from being published in 1979, thus perpetuating further the distortion of the Prehispanic Past. Marco was not satisfied with have a spurious national past for the Prehespanic period, so he wrote a series of supposed works of Jose Burgos. Among these were a pseudo-novel, La Loba Negra, an alleged account of Burgos’s trial, and more than two dozen other pseudohistorical land pseudo-ethnographic works. All furnished with forged signatures of burgos. Despite the fact that the initial Burgos forgeries were questioned prior to the war, these combinations of undigested falsehoods and anti-catholic diatribes were made and published until Marco's death. Even after a detailed exposure of Marcos’s forgeries were published in 1970, including photographs and forged signatures, these falsifications of the beginning of the national struggle continue to be used as if genuine. Such attempts to make history “nationalists” as those of paterno and marco comma and their perpetrators comma are clearly futile. A false pretense can do nothing to build a sense of national identity, much less be a good guide for the present or the future. This allegedly do not involve themselves in the total effort to free Filipino from colonial mentality. A truly Filipino history, it is said, cannot but be a history of Filipino masses and their struggles. Those struggles have been carried on against spanish oppression in american exploitation, colonial and neo colonial. We must indeed investigate the real effects of colonial experience to free historiography from colonial miyths, such as that which can see in the first half of the century only American benevolent guidance of the Filipino toward democracy and progress. The so called “nationalist” historiography, allows only a small one-dimensional consideration, the Spanish obscurantism and American imperialism. The deterministic framework on the history of the Filipinos, which sees the historian’s task as merely an analysis of how that history fits into a presumed general historical process of capitalism and imperialism, creates a new myth to replace the old ones. The masses, whose story professed to unfold, do not always think, feel, and express themselves within the constricting framework. Historians needs a preliminary hypothesis from which to investigate in the past. But if the contemporary historian is not to fall into the trap of providentialist historians who claim to see the hand of God or the devil in every phase of the historical process, then the hypothesis must have sufficient bread of vision to encompass all the facts. Only the dogmatist can assert that just one way of looking at reality corresponds to the genuine consciousness of the people. A true,” people's history”, therefore. must see the Filipino people as the primary agents in their history not just as objects are oppressed by theocracy or oppressed by exploiting exploitative colonial policies. It expects to discover that Filipinos, both individually and collectively, have not simply been acted upon, but have creatively responded to Spanish and American colonial regimes; that they have simulated both the good and the bad; and that they have been moved to action and progress by their creative interaction with other cultures, rather than simply being victims of cultural imperialism. A historiography which studies the real Filipino people may expect to find that religious values have not simply led to the docility and submission, but also to resistance to injustice and to struggle for a better society. It will take seriously people’s movements that articulate their goals in religious terms, and that merely those that speak in Marxist accents. It will be able to recognize and criticize the role of religion in the formation of Filipino society, both official and folk varieties of Christianity and Islam. People will not be treated as an abstraction manipulated by deterministic forces in a true people's history. A truly nationalist history will attempt to comprehend all aspects of the Filipino people's experience as they saw it. It will acknowledge both the positive and negative aspects of Filipino history. There is a case to be made that Philippine history should be written from the perspective of the people. The goal of historical research and writing should be to undermine the formation of a society that provides justice and participation to all Filipinos, not just the power elites. History's contribution, though not solely or even primarily, is to present the Filipino past as it truly was, in all its diversity. Not all of that past will provide inspiration for a better and more just society. But by depicting the whole of reality, history will make it possible to reform and reshape that society towards a better future. The historian as nationalist can do no less.
