Readings in Philippine History
Week 2: Historical Sources
With the past as history's subject matter, the historian's most
important research tools are historical sources. In general, historical sources
can be classified between primary and secondary sources. The
classification of sources between these two categories depends on the
historical subject being studied. Primary sources are those sources produced
at the same time as the event, period, or subject being studied. For
example, if a historian wishes to study the Commonwealth Constitution
Convention of 1935, his primary sources can include the minutes of the
convention, newspaper clippings Philippine Commission reports of the U.S.
Commissioners, records of the convention, the draft of the Constitution, and
even photographs of the event. Eyewitness accounts of convention
delegates and their memoirs can also be used as primary sources. The
same goes with other subjects of historical study. Archival documents,
artifacts, memorabilia, letters, census, and government records, among
others are the most common examples of primary sources.
On the other hand, secondary sources are those sources, which were
produced by an author who used primary sources to produce the material.
In other words, secondary sources are historical sources, which studied a
certain historical subject. For example, on the subject of the Philippine
Revolution of 1896, students can read Teodoro Agoncillo's Revolt of the
Masses: The Story of Bonifacio and the Katipunan published originally in
1956. The Philippine Revolution happened in the last years of the nineteenth
century while Agoncillo published his work in 1956, which makes the Revolt
of the Masses a secondary source. More than this, in writing the book,
Agoncillo used primary sources with his research like documents of the
Katipunan, interview with the veterans of the Revolution, and
correspondence between and among Katipuneros.
However, a student should not be confused about what counts as a
primary or a secondary source. As mentioned above, the classification of
sources between primary and secondary depends not on the period when
the source was produced or the type of the source but on the subject of the
historical research. For example, a textbook is usually classified as a
secondary source, a tertiary source even. However, this classification is
usual but not automatic. If a historian chooses to write the history of
education in the 1980s, he can utilize textbooks used in that period as a
primary source. If a historian wishes to study the historiography of the
Filipino-American War for example, he can use works of different authors on
the topic as his primary source as well.
Both primary and secondary sources are useful in writing and learning
history. However, historians and students of history need to thoroughly
scrutinize these historical sources to avoid deception and to come up with
the historical truth. The historian should be able to conduct an external
and internal criticism of the source, especially primary sources which can
age in centuries. External criticism is the 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. Examples of the things
that will be examined when conducting external criticism of a document
include the quality of the paper, the type of the ink, and the language and
words used in the material, among others.
Internal criticism, on the other hand, is the examination of the
truthfulness of the evidence. It looks at the content of the source and
examines the circumstance of its production. Internal criticism looks at 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 intended purpose, among others. For example, Japanese
reports and declarations during the period of the war should not be taken as
a historical fact hastily. Internal criticism entails that the historian
acknowledge and analyze how such reports can be manipulated to be used
war propaganda. Validating historical sources is important because the use
of unverified, falsified, and untruthful historical sources can lead to equally
false conclusions. Without thorough criticisms of historical evidences;
historical deceptions and lies will be highly probable.
One of the most scandalous cases of deception in Philippine history
is the hoax Code of Kalantiaw. The code was a set of rules contained in an
epic, Maragtas, which was allegedly written by a certain Datu Kalantiaw. The
document was sold to the National Library and was regarded as an important
precolonial document until 1968, when American historian William Henry
Scott debunked the authenticity of the code due to anachronism and lack of
evidence to prove that the code existed in the precolonial Philippine society
Ferdinand Marcos also claimed that he was a decorated World War II soldier
who led a guerilla unit called Ang Maharlika. This was widely believed by
students of history and Marcos had war medals to show. This claim,
however, was disproven when historians counterchecked Marcos's claims
with the war records of the United States. These cases prove how deceptions
can propagate without rigorous historical research.
The task of the historian is to look at the available historical sources
and select the most relevant and meaningful for history and for the subject
matter that he is studying. History, like other academic discipline, has come
a long way but still has a lot of remaining tasks to do. It does not claim to
render absolute and exact judgment because as long as questions are
continuously asked, and as long as time unfolds, the study of history can
never be complete. The task of the historian is to organize the past that is
being created so that it can offer lessons for nations, societies, and
civilization. It is the historian's job to seek for the meaning of recovering the
past to let the people see the continuing relevance of provenance, memory,
remembering, and historical understanding for both the present and the
future.
Philippine historiography underwent several changes since the
precolonial period until the present. Ancient Filipinos narrated their history
through communal songs and epics that they passed orally from a
generation to another. When the Spaniards came, their chroniclers started
recording their observations through written accounts. The perspective of
historical writing and inquiry also shifted. The Spanish colonizers narrated
the. history of their colony in a bipartite view They saw the age before
colonization as a dark period in the history of the islands, until they brought
light through Western thought and Christianity. Early nationalists refuted
this perspective and argued the tripartite view. They saw the precolonial
society as a luminous age that ended with darkness when the colonizers
captured their freedom. They believed that the light would come agan once
the colonizers were evicted from the Philippines. Filipino historian Zeus
Salazar introduced the new guiding philosophy for writing and teaching
history: pantayong pananaw (for us-trom us perspective). This perspective
highlights the importance of facilitating an internal conversation and
discourse among Filipinos about our own history, using the language that is
understood by everyone.
