Philippine history

The second of the eight required core courses mandated by CMO 20, series of 2013, is “Readings in Philippine History / Mga Babasahin hinggil sa Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas.”

“Not again?” I can almost hear students groan.

Not really. This core course in the new General Education Curriculum (GEC) is not like the history subjects offered in elementary and secondary school, nor is it at all like the Philippine History subject that was in the old GEC.

The description tells it all: “Philippine History viewed from the lens of selected primary sources in different periods, analysis and interpretation. / Mga piling primaryang sanggunian ukol sa iba’t ibang yugto ng kasaysayan ng Pilipinas, pagsusuri at interpretasyon.”

(By the way, for the sake of neatness, I will use “Pilipinas” rather than “Filipinas,” the official recommendation of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, which is the only government body tasked with standardizing spelling in the national language. Let it be known, however, that I am for changing the name of the country to “Filipinas,” for reasons that have to do with linguistics rather than history. But that will be another column.)

In all the history subjects taught so far in our country, except possibly for those taken by history majors in graduate school, students read historians. There is nothing wrong with historians. In fact, if we did not have historians, we would not know much about history.

In the new K to 12 curriculum, however, students will have their fill of historians. In college, students should read primary sources, which are texts that were created, written, and/or published during the times that we now consider to be history.

Let us take a simple example. Instead of reading a biography of Rizal to find out if he retracted, students will now read Rizal’s own letter of retraction. Students will then have to learn enough Spanish to read this: “Me retracto de todo corazon de cuanto en mis palabras, escritos, impresos y conducta ha habido contrario á mi cualidad de hijo de la Iglesia Católica.” That will not be hard, because several of the words in this sentence are familiar to speakers of Tagalog (todo, corazon, palabras, escritos, hijo, Iglesia, Catolica) or English (retracto, impresos, conducta, contrario, cualidad).

Instead of trying to figure out who is more believable (Austin Coates or Austin Craig, just to take historians with the same first names), they should study what Rizal himself and people who were actually there at that time wrote.

This is the way the course is described in Appendix A:

“The course aims to expose students to different facets of Philippine history through the lens of eyewitnesses. Rather than rely on secondary material such as textbooks, which is the usual approach in teaching Philippine history, different types of primary sources will be used – written (qualitative and quantitative), oral, visual, audio-visual, digital – covering various aspects of Philippine life (political, economic, social, cultural). Students are expected to analyze the selected readings contextually and in terms of content (stated and implied). The end goal is to enable students to understand and appreciate our rich past by deriving insights from those who were actually present at the time of the event.

“Contextual analysis considers the following: (i) the historical context of the source (time and place it was written and the situation at the time), (ii) the author’s background, intent (to the extent discernible), and authority on the subject; and (iii) the source’s relevance and meaning today.

“Content analysis, on the other hand, applies appropriate techniques depending on the type of source (written, oral, visual). In the process students will be asked, for example, to identify the author’s main argument or thesis, compare points of view, identify bias, and evaluate the author’s claims based on the evidence presented or other available evidence at the time. The course will guide students through their reading and analysis of the texts and require them to write reaction essays of varied length and present their ideas in other ways (debate format, PowerPoint presentation, letter to the author of the source, etc.).

“The instructor may arrange the readings chronologically or thematically, and start with the present (more familiar) and go back to the earlier periods or vice-versa.”

In the case of Rizal’s so-called retraction, we have at least one relevant document, a notarized declaration by the head of the Spanish Supreme Court during Rizal’s time. There were also the seven newspapers that carried the story at that time. College students will now be asked to read these documents and to decide for themselves whether these are credible or not, based on how they view justices and newspapers.

We can imagine lively classes where college students are presenting their own views about historical documents and not depending on what scholars have written about those. The idea, as we know from the general objectives of the new GEC, is to have students think for themselves, to give them the kind of critical minds that the country and the world need, to teach them how to think and not what to think. At the same time, because they will be steeped in historical texts, they will understand and appreciate what it means to be Filipino. (To be continued)