By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:46:00 12/05/2008
Last Sunday, Nov. 30, while the auction of Southeast Asian art was ongoing in Christie’s Hong Kong, I found myself in the Quezon City Sports Club for the quarterly auction of the Bayanihan Collector’s Club.
I have never joined an auction, and the few times I was tempted to try my luck, I backed out, suspicious that the owner of the item would bid against me, bringing the price up and leaving me with the bag. I must be missing out on something here, but what bring me to these quarterly auctions are the bourse tables where many other things are on sale. It is during these pre-auction activities that you meet with other collectors, compare notes or exchange the latest gossip.
I was surprised to find one of my former students browsing through the table of the veteran collector, lawyer Jorge de los Santos, and asked the latter to give the young man a good discount to start him early. De los Santos is now semi-retired from collecting, but he infected his son Edward with the bug, and it is from the son that I purchase postcards of pre-war Philippines as well as interesting photographs.
My loot was meager. I got a photograph of Sergio Osmeña visiting a certain Mr. Rodriguez in the hospital. The man in bed looked ill, but he sat up for Osmeña, resulting in another photograph showing the same man dead. These were known as “recuerdos de patay” and if it were not bad feng shui to collect them, I would have an enviable collection by now.
The first “recuerdo de patay” I saw was in the prewar El Renacimiento that ironically was named after “rebirth” but specialized in photographs of the dead and dying. They were the original “ambulance chasers” and their reportage can be distressing.
For example, in 1911 they ran a whole issue on Teodora Alonso, Jose Rizal’s mother, showing her from sickbed to coffin. Another issue had Emilio Jacinto on a bier carrying his rifle, while a row of sad faces mourned in the background.
My great bargain last Sunday was a paperweight made by the French silver company Christofle depicting a palm with the various lines read by “manghuhula” [fortunetellers]. Jeweler Ramon Villegas looked over my shoulder as I haggled and argued that this hand was not sterling silver, but silver-plated. He then sneered, “Iregalo mo ’yan kay Madam Auring!” [“Give it as a gift to the fortuneteller Madam Auring!”]
But why would I do such a thing? I don’t even know her. The palm now rests on my table—yet another distraction during deadlines.
Searching on the Internet that evening, I found out that the hand was unique and was never reproduced by Christofle. It was not even for sale; rather it was given as a present in 1973 to their best and loyal customers. So what was this Christofle hand doing in Manila? Who would have bought enough silverware to be gifted with such a useless but beautiful thing?
The De los Santoses asked me to stay for lunch and while there gamely answered questions like: What was the name of Admiral Montojo’s flagship during the May 1898 Battle of Manila Bay? (Answer: Reina Cristina) What is the most impressive copy of the first edition “Noli me tangere” you have seen or handled? (Answer: The one inscribed to Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo by Rizal himself. It used to be in the collection of Alfonso T. Ongpin but was acquired and later presented to Ferdinand Marcos as a birthday present. It now rests in a glass case in the Malacañang Museum.) How much do you think this 19th-century book by Montero y Vidal should cost? (Answer: Not as much as the reserve price at the auction.) I felt like reminding people that I am not the replacement for the late Ernie Baron, yet it was a pleasant way to spend a Sunday morning.
I asked Attorney De los Santos what he first collected as a child. He said they were shiny coins from his mother’s purse, sea shells on a trip to the beach, etc.
I tried to think when I became a collector. Like most children, I started with coins and postage stamps. I remember that long before Pepsi had a problem with 3-4-9 bottle caps, there was a promotion that required collecting all of Snow White’s seven dwarves on the inside of used bottle caps and this was to be exchanged for a round-trip, all-expense-paid trip to Disneyland in California. I remember parents opening more Pepsi bottles than they could drink just to find “Sneezy.” That probably made a collector of me and everyone else of my generation.
Now that I sit and try to remember, it was the late E. Aguilar Cruz who infected me with the collecting virus. Books he gave away. Other trinkets he also gave away. But I remember that he sold me my first painting, a rather impressionistic-looking still life of peeled pomelos by the late Ibarra de la Rosa. I don’t even know why I picked that out of his library floor, when there were other things to be had like pre-war landscapes, a 17th-century image of Michael the Archangel, a bust of Rizal by Guillermo Tolentino, etc.
At that time well over 25 years ago, collecting art or antiques was truly a hobby. It was affordable and there was a lot to choose from. Those were the days, best described by Belinda Olivares-Cunanan and Gilda Cordero when they maintained antique shops supplied from “walkers” and “runners” in Manila’s Ermita district.
Today, collecting is a high-end game of one-upmanship: I have a bigger thing than yours. Sexual in a way, but then all the fun is gone.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Treasure from trash
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:45:00 12/03/2008
Historians are natural-born pack rats, their living spaces often littered with books and papers. Their life and livelihood come from all that clutter. There is order in that mess, so in my home the cleaning rules are that books or papers may be stacked up neatly but must not be moved to any other place lest I have to look frantically for them. No piece of paper on any surface should be thrown away, except those that have been crumpled, torn, and thrown into the wastebasket. My father added another rule: have two wastebaskets, one for immediate disposal and the other to be reviewed lest something important be thrown away.
By far the most organized study I have seen was that of the late Teodoro A. Agoncillo. Everything had its rightful place. Knowing his part in history, Agoncillo would file every bit of paper he received—from utility bills to letters, and even random notes from students on manila paper, which he later had bound into scrapbooks. If you opened the books in his library, you would find typewritten notes on the book inside. Sometimes he would paste commentary or citations on various pages that moved him.
Before he became old and infirm, E. Arsenio Manuel filed the research papers of his students by topic, indexed them, and bound them in a series called “Pasig Papers.” These had little to do with Pasig the place, or Pasig the river. The scrapbooks contained research on history, folklore, anthropology, etc. Manuel said he learned this from H. Otley Beyer, whose “Ethnographic Papers,” also arranged by geographic region and topic, are now in the National Library of Australia.
Books are a special challenge because they take up space, and, in my case, they are so heavy that some of my narra shelves have bent or fallen off altogether. I am often too lazy to file my books properly, so when I am trying to beat a deadline and I can’t find a reference, I rush out and buy a new one—only to come upon, days later, two copies I couldn’t find when I needed them.
When Sally Arlante, then of the University of the Philippines Archives, asked for my papers 13 years ago, I readily agreed, to clear my work space. What was then a mess in my study is now neatly arranged in folders, kept in a climate-controlled room in acid-free boxes. A catalogue put order into my papers and I can now see my life in outline. Every year I send boxes of papers to UP, sparing my sisters the long and painful task of sorting them out when I pass away. I turn over research that I have used, research that I will probably never use, so that a younger person can use them and build a career.
Doreen Fernandez passed away before she could organize and donate her papers to some archive. That task was left to her sister Della Besa and her niece Maya Roxas who recently turned over boxes of papers, photos, newspaper clippings, correspondence, etc. to the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings (ALIWW). Doreen’s papers join those of other writers like Encarnacion Alzona (first Filipina historian), Lina Flor, and friends and contemporaries like Gilda Cordero Fernando and Eugenia D. Apostol. Perhaps ALIWW should visit the Philippine Daily Inquirer and ask for the papers of Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc, Rina David and Thelma San Juan, because journalists are very bad with papers. Surely one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
A natural teacher like Doreen would want her papers to be useful, to be consulted by others rather than kept as relics to be venerated. Now other scholars can start where she left off in terms of food and theater research.
Among Doreen’s many affiliations was with the Cultural Research Association of the Philippines, which is now rightfully extinct because its acronym spells out CRAP! Was this a private joke or a Freudian slip? Her papers might provide an answer.
Those who were fortunate to have been invited into Doreen’s cluttered study on Acacia Lane in Mandaluyong City would have marveled that the small, book-lined cubbyhole cut out from their bedroom, in a space bursting with books, papers, and bric-a-brac, was where many of her columns, lectures, and scholarly articles were born. They were first written neatly in long hand, later on an IBM electric typewriter, then on one of the earliest word processors in Philippine academia, a white monster she called “Fred” or some other familiar name.
Her similarly cluttered office at the Ateneo de Manila University’s Department of Communication was visual proof that she was very busy. Now these papers, photographs, letters, photocopies, offprints, menus, and perhaps even hurriedly scribbled notes on napkins and notebooks are evidence of a productive and well-lived life. We have published columns and sometimes drafts printed out with her corrections and additions always in her clear handwriting. All these just prove that clear thinking is a must in any sort of writing whether you write in long hand, 3x5 cards, yellow pad, or a Blackberry. That is something you learn by going through her papers.
ALIWW is a specialized library for women’s writings. One can only hope that other major universities will follow suit and fill their archives and libraries with the papers of their distinguished and productive professors, so that a younger generation may continue to learn from the generation that came before them.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:45:00 12/03/2008
Historians are natural-born pack rats, their living spaces often littered with books and papers. Their life and livelihood come from all that clutter. There is order in that mess, so in my home the cleaning rules are that books or papers may be stacked up neatly but must not be moved to any other place lest I have to look frantically for them. No piece of paper on any surface should be thrown away, except those that have been crumpled, torn, and thrown into the wastebasket. My father added another rule: have two wastebaskets, one for immediate disposal and the other to be reviewed lest something important be thrown away.
By far the most organized study I have seen was that of the late Teodoro A. Agoncillo. Everything had its rightful place. Knowing his part in history, Agoncillo would file every bit of paper he received—from utility bills to letters, and even random notes from students on manila paper, which he later had bound into scrapbooks. If you opened the books in his library, you would find typewritten notes on the book inside. Sometimes he would paste commentary or citations on various pages that moved him.
Before he became old and infirm, E. Arsenio Manuel filed the research papers of his students by topic, indexed them, and bound them in a series called “Pasig Papers.” These had little to do with Pasig the place, or Pasig the river. The scrapbooks contained research on history, folklore, anthropology, etc. Manuel said he learned this from H. Otley Beyer, whose “Ethnographic Papers,” also arranged by geographic region and topic, are now in the National Library of Australia.
Books are a special challenge because they take up space, and, in my case, they are so heavy that some of my narra shelves have bent or fallen off altogether. I am often too lazy to file my books properly, so when I am trying to beat a deadline and I can’t find a reference, I rush out and buy a new one—only to come upon, days later, two copies I couldn’t find when I needed them.
When Sally Arlante, then of the University of the Philippines Archives, asked for my papers 13 years ago, I readily agreed, to clear my work space. What was then a mess in my study is now neatly arranged in folders, kept in a climate-controlled room in acid-free boxes. A catalogue put order into my papers and I can now see my life in outline. Every year I send boxes of papers to UP, sparing my sisters the long and painful task of sorting them out when I pass away. I turn over research that I have used, research that I will probably never use, so that a younger person can use them and build a career.
Doreen Fernandez passed away before she could organize and donate her papers to some archive. That task was left to her sister Della Besa and her niece Maya Roxas who recently turned over boxes of papers, photos, newspaper clippings, correspondence, etc. to the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings (ALIWW). Doreen’s papers join those of other writers like Encarnacion Alzona (first Filipina historian), Lina Flor, and friends and contemporaries like Gilda Cordero Fernando and Eugenia D. Apostol. Perhaps ALIWW should visit the Philippine Daily Inquirer and ask for the papers of Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc, Rina David and Thelma San Juan, because journalists are very bad with papers. Surely one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
A natural teacher like Doreen would want her papers to be useful, to be consulted by others rather than kept as relics to be venerated. Now other scholars can start where she left off in terms of food and theater research.
Among Doreen’s many affiliations was with the Cultural Research Association of the Philippines, which is now rightfully extinct because its acronym spells out CRAP! Was this a private joke or a Freudian slip? Her papers might provide an answer.
Those who were fortunate to have been invited into Doreen’s cluttered study on Acacia Lane in Mandaluyong City would have marveled that the small, book-lined cubbyhole cut out from their bedroom, in a space bursting with books, papers, and bric-a-brac, was where many of her columns, lectures, and scholarly articles were born. They were first written neatly in long hand, later on an IBM electric typewriter, then on one of the earliest word processors in Philippine academia, a white monster she called “Fred” or some other familiar name.
Her similarly cluttered office at the Ateneo de Manila University’s Department of Communication was visual proof that she was very busy. Now these papers, photographs, letters, photocopies, offprints, menus, and perhaps even hurriedly scribbled notes on napkins and notebooks are evidence of a productive and well-lived life. We have published columns and sometimes drafts printed out with her corrections and additions always in her clear handwriting. All these just prove that clear thinking is a must in any sort of writing whether you write in long hand, 3x5 cards, yellow pad, or a Blackberry. That is something you learn by going through her papers.
ALIWW is a specialized library for women’s writings. One can only hope that other major universities will follow suit and fill their archives and libraries with the papers of their distinguished and productive professors, so that a younger generation may continue to learn from the generation that came before them.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Searching for Andres Bonifacio
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:48:00 11/28/2008
A few months back, I received an intriguing text message from Dr. Michael Cullinane of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was researching in the Philippine National Archives in Manila. He teased me silly with a “discovery” that I just had to see. Another researcher had stumbled across a document stating that Andres Bonifacio was apprehended on Sept. 29, 1896, shortly after the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution, and brought to the police detachment in the “tranvia” [streetcar] station of Malabon, now a city outside Manila. I pretended to be excited because I didn’t want to spoil the fun just yet. However, I don’t want to let this “discovery” fool the gullible.
I had come across the same document over a decade ago. It said that “Andres Bonifacio” was carrying a “cedula” [residence tax certificate] with personal number 2492892 (perhaps I should place a bet on this number in this weekend’s lotto draw because Sunday, Nov. 30, is Bonifacio Day). The cedula also stated that “Bonifacio” was a native of Tambobo, a resident of Concepcion and 41 years old. His occupation was listed as “formalero” (whatever that means).
There are a number of ways to read this document, but the common thread is that the man was not the Andres Bonifacio of our textbooks. If the cedula is legitimate then we have “Andres Bonifacio” from Malabon apprehended, interrogated and produced by the authorities for “pogi points,” or brownie points. If the cedula is a fake, then it was probably used by the real Bonifacio to mislead the police and military who were hot on his trail. If the document is a fake, then that explains how Bonifacio was able to hold rallies in various places where he would tear up his cedula to emphasize his freedom from Spanish oppression.
I am sure there are people out there who will disagree and make a mountain out of a molehill with this stray document in the National Archives. We leave them to their imagination.
The real search for Bonifacio has been done, not by a historian of the Revolution, but by a demographic historian: Dr. Dan Doeppers, now retired from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Doeppers graciously shared his data drawn from the “vecindarios,” or residence lists, of Manila’s Tondo area that he combed for the years covering 1889 to 1894. We all know that Bonifacio is from Tondo, but he is not the Hero of Tondo (the titled is reserved for Raja Soliman). Doeppers’ says that the records do not list any Andres Bonifacio in Tondo during those years. He did find the following:
1. Bernabe Bonifacio, age 36, tailor, married (probable wife Rafaela Uy-Tangco, age 29, “cigarrera,” or cigarette maker).
2. Dionisio Bonifacio, age 26 or 36, married, “carrocero” (probable wife Francisca Hilario, age 35, “cigarrera”). The latter had a son named Telesforo Bonifacio, age 6. In another vecindario entry, the same Dionisio Bonifacio’s age is given as 35 and his occupation is listed as tendero. He is still married in this document to the same Francisca Hilario age 37, “cigarrera,” but now they had two children: Telesforo, age 4, and Marcela, age 3.
3. Geronima Bonifacio, 24, “cigarrera.”
You will be amazed at the amount of useless information that Dr Cullinane has for Cebu and Dr. Doeppers for Manila. I can only hope that there are young Filipino historians who will give up the promise of finding some great historical theory and start solid archival work in the Philippine National Archives or better still the archives in Spain and Mexico. It is unfortunate that the Gen-X is separated from their past because of language. I am told that the Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish cultural center in Manila, has record numbers of students who are probably taking Spanish because they can get paid more than English, or should we say American, speakers in call centers. If only a small number of these Spanish proficient Filipinos can start research work in our archives, our past will become relevant to a new generation.
The material from our National Archives makes us ask the question: If Andres Bonifacio cannot be found in the vecindarios of Tondo, where was he all that time? Was he registered in another suburb of Manila? Maybe he was but a temporary resident of Tondo and was not included in the census count? Maybe the person assigned to collect cedula fees from Bonifacio could not find him or was too scared to present a bill? Perhaps the collector pocketed Bonifacio’s cedula money? Was the collector delinquent, negligent or both?
The bottom line is that Bonifacio cannot be found in the resident lists for Tondo. If he was indeed a bona fide resident, why was he not enrolled for the head tax among the “naturales” in Tondo? If Bonifacio did not pay his taxes, he did not have a cedula. If he didn’t have a cedula, what did he tear up during the famous “Grito de Balintawak,” the Cry of Balintawak, or, depending on the book you’re reading, the Cry of Pugadlawin?
History is a very slippery discipline because there is always more than one way to see an event. Then there is the added complication of sources. Whether there is a lot or nothing, the documentation is almost always problematic. Old questions when addressed often reveal new answers, yet Bonifacio remains one of the heroes we should know more about but cannot, pending better research to find new materials and renewed investigation of the scant material we have on hand.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:48:00 11/28/2008
A few months back, I received an intriguing text message from Dr. Michael Cullinane of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was researching in the Philippine National Archives in Manila. He teased me silly with a “discovery” that I just had to see. Another researcher had stumbled across a document stating that Andres Bonifacio was apprehended on Sept. 29, 1896, shortly after the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution, and brought to the police detachment in the “tranvia” [streetcar] station of Malabon, now a city outside Manila. I pretended to be excited because I didn’t want to spoil the fun just yet. However, I don’t want to let this “discovery” fool the gullible.
I had come across the same document over a decade ago. It said that “Andres Bonifacio” was carrying a “cedula” [residence tax certificate] with personal number 2492892 (perhaps I should place a bet on this number in this weekend’s lotto draw because Sunday, Nov. 30, is Bonifacio Day). The cedula also stated that “Bonifacio” was a native of Tambobo, a resident of Concepcion and 41 years old. His occupation was listed as “formalero” (whatever that means).
There are a number of ways to read this document, but the common thread is that the man was not the Andres Bonifacio of our textbooks. If the cedula is legitimate then we have “Andres Bonifacio” from Malabon apprehended, interrogated and produced by the authorities for “pogi points,” or brownie points. If the cedula is a fake, then it was probably used by the real Bonifacio to mislead the police and military who were hot on his trail. If the document is a fake, then that explains how Bonifacio was able to hold rallies in various places where he would tear up his cedula to emphasize his freedom from Spanish oppression.
I am sure there are people out there who will disagree and make a mountain out of a molehill with this stray document in the National Archives. We leave them to their imagination.
The real search for Bonifacio has been done, not by a historian of the Revolution, but by a demographic historian: Dr. Dan Doeppers, now retired from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Doeppers graciously shared his data drawn from the “vecindarios,” or residence lists, of Manila’s Tondo area that he combed for the years covering 1889 to 1894. We all know that Bonifacio is from Tondo, but he is not the Hero of Tondo (the titled is reserved for Raja Soliman). Doeppers’ says that the records do not list any Andres Bonifacio in Tondo during those years. He did find the following:
1. Bernabe Bonifacio, age 36, tailor, married (probable wife Rafaela Uy-Tangco, age 29, “cigarrera,” or cigarette maker).
2. Dionisio Bonifacio, age 26 or 36, married, “carrocero” (probable wife Francisca Hilario, age 35, “cigarrera”). The latter had a son named Telesforo Bonifacio, age 6. In another vecindario entry, the same Dionisio Bonifacio’s age is given as 35 and his occupation is listed as tendero. He is still married in this document to the same Francisca Hilario age 37, “cigarrera,” but now they had two children: Telesforo, age 4, and Marcela, age 3.
3. Geronima Bonifacio, 24, “cigarrera.”
You will be amazed at the amount of useless information that Dr Cullinane has for Cebu and Dr. Doeppers for Manila. I can only hope that there are young Filipino historians who will give up the promise of finding some great historical theory and start solid archival work in the Philippine National Archives or better still the archives in Spain and Mexico. It is unfortunate that the Gen-X is separated from their past because of language. I am told that the Instituto Cervantes, the Spanish cultural center in Manila, has record numbers of students who are probably taking Spanish because they can get paid more than English, or should we say American, speakers in call centers. If only a small number of these Spanish proficient Filipinos can start research work in our archives, our past will become relevant to a new generation.
The material from our National Archives makes us ask the question: If Andres Bonifacio cannot be found in the vecindarios of Tondo, where was he all that time? Was he registered in another suburb of Manila? Maybe he was but a temporary resident of Tondo and was not included in the census count? Maybe the person assigned to collect cedula fees from Bonifacio could not find him or was too scared to present a bill? Perhaps the collector pocketed Bonifacio’s cedula money? Was the collector delinquent, negligent or both?
The bottom line is that Bonifacio cannot be found in the resident lists for Tondo. If he was indeed a bona fide resident, why was he not enrolled for the head tax among the “naturales” in Tondo? If Bonifacio did not pay his taxes, he did not have a cedula. If he didn’t have a cedula, what did he tear up during the famous “Grito de Balintawak,” the Cry of Balintawak, or, depending on the book you’re reading, the Cry of Pugadlawin?
History is a very slippery discipline because there is always more than one way to see an event. Then there is the added complication of sources. Whether there is a lot or nothing, the documentation is almost always problematic. Old questions when addressed often reveal new answers, yet Bonifacio remains one of the heroes we should know more about but cannot, pending better research to find new materials and renewed investigation of the scant material we have on hand.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wasted historical treasures
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:08:00 11/26/2008
With the deposit and organization of the Doreen G. Fernandez papers in the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings (ALIWW), Doreen has finally come home to rest in the university and the university library she loved very much. As a historian, I am grateful that her sister Della Besa and her niece Maya Roxas took the trouble to sift through every slip of paper in Doreen’s study and realized their importance to future researchers. Old papers being, for many Filipinos, just “kalat” [clutter], just “basura” [trash] and better consigned to the fire or the “magbobote” [junk buyer]. Historians will tell you that one person’s junk can be treasure to another—the moral of the story being that we must not throw anything away. Come to ALIWW to read and research.
This reminds me of another writer whom ALIWW should contact soon: Asuncion Lopez Bantug, granddaughter of Narcisa Rizal and thus by extension grandniece of the National Hero, Jose Rizal. I have known her for a long time and interviewed her about Rizal. The late Austin Coates, Rizal’s biographer, who had known her for decades, was surprised that I was able to ask the questions that would induce a flood of memories. A few times, she would break into tears and even recite poems she was taught as a child. I would jot all these down, always knowing that nothing can be as accurate and as immediate as the entries in a diary. And she had those, too, filed neatly in a bedside shelf, but unfortunately she wouldn’t let me read these.
Bantug has maintained a diary since her youth, documentation of a life that spans over half a century, all neatly written on old school notebooks. Now that is a primary source that should have gone to ALIWW. But then, on one of her long annual trips to the United States to visit her grandchildren, one of the maids had the bright idea of giving her musty bedroom a much needed spring cleaning, and so everything was cleared out, including the notebooks. Upon her return, she had a fit but managed to ask why they had messed with her things and discarded her precious notebooks. “Walang silbi na po” [“They are useless”] was the polite reply of the maid. “Puno na po ng sulat lahat” [“The notebooks were filled up.”]
Every time I narrate this story, even non-historians groan. But this is not the worst of my horror stories from research. As you may well remember from grade school, the Rizal brood was quite large. Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonso had 11 children, two sons and nine daughters, and all but one reached adulthood. One could say that Rizal grew up in a house dominated by women, and since many of them took to their mother, this was a household with some strong-willed women. The Rizal boys, Paciano and Jose, did not marry. Jose did not have children and Paciano had a daughter. Most of the descendants of the National Hero proceed from his six sisters (Josefa and Trinidad were spinsters, Concepcion died young).
I was once called in for advice when one of Rizal’s grandnieces passed away. She had left many valuable things, including a portrait of the young Rizal painted in 1882 when he had just arrived in Europe, by his friend Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Of course, this painting was worth a tidy sum, but in my biased opinion it paled in comparison with a rather crude portrait in oil of Saturnina Rizal by Jose Rizal. This is much rarer than any Luna or Hidalgo in the market.
I asked if they had any Rizal manuscripts and photographs I could copy. They had those and other relics, but the item I most wanted to see was a stained embroidered piña handkerchief. Why did my heart race when I was told they had such a seemingly worthless thing? I had heard unconfirmed reports that one of Rizal’s sisters rushed to Bagumbayan that morning of Dec. 30, 1896 after his execution and his corpse was taken to the Paco cemetery for burial. This sister carried a dozen piña handkerchiefs, and when she found the place where her brother fell, she reverently used these handkerchiefs to soak up what was left of Rizal’s fresh blood on the ground. The urban legend is that each member of the family was given this rather gruesome souvenir.
I will never be sure if these handkerchiefs existed because one that matched the description was in this estate being divided among relatives. I asked for the handkerchief and heard one of the relatives ask loudly in Filipino, “Where was the soiled hanky that was lying on this table yesterday?” Nobody knew. So the question was asked again, and this time a maid rushed out carrying a neatly pressed hanky and proudly declared: “Naku! Ang tindi ng mantsa n’yan kahapon, kinuskus kong mabuti at nalinis naman po.” [“There was a stubborn stain on that yesterday but I managed to wash it off.”]
If the legend is true, if these morbid hankies did exist and this was the last of them, then the last traces of Rizal’s blood that could have undergone DNA testing went, literally, down the drain along with detergent and bleach.
During the last International Philippine Studies Conference in Manila, I sat with a group of historians over lunch and exchanged stories of the historical materials that got away. These horror stories were exchanged with a mixture of laughter and regret. There are enough to fill a small and interesting book. If I could only find the time and energy to set it to paper!
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:08:00 11/26/2008
With the deposit and organization of the Doreen G. Fernandez papers in the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings (ALIWW), Doreen has finally come home to rest in the university and the university library she loved very much. As a historian, I am grateful that her sister Della Besa and her niece Maya Roxas took the trouble to sift through every slip of paper in Doreen’s study and realized their importance to future researchers. Old papers being, for many Filipinos, just “kalat” [clutter], just “basura” [trash] and better consigned to the fire or the “magbobote” [junk buyer]. Historians will tell you that one person’s junk can be treasure to another—the moral of the story being that we must not throw anything away. Come to ALIWW to read and research.
This reminds me of another writer whom ALIWW should contact soon: Asuncion Lopez Bantug, granddaughter of Narcisa Rizal and thus by extension grandniece of the National Hero, Jose Rizal. I have known her for a long time and interviewed her about Rizal. The late Austin Coates, Rizal’s biographer, who had known her for decades, was surprised that I was able to ask the questions that would induce a flood of memories. A few times, she would break into tears and even recite poems she was taught as a child. I would jot all these down, always knowing that nothing can be as accurate and as immediate as the entries in a diary. And she had those, too, filed neatly in a bedside shelf, but unfortunately she wouldn’t let me read these.
Bantug has maintained a diary since her youth, documentation of a life that spans over half a century, all neatly written on old school notebooks. Now that is a primary source that should have gone to ALIWW. But then, on one of her long annual trips to the United States to visit her grandchildren, one of the maids had the bright idea of giving her musty bedroom a much needed spring cleaning, and so everything was cleared out, including the notebooks. Upon her return, she had a fit but managed to ask why they had messed with her things and discarded her precious notebooks. “Walang silbi na po” [“They are useless”] was the polite reply of the maid. “Puno na po ng sulat lahat” [“The notebooks were filled up.”]
Every time I narrate this story, even non-historians groan. But this is not the worst of my horror stories from research. As you may well remember from grade school, the Rizal brood was quite large. Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonso had 11 children, two sons and nine daughters, and all but one reached adulthood. One could say that Rizal grew up in a house dominated by women, and since many of them took to their mother, this was a household with some strong-willed women. The Rizal boys, Paciano and Jose, did not marry. Jose did not have children and Paciano had a daughter. Most of the descendants of the National Hero proceed from his six sisters (Josefa and Trinidad were spinsters, Concepcion died young).
I was once called in for advice when one of Rizal’s grandnieces passed away. She had left many valuable things, including a portrait of the young Rizal painted in 1882 when he had just arrived in Europe, by his friend Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Of course, this painting was worth a tidy sum, but in my biased opinion it paled in comparison with a rather crude portrait in oil of Saturnina Rizal by Jose Rizal. This is much rarer than any Luna or Hidalgo in the market.
I asked if they had any Rizal manuscripts and photographs I could copy. They had those and other relics, but the item I most wanted to see was a stained embroidered piña handkerchief. Why did my heart race when I was told they had such a seemingly worthless thing? I had heard unconfirmed reports that one of Rizal’s sisters rushed to Bagumbayan that morning of Dec. 30, 1896 after his execution and his corpse was taken to the Paco cemetery for burial. This sister carried a dozen piña handkerchiefs, and when she found the place where her brother fell, she reverently used these handkerchiefs to soak up what was left of Rizal’s fresh blood on the ground. The urban legend is that each member of the family was given this rather gruesome souvenir.
I will never be sure if these handkerchiefs existed because one that matched the description was in this estate being divided among relatives. I asked for the handkerchief and heard one of the relatives ask loudly in Filipino, “Where was the soiled hanky that was lying on this table yesterday?” Nobody knew. So the question was asked again, and this time a maid rushed out carrying a neatly pressed hanky and proudly declared: “Naku! Ang tindi ng mantsa n’yan kahapon, kinuskus kong mabuti at nalinis naman po.” [“There was a stubborn stain on that yesterday but I managed to wash it off.”]
If the legend is true, if these morbid hankies did exist and this was the last of them, then the last traces of Rizal’s blood that could have undergone DNA testing went, literally, down the drain along with detergent and bleach.
During the last International Philippine Studies Conference in Manila, I sat with a group of historians over lunch and exchanged stories of the historical materials that got away. These horror stories were exchanged with a mixture of laughter and regret. There are enough to fill a small and interesting book. If I could only find the time and energy to set it to paper!
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
A passion for history
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:14:00 11/21/2008
E. Arsenio Manuel was a byline I always associated with the four-volume “Dictionary of Philippine Biography.” As a college student, I would go through Manuel’s work and marvel at the meticulous research that went into these books. Manuel did not only dig up libraries and archives, he actually went around cemeteries copying dates of birth and death from tombstones!
Nicanor Tiongson was kind enough to introduce me to Manuel because he was the only source for these books that were, at the time, unavailable in bookstores. Manuel and I liked each other immediately, so I would visit him from time to time to listen and be inspired by his stories on research. While telling me about the prewar University of the Philippines campus on Padre Faura Street in Manila, he said he had originally planned to be a historian, but since his friend and contemporary Teodoro A. Agoncillo was already plowing that field, he decided to shift to anthropology and started by becoming one of the assistants of H. Otley Beyer.
A retired emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of the Philippines, Manuel invited me to attend his graduate class on Philippine Prehistory in the late 1980s. For a while it seemed as if I was the only one left awake in class after three hours of monotone monologue lecturing. He came to class on the first day and wrote on the board, “Where history ends anthropology begins.” I took that as a cue to abandon history and go further down the timeline, but there was no archeological studies program anywhere in the Philippines at the time. I flirted a while with anthropology and realized early on that I was not meant to be an archeologist digging in an open field; I was more comfortable researching in a library or archive.
I funded an excavation in Barrio Laguile in Batangas province in 1990 and that became my hands-on training in archeology. I saw and learned how test pits are made, how stratification of the soil gives clues to age and chronology. I also saw how archeologists evaluate the materials coming out of the earth: bones, rocks, fossils, broken pieces of earthenware. This was all very interesting but there was just so much to learn especially in the natural sciences: botany, biology, anatomy, chemistry, etc. This made me remember that I chose to become a historian to avoid math and science in school.
During our Batangas excavation, there were only two highlights, because we didn’t find anything spectacular or even moderately important. First was when a carabao fell into the pit one night and we spent the better part of a day getting it out, to the amusement of the whole town and neighbors. Second was when a handful of farmers came to the site with sacks and “bayong” [large native woven bags] filled with an assortment of ancient Oriental ceramics they had found while tilling their fields. Some of them found this illegal trade so lucrative that they left their farms and made a living looking for and selling ceramics to dealers and collectors in Manila. They brought out Ming porcelain, usually blue and white bowls and dishes, and placed them on the ground. Some had other wares, not necessarily from the area, artifacts traded by our forefathers that came from China, Vietnam, Thailand and India. I had seen similar artifacts in museums. These objects were unfortunately taken out of the ground without proper archeological care so many of the pieces were broken. Worse, the context of the objects—where were they found, with what other objects or with human remains—all that was gone.
From then on I never looked at my mother’s display cabinets the same way. Before all this, I never took a second look at the ceramics we had at home, which mother used as flower vases or just scattered tastefully on coffee tables. But these things have been coming out of the ground and collected since the 1960s. So many clues to our prehistory are actually lying around in people’s living rooms. They are not used for study or research but just for decoration.
In the San Pedro beach resort in Romblon province, I saw a whole plate of broken shards of Ming period Chinese and Thai ceramics and was told that after a heavy rain these are readily found on the shore. A reader sent me an e-mail saying that when they played “piko” [hopscotch] as children, they threw around Ming shards too as markers.
When roads are built and fields are cleared, these things still turn up. It is too bad that young people do not take this up in school. Children are taught about pre-colonial trade and exchange in “Hekasi” [Geography, History and Civics combined] but few realize that they can see and handle the real thing in their own homes.
Although I’m a failed anthropologist, I look back with fondness to E. Arsenio Manuel’s class and the afternoons in his study because he made me see and notice things around me that I would have otherwise overlooked. He taught me to be sensitive to artifacts and the stories they contain or evoke.
Not all history is found in a written record or a book; sometimes we find stories in photographs and artifacts. Learning to see things in a different light and continually asking questions, even of things we think we know already, have made me a better researcher. Agoncillo and Manuel infected me with their enthusiasm, and I can only hope that I can pay this debt forward by rubbing off my enthusiasm on my students and readers.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:14:00 11/21/2008
E. Arsenio Manuel was a byline I always associated with the four-volume “Dictionary of Philippine Biography.” As a college student, I would go through Manuel’s work and marvel at the meticulous research that went into these books. Manuel did not only dig up libraries and archives, he actually went around cemeteries copying dates of birth and death from tombstones!
Nicanor Tiongson was kind enough to introduce me to Manuel because he was the only source for these books that were, at the time, unavailable in bookstores. Manuel and I liked each other immediately, so I would visit him from time to time to listen and be inspired by his stories on research. While telling me about the prewar University of the Philippines campus on Padre Faura Street in Manila, he said he had originally planned to be a historian, but since his friend and contemporary Teodoro A. Agoncillo was already plowing that field, he decided to shift to anthropology and started by becoming one of the assistants of H. Otley Beyer.
A retired emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of the Philippines, Manuel invited me to attend his graduate class on Philippine Prehistory in the late 1980s. For a while it seemed as if I was the only one left awake in class after three hours of monotone monologue lecturing. He came to class on the first day and wrote on the board, “Where history ends anthropology begins.” I took that as a cue to abandon history and go further down the timeline, but there was no archeological studies program anywhere in the Philippines at the time. I flirted a while with anthropology and realized early on that I was not meant to be an archeologist digging in an open field; I was more comfortable researching in a library or archive.
I funded an excavation in Barrio Laguile in Batangas province in 1990 and that became my hands-on training in archeology. I saw and learned how test pits are made, how stratification of the soil gives clues to age and chronology. I also saw how archeologists evaluate the materials coming out of the earth: bones, rocks, fossils, broken pieces of earthenware. This was all very interesting but there was just so much to learn especially in the natural sciences: botany, biology, anatomy, chemistry, etc. This made me remember that I chose to become a historian to avoid math and science in school.
During our Batangas excavation, there were only two highlights, because we didn’t find anything spectacular or even moderately important. First was when a carabao fell into the pit one night and we spent the better part of a day getting it out, to the amusement of the whole town and neighbors. Second was when a handful of farmers came to the site with sacks and “bayong” [large native woven bags] filled with an assortment of ancient Oriental ceramics they had found while tilling their fields. Some of them found this illegal trade so lucrative that they left their farms and made a living looking for and selling ceramics to dealers and collectors in Manila. They brought out Ming porcelain, usually blue and white bowls and dishes, and placed them on the ground. Some had other wares, not necessarily from the area, artifacts traded by our forefathers that came from China, Vietnam, Thailand and India. I had seen similar artifacts in museums. These objects were unfortunately taken out of the ground without proper archeological care so many of the pieces were broken. Worse, the context of the objects—where were they found, with what other objects or with human remains—all that was gone.
From then on I never looked at my mother’s display cabinets the same way. Before all this, I never took a second look at the ceramics we had at home, which mother used as flower vases or just scattered tastefully on coffee tables. But these things have been coming out of the ground and collected since the 1960s. So many clues to our prehistory are actually lying around in people’s living rooms. They are not used for study or research but just for decoration.
In the San Pedro beach resort in Romblon province, I saw a whole plate of broken shards of Ming period Chinese and Thai ceramics and was told that after a heavy rain these are readily found on the shore. A reader sent me an e-mail saying that when they played “piko” [hopscotch] as children, they threw around Ming shards too as markers.
When roads are built and fields are cleared, these things still turn up. It is too bad that young people do not take this up in school. Children are taught about pre-colonial trade and exchange in “Hekasi” [Geography, History and Civics combined] but few realize that they can see and handle the real thing in their own homes.
Although I’m a failed anthropologist, I look back with fondness to E. Arsenio Manuel’s class and the afternoons in his study because he made me see and notice things around me that I would have otherwise overlooked. He taught me to be sensitive to artifacts and the stories they contain or evoke.
Not all history is found in a written record or a book; sometimes we find stories in photographs and artifacts. Learning to see things in a different light and continually asking questions, even of things we think we know already, have made me a better researcher. Agoncillo and Manuel infected me with their enthusiasm, and I can only hope that I can pay this debt forward by rubbing off my enthusiasm on my students and readers.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine-French relations
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:26:00 11/19/2008
June 26 is just one of 365 days in a year, a drop in an ocean of dates that constitute Philippine history. It is probably significant to people who were born, married, had children, or have relatives who passed away on this date. For the rest of us, June 26 means nothing without some research that reveals some relevant footnotes: On June 26, 1875 a royal decree was issued authorizing the planning of a railroad in Luzon; on June 26, 1910 Artemio Ricarte, revolutionary general, was released from Bilibid Prison in Manila; on June 26, 1950 the world felt the outbreak of the Korean War; on June 26, 1947, with the stroke of two pens, formal diplomatic relations were established between the Republic of the Philippines and the Republic of France. It is this last date that is being commemorated by a recent book I helped put together, titled “60 Years and Bon Vivant: Philippine-French Relations” (ArtPost Asia, 2008).
The book grew out of the “Symposium on Philippine-French Relations” held at the Ateneo de Manila University on June 26, 2007 to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and France. The symposium covered four themes: France in Philippine history, France in Philippine culture, France in Philippine education, and Filipino families of French ancestry.
History tells us that the relations between the Philippines and France go beyond 60 years. A French consulate was established in Manila in the late 19th century, when the Philippines was still a colony of Spain. The short-lived First Philippine Republic had a diplomatic representative in Paris in 1898 when the United States and Spain were negotiating the terms for peace in what has come down in history as the Treaty of Paris. The Filipino representative worked in vain to gain recognition for the Philippines as a free and independent nation, thus the US acquired the Philippines from Spain for $20 million.
We can take the short view that pegs Philippine-French relations to 60 years, or take the long view and trace our relations to the Frenchmen who formed part of the Magellan expedition that came to our shores in 1521. A historian can cast a net narrow or wide, depending on the available documentation and, more importantly, his or her viewpoint.
French Ambassador Gerard Chesnel wondered aloud what happened to the Frenchmen who were part of Magellan’s crew because they were not included in the list of stragglers who made it back to Spain after the Battle of Mactan. He suggested that these French sailors remained in the Philippines and sired Franco-Philippine children, which would truly be the beginning of Philippine-French relations, not the opening of embassies 60 years ago.
While it would be fascinating to trace the descendants of these Filipino-French people in Cebu or Mactan, we can presume that those missing Frenchmen were either killed during the battle or were wounded and taken prisoner. The viceroy of Mexico wrote the king of Mactan, offering payment for Magellan’s corpse and survivors of the battle. The curt reply was that Magellan’s corpse was a war trophy and would not be returned. The prisoners of war were not available, having been nursed back to health and eventually sold off to the Chinese as slaves to generate income.
French travel accounts of the Philippines in the 18th and 19th centuries help Filipino historians recreate the past. These publications are illustrated with charming photographs and engravings that provide a visual link to the Spanish Philippines. More importantly, there are a handful of French eyewitness accounts of the Philippine-American War that provide a different view from the Filipino or American sources (it is always essential to see the same story from another angle). These French accounts are critical of the way Spain administered the colony and sympathetic to Emilio Aguinaldo and the Filipino struggle for freedom.
We do not have to look far for traces of France in Philippine history. Our national anthem has a part that echoes the French national anthem. The red, white and blue that, according to our June 12, 1898 declaration of independence, commemorate the colors of the US flag can be traced all the way back to the French tri-color. As a matter of fact, in the great Malolos banquet of September 1898 to celebrate the ratification of the declaration of independence in Kawit, the elaborate printed menu had a French feast. What better way to remember the battle cry of the French Revolution: Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!
Going back to the intellectual roots of the Philippine Revolution, we see France once again. When Spanish police raided the bodega where Andres Bonifacio worked, they found books that the Supremo of the Katipunan read. Two of the significant titles were: “Lives of the Presidents of the United States” and, of course, “The French Revolution.” An obscure bit of information that has yet to be verified is that one of Andres Bonifacio’s brothers worked abroad as a seaman and settled in France.
What would have been boring symposium proceedings was transformed by Tina Colayco and ArtPost Asia into a handsome book that I am quite proud of. My next project will be Philippine-Spanish relations.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:26:00 11/19/2008
June 26 is just one of 365 days in a year, a drop in an ocean of dates that constitute Philippine history. It is probably significant to people who were born, married, had children, or have relatives who passed away on this date. For the rest of us, June 26 means nothing without some research that reveals some relevant footnotes: On June 26, 1875 a royal decree was issued authorizing the planning of a railroad in Luzon; on June 26, 1910 Artemio Ricarte, revolutionary general, was released from Bilibid Prison in Manila; on June 26, 1950 the world felt the outbreak of the Korean War; on June 26, 1947, with the stroke of two pens, formal diplomatic relations were established between the Republic of the Philippines and the Republic of France. It is this last date that is being commemorated by a recent book I helped put together, titled “60 Years and Bon Vivant: Philippine-French Relations” (ArtPost Asia, 2008).
The book grew out of the “Symposium on Philippine-French Relations” held at the Ateneo de Manila University on June 26, 2007 to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and France. The symposium covered four themes: France in Philippine history, France in Philippine culture, France in Philippine education, and Filipino families of French ancestry.
History tells us that the relations between the Philippines and France go beyond 60 years. A French consulate was established in Manila in the late 19th century, when the Philippines was still a colony of Spain. The short-lived First Philippine Republic had a diplomatic representative in Paris in 1898 when the United States and Spain were negotiating the terms for peace in what has come down in history as the Treaty of Paris. The Filipino representative worked in vain to gain recognition for the Philippines as a free and independent nation, thus the US acquired the Philippines from Spain for $20 million.
We can take the short view that pegs Philippine-French relations to 60 years, or take the long view and trace our relations to the Frenchmen who formed part of the Magellan expedition that came to our shores in 1521. A historian can cast a net narrow or wide, depending on the available documentation and, more importantly, his or her viewpoint.
French Ambassador Gerard Chesnel wondered aloud what happened to the Frenchmen who were part of Magellan’s crew because they were not included in the list of stragglers who made it back to Spain after the Battle of Mactan. He suggested that these French sailors remained in the Philippines and sired Franco-Philippine children, which would truly be the beginning of Philippine-French relations, not the opening of embassies 60 years ago.
While it would be fascinating to trace the descendants of these Filipino-French people in Cebu or Mactan, we can presume that those missing Frenchmen were either killed during the battle or were wounded and taken prisoner. The viceroy of Mexico wrote the king of Mactan, offering payment for Magellan’s corpse and survivors of the battle. The curt reply was that Magellan’s corpse was a war trophy and would not be returned. The prisoners of war were not available, having been nursed back to health and eventually sold off to the Chinese as slaves to generate income.
French travel accounts of the Philippines in the 18th and 19th centuries help Filipino historians recreate the past. These publications are illustrated with charming photographs and engravings that provide a visual link to the Spanish Philippines. More importantly, there are a handful of French eyewitness accounts of the Philippine-American War that provide a different view from the Filipino or American sources (it is always essential to see the same story from another angle). These French accounts are critical of the way Spain administered the colony and sympathetic to Emilio Aguinaldo and the Filipino struggle for freedom.
We do not have to look far for traces of France in Philippine history. Our national anthem has a part that echoes the French national anthem. The red, white and blue that, according to our June 12, 1898 declaration of independence, commemorate the colors of the US flag can be traced all the way back to the French tri-color. As a matter of fact, in the great Malolos banquet of September 1898 to celebrate the ratification of the declaration of independence in Kawit, the elaborate printed menu had a French feast. What better way to remember the battle cry of the French Revolution: Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!
Going back to the intellectual roots of the Philippine Revolution, we see France once again. When Spanish police raided the bodega where Andres Bonifacio worked, they found books that the Supremo of the Katipunan read. Two of the significant titles were: “Lives of the Presidents of the United States” and, of course, “The French Revolution.” An obscure bit of information that has yet to be verified is that one of Andres Bonifacio’s brothers worked abroad as a seaman and settled in France.
What would have been boring symposium proceedings was transformed by Tina Colayco and ArtPost Asia into a handsome book that I am quite proud of. My next project will be Philippine-Spanish relations.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Born in 1933
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:11:00 11/14/2008
Most Read
EACH YEAR WHEN we celebrate Independence Day, we hear a few voices of dissent that seek to change the date from June 12 to something else. People of the post-war generation remember that our Independence Day used to be celebrated on July 4, like that of the United States of America, until President Diosdado Macapagal moved it to June 12. I won't repeat the columns on the other dates proposed for our Independence Day, let's just say that the choice of date is often dependent on one's ideological or historiographical outlook.
Choosing the date to celebrate anything can be quite arbitrary. If we follow ancient Chinese example, we are already a year old at birth because they reckon from time in the womb. We have people eager to be the first to greet birthday celebrants and wait till the clock hits 12:01 a.m. to send a text or ring the sleepy person. Some people say we shouldn't celebrate birthdays in advance, while others say we shouldn't have the celebration after the actual date. All this can be quite confused and confusing.
I will bore you with a bit of institutional history today because in the case of the National Historical Institute, which celebrated the 75th year of its foundation a few weeks back, there has to be some kind of reckoning. The NHI as we know it today was established by President Ferdinand Marcos in 1972, following the reorganization of government after the declaration of martial law. If we take Marcos and 1972 as a reference point, then the NHI is far from 75 years old. But the institute has chosen to trace its birth all the way back to 1933, with the establishment of the Philippine Historical Research and Markers Committee (PHRMC).
Many people still refer to the NHI as a commission because it used to be the National Historical Commission before it became an institute in 1972. Before 1972, there used to be a number of historical commissions created by law to commemorate the birth centennials of our heroes of the late 19th century: Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Juan Luna, Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos, Jacinto Zamora, etc. At one point, all these commissions were merged into one National Heroes Commission. Then it became more general as the National Historical Commission, until someone decided to give it a more academic tone by renaming it as the National Historical Institute. So far its selective institutional history is based on events and achievements during the terms of its different chairs: Encarnacion Alzona, Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, Esteban de Ocampo, Serafin D. Quiason, Samuel K. Tan, Pablo S. Trillana and yours truly.
To complicate matters, we go back to U S Governor General Frank Murphy who issued Executive Order 451 in 1933, creating the PHRMC whose job was to identify and mark "historic antiquities" in the capital, Manila, and later throughout the Philippines as a first step in their preservation. The members of this committee were: Walter Robb, an American journalist interested in the history of Manila as chair, the pioneering pre-historian of the Philippines H. Otley Beyer, the Spanish Jesuit Fr. Miguel Selga, SJ and dean Edward Hyde. The Filipino members of the committee were: Jaime C. de Veyra, Conrado Benitez and Eulogio B. Rodriguez.
When the Philippine Commonwealth was established in 1935, the PHRMC was replaced by the Philippines Historical Committee that had basically the same functions as the former, with the additional responsibilities of acquiring antiquities owned by private individuals and repairing government-owned antiquities. We have not yet found any material on the activities of the committee during the war years, and it is hoped that research on the Commission of Education, Health and Public Welfare during the Laurel presidency will fill in the gap.
Six months after independence and the inauguration of the Third Philippine Republic, on Jan. 20, 1947, the Philippines Historical Committee was reconstituted and placed first under the Office of the President, and later transferred to the Department of Education. The PHC was very active in the post-war years when the country was rebuilding from the ashes of the war. It was a time not just for physical reconstruction but also the reconstruction of the past as a means to form nationhood. Over 400 markers were installed all over the archipelago by the PHC, and most important, it acquired places and relics of heroes. The PHC was also responsible for the naming and renaming of streets, plazas, towns and other public places.
All these functions are still undertaken by the NHI in addition to the preservation of historical sites and structures, serving as lead agency for the commemorations of Independence Day, Rizal Day, etc.
Whether we reckon 75 or 36 years, the question of relevance crops up and the words of Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, who was appointed chairman in 1965, still rings true:
"In a country where poverty, underproduction, unemployment and corruption are the chief problems, what justification can there be for a national (cultural office) devoted to history? Surely such a question is rhetorical and does not need an answer, for it must be obvious to the most materialistic and pragmatic of us that the past is necessary to make the present viable and the future possible."
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:11:00 11/14/2008
Most Read
EACH YEAR WHEN we celebrate Independence Day, we hear a few voices of dissent that seek to change the date from June 12 to something else. People of the post-war generation remember that our Independence Day used to be celebrated on July 4, like that of the United States of America, until President Diosdado Macapagal moved it to June 12. I won't repeat the columns on the other dates proposed for our Independence Day, let's just say that the choice of date is often dependent on one's ideological or historiographical outlook.
Choosing the date to celebrate anything can be quite arbitrary. If we follow ancient Chinese example, we are already a year old at birth because they reckon from time in the womb. We have people eager to be the first to greet birthday celebrants and wait till the clock hits 12:01 a.m. to send a text or ring the sleepy person. Some people say we shouldn't celebrate birthdays in advance, while others say we shouldn't have the celebration after the actual date. All this can be quite confused and confusing.
I will bore you with a bit of institutional history today because in the case of the National Historical Institute, which celebrated the 75th year of its foundation a few weeks back, there has to be some kind of reckoning. The NHI as we know it today was established by President Ferdinand Marcos in 1972, following the reorganization of government after the declaration of martial law. If we take Marcos and 1972 as a reference point, then the NHI is far from 75 years old. But the institute has chosen to trace its birth all the way back to 1933, with the establishment of the Philippine Historical Research and Markers Committee (PHRMC).
Many people still refer to the NHI as a commission because it used to be the National Historical Commission before it became an institute in 1972. Before 1972, there used to be a number of historical commissions created by law to commemorate the birth centennials of our heroes of the late 19th century: Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Juan Luna, Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos, Jacinto Zamora, etc. At one point, all these commissions were merged into one National Heroes Commission. Then it became more general as the National Historical Commission, until someone decided to give it a more academic tone by renaming it as the National Historical Institute. So far its selective institutional history is based on events and achievements during the terms of its different chairs: Encarnacion Alzona, Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, Esteban de Ocampo, Serafin D. Quiason, Samuel K. Tan, Pablo S. Trillana and yours truly.
To complicate matters, we go back to U S Governor General Frank Murphy who issued Executive Order 451 in 1933, creating the PHRMC whose job was to identify and mark "historic antiquities" in the capital, Manila, and later throughout the Philippines as a first step in their preservation. The members of this committee were: Walter Robb, an American journalist interested in the history of Manila as chair, the pioneering pre-historian of the Philippines H. Otley Beyer, the Spanish Jesuit Fr. Miguel Selga, SJ and dean Edward Hyde. The Filipino members of the committee were: Jaime C. de Veyra, Conrado Benitez and Eulogio B. Rodriguez.
When the Philippine Commonwealth was established in 1935, the PHRMC was replaced by the Philippines Historical Committee that had basically the same functions as the former, with the additional responsibilities of acquiring antiquities owned by private individuals and repairing government-owned antiquities. We have not yet found any material on the activities of the committee during the war years, and it is hoped that research on the Commission of Education, Health and Public Welfare during the Laurel presidency will fill in the gap.
Six months after independence and the inauguration of the Third Philippine Republic, on Jan. 20, 1947, the Philippines Historical Committee was reconstituted and placed first under the Office of the President, and later transferred to the Department of Education. The PHC was very active in the post-war years when the country was rebuilding from the ashes of the war. It was a time not just for physical reconstruction but also the reconstruction of the past as a means to form nationhood. Over 400 markers were installed all over the archipelago by the PHC, and most important, it acquired places and relics of heroes. The PHC was also responsible for the naming and renaming of streets, plazas, towns and other public places.
All these functions are still undertaken by the NHI in addition to the preservation of historical sites and structures, serving as lead agency for the commemorations of Independence Day, Rizal Day, etc.
Whether we reckon 75 or 36 years, the question of relevance crops up and the words of Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, who was appointed chairman in 1965, still rings true:
"In a country where poverty, underproduction, unemployment and corruption are the chief problems, what justification can there be for a national (cultural office) devoted to history? Surely such a question is rhetorical and does not need an answer, for it must be obvious to the most materialistic and pragmatic of us that the past is necessary to make the present viable and the future possible."
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
