READINGS IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY

Assignment No. 1

Be ready for an online class discussion. The questions or items below serve as your
guide. You may write your answer in your notebook or notepad, but you will not submit
your work.

1. Give one definition of history as an academic discipline.

➢ History as an academic discipline tackles the development or changes from

different aspects of society whether it may be from the field of politics, economy,
science and technology, or medicine, up to social, cultural, or religious beliefs,
intellectual, and military advances.

➢ History as a branch of knowledge unfolds the remarkable past events, the people
involved, the setting in which the event happened, and when it happened.
However, on a deeper level, history answers how and why these events
happened in the first place.

2. What is historiography? Why is historiography important for students who study

history?

➢ To briefly define historiography, it is the study of how history was written or

history writing. It involves the methodologies/methods of historians, who wrote it,
and what factors might have influenced how they wrote the event.

➢ As mentioned, historiography deals with history writing, which means that different
historians might have written in different contexts or understood the event from
different lenses depending on what influenced them. If you are studying history, it
is important to gather all of the writings from different historians to compare
and challenge each standpoint to see what or whose writing has the
strongest and most factual information or how the writings make sense as a
whole.

3. Briefly discuss the following schools of historiography.

3.1. Positivism
➢ Says that history must not be influenced by the historian’s feelings, values,
and beliefs. In short, historians must stay objective and should not allow
subjective interpretation from a past event for it may affect the information.

3.2. Postcolonialism

➢ Postcolonialism critically examines the political, economic, cultural,

historical, and social impacts of colonialism on the world.
 ➢ The period where the aftermath of Western Colonialism is represented.
Postcolonialism written by Nasrullah Mambrol, involves the effects of
colonialism in terms of cultural alienation, the anti-colonial struggles of Third
World countries and the rise of nationalism, the mimic men (colonized people
trying to mimic the colonizer’s behavior), and many more.

3.3. Annales School of History

➢ Was established by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre in 1929. Their purpose is
to construct a new kind of methodology in studying history, mainly
considering factors such as the social, economic, and cultural context in
which events occur instead of just looking at the event and the people involved.

➢ Annals came from the Latin word “Annales” which is also rooted in the Latin
word “annus” which means year. Annal types of history writing are arranged
chronologically by year.

4. Briefly discuss Pantayong Pananaw as a new guiding philosophy for writing and
teaching Philippine history.

➢ Pantayong Pananaw came from the Filipino word “tayo” or us.

➢ “From-Us-For-Us Perspective” if translated in English.

➢ Ang Pantayong Pananaw ay mas ipinapahayag na puro Pilipino lamang ang

magkakausap at hindi kasama ang mga banyaga sa naratibo. Ang diskusyon ay
marapat rin na inihahayag sa wikang naiintindihan ng mga Pilipino kung hindi ang
Filipino o Tagalog.

➢ This perspective was born because Dr. Zeus Salazar, a Filipino historian, criticized
the usage of foreign languages by past Filipino scholars who wrote about the
Philippine culture and society. Their writings are made accessible and
understandable for the “outsiders” or foreign people which should have been for
the Filipino people. From there, they used the “Pantayong Pananaw” to create a
discourse, especially about Philippine History, that is always oriented
towards the locals or Filipinos and not towards outsiders.

5. Is history an objective discipline? Explain briefly.

➢ History should be objective. History should always state facts and be based from
facts, and surely you cannot just make things up. However, history can also be
subjective at the same time, due to the different interpretations from different
historians and those people involved from the event.

6. Distinguish primary sources from secondary sources. Give two examples of each
 category.

➢ Primary sources are fresh and first-hand information/evidences such as:

personal journals/diaries/memoirs, letters, court proceedings, legislative debates,
interviews, artifacts, art works, and more.

➢ Secondary sources are interpreted data from the primary sources such as:
literature reviews, magazine articles, biographies, websites, encyclopedias, and
more.

7. Differentiate between external criticism and internal criticism.

➢ External criticism is conducted to verify the authenticity of a document, if the

document is genuine/reliable. It answers when the document was written, where it
was written, how did the document survive, and verifying the real author of the
document.

o When conducting external criticism of a document, factors such as the

fineness of the paper, the type of connection, and the language and terms
used in the materials are just a few of the things that will be looked at.

➢ Internal criticism is conducted to verify the factuality or meaning of the

context written in the document. It answers why the document was written, the
real meaning of the document, consistency, and confirmation of an eyewitness.

o Historian to take into account the ways in which such reports can be skewed
to be utilized as war propaganda. Review significant historical sources for
unconfirmed, fabricated, and untrue historical sources that may result in a
conclusion that is similarly wrong. Historical fabrications and lies are all
likely to occur in the lack of this thorough analysis of historical facts.

8. What is sociological imagination?

➢ You connect or expose yourself or your personal experience to broader a

context. It is separating yourself to your own familiar reality.

➢ It is an ability to see the social patterns that influence individuals, groups,

and organizations. It is the individual’s awareness of the relationship between
themselves and the wider society of the past and the present.
9. Look for the definition of the following:

Major Sociological and Anthropological Perspectives

a. structural-functionalism

➢ According to a study by Schaefer in 2013, structural-functionalism says

that parts of a society are structured to contribute in maintaining
its stability.

➢ Every part of a society such as institutions, roles, relationships and

norms serve a purpose.

b. social conflict and Marxist anthropology

➢ Social Conflict is rooted from the struggle of power. Occurs when two
or more parties oppose each other within a social interaction. The
tension between competing groups need not be violent; it can take the
form of labor negotiations, party politics, competition between religious
groups for new members, or disputes over the federal budget.

➢ Marxist Anthropology is about criticizing the social conflict during

the industrial revolution and Euro-American capitalism. The two
participants in the conflict during the huge social change were the factory
owners (bourgeoise) and the factory workers (proletariat).

The two groups have different desires which was the root of the conflict.
The factory owners wanted to increase their wealth while the factory
workers wanted a raise or higher wages. According to Marx, the
powerful ones, where in this case are the factory workers, control the
other parts of the society such as the education, media, religion, and
legal system to normalize big gaps in wealth or social class, accept the
inequality, and that they don’t need to question the system
(brainwashing). In short, education, media, religion, and legal system
are used as weapons against the unfortunate.

Marx predicted that due to these signs of inequalities, the workers will
eventually rebel to the system and start a revolution.

➢ Deals with social conflict, inequality, oppression towards the proletariat.

c. symbolic interactionism and symbolic and interpretive anthropology

➢ Symbolic Interactionism focuses on how individuals interact with

each other. This also analyzes the subjective meanings that people
impose on subject, events, and behaviors.
 ➢ When we interact with each other, all forms of behavior are symbolic.
One might think differently of the interaction depending on the
meanings they imposed on subject, events, and behaviors.

10. Briefly discuss the following anthropological viewpoints and be able to give examples.

a. Cultural Relativism

➢ Cultural relativism is the ability to understand a culture on its own terms

and not to make judgments using the standards of one's own culture.
One should understand other person’s belief from the perspective
of their culture.

o Example: Eating and serving food using bare hands are seen as
unhygienic in other countries. However, In India, eating and
serving food using bare hands originated within Ayurvedic
teachings, where it is believed that our bodies are in sync with the
five elements of nature and each finger is an extension of one of
these five elements.

b. Ethnocentrism

➢ Thinks that one’s own culture is superior and sees the other
cultures as inferior.

o Example: Expecting other people from a foreign country that

doesn’t use English as their first language to speak in English.
Western people always expect that people from another country,
especially in Asian countries, are bilingual.

c. Culture-specific

➢ Concepts that are specific for a certain culture.

o Example: The act of “mano” as a form of respect towards older

people is a culture-specific in the Philippines.