History: Library of the Past, Present and Future

We may wonder what is history all about. History according

to Merriam Webster Dictionary is a branch of knowledge that
records and explains past events and according to Cambridge
Dictionary is the study of or a record of past events considered
together, especially events of a particular place, country, or
nation.

Is history useful? It doesn’t help build schools, fight

fires, perform operations, help sell merchandise, or launch a
space shuttle. But why do we need to study history? Simply
because history helps us to understand people about their past.
We cannot understand our community if we do not know how it came
to be. We cannot understand the most interesting part and stories
in human events without history.

How can we be sure that the history we have today is

correct? There is a great historian named Leloy Claudio, a
historian and a professor of history at De La Salle University,
who critiques and presents us that there are five misconceptions
about our Philippine history from the books that we read in order
to correct those misconceptions.

The first misconception is Rizal is Ibarra. This is very

misconception in our high school days even in college. Certainly,
even our professors during those days were mistakenly taught us
that Ibarra and Rizal was the same. Before we start who is
Ibarra? Crisostomo Ibarra, full name Juan Crisostomo Ibarra y
Magsalin, was a young student in San Diego. Following his
father's death, he returned to his hometown and sought to
establish a proper school there, only to face numerous obstacles
from the local figures. Implicated in a revolt, he later fled the
town and forged a new identity as the jeweler Simoun.
 Even though Ibarra is a reformer and he rejected the
revolution and Rizal also is anti-revolution of the Katipuneros
this does not mean that they are really the same. Rizal did not
entirely reject the revolution of the Katipuneros. For him
revolution was very necessary, but, the problem at that time was
the Katipuneros were not ready to revolt and they cannot govern
themselves. According to Floro Quibuyen in his book titled “A
Nation Aborted” it states there that Rizal actually endorsed the
revolution of the Katipunan. A revolution would be necessary when
all other means were exhausted-everything were prepared.

In some of his letters, Rizal said,” I am neither rich nor

mestizo nor do the qualities of Ibarra coincide with mine”. In
another letter he called Ibarra an egoist and Elias characters
should be emulated than of Ibarra. According to Ambeth Ocampo,
the greatest Rizal expert, we must read Rizal himself. If we will
read the entire book of Noli Me Tangere we can found there that
Rizal often makes a fool of Ibarra and Elias is the one with
virtuous character whom Rizal praised too much and to be
emulated.

The second misconception is the Katipunan and its leader

Andres Bonifacio were from the lower class of the society. When
we see Andres Bonifacio wearing his camisa de chino with red
pants we conclude that he is poor and proletariat but we mistook
about that. There were many pictures of Bonifacio that he wore an
Americana suit. Yes, it is true that Andres Bonifacio is came
from Tondo but the Tondo today is not the Tondo of his time. The
Tondo of 1890’s, when you are living there you are in the middle
class. Then, many of the Katipuneros were secretaries and office
workers in urban areas and some of them belong to the municipal
elites.
 We might be wrong for that because most of them were
Ilustrados and members of the middle class. In the study of
Michael Cullinane we can found out beautifully and very
systematically the life of the Katipuneros. It states there that
they were belong to the middle class and elite members of the
society.

The third misconception is the Politicians who surrendered

to the Americans were all traitors. Where it does come from? The
movie Heneral Luna shows that misconception. If we analyze the
movie itself, we can found out that Luna wanted to fight until
death and those who surrendered to America, he called them
traitor one of them was Buencamino. The theme of the movie is all
about patriotism-the struggle between country and the self. If
you did not surrender you love the country but if you did, you
are a traitor.

To surrender does not show treachery it is a prevention for

losing many lives of the Filipinos. To fight for liberty until
death does not show badly because it shows patriotism. In the
book, Brains of the Nation by Resil B. Mojares it stated there
that Mojares did not say those who surrendered are bad and those
who fought until death are bad also. The problem here is in
reading history we must ponder on people’s motivation and their
complexity in doing things. We cannot judge them easily because
there were many means how to show patriotism. We are not the same
either. To surrender is not foolishness and to fight as well but
as humans as we are we have to be complex and to understand the
means of their motivations.

Luna might be wrong for saying all those who surrendered

were traitors because not all of the Katipuneros were traitors.
Rizal was not a traitor even he surrendered to the Spaniards. He
accepted this thing to be happened because if he did not do this
the life of his family will put into risky. That was the same
idea of Buencamino itself, to prevent of losing many lives
surrendering is the best key.

The fourth misconception is that the Philippines was rich

when the peso-dollar exchange rate was 2:1. This is very
terrible. During the year 1950’s and 1960’s people relied to
import goods from abroad rather than in exporting goods. People
were loss in business transaction if they will do that. For
example, they export goods in abroad. They will receive one
dollar that is equivalent to two pesos only so that people relied
on importing goods from abroad than to exporting one because they
noticed that if they will do that they were going out their
business. So, people taught that it is very easy to import goods
than to export one.

In this situation people were reliant on importing goods

rather than exporting one so that our export industry does not
develop. According to Salvador Araneta, a great economist, who
saw that the 2:1 system was leading the Philippine economy to
perdition.

The fifth and last misconception is about Marcos who was

known as a war hero because his medals were considered legit. But
as early as the 1980s, there was a historian named Alfred McCoy
who revealed that the medals of Former President Marcos are fake
after he discovered documents from the U.S military exposing such
fraud.

Marcos, the “Most Decorated War Hero”, was said to have

received a total of 32 medals. But in another study of NHCP,
historians say that the US officials “knew that Mr. Marcos had
never received the 2 medals the DSC (Distinguished Service Cross)
and the Silver Star. The NHCP likewise reiterated the result of a
US military investigation, where it did not recognize Marcos’
supposed guerrilla unit, Ang Mga Maharlika. Also, Professor
Ricardo Jose said that he was not able to find any reference to a
claim in any of the Marcos’ biographies that General Douglas
MacArthur himself bestowed the Distinguished Service Cross on the
young Major Marcos.

All of Marcos Medals were fake. He fooled us.