No electricity in Cebu City, all of Panay, and part of Leyte (according to a colleague) due to an earthquake. Reporters are still scrambling for details.
My column last Monday was “Calabasa” gets a call.
My Arab News column for this week is Explaining How the Philippine State Came to Be.
Technorati Tags: Philippines
Re: Historians
I remeber a third author aside from Constantino and Agoncillo.I believe it is Gregorio Zaide.
Re:book about Phils.
I have book about the Philippines,it consists of ten vollumes.I lost the seven volumes .
It is Filipino Heritage The Making of a nation
printed 1977 by Lahing pilipino Publishing
but I noticed that it was printed in singapore……
printed last 1977
But MLQ did mention that if there is it is hopelessly out of date.
MLQ3 is correct!
Karl, it’s good that you mention Zaide. Actually, while for the intelligentsia Agoncillo and Constantino are indeed the towering figures in our historiography, I would say that Zaide’s notoriously pro-American colonial version of history has had the widest influence on Filipinos. To this day, Zaide’s textbooks are (still!) staples of elementary and high schools; Agoncillo and Constantino are read in college i.e., by a much smaller audience.
Hi, MLQ: The new Calabasa piece was priceless. You had the speech mannerisms of Ma’am down pat. And kajillion gazillion bajoomillion? Shades of Dr. Evil and Uncle Scrooge!
Speaking of gajillions, Ms. Belinda Olivares-Cunanan seems to have taken a long leave from the op-ed pages of the Inquirer.
Oh, by the way:
From Canada.com:
“According to a schoolboard source, Luc had been eating slowly that day. The lunch monitor warned him that there were only five minutes left to finish his meal. In response, Luc began shovelling food into his mouth, alternating with his spoon and his fork. He dribbled food and the other children laughed.”
Remember, Luc: use the fork.
About History,Books and authors, the hisory of the Jewish nation of Israel must be tops:
Many of us are familiar with the story. A people in exile under a mean ruler went on a journey across the desert to their promise land, which, compared to ours, would be like a desert. This journey strengthened their bond as a people and became their legacy, their pride and their gift. And perhaps this is what we are missing, the journeying as a people, and the sense of it. We have either lost it along the way or never had it from the start.
A people who are in exile and are aware of it are better off than others who are not. At least they know where to start even if they do not know for sure where they are going. And people become aware of their exile when they start to believe that there is a better place, a place that they truly belong to, a place where they believe they should be, a promise land. Starting on a journey, it seems, starts with the people themselves, what they think, feel, and believe in – the journey within – the journey of the heart.
Many, if not most Filipinos, in foreign lands feel a sense of belonging – assimilating, giving and finding acceptance. They discover a sense of home that seems to have been lost, that they are missing and still long for in their own native land. Together with the many who are here but who would rather be there, wishing they were here, we have become a people in exile, either here or there. Going out and moving out are just outward and outbound expressions of what is deep inside the hearts of the Filipinos – hearts in exile, hearts in search of a home, pilgrims for a better life. ‘Home is where the heart is,’ for everyone, everywhere. How, then, do we start journeying as a people?
We start by believing that our lives and our nation are God’s gifts to us, and that He is showing us the way. For as we journey as a people, wherever we may be, we start lifting ourselves up as a people and building our nation up, as our gifts to our Beginning, who is the End to our exile, and Home after our journey.
And may this journeying itself become our legacy – the journey of the hearts of the Filipinos – journeying as a people, as global Filipinos.
To Renmin,
Yes, I read Zaide during elementary then Agoncillo in high school and then Constantino in College.
many thanks!
When a friend or a casual aquantance ask me about the Philippines and her History, I usually start when the Malays landed, then the Spanish Colonization, Followed by the Revolution and the American Interruptions and The Second World war. There is so much to fill in between, even just from memory. But the one I remember reading look time ago that tells a good part of our history is the Biography of General Douglas MacArthur. Most I try to recall from all the lessons I learned from School.
I’m not a big fan of the Zaides… but I think it’s more the daughter’s fault than the father’s. (Sorry Manolo for the self-link.)
Dominique, I think the Cunanantic choked on her words haha.
I always thought there was something screwy about the locals writing history when there are no written records predating Pigafetta even if we insist we have an alphabet.Just like the Aklanon’s 10 Bornean Datus that the ati atihan folks seem to believe and actually came up with a date of the landing.Zaide, Agoncillo et al can only write about things after Pigafetta plus their biases built into their version of history.We have no choice but glean into what the Spaniards and the Americans wrote and have observed during their occupation allowing of course their own biases and cultural differences.We shouldn’t feel bad considering the Japanese traced their lineage back to Amaterazu.So let’s be happy with our myths and legends.