Philippine History Source Materials

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), who is considered as the fourth richest man in the world for all time, was born to a poor family in Scotland. Years after immigrating to the United States, he became a steel magnate and one of the wealthiest businessmen of the United States. In 1901, he sold Carnegie Steel to John Pierpont Morgan, another industrialist in the United States, for $480 million (about $310 billion in modern dollars[i]). After retiring as a businessman, Carnegie spent his time doing philanthropic work[ii].

But on June 15, 1898, before Carnegie sold his company, the American Anti-Imperialist League was “formed to fight U.S. annexation of the Philippines, citing a variety of reasons ranging from the economic to the legal to the racial to the moral.”[iii]Carnegie was among the leaders of the league, which included famous men like Mark Twain and William James. He was also a member of the Philippine Independence Committee.

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Dec 31, 2015

Rizal as Teacher, Farmer, Surgeon and Engineer in Dapitan

by Alan S. Cajes

Jose P. Rizal said that he spent “four years, thirteen days, and a few hours” in Dapitan, now a third-class city in Zamboanga del Norte. The Spanish regime arrested and exiled the 31-year old surgeon to Dapitan from 17 July 1892 to 31 July 1896 for fear that he was sowing the seed of a movement towards independence.

In a letter to his friend, Fernando Blumentritt, on 5 April 1896, Rizal explained that Dapitan was “founded by Boholanos before or after the coming of the first Spaniards” and that “Dapitan means a place of rendezvous or meeting-place.” As a disclosure, let me state that I am a Boholano thus I was excited for the opportunity to visit the place during the holidays and gather data on Rizal’s ecological way of life in a home away from home. I have written elsewhere about the evacuation of some Boholanos to Dapitan. However, there is another narrative claiming that the evacuees were actually conquerors of the Boholanos and that they were forced out of their Mansasa-Dauis settlement as consequence of the raid by Ternate sometime in 1563. This article, however, has a simpler aim -- to piece together some of Rizal’s ideas and feelings during his banishment as embodied in his separate writings.

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Apr 9, 2015

The Causes of the Bataan Death March Revisited

Source: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

By Jim Nelson

Source: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

The fall of the

Philippines

was the largest defeat of an American armed force in the history of the

United States

, and the Bataan Death March was the most brutal series of war crimes ever committed against surrendering American or Philippine soldiers. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), the Pacific War’s equivalent of the Nuremburg trials formally established the general extent and kind of atrocities committed by Japanese troops but did not fully determine all of the causes that contributed to the Death March. To some degree the IMTFE’s inability to find and understand all of the causal factors led to a situation in which some of the less culpable were executed and some of the most culpable escaped justice.

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Source: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

Feb 7, 2015

Keeping the Spirit of 1896 Alive

by Onofre D. Corpuz

The Filipino Revolution and its ideals were an inspiration to the nationalists of Southeast Asia of the late 1890s. Even today, high school pupils in our neighbor nations that were ruled by European colonial regimes read about our revolution and our Dr. Rizal in their history books.

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Jan 26, 2015

Ancient History of the Philippines: An Introduction

by Alan S. Cajes

If the story of the universe is told in a calendar year[1], the following events happened from January to November: separation of the gravitational force from the infinite singularity; formation of a thick mixture of hydrogen and helium; birth of the galaxies; explosion of a star that spewed forth heavy elements such as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, and then the birth of the solar system. In the 12^th month, December, the first microscopic forms of life emerged. On the last day of December, the first shell appeared. At the last minute of the last day of December, life emerged from the sea. During a tiny fraction of the last second of December 31, the first hominid ancestor of humans and apes and chimpanzees appeared.

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Dec 14, 2014

Revisiting Andres Bonifacio

by Ignacio Bunye, Manila Bulletin

Using both primary historical documents and interpretative accounts of earlier historians, Dr. Guerrero, et. al., are submitting the proposition that:

1. When the plans of a general uprising were discovered, Bonifacio called a general meeting of the Katipunan on August 24, 1896. According to Santiago Alvarez, a thousand people came, indicating that there was already a government working when they declared the national government.

2. In that meeting, the Katipunan assembly made three decisions:

a. They declared a nationwide armed revolution to win freedom from Spain.

b. They established a national government.

c. They elected officials who would lead the nation and the army.

3. From a secret organization, the Katipunan became an open de facto government.

4. This de facto government had its constitution – the Kartilya ng Katipunan. An important document called “Casaysayan” defined the de facto government’s leadership and various positions.

5. Early documents referred to the de facto government as Haring Bayan ng Katagalugan. Haring Bayan means pamahalaan o republika.

6. Katagalugan encompassed not just the Tagalogs but all ethnic groups from the entire archipelago.

7. Katagalugan was preferred over the use of “Filipinas” to symbolize the complete break of the natives or “Indios” from the “Filipinos.” At the time, “Filipinos” referred only to Spaniards born in the islands – the so-called Insulares.

8. Haring Bayan ng Katagalugan had a near complete cabinet: A Secretary of War, a Secretary of State, a Secretary of Interior, a Secretary of Justice, a Secretary of Finance.

9. Haring Bayan ng Katagalugan had a diplomatic component – a “Commission” which tried to negotiate for Japanese political, military, and financial aid. The same “Commission” also tried to touch base with the US and French governments through their consulates in Hong Kong.

10. Haring Bayan ng Katagalugan had its own flag consisting of a red and white sun with the baybayin K in the center.

11. Haring Bayan ng Katagalugan had its own national anthem “Marangal na Dalit ng Katagalugan” which was composed by Julio Nakpil.

12. Haring Bayan ng Katagalugan commanded the loyalty of a significant portion of the population.

13. While it existed, the government held territory where it exercised the functions of a state, especially in Pasig and Morong.

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Sep 29, 2014

Can The Philippines Save Itself From Typhoons?

by GREG MYRE

For the third year in a row, the Philippines has been hit by a major storm claiming more than 1,000 lives, and the death toll from Haiyan, one of the worst on record, could climb to 10,000.

With thousands of islands in the warm waters of the Pacific, the Philippines is destined to face the wrath of angry tropical storms year after year.

So what can a poor, densely populated country do to mitigate the huge loss of life and the massive destruction?

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'Absolute Bedlam' In The Philippines After Typhoon Haiyan

by MARK MEMMOTT

The news from the Philippines, where it's feared that last week's powerful Typhoon Haiyan killed more than 10,000 people, isn't getting better as hundreds of thousands of people struggle to survive and authorities struggle to get help to them.

"It's absolute bedlam right now," Richard Gordon, head of the Philippine Red Cross, tells the BBC.

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My last talk with Ninoy Aquino

by FRANCISCO S. TATAD

President B. S. Aquino 3rd’s strong words in Boston, while recalling his father’s three year- medical furlough there, and his assassination at the Manila international airport upon his return on August 21, 1983, compel me to reveal for the first time a conversation I had with Ninoy Aquino at Harvard in the summer of 1982.

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Outdated restrictions

By Cielito F. Habito

In 2000-2011, we attracted an average of $1.1 billion in net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows per year, a pittance against Singapore’s $14.8 billion, Thailand’s $4.5 billion, Vietnam’s $3.9 billion, and Indonesia’s $2.3 billion. But last year, our net FDI inflows already amounted to $3.9 billion, nearly four times the earlier average annual figure. Impressive?

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The Marcos Diary : A Lust for Power, an Eye on Glory

WILLIAM C. REMPEL and RICHARD E. MEYER

"If we do not prepare measures of counteraction, (Communist subversives) will not only succeed in assassinating me but in taking over the government. So we must perfect our emergency plan."

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Jul 31, 2014

Historical Facts, Historical Lies, and Historical Rights in the West Philippine Sea

by Justice Antonio T. Carpio

"All these ancient maps show that since the first Chinese maps appeared,the southern most territory of China has always been Hainan Island, with its ancient names being Zhuya, then Qiongya, and thereafter Qiongzhou. ““Hainan Island was for centuries a part of Guangdong Province until 1988 when it became a separate province.”

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May 6, 2014

The 2012 Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro

On October 7, 2012, the Government of Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front released the Framework of Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which will pave the way for the establishment of the new autonomous political entity, the Bangsamoro, to replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The agreement was signed on the afternoon of October 15, 2012, in ceremonies held in Malacañan Palace, witnessed by President Benigno S. Aquino III, Malaysian Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak, and other dignitaries.

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Dec 5, 2013

Tacloban, not once but thrice

By Ambeth R. Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Padre Faura is an Ermita street marked “P. Faura” after the Jesuit Fr. Federico Faura, first director of the Manila Observatory, the precursor of the Manila Weather Bureau and the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa).

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Archaeology and our territorial dispute with China

By Ambeth R. Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Textbook history often organizes the story of our nation into periods marked by our colonial experiences: the Spanish period 1565-1898, the American period 1898-1946, and the Japanese period 1941-1945. Before Spain planted her flag and asserted control over the islands, we had the Pre-Spanish or Precolonial period. With the recognition of Philippine independence after World War II, our story becomes ours alone, without a colonial master to blame for our folly.

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Aug 29, 2013

Politicization of Philippine Budget System: Institutional and Economic Analysis on “Pork-Barrel”

by Kohei Noda

Budget is a foundation of economic management of a country, and therefore, in the context of developing countries, it is primarily an issue of development. It is often pointed out that the Philippine budget institution is characterized by its high degree of politicization. Such politicization is said to be one of the major causes of corruption, opaque plutocratic policy-makings, and frequent delays in budget approval and implementation. Politicization in the budget process, in concrete, is brought about by budget allocations aiming at providing benefits only to some regionally bounded constituency, which are often collectively expressed as “pork-barrel”.

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