Larkin
Larkin
Larkin
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THE PLACE OF LOCAL HISTORY IN PHILIPPINE
HISTORIOGRAPHY
John A. Larkin
1. See, for example, Mariano A. Henson, The Province of Pampanga and Its Towns,
(3rd ed. rev.) Angeles, Pampanga 1963, and Francisco S. Tantuico, Jr, Leyte.
The Historic Islands, Tacloban City, Leyte 1964.
2. Felix M. Keesing, The Ethnohistory of Northern Luzon, Stanford, California 1962;
Najeeb M. Saleeby, The History of Sulu, Manila 1963.
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PHILIPPINE HISTORIOGRAPHY
tion.3 The singular concern with Manila and its environs and the
highest echelons of society tends to distort the history of the Philip
pines as a whole. Local history, for the most part, has been neglect
ed, even though Philippine society has remained overwhelmingly
rural throughout its entire existence.4
Focusing on the Manila area, the seat of Spanish and American
authority, reveals only the "Western" face of Philippine society. As
a result, the Philippines has at times seemed a pale imitation of
Occidental society, not quite capable of sustained independent
development. The bonds which historically link the Philippines
to the rest of Southeast Asia are found mainly in the rural areas ?
in the traditional agricultural life of the peasant, in the more super
ficial acceptance of outside influence, including religion, and in the
strong emphasis on family and village loyalty.5
3. The best modern historical scholarship has dealt primarily with national and
supra-regional matters. Theodore Friend's Between Two Empires, The Ordeal
of the Philippines, 1929-1946, New Haven and London 1965, examines American
Philippine relations within the context of the larger issues of Asian diplomacy
while Josefa Saniel similarly treats Philippine-Japanese relations for an earlier
period in Japan and the Philippines, 1868-J898, Quezon City 1962. Two out
standing works record the historical development of Philippine governmental
structure: Onofre D. Corpuz traces the growth of a national bureaucracy from
Spanish times down to the post World War II era in his The Bureaucracy in the
Philippines Manila 1957; Charles Cunningham's The Audiencia in the Spanish
Colonies, Berkeley 1919, is a classic in the field. Three Filipino scholars provide
the most significant new work on the Philippine Revolution in their biographies
of well-known patriots: Leon Ma. Guerrero's The First Filipino, A Biography
of Jose Rizal, Manila 1963, and Cesar Majul's Apolinario Mabini, Revolutionary,
Manila 1964, both present moving and sympathetic pictures of two major Fili
pino intellectuals of the period, while Teodoro Agoncillo in his The Revolt of
the Masses, Quezon City 1956, recounts the story of Andres Bonifacio, chief in
stigator of the armed conflict against Spain.
Even the more specialized studies have approached specific topics across local
boundaries. Horacio de la Costa's The Jesuits in the Philippines, 1581
1768, Cambridge, Mass. 1961, and Edgar Wickberg's The Chinese in Philippine
Life, 1850-1898, New Haven and London 1965, both examine the Archipelago
wide activities of their respective groups. In a study of Filipino adaptation to
the first century of Spanish rule, John Leddy Phelan provides an excellent over
view The Hispanization of the Philippines, Madison Wisconsin 1959, which,
nevertheless, needs clarification through local studies.
4. The Philippine census of 1960 reveals that even at present rural population
heavily predominates over urban, although the pattern has been slowly chang
ing in the present century. [Robert Huke, Shadows on the Land, An Economic
Geography of the Philippines, Makati Rizal 1963, pp. 153-155].
5. A large body of scholarship on contemporary Philippine rural communities al
ready exists. The work reflects the efforts of a solid group of anthropologists,
sociologists and political scientists. The Community Development Research
Council at the University of the Philippines alone has been sponsoring around
forty major research projects on local problems; one of the most useful of those
already completed is Mary Hollnsteiner, The Dynamics of Power in a Philippine
Municipality, Quezon City 1963. Other recent and notable studies that discuss
local loyalties include: Frank Lynch, S. J., Social Class in a Bicol Town, Chicago
1959; Charles Kaut, "Contingency in a Tagalog Society," Asian Studies, 111
(April 1965), pp. 1-15; Ethel Nurge, Life in a Leyte Village, Seattle 1965; Jean
Grossholtz, Politics in the Philippines, Boston and Toronto 1964; Carl H. Lande,
Leaders, Factions, and Parties, The Structure of Philippine Politics, New Haven
1965.
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PHILIPPINE HISTORIOGRAPHY
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PHILIPPINE HISTORIOGRAPHY
Macapagal, Luis Taruc and Pedro Abad Santos (the latter two being
important leaders in the Communist movement in the Philippines).11
11. Sol Hilario Gwekoh, Diosdado Macapagal: Triumph Over Poverty, Manila 1962,
pp. 1-8.
12. The information on Pampangan society prior to 1898 comes from John A. Larkin,
"The Evolution of Pampangan Society: A Case Study of Social and Economic
Change in the Rural Philippines" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department
of History, New York University), pp. 90-136.
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PHILIPPINE HISTORIOGRAPHY
19. Teodoro A. Agoncillo and Oscar M. Alfonso, A Short History of the Filipino
People, Quezon City 1960, p. 212.
20. Kalaw, The Philippine Revolution, p. 26.
21. Ibid., p. 43.
22. "Report of Spanish Casualties in Pampanga, August 23, 1896 to November 10,
1897," trans. J. R. M. Taylor, in John R. M. Taylor (Ed.), The Philippine In
surrection Against the United States, Washington 1906, [galley proof only], I,
17 LY.
23. At the time of the Philippine Revolution, the twenty or so parishes in the
province of Pampanga probably had at their disposal one or two thousand
hectares of land for the support of church activities. This estimate is based on
incomplete information from the Philippine Archives.
The following lands were confiscated by the Philippine Revolutionary
Government from Church establishments during 1898 and 1899. By all
appearances, they represent total inventories.
Name of Parish or Organization Size of Holding
Lubao 17 hectares
San Fernando 62.7
Bacolor 115.3
Confraternity of the Holy
Angeles? 93.7
[Philippine National Archives,
32, 36, 38, 44].
[Mariano A. Henson, A Brief H
Pampanga 1948, pp. 3, 7]. The C
devoted to good works. Its lan
of Angeles, although it was ma
The Church, then, controlled
105,677 hectares of land cultivat
Census of the Philippine Island
Commission in the Year 1903,
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PHILIPPINE HISTORIOGRAPHY
30. Charles B. Elliott, The Philippines to the End of the Military Regime, Indiana
polis 1916, p. 466; Taylor, op. cit., II, 4 HS.
31. Taylor, op. cit., II, 94-95 AJ, 8-9 HS; Philippine Islands, Military Governor,
Report of Major General E. S. Otis, United States Army, Commanding Division
of the ?Philippines, Military Governor, September 1, 1899 to May 5, 1900,
Washington 1901, pp. 11, 13; LeRoy, The Americans..., II, pp. 41-42; ?alaw,
The Philippine Revolution, p. 216. The Manila Times during August 1899
carried almost daily accounts of engagements between Filipino and American
troops in Pampanga.
32. The information for the guerrilla phase of the Revolution in Pampanga is taken
from the Philippine Insurgent Records, formerly housed in the National Archives
in Washington, D.C., but now kept in the National Library of the Philippines
in Manila. A microfilm copy of the Insurgent Records still remains in Wash
ington. Most of the references used here come from Items 289 and 562 on
rolls 22 and 33 of the microfilm.
33. US War Department, US Philippine Commission, Annual Reports of the War
Department for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1901. Report of the Philippine
Commission in Two Parts, Washington 1901, pp. 11-17.
34. Manila Times, 29 August 1901, p. 1
35. Zaide, op. cit., p. 352, n. 108.
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