PARADOXICAL

 History is a social form of knowledge

Opinion by Van Ybiernas 

I HAVE been invited to deliver a paper for “Public History in the Philippines: A National Conference,” to be held at De La Salle University (DLSU) Manila on May 11 to 12, 2026. The conference is jointly organized by the DLSU Department of History and the University of the Philippines Diliman’s Department of History. The conference is free and open to the public.

I surmise that the invitation was extended because “I appear to be” using this column and my social media platforms for public history, which certain scholars myopically understand to be — as criticized by Hilda Kean and Paul Ashton — “historians merely reaching out to the public.”

That is not what I am doing, thank you very much.

Before I explain what public history properly is, let me tell you first the history of my public history journey.

During the administration of Benigno Aquino III (2010-2016), the presidential communications portfolio steadily incorporated history-related content, particularly in its social media accounts (i.e., the Facebook/Meta account of the Official Gazette). When Rodrigo Duterte became the president in 2016, Martin Andanar was appointed secretary of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO). Acquainted with historian and fellow Manila Times columnist Dr. Xiao Chua, Andanar asked the latter to be the historical consultant for the Official Gazette’s social media page. Chua begged off, recommending me instead because I had been upfront about voting for Duterte in the 2016 elections.

Eventually, I was put in touch with then-PCOO assistant secretary Ramon Cualoping III to consult on the Gazette’s social media cards until a furor broke out regarding the 99th birth anniversary of strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr. on Sept. 11, 2016. The Inquirer’s Marlon Ramos and Yuji Vincent Gonzales on Sept. 13, 2016 (“Gazette draws flak for Marcos boo-boo”) wrote:

“Ramon Cualoping III, assistant secretary of the Presidential Communications Office (PCO), admitted to approving the content of the controversial social media card, which was supposedly written by one of the PCO staff writers, Marco Angelo Cabrera.

“Cualoping said Cabrera used to work for Marcos’ son and namesake, former Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Mr. Duterte’s staunch supporter who lost to Leni Robredo in the tightly contested vice presidential race.

“The social media card, Cualoping added, was approved by the Official Gazette’s consultant, Van Ybiernas, an assistant professor of history at De La Salle University.”

To clarify, I consulted only on the first iteration of that social media card, not the subsequent ones that came out as the PCOO tried to douse water on the fire created by the controversy which happened while I was sound asleep at home. I later wrote on my personal social media account that the contents of that social media card were historically accurate although subject to contentious interpretation, particularly from partisans with a stake in certain narratives.

Nevertheless, Chua — who I lightheartedly blame for everything that happened to me — coaxed me that since my name was already mentioned, I should just go down the public history rabbit hole, which I did. Afterward, Chua and I produced “Dulowtard History Live” (on Facebook), which grounded the analysis and interpretation of contemporary events using the lens of history. “Dulowtard History Live” came to an end during the pandemic after formatting changes were introduced by Facebook, making it difficult for us to do the show live simultaneously as I had already left for Korea in September 2019 to become a visiting professor with Changwon National University’s Department of International Relations.

While in Korea during the pandemic, Chua recommended me to Mr. Dante Ang II of The Manila Times to become a weekly columnist for the paper. As mentioned, the first one came out on Oct. 16, 2020. I continued our “Dulowtard History Live” approach of grounding the analysis and interpretation of contemporary events using the lens of history in writing my column pieces for the paper. I still do.

Going back, public history is not about historians reaching out to the public. That is a very elitist view of public history.

What I intend to do in my presentation for the upcoming “Public History in the Philippines: A National Conference” is to revisit the nuanced difference between “history” and “kasaysayan,” which necessitated the eventual birth of public history in the West and why such is unnecessary in the Philippine context.

I am not able to fully elucidate the difference between “history” and “kasaysayan” here for lack of space, but it must be pointed out that the Greek word “historia” originally meant, according to Katy Steinmetz, “inquiry, the act of seeking knowledge, as well as the knowledge that results from inquiry.” This Greek word, in turn, according to Zeus Salazar, comes from the Indo-European “wid,” which is the origin of the Gothic “witan” (and the German “wissen” and the English “wit”) which means “knowledge,” and in Sanskrit Veda means “knowledge par excellence, mystical knowledge.”

To fully understand the implications of the etymology of history vis-a-vis public history, one needs to appreciate the fact that “knowledge” in the premodern/early modern Western context was thoroughly elitist — it was reserved for members of the monarchy, the nobility and the upper echelons of society. Thus, history as an inquiry in pursuit of knowledge was an elite/elitist endeavor that systematically excluded the broader public.

Greek historian Herodotus, for example, called the “Father of History” by Cicero, according to William Smith, belonged to an illustrious family in Halicarnassus. Thucydides, called the “Father of Scientific History,” according to Britannica dot com “had property in Thrace, including mining rights and gold mines opposite the island of Thasos, and was... a man of influence there.” (I will write a longer list of ancient historians and their socioeconomic backgrounds in the continuation of this piece).

It took a while for history and historiography to be the endeavor of ordinary people and for it to reflect the wisdom of Raphael Samuel (in giving birth to public history) thus:

“History is not the prerogative of the historian... It is, rather, a social form of knowledge; the work in a given instance, of a thousand different hands...”

***

History is a social form of knowledge

Second of a series

I SHALL be delivering a presentation (in Filipino) for “Public History in the Philippines: A National Conference” sponsored by the Departments of History of De La Salle University Manila and the University of the Philippines Diliman on May 12, 2026, entitled, “History tungo Public History; Kasaysayan tungo Kasaysayan pa rin.” The fundamental premise of that presentation is that history is evolving into public history but kasaysayan remains the same.

But not in a bad way.

History evolved from the proto-Indo-European weid/wid which means “to know” to the (ancient) Greek histor/historein/historia meaning “to inquire” to the Latin historia meaning “narrative of past events” to the Old French estoire/estorie or “story, chronicle, history” and 14th century French historie or “relation of events.”

According to Jakarta-based historian Ferdinand Victoria, history in ancient European/Western times had a specific purpose as “exemplar history” for the education of the elite, including the nobility and monarchy, where history serves as a manual on “how to rule” and “how not to make mistakes.” Monarchs and nobles — and the papacy, for that matter — studied the history of their blue-blooded ancestors, in their politics and diplomacy, as part of their leadership education and training. History for the Europeans/Westerners from the start was political history. Thus, by the 19th century, Thomas Carlyle shall claim that history is “the biography of great men.”

There is also a practical reason for this, in the European/Western context. The historians Charles Langlois and Charles Seignobos became controversial in 1898 for their bold claim of pas de documents, pas d’histoire or “no documents, no history.” This is consistent with the declaration of another influential historian of the 19th century, Leopold von Ranke, of wie es eigentlich gewesen or the task of history is to show “how it really was” or “as it essentially was.” The record of the past as the basis of history is invariably written by scribes or chroniclers. Indeed, historical records often pertain to the lives and works of great men, the main subject of these chronicles.

French wartime heroes and great historians Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre founded in 1929 the Annales d’historie economique et sociale (Annals of Economic and Social History), an academic journal that became the foundation of the “Annales school of history” to pry history away from the overbearing dominance of politico-military history toward a more social, economic and structural historical analysis. This was an opening in historiography that would eventually lead to the emergence of public history, not just in terms of targeting the broader public/s as audience or as participants with a stronger voice in the crafting of history, but more importantly, as the subject of historiography itself.

History in Europe and the West underwent a Greek odyssey before public history was eventually born in the 1970s.

By contrast, kasaysayan has had no such historiographic baggage. Kasaysayan was born with a natural focus on “saysay” (“meaning,” “value,” “importance,” etc.) in its salaysay or narrative. Kasaysayan, therefore, focuses on the narration of historical events that have meaning and value for both the narrator and the intended audience, denoted, according to Zeus Salazar, by the pananaw/perspective either as:

– “Pantayo”: producer of the narrative and audience as one discussing their own collective history and culture using their own language;

– “Pangkami”: narrator and audience belonging to different cultures with the narrator explaining their history and culture to the audience to the audience, using the language of the audience;

– “Pangkayo”: narrator and audience belonging to different cultures — and usually having different languages — with the narrator discussing the history and culture of the audience to the audience using the language of the audience;

– “Pansila”: producer of the narrative and audience as one but discussing the history and culture of a foreign nation/culture.

Kasaysayan intrinsically focuses on a narrative of historical events that have meaning, substance, value, importance, relevance, etc. to its intended audience — often an entire nation and/or culture denoted by the language used in the narration. More importantly, as it became patently evident as a consequence of Western colonialism/imperialism in the Philippines, the historians of Pantayong Pananaw were pushed to edify — for lack of a better term — an alternative historiography away from the records-dependent historiography advocated by the West as elucidated by the Charleses, Langlois and Seignobos. Colonial records — focused mainly on colonial activities and endeavors — were often irrelevant and immaterial to the historiographic concerns of kasaysayan infused with Pantayong Pananaw.

For clarity, the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) for instance is only remotely relevant to Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas. Dwelling on events like the Treaty of Tordesillas skews the focus lopsidedly to Spanish imperial concerns — i.e., Spanish politics and diplomacy with Portugal. Colonialism/imperialism brought the Spanish to the Philippines but there is no pressing need, in the context of Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas, to discuss the Treaty of Tordesillas in detail.

A discussion of the Dutch attacks on the Philippines during the late 16th century-17th century is quite relevant, but not an elaboration of the politics between Spain and Netherlands in the 16th century that shaped it. The Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas narrative should center around the consequences of the attacks to the Philippines, not its European context/background.

Colonial historiography is equally interested in the politics of Europe and its consequences to the Philippines, Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas is not.

The impetus provided by the inadequacies of colonial historiography pushed historians to explore an “alternative” historiography for kasaysayan, leading to such devices as linguistics, literature, folk lore, interpretation of the arts, ethnology/ethnography, interpretation of colonial historiography, Reynaldo Ileto’s “history from below,” oral and local history, toponymy, among others for the corpus of kasaysayan + Pantayong Pananaw historiography.

The clash between colonial history/historiography and kasaysayan + Pantayong Pananaw obliged historians to pursue historiographical areas that public history is only almost beginning to explore.

What are these historiographical frontiers? The wisdom of Raphael Samuel sums up the answer to that:

“History is not the prerogative of the historian... It is, rather, a social form of knowledge; the work in a given instance, of a thousand different hands...”

posted by Resty Odon  # 9:21 PM