Defining public history in the Philippine context

AS a practitioner of public history, I will be one of the plenary speakers for the Philippine Historical Association annual national

The Role of Academic and Public History in Shaping the Nation” on September 20 at

to be chosen by my colleagues in the board to speak alongside professor Ambeth R. Ocampo, who initiated me to the discipline through his work, and the keynote speaker Dr. Maria Serena Diokno, former chair of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, whose legacy in the agency was the modernization of the NHCP museums.

What better time to revisit the importance of public history in the Philippines than now? Last May, we commemorated the 100th death anniversary of pioneer public historian and patriot Mariano Ponce. Last July, the grande dame of Philippine public

this week, the highly anticipated and biggest Filipino historical epic so far, Jerrold Tarog’s “,” opened in cinemas, and today, the most important founding document of the Filipino nation, the handwritten by Andres Bonifacio himself, will be auc-

important historical memorabilia from the revolution and the Philippine- American War. PHC vice president and convenor Dr. Fernando Santiago and the rest of the PHA board worked hard to prepare a great conference for all of you.

Public history is the practice of bringing history closer to the people. Therefore, it is

the traditional media and the social media; in comic books and children’s books; in the arts and cinema; in monuments and museums, in stamps; coinages and paper money; and even in events. Simply put, it is the telling of history using public platforms and the most current technologies of a certain era.

But sometimes only a thin line separates public history and journalism which might confuse people. Since journalism was once

draft of history” and everything it produces will actually be historic, then everything journalistic might fall under public history. We must clarify this as being limited only to works that consciously talk about past public history. For example, newspapers are journalistic narrations of the present, but Ambeth Ocampo’s “Looking Back” newspaper columns can be considered as public history. Or when Kabayan Noli de Castro in his show

topics, especially during the decade of nationalism and the Philippine Centennial. Although in the Filipino language, public history is usually translated as “it doesn’t really capture the actual intention of public history. There are many publics (academics can be one

common folk who would not usually read academic histories. Professor Atoy M. Na-

but again, is a broader term (aside from the fact that Ferdinand Llanes already used that as an umbrella term for post-nationalist historiographic traditions in past decades). So, I proposed to call it “especially since “is being used now by the TV networks to refer to the “audience,” as in “With a clearer target audience and a Filipino context, “

sets the tone of history-telling in a language and manner that the common folk understand.

The term “public history” has only been used very recently here. Some used the word popular history, but the term can be confusing ( is the popular connoting the audience or the history/ historian). But public history has been an established sub-discipline of history in America since the 1970s and academic books have been published there articulating it. Here, it was never developed as a concept because over the years, there has been a seeming snub by some academic historians in the work done by people who proliferate history, and some resent this as attacking those who chose the life of research as people from the “ivory tower.” But in truth, even before formal historiography had been practiced

- ing what we now call public history, deeply rooted in the ancient “babaylan” tradition, as practiced by people like Del Pan, Ponce, De Veyra, De los Reyes, Rizal, Bonifacio, De los Santos and many more.

I believe the gap is not really because of animosity but just simply two traditions usually operating in different worlds. The upcoming conference aims to look at how, through the

academic and public history practitioners, and how this collaboration actually shaped how we remember the past, and how bridging the gaps can further the project of nationbuilding. So we can all learn from the past to make better decisions day by day.