ONE OF the memorable academic conferences I participated in was on Southeast Asian Historiography since World War II, sponsored by the University Sains Malaysia, in the heritage town of Penang over a decade ago. Meeting historians from other Asean countries helped me realize that we faced the same problems: the content of school history, the accuracy and interpretation of history in textbooks, teacher training and the delivery of history in the classroom, how to deal with the colonial past, etc. During the city tour, all hell broke loose when the guide asked the group: “If you look at the map of Malaysia, what do you see?” One historian saw an elephant tusk, another the face of an old man, and still another a couple in an unmentionable sexual position. To divert the discussion and keep it from spiraling down to sex, the guide nervously began his spiel on the history of Penang eliciting other versions, other stories from the group. A Malaysian historian then grabbed the microphone and proceeded to give us the “correct” version of Malaysian history. The guide protested, “You cannot do that sir, you are not a licensed tour guide.” Poor guide didn’t know who he was talking to.
During the conference, a historian asked: “Isn’t the history of the Philippines nothing but a local history of Manila?” It is a remark that has haunted me since. In the years that I was chair of the Historical Commission, I took every opportunity to visit the Visayas and Mindanao to learn more about their heroes, their food, their culture and their history that isn’t represented in our textbooks. As a result of this Manila-centric guilt, we installed many historical markers outside Luzon if only to remind people of their past while making significant events in local history part of a larger national history. This task reminded me of the story of a child throwing starfish into the sea. A jaded adult saw her and said, “you cannot throw all of the beached starfish back into the sea. Don’t waste your time, your efforts don’t matter.” She replied, “They at least matter to the ones who get thrown back.”
One of the changes I hope will be implemented when we revise our curriculum and textbooks for K+12 is that students must be grounded in the histories of their communities, their region, before they learn “national” history. This means that in the primary grades they learn about the history of their barangay first, and progress to the history of towns, cities, provinces and region to see their place in the nation. They should learn about local heroes before they learn about national heroes. They should be taught in their language, their mother tongue, before they are taught Filipino and English (and Spanish too, if available).
I have long wished to say I have traveled the Philippines from Aparri to Jolo, from the northernmost tip and the Babuyan islands, all the way down south to obscure Mindanao islands where you can see Borneo and travel there on a banca. So when an invitation came for me to visit Tawi-Tawi I readily accepted only to find out I was the first Historical Commission chair foolish enough to do so. News traveled fast and an education undersecretary called and asked, “Do you have a security officer in your office?” When I replied in the affirmative, the undersecretary asked, “Why were you allowed to accept an invitation to Tawi-Tawi?” I thanked the official for her concern and explained that I had an escort from the area, it was Ramadan so things would be quiet, and the Air Force would fly me from Zamboanga to Tawi-Tawi and back. Besides, I added, nobody will kidnap a historian.
Everyone knows historians can’t cough up a ransom even if their lives depended on it. Then came one last effort to dissuade me from the trip: “Why don’t you send a representative? Preferably someone from your office you don’t like and wish that person gets kidnapped.”
Ignoring this pragmatic advice I set off for Tawi-Tawi to visit Simunul the “Cradle of Islam in the Philippines.”
As I mentioned in a previous column, Simunul is a beautiful island with white sand and crystal clear waters off Bongao, Tawi-Tawi. There is a mosque in Tubig, Indangan, Simunul where you can see ancient wooden posts of Ipil, part of an older structure, believed to be the first and the oldest mosque in the Philippines, built in the 14th century by Skeik Makhdum who brought Islam to our shores. Sheik Makhdum was said to be a miracle worker who could walk on water, and carry logs as if they didn’t weigh much. Sheikh Makhdum has two graves, one in Simunul, the other in Sibutu—a controversy that remains to be settled.
As I reverently touched these wooden posts I wondered how they were dated to 1380 A.D. When I returned to Manila I asked the National Museum if they could subject these relics to carbon-dating and was told informally that the dating is a bit problematic because the posts cannot be older than 1800 A.D. What do we do now that these posts are traditionally believed to be parts of the oldest mosque in the country? How do we tactfully resolve a conflict between tradition and history? Beyond academic research, history and the re-telling of the past can be a political and emotional issue.
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