Review Essay

The Historian as Inventor

Milagros C. Guerrero and Ramon N. Villegas

Inventing a Hero: The Posthumous Re­ third, by the historiographic works of creation ofAndres Bonifacio. BY Manuel Artigas y Cuerva, Epifanio de los GLENN MAY. Quezon City: New Santos and his son Jose Santos, Teodoro Day Press, 1997. Agoncillo, and Rafael Ileto. May declares that these "mythmakers" have bent the canons of historical disciplines in their he Philippine edition (New desire to make Bonifacio the national Day) of Inventing a Hero: The hero of the Philippines. He states that: Posthumous Re-creation of Andres Bonifacio by Glenn In addition to being historical T studies, and contributions to an May was launched this year at the Far Eastern University. The American edi­ ongoing nationalist discourse, tion, published by the University of [their narratives] are, at their Wisconsin's Center for Southeast Asian core, modern-day Philippine Studies, was released earlier, in 1996. In varieties of 'hero myths'- stories this book, May's thesis is that the in the tradition of Greek tales national hero, Andres Bonifacio, "is about Theseus and Herakles mostly an illusion, the product of and Indian ones about Krishna undocumented statements, unreliable, and Kama .... the exposure of doctored, or otherwise spurious sources, hero myths invariably cause and the collective imagination of several pain, since all of us, regardless of historians and a memoirist." our nationality, have a deeply felt According to May, our knowledge of need for heroes. Doubtless Bonifacio was shaped by, first, question­ admirers of the mythical able works and spurious documents pur­ Bonifacio will find it difficult to portedly written by Bonifacio; second, by accept the notion that he was the memoirs of Artemio Ricarte; and probably not the humble pie-

PUBLIC POLICY October I December 1997 137 Mi!agros C. Guetrero and Ramon N Vi!!egas

beian, the literary master, and Bonifacio. These personalities were the super patriot he has long quite vociferous when they disagreed been thought to be. with "facts" published by writers in the early decades of this century. ORAL HISTORY Glenn May deplores the biographical AUTHENTICATION OF SOURCES material of Bonifacio by de los Santos, May also attacks the two sets of primary Artigas, Kalaw and others of their gener­ sources used by Filipino historians. One ation, who did not provide footnotes and set consists of the literary and political citations. But while they are called the works that, according to him, have been "pioneer historians," the early writers attributed to Bonifacio without conclu­ were actually not trained in historiogra­ sive proof. The other set consists of actu­ phy. In writing their kasaysayan (story/ al documents, particularly letters, which history), the marunong or may pinag­ he finds unacceptable on the following aralan - such as Mabini, Isabelo de los counts: first, provenance; second, lan­ Reyes, Sofronio Calderon, and others - guage; and third, penmanship. sought to give an overview of the events That most of Bonifacio's literary and (salaysay) and their interpretation (saysay) political works are not physically present from the standpoint of personal authority and that we know of them only through rather than academic expertise. Their attribution "without conclusive proof' are oral history was not footnoted while their tha main points raised by May. He cites, interviews were not structured and spec­ for example, Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga ified. As Bonifacio's contemporaries, Tagalog, which appeared in the Katipunan Artigas, de los Santos, Cecilia Apostol, newspaper Kalayaan. It was transcribed the brothers Leon and Fernando and attributed to Bonifacio by Wenceslao Guerrero, Clemente Jose Zulueta, and Retana and also referred to by Manuel Rafael Palma were also writing as partici­ Artigas y Cuerva and others. But no copy pants and witnesses of the Revolution. of the original publication has been locat­ In seeking to transfer information from ed while the National Library copy is the realm of remembrance to the perma­ presumed to have been destroyed during nence of documentation, they were rac­ World War II. For May, a historian must ing against failure of memory. himself be able to examine the evidence, Furthermore, the readers knew that not the reportage of previous historians, Artigas, de los Santos and other writers none of whom are reliable. Thus, had access to Espiridiona Bonifacio because no manuscript or printed copy of Distrito, Andres' sister who died in the Bonifacio's works can be physically exam­ late 1950s, and Gregoria de Jesus, ined, May casts doubt on their having Bonifacio's wife who later married Julio been authored by Bonifacio himself. N akpil, head of the office of the supremo However, the Tagalog language of in late 1896. There were also Ladislao that time lived largely through its oral tra­ Diwa, an original founder of the dition. In fact Apolinario Mabini had in Katipunan; Briccio Pantas, cabinet mem­ his head (cabezado or isinaulo) the whole ber in the Balintawak government; Pio Florante at Laura which he transcribed. Valenzuela, Aurelio Tolentino, Guillermo As participants in that culture, those who Masangkay and other intimates of had the language also knew who was the

138 PUBLIC POLICY Volume 1 No.1 The Historian as Inventor author of which work. It was not even Library. From the beginning, Epifanio de necessary for the printed version to have los Santos recognized the importance of the author's byline. Indeed, in the case the Bonifacio letters to Filipino history, of revolutionary propaganda, it would and believed that the best way to safe­ have been folly for the author to affix his guard them was to keep them himself. real name to any work that was intended What is incomprehensible is that to rouse political unrest. May did not even physically examine the Glenn May even finds unacceptable Bonifacio-Jacinta correspondence. The the documents that are physically pre­ authors of this article introduced May to sent. He attacks, in particular, the set of the present custodian of the letters, letters Bonifacio sent to Emilio Jacinto. Emmanuel Encarnacion, who was very These were kept by Jacinto whose heirs willing to show them to him. May said, sold them to Epifanio de los Santos early however, that he had no time and that, in this century. They were then passed anyway, he had photocopies of them. In on to Epifanio's son, Jose Santos, and the book, May himself asserts that "after then to his granddaughter, Teresita examining the photocopies ... [he con­ Santos Pangan. In the early 1980s, cluded] ... that the famous Bonifacio let­ Pangan offered to sell them to the gov­ ters were, in all likelihood, forgeries." ernment. Serafin Quiason, then the Having passed such kind of judg­ Director of the National Historical ment on the provenance of the Bonifacio Institute, told her they had no money documents, May then takes a shot at lin­ and referred her instead to his friend, the guistic analysis. In this, May is merely antique dealer Severina de Asis. In the taking his cue from his colleague, early 1990s, two private collectors, Jorge Ambeth Ocampo, who was the first to de los Santos (no relation to Epifanio) point out the discrepancies between the and Emmanuel Encarnacion, purchased language of the actual documents now in part of the lot from de Asis. the Encarnacion collection and the May wonders: "Given the central Agoncillo transcriptions appended to place occupied by Bonifacio in Phil­ Revolt ofthe Masses ( 1956 ). To this puzzle, ippine history, the limited number of sur­ May adds another: the transcriptions viving sources concerning his life, and the which he attributes (mistakenly) to Jose widely recognized historical value of the Santos (1948) also differ from the lan­ Bonifacio-Jacinta correspondence, one guage of the actual documents. May might expect that the four letters are speculates that Santos "had doubts about safely preserved behind bullet-proof glass their authenticity." He also declares that or inside a theft-proofvault in one of the Santos, having come to the conclusion Philippine Republic's official manuscript that the Bonifacio letters in the family's repositories. But they are not. Nor have possession are fakes, had published they ever been." Nevertheless, what is so rewritten versions of the forgeries which strange to May is very comprehensible to are themselves flawed because their lan­ Filipinos. Countless documents, includ­ guage is not of the nineteenth century. ing the transcripts of Bonifacio's trial (At this point, shouldn't Santos have (later returned through the efforts of destroyed these documents and perpetu­ Encarnacion), have been pilfered from ated only his own transcriptions?) the National Archives and the National May then goes into an elaborate dis-

PUBLIC POLICY October I December 1997 139 Milagros C. Guetrero and Ramon N. Villegas cussion of "goal-focus" versus "actor­ the millenarian tradition developed focus" verbs. He alleges that the 1948 through peasant uprisings and articulated "Santos" transcriptions were an attempt in a language based on the pasyon, the to bring the language closer to the Christian religious epic chanted during "authentic" language of Bonifacio's time, Lenten rituals. May claims that "there which "tended to be more actor­ are major flaws in Ileto's discussion .... focused." Virgilio Almario, Director of the No reliable evidence links the Katipunan UP Sentro ng Wika, dismisses May's argu­ [and] Bonifacio to the pasyon and the ments: the shift of focus from goal to Philippine millenarian tradition .... " actor is integral to the language, and is Among these "major flaws" is Ileto's not specific to any historical period. translation into English of Ang Dapat May also tries his hand at graphology. Mabatid ng mga Tagalog from what May He recounts how one of the authors of assumes to be Jose Santos' re-translation this critique "was taken aback and hesitat­ into Tagalog of Retana's Spanish transla­ ed to concede" that one of the letters was tion from the original Kalayaan article. written with a different hand from the Here, May again attempts a critique others. But "Villegas' protests became of linguistic nuance. For example, he muted" as they compared the formation disputes Ileto's translation of ang araw of letters. This flash of insight led to ng katuiran into "the sun of reason," (May's) "unsurprising conclusion ... that it which May says may not be valid since seemed highly doubtful that the the Spanish translation is el dia de Bonifacio 'originals' owned by justicia. In Tagalog, there is only araw Encarnacion were authentic." But in the for both "sun" and "day" whereas in next paragraph, he himself knocks down Spanish it could be sol or dia. To a this line of reasoning by admitting that Filipino, however, Ileto's translation "any scholar familiar with nineteenth cen­ may be validated by context. tury Philippine bureaucratic documents Ileto translates katuiran as "reason," knows that a large percentage of them which May claims is justicia in the were written by scribes." Bonifacio, as Spanish version. Nonetheless, May supremo, would have had a number on should also have known that the root call. After presenting his case in such a word of katuiran is tuid, or "straight," manner, May is still unable to prove his which is derecho in Spanish. Derecho in allegations beyond reasonable doubt. We that language also refers to justice and can only agree with May that the prove­ law, equity and reason. The translation nance of the documents needs to be of katuiran to justicia indicates a investigated, that several hands indeed European translator, since the nuance of penned the letters, and that, certainly, that word in that social order is based on Tagalog has curious quirks. the rule of law and not of men. Ileto's Next, May attempts to disprove his­ translation is reasonable to a Filipino, torian Reynaldo Ileto's thesis in Pasyon for whom social order is based, instead, and Revolution: Popular Movements in the on the individual's intellect and moral Philippines, 1840-1910 (1979). In that rectitude. work, Ileto linked Bonifacio and the It is quite apparent that May's argu­ Katipunan not to the reformist program ments rest on unreliable transcriptions, shaped by European liberalism, but to mistranslations, verb foci, penmanship,

140 PUBLIC POLICY Volume 1 No.1 The Historian as Inventor the paper, the ink, the ownership of We should remember that these papers, photocopies, etc. But what Agoncillo produced [The Revolt of about what they say? What about what the Masses] shortly after the they mean? May has not proven the Philippines had finally achieved Bonifacio papers to be false in terms of independence .... In that histori­ content and internal evidence, which is, cal context, Philippine historians in the final analysis, what counts. were particularly inclined to rethink and rewrite their coun­ NATIONALISM try's past, and one event that May says that Artemio Ricarte, upon would have been a likely candi­ whose memoirs historians have based date for rethinking was the revo­ part of their accounts of the Tejeros lution of 1896, a struggle that, while it had been previously Convention, was a dissembler. That his honored by home-grown nation­ memoirs served to hide his being a ba­ alists like Artigas, de los Santos limbing. That he continued to be allied and Santos, had not always with Bonifacio even as he was preparing received favorable treatment to assume the post to which he was from earlier clerical, reactionary elected in the convention. But that is not and American writers. new information. Memoirs are precisely Agoncillo's book might be seen, a personal account and need to be veri­ then, as an effort to valorize the fied by other sources. revolution, rescue it as well as its But since we have been discussing heroes from the critics and reiter­ speculative allegations, we may as well ate - and to a certain extent posit another: Could May have been update - the celebratory message skeptical of Ricane's memoirs because, of earlier generations of of all the revolutionary generals, Ricarte Philippine nationalists. Perhaps, went into self-exile in Japan rather than for that reason, it was important live under the American flag? Is it for Agoncillo to present the revo­ because Ricarte's sense of nation was lution of 1896 as a popular, mass able to resist the personal comfort and movement, even though his evi­ accommodation which the American dence was not especially com­ colonial masters provided to all the rev­ pelling .... we must recognize that olutionaries who surrendered? It is this at bottom The Revolt ofthe Masses same notion of nation which runs is a misleading account of Andres through the works of Filipino historians Bonifacio. The Bonifacio depict­ that so offends May's idea of historiog­ ed in that book is Teodoro raphy. The "nationalist school" (the Agoncillo's invention .... quotation marks his) "have tended to Glenn May's own characterization of glorify the past exploits of native Bonifacio is that of a man who "squab­ Filipinos, especially Filipinos of humble bled with fellow katipuneros in Manila." origins, and they have criticized severe­ And if Bonifacio is divested of his mythi­ ly the policies and actions of both fied properties, May says, "I do not Spanish and colonial overlords." May know if he will still qualify for inclusion singles out Agoncillo: in the ranks of national heroes." It is in

PUBLIC POLICY October I December 1997 141 Milagros C. Guetrero and Ramon N Villegas passages such as these that May's agenda history of a nation, they are labelled becomes clear. It is not to seek the truth "nationalist" as if it were a dirty word, about Bonifacio and the events of 1896. then so be it. The Filipino historians It is not to analyze the historiography of which Glenn May writes about with early twentieth century Filipino writers. such condescension are certainly not What May fails to understand is that perfect and totally innocent of hidden Bonifacio was not a creation. Indeed agendas and personal motivations. But Bonifacio is a national hero in spite of, May presents no proof at all that any and not because of, Filipino historians one of these historians, much less as a and their fellow elite. The 1911 monu­ "nationalist school," wove historical ment to the Revolution of 1896 in narratives for the purpose of manufac­ Kangkong was erected by public sub­ turing myths. In his determination to scription. Even Guillermo Tolentino's support his hypothesis, he faults magnum opus in Kalookan is not con­ Filipino historians for lack of method sidered a national monument by certain or for using flawed methodology. But officials of the National Historical his own work is littered with presump­ Institute. In fact, those who would seek tions and allegations, each one pref­ redress for their grievances flock to the aced by conditional terms such as "if," unattended and grimy Bonifacio monu­ "probably," "could have," "in all likeli­ ments not because they have read hood," "presumably," "maybe," "may" Artigas, de los Santos and Santos, or "might." Agoncillo and lleto. The common folk In presenting his arguments, Glenn have a simple but profound understand­ May reveals his own misunderstanding ing of their country's history. Fathers of historical method. Ironically, the told sons that it was Bonifacio (not del Filipino models of investigative histori­ Pilar, Rizal, Mabini, Aguinaldo or anyone ography are studies by two American­ else) who initiated a national and democ­ born historians: those of William Henry ratic revolution against what was once Scott on the so-called Code of Kalantiaw, the largest empire in the world. That is and of John Schumacher, on the alleged the ineluctible fact of Philippine history. Fr. Jose Burgos documents. Both writers Heroes cannot be foisted on a people. were able to prove through internal evi­ Historians can only dig out records, seek dence, as well as through graphology first-hand accounts, analyze facts. But and questionable provenance, the unre­ they cannot change history. liability of the particular sets of docu­ And if, in the process of writing the ments they had scrutinized.

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