Why is Philippine History a boring subject?

A columnist in another Davao-based newspaper presents Philippine History in sequels, perhaps due to a crisis of political topics to write about. After a drought of ideas, keying in the computer in a humdrum, would pose some dangers to the passive readers. History is supposed to be a factual presentation of events. If he were to don the subject with amusing rhetorics to substantiate what could be missing in books, then he could be suspected of re-writing history itself. The “historical facts” melted to the mind to become later as afterthoughts, would effectively mislead the public. A grave error necessarily happened after yielding to a temptation to add irrelevant, slash, unnecessary facts. I cared, as one student brought this to my attention.  

Are lapses in telling history accidental in nature? Take for example, as pointed out by this long-time writer, we call Mr. BT, he said: “The Spice Island later called the Philippines…”. Historians named Spice Island in reference to Moluccas or Maluku which is known today as part of Indonesia. He named Antonette (was he a gay?) instead of Antonio de Pigafetta as Magellan’s Chronicler. He mentioned a place called Limasawa as taken from the word Lima and Asawa based from the five wives of a native king. What could be more jaw-dropping if one invents a story of Limasawa as being derived from Lima and Sawa, the five mythical pythons guarding the Island?  

True, not all Filipino historians concur that the First Catholic Mass was held at Limasawa Island. Dr. Sonia Zaide was the main antagonist among them who insisted that it was in Mazau, Masao or Mazagua in Butuan which is today the regional capital of the Caraga region, where this religious rite was first held. The eyewitness and diarist Pigafetta mentioned about native kings who came to their ships in a Balanghai or balangay. One of them was Rajah Kolambu, a king from Butuan. This gives us a glimpse in our past that a Butuanon chief met Magellan in Leyte. With the balanghai relics unearthed in Butuan and nothing from Limasawa, the young Zaide was not convinced it was in Limasawa that this Catholic mass was really held.           

History books are still exceptional aids in learning history. The internet is a very huge repository of information about it. But not all of the sources are reliable, so with Wikipedia, although the latter gives us a lot of relevant and up-to-date information about almost everything on and outside the planet. Search about Limasawa, Southern Leyte and it will give an info that Rajah Kolambu was King of Butuan. In wiki.answers.com, it briefly describes Kolambu as ”matalik na kaibigan ni Magellan”. To settle this controversy once and for all, with a full backing by the National Historical Institute, Philippine Congress passed a law (R.A. 2733) in 1960 declaring Barangay Magallanes, Limasawa, Southern Leyte as the site of the first  Christian Mass in the Philippines.

Renato Constantino’s Philippines: A Past Revisited doesn’t care about this controversial First celebration of the Holy Eucharist event. It goes also in the History of the Filipino People written by Teodoro A. Agoncillo. These two authors so far were writing history with emphasis on the struggles and conditions of the masses.  They never wasted their time egging on trivial matters. But as a student asked: What if our historians were wrong? A new book about this topic written by Maria Christine Halili narrates some previously accepted facts but were later found out to be historical errors. These are: the Story of Maragtas, the Code of Kalantiaw and the Legend of Princess Urduja. She said, these stories, having insufficient evidence to prove that they existed, cannot be considered as historical facts.

Our Philippine History is flawed or at least historians could not make a single document, for the sake of unifying all the facts in one record. The facts are open to many interpretations just to add color to every story. Learning history is fun, unlearning is something evil to many. Myths and legends belong to history not as facts but as evidence of the richness of our culture. How the past evolved, our people did not have the technology to preserve it. PH History to be more exciting, must be taught in schools, hand-in-hand with the history in the local setting (Davao History, for example), and sync all the timelines possible. Another thing, with the multi-media available, it would be much attractive to view on-screen our history than putting everything in black texts. Like Magellan who named the ocean as Mar Pacifico or Pacific Ocean and discovered that the world is round, teachers and students of history have a lot to discover about their creativity and imagination, without necessary distorting the facts.