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...”
