Sentro ng Karunungan Library

👉Anatomy of a research proposal!!

History is about viewpoint.
I don't understand why some people continue to problematize our June 12 Independence Day (based on the declaration in Kawit in 1898), and insist on July 4 (based on the 1946 "recognition" of our independence by the U.S. they insist was a grant of independence).
Remember the one-hundred peso bill that circulated from 1985 to 2013? [Top] Its release was met with some controversy when someone asked why a foreign flag (and that of a former colonizer to boot) was on our banknotes. [Lower right]. That issue reflected how separated we are from our past because, the detail in the banknote [Lower Left] was based on an archival photograph that depicts the LOWERING of the Stars and Stripes and the RAISING of the Philippine Flag.

Philippine history is dominated by men, the deeds of men, and documents by and on men. When you come across a document by a woman to another woman from from the mass of primary source material captured by the enemy, and called the Philippine Insurgent Records you take notice.
Written in Tagalog from Makati, on July 1, 1898 by Jullana Valerina, wife of General Pio del Pilar, it is addressed to "Yayang," who I later figured out was Hilaria del Rosario, wife of General Emilio Aguinaldo.
On the first page [Left] it looks like a simple, social letter. Mrs. del Pilar sent Mrs. Aguinaldo: isang patang Hamon [a leg of ham], isang buuig na saguing nalakatan [a bunch of bananas] and isang kajong pideos [a box of noodles]. This was the polite preliminaries for a personal favor.
On the second page [Right], Mrs. del Pilar requested Mrs. Aguinaldo to intercede with her husband "para mo na pong habag sa akin...ay inyo na pong ipakiusap sa minamahal mong puong asaua." She sought the release of a certain Andres Guico from prison, and pardon if he has committed anything wrong. "na makalivertad na kong sakali at maynagaua mang kasalanan ay kanila na pong patawarin."
We do not know the outcome of this petition, but the fact that a general's wife takes the back door to the President by sending gifts through Yayang shows us another layer of dynamics in our history seldom written about.
Original in the National Library of the Philippines is yellowed and I adjusted color to make it easier to read.