Do we need a Department of History, Culture & Arts?

Someone wrote, “A person who does not know history is like a leaf that does not know it is part of a tree.” I have good reason to think many Filipinos, even the supposedly welleducated ones, are like that leaf, through no fault of theirs. To my mind a major reason is how poorly our history is written, in terms of coverage and writing. Another major reason is how poorly history is taught by many designated history teachers.

Many official definitions of the term “nation” agree that a nation is “a group of people sharing common land territory, resources, values, culture, aspirations, common symbols such as language, flag, national anthem and Coat of Arms, common history and government.”

These definitions also generally agree that “nationhood is the process of creating and sustaining the oneness of a nation through social, economic, or political organizations and institutions.”

The knowledge, therefore, of a common history — even as we learn to appreciate unique elements in our different sub-groups histories; uniting elements in our many and often quite diverse subcultures and values; our having common aspirations are necessary elements to help mold us into a united nation who can work towards a common purpose.

The effective teaching of a nation’s history, culture, and arts to its people, especially to its children is necessary to building strong foundations for a common identity, for nationhood. Yet, so many decades after our so called independence, that sense of common identity, that sense of nationhood, eludes us.

To be sure, we have a National Historical Commission, a revived National Commission of Culture and the Arts, and a Cultural Center of the Philippines. But the lofty purposes for which these institutions were established are far from realized.

Elements in the vicious election campaign of 2015-2016 was evidence of how badly our history has been researched, thought through, written about, and published even by our Department of Education. How it has been reported in the media is no better, given the drive to sensationalize for popular readership, listenership and/or viewership. Inaccuracies and outright lies wantonly perpetrated by vested interests in social media ( via YouTube videos) with nary a peep from our government authorities and some of our supposedly more knowledgeable media personalities were stark proof of how badly we know our past and even our more recent history.

To be fair, we have very good researchers and writers who have written a lot to improve our appreciation of our history if we take time to read the work. They, however, are seldom quoted in popular media and unread or unheard of by most of the citizens of social media.

The upside to being forced to slow down and staying at home is that I have much time to explore many aspects of life I had until then neglected. I am able to pay attention to events that escaped and would escape my attention because of the urgencies and priorities of purely Asian Institute of Management work.

I rediscovered books on Philippine history and culture that have important material not included in our currently used textbooks at any level of our formal education system or in the programs of our mass media. Except possibly for the works of Ambeth Ocampo, who has a regular column in a leading broadsheet, how many have heard of Ray Abinales’ work on Mindanao history, Marian Roces’ work on culture and her essays on the history of “our people with no voice,” or Ricardo T. Jose’s work on our armed forces?

How many of us know the significance of the herbs, nostrums, and anting- anting vendors surrounding the Quiapo Church? Of the significance of the babaylan in many of our tribes? How many appreciate the deep significance of maratabat among our Muslim brothers and sisters? There are so many artifacts of our various peoples we do not know that are of significance if we are to have a deeper appreciation of our roots.

I spent hours in Book Sale outlets, searching for good reading materials and discovered excellent books on other countries’ histories, written in the most engaging styles, linking culture, arts, geography and even weather to the evolution of nations and their often perilous relationships. I found excellently written biographies of Lincoln, the Roosevelt trio ( Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor); WWII generals like Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley; biographies of Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah; detailed biographies of prominent families around the world and their impacts on their societies and nations and, eventually, on the course of history. These books include works on the British, Japanese, and Russian royals. There were books on notorious leaders like Stalin and Hitler.

As I dived into the pages of these books, I felt the serious gaps in information, the lack of perspicacity in analyses, and the orthodoxy in the presentation of our own official history, and the written and published materials on the prominent families that exercised great influence on our nation’s life. I shook my head,