American Filipinologist Glenn Anthony May launches new book

American Filipinologist Glenn Anthony May has just published his latest book “A Past Updated, Further Essays on Philippine History and Historiography.” The book pays close attention his earlier work, “A Past Recovered Essays on Philippine History and Historiography” (Q.C.: New Day, 1987), where he exerted efforts to straighten out ideologically - based distortions of Philippine history.

May’s new book consists of previously published articles on a wide range of Philippine historical subjects. The first part of the book is historiographical, containing the critique of John Leddy Phelan’s view contained in his “The Hispanization of the Philippine- Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses 1565-1700” (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1959), that there was a linear progression from preHispanic communal land tenure to postcolonial private estates held by a few owners.

The second part of the book consists of two chapters on the Philippine Revolution. Aside from the usual sources, it benefits from the Katipunan papers confiscated by the Spanish authorities, found by Jim Richardson in Madrid, and published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press.

Briefly, May postulates that the Filipino way of waging war was by pulong ( meeting) or by consultation with the participants. This dated to preHispanic times and was the pattern followed by Bonifacio as evidenced by the numerous documents recounting such meetings.

The third part contains of four chapters on widely divergent topics labeled “The Philippine-American Relationship.” The first chapter is about the Philippine-American War and comments on the atrocities committed. The Samar and Batangas Campaigns are given special coverage.

Then, the second chapter deals with the ambitious educational program to promote handicraft production ( like basket weaving), which failed for lack of marketing skills. The third chapter covers Filipino migration on to the USA as exemplified by Larry (Modesto) Dulay Ithiong Of San Nicolas, Pangasinan, an active labor leader in America. He was part of a 1920’s wave of migrants, and May points out that these migrants were not the poorest of the poor but had some education and some material assets.

The last substantive chapter in the book covers the work of the influential Jesuit social scientist, Fr. Frank Lynch, S.J. in the 1960’s and 1970’s.