Making History

April 25, 2010

I’ve been reading a lot about Philippine History in the past few weeks which makes me remember taking it up back in grade school and high school. But unlike most people I know, I actually liked the subject!

Well, on second thought maybe I just got blessed of having good teachers every now and then. Looking back –yeah, there were year/grade levels that I too got bored in my History/Sibika at Kultura. I remember having a very stiff, soft-voiced, near-old maid, history teacher in high school. I’m not sure if I actually learned anything from her. To top it all off and as if to spite me, the classes were usually held at 1 PM or 2 PM in the afternoon!

But then there were also the great teachers that I had. My history teacher back in grades 5 and 6 was an about-twenty-years-veteran on the subject –and boy was she entertaining! (Well, most of the time at least) And then my senior year in high school… yeah, I enjoyed history back then too. 

Maybe what I am just trying to say is: history should not be boring if you’d be creative in telling it. It’s just as entertaining, intriguing, fun and exciting as your favorite TV series and movies. All you have to do is tell the lessons like one. Heck, for all I know, maybe you’ll even like it better than the movies!

Going back to my readings, I have discovered a lot of minute details in our history. Details that were never told in the classrooms I’ve studied at. I thought if only some of them were told in high school history classes, the subject would not be such a drag.

I was surprised to know how the Katipunan revered Jose Rizal so much, that they hung his portrait in their halls and used his name, “Rizal” as password in their secret organization, much to the disbelief of our National Hero when he learned about it during his trial. How about the Supermo saving Emilio Jacinto on their retreat to Balara? The Spanish bullet got too close for comfort, sparing Bonifacio’s neck, but not his collar.

Then there was the time when Rizal waited by the highway on his horse, for the carriage of the sweet Segunda Katigbak, a girl whom he wooed. He’d be brave against the firing squad when his time comes, but on that moment, he’d withdraw and ride the other way from a lost love.

Could you imagine Andres Bonifacio disguising himself as a woman to avoid detection? Well, he did! And then he lent his legendary bolo to the care of a katipunero, since it was too big to hide under his skirt. Unfortunately, that bolo never found its way back to the Supremo’s hands.

Well, those are just some bits and pieces I’ve discovered in my readings from the pages of Ambeth Ocampo, Teodoro A. Agoncillo, and Leon Maria Guerrero –some of our finest historians.

My next (and biggest) comics project would require me to do all these research on our history from the Rizal, to the Philippine Revolution, until the Philippine-American War. And like I’ve always said before, I am the writer who seldom reads. I can only read up to ten consecutive pages of a book before my eyes get heavy and doze off. The rest of the book would have to wait until the next time I hold the book in my hands. So imagine how long it takes me to finish a novel, much more say –a biography of Jose Rizal? All the readings and research may be tedious tasks, but I will do everything to make the best effort  in every aspect of its creation. Because I know once it is completed,  it is something that I will be proud of for the rest of my life.