Publications

Since the late nineteenth century, meteorological institutions were established and have flourished in various territories in the western Pacific region. These institutions served as significant scientific enterprises that served both the local economic objectives of government and the regional and global initiatives on scientific knowledge production on weather and the environment. Meteorological observatories became centers of a calculative approach and sources of more scientific knowledge on atmospheric phenomena such as tropical cyclones and typhoons, as well as up-to-date support for mercantile shipping and trade.

This paper narrates the scientific textualizations on tropical cyclones, and typhoons in particular, through the examination of the institutional scientific activities of the Observatorio Meteorológico de Manila (OMM) and the Philippine Weather Bureau (PWB) from the 1860s to the 1940s. The scientific textualizations were manifested through local initiatives to investigate the scientific nature of Philippine tropical cyclones and typhoons and how the institutional work on meteorology expanded to various territories and contributed to the regional and global growth of knowledge networks on tropical cyclones and typhoons. The scientific work and activities of the OMM and PWB laid down the foundation of meteorological infrastructure in the Philippines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and they became active scientific institutions in the western Pacific region.

In this report I will delve into the intricate ways nations around the globe engage with each other and the interactions they form. We will explore the perspectives and theories put forth by esteemed scholars such as Keone, Kissinger, Mearsheimer, and Kaplan. It is essential to grasp the historical engagement between countries and the profound impact these interactions have had on the world. This scholarly exploration will encompass diverse elements including historical contexts, societal beliefs, power dynamics, geographical influences, strategic approaches, economic repurcussions, international organizations, societal and cultural perspectives, and the enduring consequences over time (Huntington 1996; Brzezinski 1997; Nisbett 20023; Slaughter 20027; at Kissinger 2015). This essay is structured into three sections: (1) Geopolitical and IR Concepts, Ideological Systems and the Invented Social Technology in the Formation of World Empires; (2) Religious Ideological Systems, Invented Social Technology and the Rise of the World Empires; at (3) Political Ideological Systems, Invented Social Technology and the Rise of Nation-States.

By the 17th century, the Spaniards in Manila had continued expanding both southward (Ternate in 1606) and northward (Hermosa in 1626). This expansion, however, stopped due to the prevalent Moro aggression in the different provinces of the archipelago. Hence, in 1635, Felipe IV sent Sebastián Hurtado de Corcuera, as the new governor of the Philippine islands. With him were different soldiers from New Spain. In the islands, he was faced immediately with the most concerning problem —its military and the insufficiency of soldiers. This paper argues that Corcuera’s reforms treated the native soldiers with decency and honor to fully utilize them for the interest of the Spanish Crown —both in keeping order and conquest. Hence, they developed a mutualistic relationship where both benefitted from each other. This paper elaborates on the military problems which caused Corcuera to turn to the native for military recruitment. Further, it shows the relationship established between the governor and the indigenous soldiers who fought in his military campaigns in Mindanao and in the defense of Manila against Chinese insurrections. In writing this paper, I greatly utilized The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, by Blair and Robertson while other secondary sources such as the works of Mawson were used as well

Gamit ang tatlong larangan ng sikolohiya ng pakikipag-ugnayang panlipunan, itinatampok ng papel na ito ang pagkakatatag ng Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches (CPBC), isang denominasyong Protestante na nakasentro sa Kanlurang Bisaya, bilang resulta ng kompromiso ng mga Pilipinong Baptist at ng American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (ABFMS) noong 1935. Kolektibong nasadlak ang mga Pilipinong Baptist sa isang kumplikadong sitwasyon noong dekada 20 at dekada 30. Sa isang banda, naging saksi at biktima sila sa paternalismo at diskriminasyong ipinaiiral ng mga misyonerong Amerikano. Naging mulat din sila sa pagsiklab ng samotsaring kilusang agraryo at pagkilos ng mga samahang manggagawa sa iba’t ibang panig ng Pilipinas. Ibig sabihin, sumibol sa kanila ang “balatyagon” (pakiramdam) bilang pakikiisa sa rumaragasang daluyong ng damdaming nasyonalistiko ng mga Pilipino sa pangkalahatan. Sa kabilang banda, hindi nila maitatanggi ang kanilang nag-uumapaw na “kabalaslan” (utang na loob) sa mga misyonerong Amerikanong nagpamalas ng kagandahang- loob at sakripisyo upang magtamasa sila ng ginhawa sa kanilang mga buhay sa nakaraang dalawang dekada. Patunay rito ang mga iglesya, paaralan, at ospital na nagkakaloob sa kanila ng mataas na kalidad ng edukasyon at maayos na kalusugan, at nagbigay-daan sa malaking pagkakataon para umangat sa lipunang Ilonggo. Bunga ng pag-uumpugan ng dalawang nabanggit, tuluyang nanaig sa kanila ang “huya” (hiya). Batid ang katotohanang hindi nila maaaring talikuran ang alinman sa dalawang panig kaya mapayapa silang nakipagkompromiso sa mga dayuhan. Sa halip na maglunsad ng radikal na iskismong panrelihiyon, mas pinili nila ang pagtatamasa ng limitadong awtonomiya.

Renowned as the pioneering figure of Philippine folklore studies, Isabelo de los Reyes exhaustively documented and wrote about the Filipino people’s customs and ways of life, including popular knowledge about health and medicine. Considerably his magnum opus, Isabelo’s El Folk-Lore Filipino (1889–90) houses an abundance of folkloric notes relating to Philippine medicine, exhibiting the wide ranging varieties of folk medical knowledge from the natural to the supernatural. Despite this, numerous scholarly engagements with Isabelo’s intellectual endeavors have yet to carefully delve into the many mentions of medical knowledge present within his works on folklore. In response, this essay explores El Folk-Lore Filipino as an overlooked archive of Philippine folk medicine, covering folk medical knowledge existing by the late nineteenth century. This essay also attempts to locate El Folk-Lore Filipino within the rising professional medical community at the time, particularly the reception of Isabelo’s work on folk medicine. Against a backdrop of colonial rule, Isabelo’s keen attention to medicine in his research not only fulfilled his proposed understanding of folklore, but also contributed to his aspirations toward the development of the Filipino people’s conditions at the time.

In his analysis of Isabelo de los Reyes’ Historia de Ilocos (1890), Ubaldo (2012) makes a case for the historiographical contribution of the work in local historical studies by emphasizing the Ilocano intellectual assertion of the participation of the people in precolonial and colonial developments. In this observation, local and folk beliefs and practices were important objects and subjects of historical knowledge production. However, an earlier work made De los Reyes a trailblazer in historical and cultural studies in the country. His 1889 work, El Folk-Lore Filipino (1889) has been appraised as a pioneer scholarly documentation of Philippine folk knowledge. This paper presents a historical dissection of the El Folk-Lore Filipino and identifies the valuable notes, descriptions, and analyses of the physical environment, found in select sections of the book. This work highlights this specific aspect of De los Reyes’ magnum opus and offers another look into how the documentation of folklores and cultural vignettes can shed light on how local communities make sense and create meanings on nature and the environmental processes related to it.

This article examines the relationship between “authorship” and “folk literature” in the case of Ilocano poems by Doña Leona Florentino (1849 – 1884), presented in the first volume of El Folk-Lore Filipino (1889) by her son, Isabelo de los Reyes y Florentino (1864 – 1938). I discuss how Leona became an individual “author” (in the sense defined by the modern West)— yet, much to Isabelo’s ambivalence, she was also made to represent the Ilocano and Filipino “folk literature.” Isabelo’s contextualization, as well as a close reading of the poems, reveals that Leona was partly acquainted with a “Europeanized” literary form and practice. This necessitates a discussion on how Isabelo defined “folk literature.” Despite Isabelo’s failure to qualify and justify an ontological status for the so-called poetica Filipina (Philippine poetics), we can still learn a lot from him about the nature of Philippine folk literature, especially the kind conceived, produced, and performed beyond the nineteenth-century Manila and Tagalog region. The last part consists of two experiments that examine the phenomena of repetition and syllabication in folk literature. By doing a “close(r) reading” of Leona’s poems through a Python program, we may find their place within and beyond the folk literary tradition.

The Civil Code of the Philippines became the foundation of civil law in the postwar Philippines. In legal history, it is a common understanding that the Civil Code was heavily derived from the Spanish legal system. This article aims to highlight the Filipino element and Filipino contribution to the development of its legal system. This article shows that two proverbs (salawikain), “ang lahat ng tao mag-away man huwag ang mag-asawa sa loob ng bahay” (the whole world may quarrel but not the husband and wife at home) and “ang sakit ng kalingkingan, damdam ng buong katawan” (the pain of the little finger is felt by the whole body), were transformed as provisions in the Civil Code (1949) such as “the family is a basic social institution which public policy cherishes and protects” (art. 216) and “the law governs family relations. No custom, practice, or agreement which is destructive of the family shall be recognized or given any effect” (art. 218). The legal luminary Jorge C. Bocobo, who served as Chair of the Code Commission tasked to design a new civil code from 1947 to 1949, has been instrumental in the codification of proverbs in civil law due to his prior interest and engagement in collecting Filipino proverbs. These provisions exist up to this day in the Family Code of the Philippines (1987) and the 1987 Constitution and remain relevant in the governance of Filipino families. Familiarity with Philippine folklore could serve as an unconventional but important way to understand their own laws.

This paper intends to analyze the Philippine folk game known as sungka within the context of an indigenous culture of conflict encountered by the Spaniards in the 16th century. It explores parallelisms between a unique Philippine discourse on war and the game’s ludic dimension, primarily focused on its in-game lexicon and its rules of play. The paper argues that sungka reflected—if not reinforced—specific attitudes and approaches towards competitive activities, including conflict, due to several unique elements of the game: a) a focus on resource acquisition and circulation, b) relatively weak spatial considerations, and c) an ability to reverse prior setbacks in what is usually a drawn-out competition between two individuals. A correlation thus seems to exist between the strategic thinking extant in sungka and the indigenous methods of waging war. The paper is inspired by a gap in the works of Isabelo de los Reyes. His planned multi-volume work on Filipino folklore included a tome on what he referred to as “folk wit.” This volume would have included children’s games—such as sungka—but the currents of history swept Don Belong’s plans aside. This paper contributes to the legacy of his unfinished work by building on Mellie Leandicho Lopez’s studies of Filipino folk games and thus takes a tentative step towards connecting Philippine leisure culture to Philippine warfare.

On 12 June 2023, the Ayala Museum in the Philippines launched an exhibition entitled Splendor: Juan Luna, Painter as Hero for the commemoration of the 125th anniversary of the Philippines’ independence from Spain. It showcased Luna’s long-lost work from 1889, Hymen, oh Hyménée. Equally if not more important, however, was the exhibition’s aim to present Luna himself, his life and achievements, positioning him as a hero and protagonist in the nationalist struggle. The event was preceded by many other activities that commemorated Luna as a national hero. Using concepts derived from public memory studies, this paper examines the formation of public memory and its configurations. It delves into the historical context of the evolution of public memory and the institutions and individuals that contributed to this evolution. The paper argues that the public memory of Juan Luna owed to the nationalist reading of his achievements, promoted first by nationalist writers, then adopted and continued actively by the state. Meanwhile, private museums continue to shape public memory through exhibitions that attach Luna’s name to the national narrative. Moreover, public memory is continually shaped by popular memory that arises through ongoing commemorative activities in Luna’s locality.