An Atlas of History for the Philippines
In some countries, citizens are all too familiar with the contours and edges of their homeland. They are familiar with their boundaries, the winding of their rivers, their lakes, their shoreline. They know that when one crosses the border, they have gone out from their homeland and into a foreign territory. A depth of their knowledge of history perhaps aids this familiarity of space connected to national identity. Historical events and milestones that created a national consciousness to these countries are told to the citizenry not only by words lifted from historical accounts, or simple imagination. They are told with view of the landscapes—the terrain of the land.
This reminds me of historian Teodoro Agoncillo’s practice whenever he would write about a historical event. He would go to the exact place where the event happened, and through the written account, try to extrapolate it so as to capture a perspective nearer to the event. The places where the battles were fought, or the historic buildings that once played host to important turning points of our history, gives a clear picture of how it was back then.
What would these battlefields, these war stories, these narratives of history be without maps?
To us Filipinos, unfortunately we have grown too wearisome of maps. Relegated to the elementary school classroom, maps are seldom referred to especially in relation to Philippine history. Why would we do this at all, when our history as taught in the classrooms remain hazy, and simply vague and out of touch to our students? But another question to put forward is that, isn’t it the lack of maps as visual aid that renders our historical narrative with such haziness?
While we are less familiar with our country as a vast hinterland of seven thousand islands (for us here in Manila, we always see the Philippines as that small speck that is the “Imperial Manila”), most of us are not familiar at all with the places in the regions, the place names of distant Filipino towns and cities, and terrains that played a great factor in the unfolding of our story as a nation. Maybe it is time to join the two fields together–cartography (maps) and history–to retell Philippine History in a new light. By so doing, we would aid our people in studying both our own origins and the expanse of land and sea we call our own. As the late Susan Calo Medina said, “Huwag maging dayuhan sa sariling bayan.”
The Historical Atlas of the Republic is the first of its kind in the country. A project of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office (PCDSPO), the atlas includes 44 color-illustrated maps ordered chronologically to tell the unfolding history of the Filipino people, from Prehistory to the present time. While not being comprehensive, it covers the basic historical narrative of the country. It chronicles what we can gather from archaeological sites, the beginnings of polities before the Spanish advent, and their subjugation with the coming of European colonialism. The atlas highlights also the transformation of cityscapes, the city plans that never were, the trains and roads constructed that transformed the plains, the ever-evolving provincial borders, the creation of twelve regions—all told from the viewpoint of the Filipino.
I am proud that I’m part of the team of historians and graphic artists who assembled this book that we offer to the Filipino people for posterity. Being a government-published book, it is not for sale. However, the printed edition of the atlas shall be freely distributed to public libraries, universities and institutions. The Online Edition however, can be downloaded FOR FREE from the Internet Archive.
This book has been more than a year in the making, and entailed painstaking research, and on the side, consultations from the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA), the UP Institute of Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea (IMLOS), and reputed historians from the academe. We made friends with these institutions and luminaries and found their passionate insights very enlightening, especially with our country’s case filed in the Arbitral Tribunal of UNCLOS. Finally our hard work has paid off!
Our team would like to thank our consultant historians: Mr. Jose Custodio, my professor Ricardo Trota Jose, Ph.D., UST Chief Archivist Regalado Trota Jose, National Museum archaeologist Owis Bolunia, my mentor, UP Asian Center professor Tina Clemente, Ph.D. and UA&P history professor Marya Svetlana Camacho, Ph.D.
Download it HERE. :)
