Philippine History Under Spain

Agoncillo which appeared in a local publication under the title 'An Interpretation of Our His- tory Under Spain' could not but arouse the interest and curiosity of many people, for the matter dealt with, namely, the need for an adequate and satisfying history of the Philippines, concerns the public welfare. His idea that only those events in which the Filipinos played an 'active role in carving out their destiny' are relevant and, therefore, are the only ones to figure in the written history of the Filipino people is, from the standpoint of historical scholar- ship, wholly unacceptable, For it ignores or overlooks the fact that the Filipinos during the Spanish period were subjects of Spain. The moral of the story, according to him, is that the period before 1872 is a blank page comparable or analogous to the blank pages in the manuscript which Fr. For this, if for no other reason, the re- presentation of the Philippines in the Cortes deserves to be noted in any account designed to present with a reasonable degree of completeness the history of the Philippines. The facts of the Ilocos episode have a significance of their own which is of no little interest to the student of Philippine nationalism. The reaction of the people of Ilocos to the events of their time reveals in some way the extent to which the people in Ilocos had, by then, advanced in their concept of country.