Critical Analysis on A Past Revisited (1975) and

The Continuing Past (1978) by Renato

Constantino

The realization that some data and facts of history were actually mythical and untrue and
the mounting apprehension that certain foreign sources which used to be the staple of history
books were flawed by prejudice, the Filipinos' increasing awareness of their own national
identity—all these spurred recurring attempts to revisit the past. These discoveries push
Constantino to make use of the past and rewrite the history of the Philippines in a Filipino
perspective.

The two-volume books on the history of the Philippines entitled, A Past Revisited (1975)
and The Continuing Past (1978) has been a major breakthrough in Philippine historiography. The
said books are written by Renato Constantino, one of the most influential Filipino historian and
scholar who taught us to revisit and reassess our colonial history, to mend it and to learn from
that past. He addressed that “the purpose of the book is to make the past reusable for present
tasks and future goals.... It “makes no claims to new findings, only new reinterpretations.” He
opened our minds to the truth from all of the distorted historical lies. He describes and narrates
the history of the Philippines in a Filipino point of view or perspective, which would “counteract
the influence of colonial ideas and rectify the myths that have been presented and accepted as
reality.”

In the first book, A Past Revisited (1975), Constantino make an effort to indicate how the
Spanish and American colonialists controlled and manipulated events and changed policies to
serve their own interests. He looks at the oppression of the Filipino masses from earliest time to
1941 and the struggle of men like himself to crack through the stereotype generalizations
proliferated by Spaniards and Americans about the Filipinos. That past assumed a new
dimension when seem from the people’s viewpoint. The second book, The Continuing Past
(1978), which was co-authored by his wife, Letizia Constantino, covers the Japanese occupation
up to end of the Macapagal administration (1965). This work undertakes to prove that the
essence of these past relations has persisted in the present era. The authors have therefore chosen
to call this period The Continuing Past in order to emphasize the fact that while there are
apparent changes, the new refinements of external control and exploitation merely conceal the
persisting subjection.
 The books have opened a new perspective in writing history specifically in terms of
orientation and ideology. It deviates from the orthodox or conventional historical writing that
emphasizes description and chronology to assessing and analyzing the historic events in a
Filipino viewpoint. All throughout the books, Constantino consistently kept that the past is
usable only insofar as we have analyzed it to our own advantage. The books recreates the
conventional Philippine historiography which, in its quest only presents a deceptive objectivity
that most of the stories do not justify what really happen in the past, trying to brainwashed the
Filipino people about the Spanish and American imperialism.

Constantino has contribute and hugely impacted the Philippine historiography in terms of
substance and volumes of writings, in these books the traditional elements of historical writing
are included but are critically examined; he even added structure and consistency in his
ideology—Marxist Ideology. “He has expounded on the pernicious role that the official view of
the Filipino past inculcated by colonial historiography and the American educational system has
had in disfiguring in the minds of Filipinos the true story of their past.” Constantino’s love for
history made his works more persuasive and potent, recognized by the teachers and students who
read all these books which are popular for espousing the point of view of the Filipino people.
Constantino speak out that a history biased towards the struggles of the people is one that could
free the Filipinos’ consciousness from years of colonial miseducation.