Turning our back on history

“Before 1521, there is not one authentic Philippine date.” Thus did the inimitable national artist Nick Joaquin launch his remarkable book, Culture and History (Solar publishing Corporation, 1989), which singlehandedly impelled many of us to take national history and dates as seriously as we keep tabs on our birthdays.

In the book, Joaquin presents and discusses his thesis that until we Filipinos made the transition from “a history without dates” to a “history with dates,” we were a people without a sense of history and a sense of national community.