The Philippines. Panahon at pagsasalaysay ni Pedro Paterno, 1858–1911: Isang pag-aaral sa intelektwalismo [The times and narratives of Pedro Paterno, 1858–1911: A study on intellectualism]. By Portia L. Reyes. Quezon City: Bahay Saliksikan sa Kasaysayan/Bagong Kasaysayan, 2011. Pp. xix + 253. Tables, Endnotes, Bibliography, Index.

Abstract

Panahon at pagsasalaysay ni Pedro Paterno, 1858-1911: Isang pag-aaral sa intelektwalismo [The times and narratives of Pedro Paterno, 1858-1911: A study on intellectualism] By PORTIA L. REYES Quezon City: Bahay Saliksikan sa Kasaysayan/Bagong Kasaysayan, 2011. Pp. xix + 253. Tables, Endnotes, Bibliography, Index. doi: 10.1017/S0022463413000714 Intellectual history and the history of ideas are gaining momentum in Philippine historiography. As organising principles for understanding human experience, these enterprises seek to locate processual aspects of the movement of ideas across time. This however presents a daunting task for the historian, especially in an academic scene where the secondary sources eclipse the primary, the typical generalist narratives outweigh the specifics and the familiar and popular intellectuals and ideas overshadow the less known. It also does not help when historians themselves are ambivalent in engaging contested topics. Portia Reyes, in her pioneering research on one of the most colourful Filipino personalities of the nineteenth century, braves these challenges. Her choice of intellectuals is the controversial Pedro Paterno. Born in the Philippines of mixed parentage, trained in colonial institutions, and adjudged as political opportunist and traitor of the revolution against Spain and the United States, Paterno ingloriously stands out in the nationalist emplotment of the Filipino saga. Reyes' central argument in her book is thus equally controversial: there is more to Paterno than just his politics. In support of this contention, Reyes structures her narrative according to layers of textuality. Its definitive aim is to reconstitute Paterno's potential as an intellectual whose scholarly stature is obviously silenced by his rather infamous politics. Towards this, Reyes lays down the neglected intellectual's context as an explanatory model within which his scholarship can be situated. She cites two complementary milieus for the development of Paterno's intellectualism, the nineteenth century and Paterno's own life history. The nineteenth century was an extremely important conjuncture with respect to the rise of an exceptional coterie of intellectuals-propogandists, who would, in the diaspora, outline the concept of nacion (nation). The material and ideational transformations of the period were necessary causes to the intellectual and political activities of this network of intelligentsia, Paterno included. To level the sufficient cause in this equation, Reyes fittingly turns to his biography. The resulting interface is revealing: Paterno embodies the contradictions in the elite consciousness of the period in the way he straddles both his nationalist temperament and colonial affections. The book's intertextuality offers refreshing insights to the breadth of Paterno's legacy as a scholar. Spanning the social movements from Propaganda to Katipunan, and generations of academic historians from Leandro Fernandez to Zeus Salazar, Reyes follows Paterno's trail and maps out his lasting discursive imprint which, she further argues, steered Filipino scholarship to professionalisation. This claim is not without basis, as evidenced by the voluminous texts Paterno produced throughout his lifetime. Reyes effectively marshals these primary sources and applies her adept interpretive skills in providing depth to an otherwise obscured intellectualism. Paterno, the intellectual, is therefore well established in the book. Reyes portrays him as no underdog; he was in league with the best and brightest of the 'modern' thinkers at a time when modernity was still struggling as an ideological expression. Using a distinct periodisation for Paterno's knowledge production, Reyes succeeds in surfacing his contributions to historiography in particular and the social sciences in general. He for instance antedates the positivist tradition of historical writing in the Philippines in his Historia de Filipinas (probably the first Filipino-written national history) and the culturalist approach in his Historia Critica de Filipinas. …