LOOKING BACK 11: INDEPENDENCE X 6

AMBETH R. OCAMPO

<p>"...A SHORT TAGALOG POEM WRITTEN BY A YOUNG LADY FROM SAN ROQUE, CAVITE IN 1898 DESCRIBED FIRST-HAND THE WAR WAGED BY EMILIO AGUINALDO AGAINST THE SPANIARDS. SHE SAID THE GUNFIRE DURING BATTLE RESEMBLED THE TERRIBLE RUMBLE OF THUNDER, YET, THROUGH ALL THE NOISE, SHE COULD DISTINGUISH THE SOUND MADE BY PARTICULAR GUNS: "PACONETE'T CANON REVOLVER, REMINGTON ANG PUTOC BUNG BUNG" "ANG MAUSER AT RIPLE AY PAC BUNG PAC BUNG" PALCONETE, CANNON, REVOLVER, AND REMINGTON GO "BUNG-BUNG" MAUSER AND RIFLE GO PAC BUNG PAC BUNG" THIS SIMPLE POEM, IGNORED BY MOST HISTORIANS, FOCUSED ON THE GREAT NARRATIVE, INSPIRED ME TO SEE INTO THE FOREST AND LOOK AT THE TREES.... GOD, THEY SAY, IS IN THE DETAILS AND IF IT THESE CAN ADD COLOR AND UNDERSTANDING TO THE SEPIA-TONED HISTORY WE WERE FORCED TO LEARN IN SCHOOL, THEN THE EFFORT TO DIG THEM UP AND DEPLOY THEM IN MY WRITING HAS BEEN WORTHWHILE."</p>

LOOKING BACK 13: GUNS OF THE KATIPUNAN

Anvil Publishing

Looking back

Anvil Publishing, Inc.

The task of awakening the past to the concerns of the present is of course the avowed concern of every historian. But with Ambeth, this act of communing with the dead weight of the past tends to focus on an obsessive, one might even say fetishistic, delight in the details of everyday life. This brings us to (one of the qualities) of Ambeth's essays: the careful attention they devote to the common, the overlooked, the ordinary, what we might think of as the splendid basura of the archives: the sari-sari, the tira-tira, the anu-ano, as well as the diumano of the past... In other words, Ambeth sees history not only as a set of documents to be decoded but as an entire array of objects to be fondled and felt. Yet rather than order these objects into a static, museum-like classifactory system, he lets them simply hang, suspended between speculation and and spectatle. In this way, his concern with the everyday and the ordinary yields a veritable historical sensorium that restores to the past its haunting, not-quite-dead-nor-alive quality.

Luna's Moustache

Anvil Publications, Philippines

Winner of the Manila Critics Circle National Book Award--Essay. "Through writing about history, Ocampo writes on Rizal (the national hero of the Philippines) as if he happened yesterday. In the clean, cool style of a good journalist...Ocampo is one historian who has never known to impose dogmas and definitive treatises. Reading Ocampo's history is like sitting down with a friend who shares what he has learned. But what he does best is to share the certainty of his doubts. Which probably makes him less of a historian. But then history is too serious to be left to historians." Philippine Daily Enquirer Rizal Day Editorial, 1996

Rizal Without the Overcoat (Philippine Import)

Anvil

Bones of Contention: The Bonifacio Lectures

Published and exclusively distributed by Anvil Pub

Rizal Without The Overcoat (Bookprint)

101 Stories On The Philippine Revolution

INTRODUCTION "While I have always liked history I did not like the way it was taught. Often it is presented as a parade of obscure names, forgettable dates, and events irrelevant to our life and times. Like man students, I learned to hate history as much as I did Algebra. Fortunately, all of this changed when I met the late Teodoro A. Angoncillo, E Aguilar Cruz, and Doreen G. Fernandez who showed me that history could be timely and engaging as the tabloids and gossip columns I relished reading. This book is dedicated to their memory for without them I would not have become a historian. The essays compiled in this volume were originally written for the back page Lifestyle section of the Philippines Daily Globe in the late 1980's and were compiled in my first book Looking Back that had remained unchanged in form and content since 1990. After almost two decades in print I have decided to reissue these essays, updated and in a new format, the first in a series that will draw from my recent work and others from Aguinaldo's Breakfast, Mabini's Ghost, and Luna's Moustache that are currently out of print. History has a longer shelf life than other writings and it is hoped that these essays, despite their age, continue to delight and inform." Ambeth R. Ocompo Feast of Teesa de Avila, 2009

Looking Back

History

Asia

Looking Back: Death By Garrote

Published And Exclusively Distributed Anvil Pub.

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Books by AMBETH R. OCAMPO