IN the afternoon of Friday, August 8, 2008, Professor Danilo Madrid Gerona, with the assistance of the local government of Canman, launched his book Canaman through Four Centuries at the town’s People Center. In his own words, he described his plight as historian. “Writing a book on the history of Canaman, my hometown, is an old cherished dream which began since I embarked on my professional career as a historian.” Professor Gerona has been undertaking research and writing historical accounts in early 1980’s. For those who can read between the lines, Professor Gerona is contending that any historical account has to figuratively go “through four centuries” before it becomes a book. He, however, is just too humble to declare in public that “through these four centuries” the historian has also to eat and live to be able to write books.
Truly the book “Canaman Through Four Centuries” is rich in centuries-old documents lifted from the archives in the Philippines and in Spain and from collections of people in Canaman. These aged documents about Canaman are what make the book a treasure, something other towns in the province if not in the region are not blessed with.
It is not every day that a book on local history is written and gets published. And August 8, 2008 was a special day for Canaman. The triple 8 occasion that opened the novenario for the town’s fiesta was well attended. However, the plight of the historian is wittingly or unwittingly ignored.
Historians are not given fair treatment as other professionals. While a lawyer may demand an acceptance fee before he bills his clients for his professional services, for filing and appearance fees to as high as five or six digits – the work of historians is relentlessly pegged at the cost per copy of his book, a measly couple of hundred pesos. Those who have mahibog an lalawgont would even insist upon a copy of the book --- for free.
Historians are called upon when a town or a city needs information and clarification about gray points in their local history. Historians most often than not are treated like vendo machines. A tap on the shoulder or a cup of coffee would be enough to make historians spill out everything they know.
Historians invest their time, effort, talent, and money in undertaking their research and in organizing the materials in presentable book form. Yet how many people give value to this undertaking? How many have quantified, to compensate the historians for, the days and months they had spent in going over old documents in the Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental in Madrid and in referring to printed materials in the Archivo del Bibliofilo Filipino also in Madrid and in other libraries just to gather the needed data for a book. Air fare to Spain, hotel accommodation, board and meals, transportation, reproduction expenses for important documents, mailing expenses could run to hundreds of thousands of pesos, yet how much does a town executive willingly set aside for the writing of the history of his town? A cup of coffee? An invitation for the historian to be guest speaker and a coffee mug token given him afterwards?
There are town and city executives who want their names and their progeny included in the pages of local history even if this would twist and do violence to the facts in history.
There are city and town executives who have on hand the research on the history of their town but would not have the research published in a book since the publication of the research was a project of their political rival whom they unseated in last year’s May elections,
There are city and town executives who want the history of their town written but would bargain for the inclusion of their commissions in the professional fee of the historian.
The plight of historians in Camarines Sur is bad enough. And worse it will be if those who have the power and the funds to leave for posterity a written history of their town or city are not concerned in handling historians professionally and in becoming worthy guardians of the rich heritage in their own backyard.
