History from marginalia
Clutter grows on my desk faster than I can say “Kondo Method” or “döstädning” (that’s Swedish death cleaning). Reclaiming space on the desk is a constant battle, and the last major victory was during the pandemic when I literally put my affairs in order. I went beyond drafting a will; I actually prepared the slideshow for my funeral. I chose all the photos that best represent me, inspired by countless slideshows at wakes where the honoree is remembered through unscripted, wacky photos hurriedly gathered by relatives made thoughtless by grief or the complexities of the estate. Hands down, I will choose a contrived portrait that appeared in Vogue Philippines over a candid photo after a satisfying lechon meal.
One of the stray pieces of paper that surfaced at the latest decluttering was a note from former President Fidel V. Ramos scribbled on a photocopy of my Inquirer column. I don’t want to be superstitious, but was he reminding me of his 98th birthday today? He passed away on July 31, 2022, the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, patron saint of soldiers. I always appreciated FVR for the hard work he put into the presidency. He woke up at 4 in the morning, read his briefing papers, played a round of golf by daybreak, and by 8 a.m. knew all the current news and gossip in Manila. The few times I encountered him while he was president, he would always comment on a column I had written. More than feeling good that the president of the Philippines read me, it was the fact that he was always well-informed, a habit he picked up from doing intelligence work.
His desk at his Makati office was 10 times more cluttered than mine; the papers alone were worth a rainforest. Just watching him classify the primary source documentation for his life after Malacañang showed me that history is often made by those who show up early and stay late. In the case of FVR, history was written in red ink from a felt-tip pen on the margins of interminable briefing papers. Of course, there is more excitement in a life that witnessed blood-soaked battlefields or grand speeches in the halls of the Senate, but sometimes history is composed in marginalia.
It is unfortunate that post-presidency, FVR is remembered for his corny antics: the empty eyeglasses he peered through or the unlit Tabacalera cigar in his mouth. Even his iconic thumbs-up “Kaya Natin” sign is worn and tired. But for a historian, the real FVR is found in red ink. His marginalia were not plain doodling; he interrogated the documents before him: sometimes correcting spelling, grammar, or errors of fact. He took no prisoners. With red ink, he questioned statistics or poorly presented policy and demanded action. “CSW” (complete staff work) was his mantra. What looks tedious to many is actually the tangible expression of competence as a form of patriotism. A pity that I was not able to even begin his biography.
History, the way Teodoro A. Agoncillo taught me to see it, was based on a written source. “No document, no history!” he would repeatedly tell me. But then prehistory, or the period before written records, taught me to see beyond documents and printed books. History could also be found in artifacts or an oral personal narrative. Reading the presidential papers of Emilio Aguinaldo, it is not the general’s marginalia that is found all over them, but in the small, almost feminine hand of Apolinario Mabini. On documents, Mabini vetted arguments and provided recommendations for which the president merely checked “yes” or “no.” Always respectful, Mabini often concluded memoranda with the words “mag-otos po kayo” (command me).
When I last handled the originals of Jose Rizal’s novels at the National Library, I was frustrated that when the manuscripts of ”Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo” were taken out of their century-old binding for conservation, nobody had the foresight to have high-resolution scans made. Now cleaned, deacidified, and put together again, the binding is so tight that one can’t open the manuscripts flat for research or study. Alas, much of the marginalia important to my work now lie hidden within the seams or signatures of the bound manuscript. These are notes and corrections that reveal Rizal’s creative process, more so when seen in the context of the development from manuscript to printed book.
All this talk of marginalia on hard copies sounds quaint and antiquarian to my freshman students, who claim they were not taught to write or read cursive in K-12. The waning of cursive in the digital age made me reflect on the documents on which I have built a career in Philippine history. The loss of cursive made me reflect on the physical memos in FVR’s meticulously collected archive and all the marginalia in red that give context to each one. Modern governance has no patience for hard copies (that can be subpoenaed) compared to soft copies, texts, and disappearing messages. I do not envy the historians of the future who will contend with physical documents and manual writing replaced by artificial intelligence-assisted drafts and actions meant to elicit engagement or virality on social media.
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Comments are welcome at ambeth.ocampo@inquirer.net
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