If you're a college student or a college instructor, you might have encountered this subject. Per CHED mandate, it is designated as a "General Education" subject. For a year that I have been teaching this subject, all I could say is: It has good intentions but with misguided means. I understand that teaching Philippine History is important but how I wish that the curriculum would guide both students and professors to something more relevant to students' needs.

I do not understand why you have to teach historiography to students. It's highly relatable to history majors but not to other students from other courses. While the subject recommends topics, I find it frustrating that the curriculum expects that students from other majors would behave like historians, putting emphasis on documents than on the lessons of history itself.

I'm so fed up with having to teach Masaoa vs Limasawa: Site of the First Mass, The Cavite Mutiny: Filipino vs Spanish Perspectives, Rizal's Retraction: Fact or Hoax. What really grinds my gears is that the documents president are based on speculations. I know the essence of getting the details of history through proper historiography is important but to other students from other courses, it's highly irrelevant. I offer them alternative topics that are more anchored to Filipinism with historiography only on the sidelines to support the topics such as: First President: Bonifacio or Aguinaldo, Jose P. Laurel: Hero or Collaborator, Ramon Magsaysay: My Guy or the CIA's, Corazon Aquino: Sinner or Saint, Miriam Defensor-Santiago: Rational or Elitist. At least from these topics I could impart with students more relevant lessons which could also be applied to a much modern setting and to their own personal lives.

I just really hope there would be a revision to the curriculum. In my personal opinion, the teaching of Readings of Philippine History should be thematic than chronological. A student could not be bothered to remember and who, what, where and when, something happened. Though I am certain that it is much easier to remember for a student why and how something happened in Philippine History which in effect gives effective parallelism to the current events that are happening.