cgc0202's photostream

One of the people I admire.

N.B, -- the image is not mine, it's copyrighted by someone else under Getty images

It's time to say hello, again -- after a long absence. Life intrudes with our Flickr pursuits.

There's a verse that goes with this image, also of the same title:

Deep in the heart of me

but it is not formatting correctly. If you are interested, click: Deep in the heart of me.

Cornelio

("Fernando Magallanes", "Ferdinand Magellan")

"The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803",
Vol. I (1493-1529).

"explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century."

Edited and annotated by Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson with historical introduction and additional notes by Edward Gaylord Bourne. Published in 1903.

Notes:

This is a photo of the "frontispiece" photographic reproduction from the portrait (painting) of Ferdinand Magellan in the Museo-Biblioteca de Ultramar, Madrid.
"The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803***, Vol. I (1493-1529)"

This will be included in "Kasaysayan: Philippine History" of the Likas-Philippines website.

Google, as part of its goal to digitize all information in the world and provide them online, indeed has all the volumes of "The Philippine Islands" online, from at least three world renowned libraries (for this book series) -- Harvard, Stanford and Michigan. [I am not too sure if I have seen a version from Oxford University, the 4th of the five institutions they have arrangements with to digitize all the collections of these institutions.]

So, "Why reinvent the wheel?", you might ask -- and attempt to repeat what Google has already done. Why not just link those already done by Google in Likas-Philippines and some other things, instead?

Good questions. And, here are some legitimate reasons:

1. There are obvious errors (authorship, dates, etc.), missing pages, images, and more depending on the copy you get from the Google book archives. It is evident that there was no editor assigned to ensure the accuracy of the internet books that were released. So, unless you have had access to the original documents yourself, if you read, or link, some of the Google materials, you are likely to propagate the inherent errors from the Google materials. Unfortunately, many Philippine sites that I have seen had a tendency to "quote" and link materials without considering the authenticity of the information or the reliability of the source of information.

2. Let us be realistic. It is true that Google is doing a good service for making these books available in the internet. But, first and foremost, Google, is a commercial company not in the business mainly to provide accurate information nor doing this for altruistic reasons -- it is good business, especially if your main source of revenue is advertising.

As a proof, all the individual pages of the good copies of "The Philippine Islands" were marked with the Google logo. What is to prevent them from branding the pages with their "ads" someday? Or, even limit access? Google might be 800-pound gorilla now, but American Online once had that distinction. And, so many others before that in various industries.

3. The presence of the "Google internet books" is not a replacement for a scholarly library, or for that material serious history sites, especially one as serious as "Philippine History" -- that would have impact the shaping of the mind and long term perspectives of a nation and a people.

It is the reason why, Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and for that matter "Google internet books" can never be replacements for great libraries of the world -- Library of Congress, British Library, Boston Public Library, etc. -- even if the time will come when these commercial entities could have more volumes than the aforementioned institutions.

For the same reason, "Kasaysayan: Philippine History" should never be a mere compilation of online documents from commercial or even educational and non-profit sources.

4. Foremost: "Information is power. Whoever controls the shaping of the databases of information (note 1) that defines a country also dictates the fate of the nation and its people..."

This was the initial statement in "Why Likas-Philippines?" when Likas-Philippines was first created as a website way back in 4 January 1999. [The entire content is reproduced as part of the blog "Why Likas-Philippines?". ]

Note that this perspective espoused "Why Likas-Philippines?" was written well before Google became the behemoth that it is today, or before it announced its plan to digitize all information in the world.

Google was not the first to do this, nor is it uniqe to the internet age. There was a book written by an American activist and social critic, Lilian Smith, titled "The Winner Names the Age". Basically, what the book wanted to convey was this basic idea: What we consider today as historical truth is nothing but the perspectives of the winners, i.e., not those of the vanquished.

In this sense, "The Philippine Islands" is also a perspectives of the winners -- not really those of Filipinos.

If we rely therefore on Western institutions, as well as commercial entities, such as Google, MSN, Amazon, etc., to decide what books become available (and not available) to Filipinos and the rest of the world, it would be the "perspetives" of these entities who will shape how we are viewed.

"Everyone" knew this of course. Thus, when Google, with the breath of its influence in the internet age (even more powerful now than Microsoft) and its deep financial pockets, announced its plans -- "to digitize all world information" -- even powerful countries (like France) and regional blocks (like the European Union) woke up, and realized to potential impact of how commercial institution can significantly impact the fate and perception of each nation and people; and more important, how the "profit motive" underlying such commercial enterprise can further pervert the perception.

Similarly, as poor as we are, the Philippines and Filipinos, should not cede the shaping of our fate and our perception as a people, by relying solely on Google, MSN, and even nonprofit institutions, or well-meaning individuals to define us, as a people.

This in a sense, is the goal of "Kasaysayan: Philippine History". And, with our limited resources as a country and a people -- this project cannot succeed unless each and everyone of us will help in any way we can to realize this daunting goal come true.

CGC

___
***See notes in the introductory image ""The Philippine Islands 1493-1898" Edited by Blair and Robertson" for an explanation of the change in the scope of the series.

"The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803", Vol. I

"explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century."

Edited and annotated by Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson with historical introduction and additional notes by Edward Gaylord Bourne. Published in 1903.

Notes:
Ferdinand Magellan never set out to "discover" what we now know as the Philippines. Like other human beings with great ambitions, he was driven by the potential of wealth and fame. At the time, the spices (we now buy for a few dollars in supermarkets) were worth many times more than their weight in gold. And, the Far East, more particularly the Moluccas Islands, was well known to be the unlimited source off these spices.

Magellan, a Portuguese (thus the name Fernao de Magalhaes), tried to sell his ideas to the King of Portugal. Unfortunately, for him, Portugal already had a dominion of the Far East, at the time, so that the dreams of Magellan were not so attractive. Magellan then had to find other more ambitious people who could support his grand dream.