Bermejo, Shangly Jin RPH-GEC2 December 1, 2019

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A Book Review on BATIS: Sources in Philippine History

The book is entitled “BATIS: Sources in Philippine History” and it was written by

Jose Victor Torres. It was published under C&E Publishing, Inc. in 2018. This book consists of

five (5) units and fifteen (15) lessons. The five (5) units are as follows:

UNIT 1: CONTEXT ANALYSIS

UNIT 2: UNDERSTANDING PERSPECTIVE
UNIT 3: ANALYZING PRIMARY SOURCES
UNIT 4: EXPLORING HISTORY
UNIT 5: PHILIPPINE GOVERNANCE AND REVENUE SYSTEMS

This book mainly discusses selected topics and readings in the Sources in Philippine History

which are important. It is a preparation to make the Philippine History more interesting for

students and readers.

The book starts by discussing the context analysis of the Batis: Sources in

Philippine History which is found on Unit 1, page 1. Unit 1 consists of two lessons which are:

Lesson 1: Learning History

Lesson 2: Understanding Sources

In Unit 2, page 13, it discusses the historical sources that were written by various authors with

different perspectives. Understanding Perspective refers to the point of view of the said author

who was a witness to a certain event. This unit consists of six lessons which are:
 Lesson 3: Magellan’s Voyage Around the World
Lesson 4: Customs of the Tagalogs
Lesson 5: The Kartilya of the Katipunan
Lesson 6: The Act of Proclamation of Independence
Of the Filipino People (Acta de la
Proclamacion de la Independencia
Del pueblo Filipino)
Lesson 7: Speech of President
Corazon C. Aquino before the
Joint Session of the United States Congress,
September 18, 1986
Lesson 8: Artworks

In Unit 3, page 111, it explains analyzing primary sources. This unit consists of three lessons

which are:

Lesson 9: The First Cry of the Revolution

(August 1896)
Lesson 10: The Tejeros Assembly
Lesson 11: The Rizal Retraction

In Unit 4, page 153, it discusses exploring history. This unit consists of one lesson which is:

Lesson 12: Historic Sites and Landmarks Recognized

By the National Historical Commission
Of the Philippines

And Lastly, in Unit 5, page 183, it discusses the Philippine Governance and Revenue Systems.

This Unit consists of three lessons which are:

Lesson 13: The Philippine Constitution

Lesson 14: Agrarian Reform
Lesson 15: Taxation
 The subject History has always been one of the most boring subject dreaded by students

because of the thing that is called “memorization.” There are improper ways of teaching the

History subject in class that causes a boring discussion. These improper ways deprived many

students from the primary to the tertiary levels of the story of our nation and the formation of our

identity as Filipinos. It is an ironic idea that we have the technology to restore the amount of

historical and cultural data about our country that will always be available online that can be

clicked with a single flick of a fingertip. But it all become useless because we always read it

through memorization without understanding.

So, the new CHED Curriculum on Philippine History described as “Readings in

Philippine History” tries to stereotype of having a History subject is boring. The present course

means exposing student to where our history comes from. The source is not a simple textbook.

But the students can understanding the history, culture, and tradition by different kinds of media

like documents, pictures, videos, audio-visuals recordings, and digital sources. This will help the

students to be motivated in learning the History of the Philippines. Aligned with the new

curriculum, Batis: Sources in Philippine History is a textbook for freshman college students. This

textbook features readings from primary sources on events in our history with the exercises to

help in the analysis of the given data.