TALA: An Online Journal of History

Editor's Note Volume 8, Number 2

Jose Victor Jimenez — 2025-12-31

We remember Jose Rizal on his death anniversary. He believed that learning and clear thinking can help us make sense of the world and improve society. This issue is about nation‑building—how different efforts have shaped the Philippines.

Pagsasagip sa Modernidad: Pagbabago ng Klima, Agham at Kanluraning Imperyalismo

JC Gaillard — 2025-12-31

Climate change constitutes the ultimate challenge for the project of modernity, as envisioned in Europe during the 18th century or Age of Enlightenment. Its global and long-term threat is all what modernity has always endeavoured to control to free people from the dangers of Nature. This is evident in the contemporary discourse on climate change that is supported by a single narrative dictated by Western science. This monolithic discourse leads one unique approach to governing climate change. This form of government mirrors Foucault’s governmentality. Governmentality is the modern form of exercising power that emerged and grew in Europe through the 18th century. It is grounded in the expectations of the Age of Enlightenment that people should be free from the threats of nature. The governmentality of climate change exerts strong control on society and the behaviour of people who believe that their life will be safer and more progressive. This Western approach to governing climate change is hegemonic and applied all around the world. As such, the governmentality of climate change constitutes an instrument of imperialism for the West. It builds upon the material reality of climate change and of its impacts to impose a normative and regulatory agenda on the rest of the world. Our argument is thus not to dismiss the significance and relevance of climate change. Our concern is the rolling out of Western science and governmentality across the world, especially in places such as the Philippines where they do not match local understandings of the world.

ABSTRAK

Ang pagbabago ng klima ay ang panghuling hamon para sa proyekto ng modernidad dahil ang pinakalayunin nito ay palayain ang taumbayan mula sa pandaigdigan at pangmatagalan na banta ng kalikasan. Pamana ito ng Enlightenment noong ikalabingwalong siglo sa Europa na kung saan naging banta sa kinabukasan ng sangkatauhan ang kalikasan. Sa kasalukuyang talastasan tungkol sa pagbabago ng klima, malinaw ang impluwensiya ng Kanluraning agham sa pagbuo ng isang salaysay lamang tungkol sa mismong banta at sa dapat maging adaptation ng taumbayan. Naging batayan ito sa paggigiit ng isang uri ng government lamang pagdating sa pagbabago ng klima. Ito ay ang tinatawag na governmentality, ayon kay Foucault. Ang Governmentality ay ang modernong uri ng paggigiit ng kapangyarihan na umunlad sa Europa noong ikalabingwalong siglo. Batayan nito ang mga ideya ng Enlightenment at ang kanyang paghahanap sa kamalayan mula sa mga banta ng kalikasan. Sa governmentality ng pagbabago ng klima may mahigpit ng kontrol sa lipunan at sa ugali ng mga taumbayan kung naniniwala sila na magiging mas ligtas at maunlad ang kanilang buhay. Dahil hegemoniko itong governmentality ng pagbabago ng klima, ito ay naging isang bagong instrumento ng Kanluraning imperyalismo. Ginagamit nito ang materyal na realidad ng pagbabago ng klima at ang kanyang epekto upang magiit ang normatibo at regulatoryong agenda sa iba’t ibang lugar sa mundo. Hindi ibig sabihin na hindi nagbabago ang klima. Ang pangamba ng artikulong ito ay ang pagkalat ng Kanluraning agham at governmentality sa buong mundo, lalo na sa lugar katulad ng Pilipinas na kung saan hindi wasto ang mga ito sa lokal na pananaw.

Paving the Neoliberal Path: Presidential Discourses on Farm-to-Market Roads in the Philippines (1946-1985)

Ma. Josephine Therese Emily Teves — 2025-12-31

This study investigates how farm-to-market roads (FMRs) were used by Philippine presidents from 1946 to 1985 not only as tools for agricultural modernization and rural development, but also as symbolic instruments of political legitimation and ideological expression. While commonly understood as logistical infrastructure that facilitated agricultural productivity and market access, FMRs in the postwar Philippines acquired discursive significance. They were employed to articulate visions of state-led development, economic integration, and rural uplift, while also reflecting broader transformations toward market-oriented governance.

Using critical discourse analysis, this study examines presidential speeches, national development plans, and official communications to uncover how FMRs were framed within evolving political and economic contexts. Drawing on Stephanie Lee Mudge’s tripartite framework of neoliberalism, intellectual, bureaucratic, and political, the study argues that FMRs became material and rhetorical vehicles for embedding neoliberal ideals. Presidents invoked market logics to justify FMR investments, positioning infrastructure as the bridge between marginalized rural communities and national economic growth, while simultaneously reinforcing technocratic governance and state power.

Methodologically, the study combines qualitative document analysis with semi-structured expert interviews, including insights from development practitioners and scholars. It analyzes twenty national development plans and key policy texts produced between 1946 and 1985. The findings suggest that FMRs were discursively constructed to naturalize market-based reforms, often portraying infrastructure as politically neutral while advancing elite interests and Cold War-aligned development paradigms.

This research contributes to critical historiographies of development, infrastructure, and state formation in Southeast Asia by reinterpreting FMRs as ideologically charged spaces. Rather than treating roads as neutral public goods, the study positions them as symbolic and strategic elements in the consolidation of postcolonial governance. It highlights how FMRs helped articulate and institutionalize neoliberal values in the Philippines, turning roads into pathways not just for goods and people, but for the circulation of political ideas, developmental promises, and state legitimacy.

The 1918 Smallpox Outbreak: Logistical Challenges Faced by the American Inoculation Campaign in Manila

John David Castro — 2025-12-31

This article discusses characteristics and causes of the reemergence of the smallpox epidemic in 1918, Manila. After the introduction of systematic vaccination by the American government in 1905, mortality and morbidity rates caused by smallpox were greatly reduced in Manila. However, in 1918, a surge in mortality and morbidity caused by smallpox was experienced by the city of Manila. This resurgence revealed problems in the bureaucracy’s inoculation campaigns, resulting from logistical issues concerning vaccine supplies and manpower. The article examines the logistical problems regarding vaccination campaigns conducted before and during 1918. These problems involved a lack of vaccine supplies which failed to cover the entire population of Manila, which was crucial for a city whose immunity against smallpox began to wane. Manpower was another major issue in the execution of vaccination campaigns. The low wages given to officers and workers of the health bureaucracy led to unfulfilled vacancies. The bureaucracy’s manpower was overstretched when the smallpox outbreak occurred coinciding with a fire in the San Lazaro district. Vaccination efforts by the bureau were interrupted because the bureaucracy’s healthcare workers needed to attend to fire victims and thus were unable to perform vaccination. The combination of these logistical factors resulted in a weak revaccination effort by the health bureaucracy prior and during 1918 which failed to proactively prevent the outbreak of smallpox in that year.

“Paglalayag nang may Direksyon”: Isang Pagpapahalaga sa Aklat na Araling Pang-erya at Araling Kabanwahan

Mark Joseph Santos — 2025-12-31

“Paglalayag ng may direksyon.” Sa ganitong paraan inilarawan ni Adonis Elumbre ang Araling Kabanwahan, na taliwas sa isang uri ng “internasyunalisasyon” na pagpapatianod lamang sa mga agos at daluyong ng globalisasyon. Gamit ang metaporang ito ni Elumbre ng paglalakbay sa dagat, ang kasalukuyang panunuring-aklat sa antolohiyang Araling Pang-erya at Araling Kabanwahan (nina Mary Dorothy Jose, Atoy Navarro, at Jerome Ong) ay hahatiin natin sa tatlong bahagi ng paglalakbay: 1. Pagpalaot, 2. Paglalayag, at 3. Pagdaong. Sa bahagi ng Pagpalaot, ipopook natin nang mabilisan ang aklat sa konteksto ng mga kilusang Pilipinisasyon, na siyang kinapapalooban ng Araling Kabanwahan. Sa Paglalayag, tataluntunin natin ang pitong saysay ng aklat para sa higit na paglago ng Araling Kabanwahan bilang isang eskwelang pangkaisipan. Magwawakas ang paglalakbay sa Pagdaong, na naglalaman ng panapos na talata ukol sa panawagan na ipagpatuloy ang paglilimbag ng ganitong mga akda, at pagsasaad ng pangarap na maging institusyunalisado ang Araling Kabanwahan sa kurikulum ng Araling Pang-erya sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas Maynila.

An Appraisal of the Life of a Visayan General

Juan Miguel Palero — 2025-12-31

The period of the Philippine Revolution is often seen as a complex, labyrinthine event wherein the researchers often found themselves in a precarious yet prevalent position: First, their focus is mostly concentrated in the Luzon region, less so in the other regions; and the personalities in focus are often repetitive in nature, which in turn curtails the opportunity for other important figures to be highlighted. As shown in this book review, Aida Mirasol Ricarze’s compact work, General Leandro Fullon of Antique, offers a brief account of the relatively unknown revolutionary’s life and contribution, that can be seen as a means in shifting the focus of the Philippine Revolution from the Luzon area to the Visayan province of Antique and its neighboring areas, through the use of oral history and archival research as its main methodological procedures to extract pertinent and essential information about the life of the revolutionary general. In sum, the booklet planted seeds of scholarly interest that, if carefully nurtured, may reap more timely, productive, and valuable research opportunities in terms of highlighting the life and contributions of an uncelebrated figure in the eventual molding of our country.