How did Ambeth Ocampo become a historian?

Many people have come to know historian Ambeth Ocampo through his columns and lectures on the national hero Jose Rizal.

In an episode of “The Howie Severino Podcast,” Ocampo narrated how he started his journey in the field of history.

“Actually, madalas tinatanong nga sa akin ’yan. ‘Bakit ka naging historian?’ Madalas kong sagot, ‘kasi hindi ko nagustuhan kung paano ako tinuruan,’” he said.

[People frequently ask me that. “Why did you become a historian?” And my usual answer is, “because I didn’t like how I was taught.”]

“Because when I was still in school, that was the case. You have to memorize. To pass the test, you have to know the names of Rizal’s siblings. You have to memorize it but after the course, it’s okay to forget it. It doesn’t matter to you anymore,” he said in Filipino.

Ocampo said it was in college that he became deeply interested in history when his English teacher showed him that doing research could be fun.

“That’s why I wrote several topics for my papers. My undergrad thesis was about food in Pampanga. I wrote a paper about Nora Aunor with her dolls, who people seemed to worship like a goddess. I made a paper about cursing. Why do we curse like that? So I studied dictionaries from the 18th, 17th century,” he said.

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He soon had an encounter with writer Emilio Aguilar Cruz, who taught him that people still had to think critically despite what they believed to be right or wrong.

According to Ocampo, it was after he met Teodoro Agoncillo that he truly became a historian.

He recalled that he would go to Agoncillo’s house and speak with him for hours without knowing that it would be the older historian’s remaining months on earth.

“So parang binuhos niya lahat ng alam niya sa akin. Parang nag-crash course ako ng history sa kaniya,” said Ocampo.

[It was like he poured everything he knew to me. Like I had a crash course on history with him.]

“At du’n ko nakita na ano ang ibig sabihin ng scholarship. Kailangan masusing pagsaliksik at saka pagbalik sa sources at saka ’yung kailangan may diwang Pilipino na ’pag nagbabasa ka, kailangan ipairal mo ang view point ng Pilipino,” he added.

[That’s when I knew what scholarship meant. There need to be a detailed research and a review of sources. The Filipino spirit should also be present in the sense that, when you’re reading, you have to look at it from the viewpoint of the Filipino.]

“I’ve become critical of what I read. And I think that’s when I started becoming a historian. And then after that, I enrolled for an MA course and started my PhD but I did not finish it. But that’s where I learned what real academic history is.” – Kaela Malig/RC, GMA News