Ferdinand Blumentritt and the Philippines: Insights and Lessons for Contemporary Philippine Studies by F.P.A. Demeterio III

Feorillo Petronilo A. Demeterio III, who is professor in the Department of Filipino at De La Salle University, surveys Ferdinand Blumentritt’s writings on the Philippines, classifies them, and provides statistical and graphical information about them. Blumentritt’s intellectual production is divided into four periods to which separate chapters are devoted. These periods and their corresponding number of works are reported as follows: Blumentritt’s pre-Rizalian period (87 works produced at an average of 12.4 articles per year); Rizalian period (127 works, at 12.7 articles per year); post-Rizalian Spanish period (13 works, at 6.5 articles per year); and American period (18 works, at 1.4 articles per year). The themes covered by Blumentritt’s writings per period are identified and discussed, and their percentage distribution presented. The discussion of each period ends with “general observations” on Blumentritt’s Philippine studies. Appendix A lists all of Blumentritt’s works on the Philippines, their original titles, the English titles, and extant translations; it also informs readers which of these works (equivalent to 40 percent of the texts) can be accessed in Metro Manila and where these are located. Prior to discussing each of the four periods, Demeterio furnishes readers with Blumentritt’s intellectual biography. The book’s conclusion summarizes Blumentritt’s writings by period, enumerating major themes as well as lessons for contemporary Philippine studies based on five “negative insights” (165), namely, Blumentritt’s Orientalism, his “proclivity to overestimate the Filipino character and strength” (174), his “overly politicized” scholarship (174), his “linguistic shortcomings” (175), and his “tendency to essentialize and overemphasize the differences among the Philippine ethnolinguistic groups” (175).