History of San Pablo: Reviewed, Rewritten, and Retold ed. by Francis Gealogo (review)

Under the sponsorship of the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD), a number of scholars led by Francis Gealogo, an associate professor at the Ateneo de Manila University, invite readers to rediscover the history of San Pablo City, Laguna. This work undertakes a critical approach to the city's Spanish colonial past as it traces the historical path leading to the foundation of CARD. The six chapters reconstruct San Pablo's history using an interdisciplinary methodology as well as a multi-thematic approach, resulting in a work that differs from previous studies of local history and that can be read at a variety of levels. Earlier works, especially those related to San Pablo, have emphasized the institutional and political history of elites, ignoring aspects of economic history, gender relations, and the significance of popular religion. This volume tries to redress this imbalance by using demography, economic history, and gender and religious studies as well as a sociological approach to gain in-depth understanding of San Pablo's transformation mainly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although some references are also made to earlier periods.

The book begins with Armando de Jesus and Luz Rivera's essay, which explores the religiosity of San Pablo's residents from the time of the Spanish conquest to the present. They address the formation of a spirituality that emerged from the fusion of Tagalog beliefs and Catholicism, which has shaped their understanding of the world. In doing so, the essay places the town inhabitants as active participants in millenarian movements, like for example Hermano Pule's Cofradía de San José, which led to the Tayabas revolt of 1841–1842. In the second chapter Nicholas Sy explores the history of the monopolies of oil and wine in San Pablo. The novelty of this essay is that the author explains this history through the voices of subalterns, men and women who were part of the institutional and economic structure of the monopolies but did not hold power, like for example temporary workers, overseers, and small planters.

Maria Karina Garilao's chapter emphasizes the stories of women, providing a women's history that goes beyond their roles as housewives and mothers. Garilao highlights their autonomous socioeconomic role, with the right to inherit, sell and buy properties, and establish independent households. She also reveals their importance in education and in the town's economy as shopkeepers and active participants in the monopolies of wine and oil. This exploration of subaltern and feminine voices is followed by Francis Gealogo's study of San Pablo's demographic history during the second half of the nineteenth century, that is, the last fifty years of Spanish domination of the Philippines. Gealogo analyzes the population fluctuations in San Pablo due to mortality and economic upheavals. He contextualizes the increasing number of tulisanes (bandits) in the area within this demographic framework to explain their eventual participation in the revolution of 1896, thus linking San Pablo's inhabitants to this foundational moment in the archipelago's history.

Rhina Alvero-Boncocan and Eileen Meneses's contribution explores the historical evolution of money lending and its connections with the pacto de retroventa (repurchase agreement). The authors describe how this indirect money-lending practice changed San Pablo's social and economic landscape, increasingly impoverishing the population and creating a deep inequality that survives to this day. Alvero-Bonocan and Meneses's essay is the perfect contextualization for the collection's last chapter, written by CARD's founder, Jaime Aristotle Alip. This piece explores CARD's evolution between 1986 and 1995 from a nongovernmental organization to a bank, emphasizing the socioeconomic capability of anonymous women and men to survive despite the socioeconomic inequalities of Filipino society. In particular, this essay discusses the role of women in San Pablo's economic life and their social importance as the unifying force of households as well as the social life of the town. In addition, the essay reemphasizes...