A Public Explanation

(Published on Bicol Mail, December 30, 2010)

When I signed the public apology prepared by Mr. Jose V. Barrameda, Jr. printed in local newspapers I rest with the thought that this concluded a controversy which erupted due to his complaints regarding some information in my books allegedly lifted from his previous publications. What that public apology amounted to was my admission that “I have not given adequate and proper citations” to his works. It was therefore, a technical lapse and not of any malicious act intended to deprive him of his credits, a fact he himself acknowledged. The urging of friends and family who read the apology to render an explanation publicly compelled me to break my silence. I write this not to take offense at Mr. Barrameda but only to provide clarification, no more, no less.

When I learned that Mr. Jose Barrameda Jr., made some insinuations in a forum at the Ateneo de Naga on December 14, 2010 that some information in my works,Canaman Through Four Centuries and The Lady of the Cimarrones were lifted from his three previously published books, Canaman Through the Centuries, The Crucible and The Lady of Peña de Francia, I went over to these books and tried to locate these specific contentious information as exhaustively as possible.

What immediately struck me on the Canaman book was the strong similarity between his title and mine. The titles sound similar indeed, but my title emphasizing 4 centuries was actually suggested by some of the town’s officials and the historical organization who wanted the long period of history of the town to be the central theme. But what escaped my thought was its similarity to the one earlier published by Mr. Barrameda. Had I noticed it at the time of the preparation, I would have offered the group a more mellifluous title so as not to arouse undue suspicion to jeopardize the integrity of the work. But it was certainly an oversight.

There were probably other omissions but the truth was I included pertinent references to his book such as in pages 83 and 84. All his two books, on Canaman and on the war, were listed in my Bibliography. The possibility of similar information intersecting between my book and his was obviously great. But this by no means indicates that mine were copied from him. Granted that some information manifested strong resemblance even in their presentation in the narrative drawing suspicion of having been lifted, this does not imply that I could not have access to them. Being a native of Canaman, with both paternal and maternal line among the original residents of this town, I am also familiar with its history, not only from oral, but even bibliographic and archival sources. For six times I went to Spain, one of the archival sources I focused my research on was Canaman. All in all, I have at least twenty boxes of rare historical manuscripts at home.

The problem, I admit, came from the absence of the traditional source reference or notation. When I wrote the book, I felt no need to indicate the specific sources since it was not intended for scholars but for ordinary readers interested in the narrative. Likewise, while it is a part of the traditional canon for research to cite sources, it is impossible, if not unreasonable for even the most meticulous scholar to produce citation for every information or else he ends up with a book of endnotes than a substantive narrative. In fact, modern historians today like Lawrence Bergreen, a Harvard historian who wrote on the Magellan expedition and Samuel Eliot Morison in his book, The European Discovery of America have already done away with specific citations of sources but replaced it with a more generalized bibliographic essay.

I may not have an extensive testimonial materials which Mr. Barrameda had in theCrucible but I have at least two boxes of primary documents from cryptic intelligence reports to maps drawn for aerial assaults of the Allied planes from where I mainly culled my data for the wartime narrative. The displays in the small museum on the second floor of the Ateneo de Naga Library dominated by World War II memorabilia are exclusively from my collection. That I have a substantial knowledge of World War II materials was affirmed by Mr. Barrameda himself who categorically acknowledged in the same book his indebtedness to me for leading him in the course of research to documentary sources and living informants. In fact, the cover picture in that book given to me by Juan Q. Miranda was among the historical materials I shared with him, which he also failed to acknowledge. Furthermore, the key players in the unit were my uncles, Juan Q. Miranda, Mamerto Sibulo, Elias Madrid (my mother is Madrid from San Nicolas, Canaman, birthplace of the guerilla organization), Gregorio Fortaleza, Andres Fortaleza, the Rosales brothers, etc.

The Lady of the Cimarrones was written primarily to fulfill my vow to Ina for miraculously saving my one–year-old daughter from an otherwise fatal fall on the eve of the fluvial procession! But it was also written for the Tercentenary celebration in which I was a part of a group organized by Msgr. Romulo Vergara to undertake research on its history in Spain. After more than two years of working on the documents, I still saw structural gaps in the narrative and thus, as the Peñafrancia festivities were already underway, I was still working on the editing. With limited time, I was apprehensive to print it and contemplated postponing its launching after the celebration. But the Archbishop and Msgr. Vergara, who adjudged this as the most scholarly written on the subject, so far, provided me the encouragement to print even with limited copies in view of possible editorial revisions. Given the limited time for editing, I already expected some lapses.

Going over the content, I found out few quotations from Mr. Barrameda’s English translation of the 1866 Gainza text were included in Chapter Four specifically those on pages 55 and 58. But placing them within quotation marks and with the large paragraph indented, were sufficient indications that I attributed them to another source, showing I had no intention to conceal and deliberately appropriate them as mine. Likewise, full credit to his work was given in the bibliography. In most of these phrases, the primary source, Gainza, was cited but unfortunately omitted Mr. Barrameda, the translator. But in other Chapters, such as those in pages 63 and 65, citations for his work appeared. How I wish I could cite every information from Mr. Barrameda but their omission was certainly unintentional, a lapsus memoriae, as I was shifting from several translations, Bicol, Spanish and Mr. Barrameda’s English translation. One must see the volumes of 17th and 18th centuries Spanish documents in undecipherable paleography I was working with to commiserate with my profession as a scholar on Spanish colonial history. This, actually made me think: What made Mr. Barrameda’s translation so special to risk a legal threat by lifting them when I could simply translate them myself even from the Spanish, the language I believed used by Gainza before it was translated to Bicol in 1866.

Having discovered lapses, I immediately phoned him early the next day (Dec. 15, 2010) and profusely apologized. I was expecting he would be considerate and forgiving with my lapses as in the past I was also generous with my materials. Appealing to him to settle the matter as quietly as possible without resorting to legal battle, Mr. Barrameda agreed on condition I make a public apology to be published in local newspapers. My wife who was listening in our phone conversation on the extension line could attest to this. I did not mind making the apology whose deadline was set at 4 pm. since I acknowledged my unintentional omissions and wished no quarrel with anyone. At 4 pm I went to his residence and presented him a signed two-sentence public apology briefly admitting my omissions to give “adequate and proper citations” to his works thereby causing the impressions that they have been appropriated as mine. But Mr. Barrameda told me to return on Monday, December 20, for him to study the content for publication. 

Waking up on Monday morning, December 20, with severe cold and fever I phoned Mr. Barrameda to postpone the deadline the next day which he agreed. I went to his house late afternoon in Tuesday (December 21) and immediately asked about my fever to which I replied, “still feeling weak.” Considering my condition, I told him I could not stay long as it was also getting dark on that rainy afternoon. As a gesture of my sincerity I had provided him with the remaining 15 copies of The Lady of the Cimarrones, to enable him to comb over the contentious texts and likewise ask him to provide me a copy indicating those which had been purportedly lifted. Before I left, Mr. Barrameda presented me what turned out to be his own version of the public apology, expecting two or three copies for distribution to few newspapers but there were more or less twenty of them! Sensing my quizzical response, he assured me they were only reserve copies. Wanting to expedite the settlement of the issue soon, I acquiesced. Teary-eyed and uncomfortable due to fever, I struggled reading through the texts as I also forgot my pair of eyeglasses. Mr. Barrameda again assured me that although it was longer than the previous draft, the substance was almost the same. Trusting his words and beating the deadline he imposed, I gave up any attempt to make a thorough reading and signed the apology. Besides, I felt that any effort to edit the texts he drafted was useless since he always reiterated that it would only be published if the content conformed to his ideas.

My wife was somewhat disturbed when I presented my copy at home, as there were words which she believed were inappropriate such as “I plagiarized” and others with incriminating and damaging implications. More confusing was that, although I signed the apology on the 20th, Mr. Barrameda had prepared his own version of the apology as early as December 15, as evident in the date indicated. Having gone through the texts myself and regretful, I tried to contact friends who could help repair the damage. But early in the afternoon two concerned individuals informed me that Mr. Barrameda was at City Hall distributing copies to some officials, even posting a copy at the Library before they came out of print, something we never agreed upon nor ever discussed. Few days later, Mr. Barrameda was already in the radio station.

Looking back at the event, which was among the most harrowing experiences in my life, it was beyond the stretch of my imagination that someone would come accusing me with the infringement on his work, particularly in the field of history and the humanities where I have invested a large portion of my life and my resources. I went to a thorough training in the humanities as an undergraduate and graduate student at the Ateneo de Manila and my doctorate at the University of the Philippines. My work as a Ph.D. Student in Philippine culture and history was marked by diligence and scholarly commitment confirmed by being a consistent honor student, capped by the conferral in 1998 of the Chancellor’s Award as one of the Most Outstanding Graduate Students of the University of the Philippines. My 500 page dissertation written in a span of ten years was awarded as “the most outstanding dissertation in the Philippine Studies for the first part of the Third Millennium.” I have devoted half of my life doing archival researches, including six trips to Spain combing the various archives in Madrid, Seville, Salamanca, Toledo, and Segovia including the cities of Rome and Amsterdam poring through their Filipiniana sources. Far from being a mere expert on Bicol history I have presented papers before eminent scholars in Philippine and Southeast Asian history in conferences in Europe such as in Madrid, Naples and Amsterdam as well as in the University of Asia and the Pacific, the Ateneo de Manila, and in the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines on topics ranging from early Spanish migrations, the Magellan expedition to the more complicated theoretical discourses in historiography. My articles were either printed or quoted in prestigious publications here and abroad such as in the 2001 edition of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas in Madrid, the Cambridge History of Christianity in Southeast Asia, Instituto de Cervantes’ 1998 Cuaderno de Historias and in many other works of eminent scholars, Filipinos, Europeans and Americans. I invite readers to do an exhaustive search in Google and Yahoo to verify this. I do not think I would ever compromise my reputation for whatever merit may come from deliberately lifting few treasured information from Mr. Barrameda or from anybody. Finally it must be remembered that if authors truly write with a noble mission, then they must be forgiving with the mistakes and omissions of those sharing the same mission, or they became suspect to espousing less noble purposes. As producers of knowledge, we write not only for ourselves but for the society, today and onward to posterity. Nonetheless, I still wish to apologize to Mr. Barrameda and pray that the issue ends here.

Happy New Year!!! 

Danilo M. Gerona, Ph.D.

30 December 2010