Bartolome Pasion was born in 1928 to a tenant family in a traditional hacienda in Pampanga province, Philippines. In 1942, at the age of fourteen, he joined the left-wing anti-Japanese guerrilla army, and later, the Communist Party of the Philippines (PKP) and its armed wing, the People’s Liberation Army (HMB). Pasion participated in the PKP-HMB-led rebellion of 1946-1950s, was captured, and jailed for nine years. After his release, he resumed his peasant organizing activities and later became a member of the PKP’s leading organs. From the seventies onward, he continued organizing his fellow peasants while networking with civil society groups and people’s movements. He died in July 2016.

What this study undertakes is the life history of ordinary people and the interplay and convergence between one individual’s life and the larger historical events taking place in society and how one impinges on the other. It follows a recent spate of works taking off from a “history from below” perspective. But as Reynaldo Ileto pointed out, this perspective also does away with models of behavior “built upon either/or oppositions” and instead uncovers “partial allegiances, guarded accommodations, shifting identities, and changing definitions of authority and salvation.”

Bart Pasion’s life history delves into the lives of those Eric Hobsbawm refers to as “uncommon people … who collectively, if not as individuals … are major historical actors … who make a difference.” Al McCoy adds that “close studies of ordinary lives and second-tier leaders … can illuminate areas now obscured within the vastness of the Philippine past, allowing us a fuller view of the process of change.”

Author: Eduardo C. Tadem
ISBN/ISSN: 978971542895-8
Category: Social Science; Biography
Copyright: 2019
Pages: 242pp
Size: 6x9
Type: PB/SP