Impelled by a Manila (or Tagalog)-centric historiography, stereotypes and misconceptions from those who hail from the metropolis, and sentiments of marginality among those who come from the peripheries, Javier Leonardo Vitug Rugeria—Djai to his peers and colleagues—is an advocate of local and Bikol history, which he forwards through his classes and his own research. From 2018 to 2020, he taught Research at De La Salle University, where, he encouraged his students to pursue theses on their own localities. His own research on the other hand, focuses on diverse topics on Bikol such as Bishop Francisco Gainza’s episcopacy in Nueva Caceres, the Chinese in Albay and Sorsogon, Jose Ma. Panganiban and his involvement in the Propaganda Movement, and the Jesuit mission in Bikol: the Ateneo de Naga University.
“It defined me as a historian and as a person,” Djai said when asked about how his advocacy helped him grow as a scholar and as a person. He recently earned his master’s degree from the Department of History, Ateneo de Manila University. When he applied for the program in 2015, he was still looking for his niche and first thought of specializing solely in intellectual history given his background in Philosophy. But realizing how much of Bikol’s history remains obscure, he focused on local history as well.
He admits however that History was not always his cup of tea, and in hindsight he did not see himself pursuing it as a career. “When I was in high school,” he related “it was not really my strength to be quite honest with you; it has always been Mathematics and English. (I had to; my parents taught those!) In second and third year, I often got eliminated from first honors because of Araling Panlipunan.” In college, he pursued an undergraduate degree in Philosophy at the Ateneo de Naga University, where he developed a profound interest for History through his History of Ideas, Rizal, World and Philippine History classes.
In 2013, he left Naga to teach at Xavier School, San Juan, where he taught for four years. “I left for Manila the first time so I could gain some experience and perspective and pursue further studies, at first at UP Asian Center, then, in Ateneo. My vision was to go back to Bikol one day (just like what Fr. Bonoan used to tell Ateneans), teach there, and share what I have become. Naga was my happy place; it was my Ithaca.” In 2017, he left Xavier for Naga, but the K-12 transition made it difficult for him to land a full-time university post and his plan to come back home to teach in Naga eventually fell through. He then left a year after but this time with a different vision: “to bring Bikol with him instead wherever he goes.” After two years of teaching, research, and designing the research curriculum at De La Salle University, he is joining the Departamento ng Kasaysayan at the University of the Philippines, Diliman this August.
Having taught in some of the most reputable schools in the Philippines, Djai considers himself successful in promoting his advocacy when he gets his students interested in (Local and Bikol) History even for a term or a year. For him, a measure of his advocacy’s success is when his students pursue research on the history of their own localities. “When I taught research in La Salle,” he said, “my students did studies on their respective localities. One did a study on Pakil, Laguna, another on a Biñan native (like most of them), then another on Lukban, Quezon Province, and so on. To get your students to love history for a term or a semester is already a huge success for me; to get them to love history even after they have graduated and for the rest of their lives is the dream.” But he also acknowledges that a teacher’s success takes years or decades to manifest for they are mere sowers of knowledge and values and it would take time for these seeds to grow and see them in full bloom.
When asked what his message was to the youth, especially to those who are hesitant to speak out on pressing political and societal issues, Djai tells them to do so in their own time. “Take your time, do not be pressured by what you see on social media, do not simply go with the flow just because it’s trending, do not be pressured by call out and cancel culture guised as activism, when most of it is actually faux activism.” Describing the times and the Generation Z as “complex,” he sees the need to thoroughly process what is going on in the world rather than just simply taking a stand without proper context or careful discernment. “Take what you can only process and speak up when you are ready.”
Finally, for Djai, a heart on fire is not just filled with passion but one committed to one’s mission. “Passion dies down, it may drive you at the start until a certain point, but it will not sustain you all the way. That flame burns out and we need to constantly look for sources of fuel to light it up again.” He said he learned this lesson when he was writing his thesis while at the same time working at the DLSU Campus in Laguna. “Midway through writing my thesis, I felt burnt out with all the travel, the writing, and the workload. Striking a balance and finding time for each was exhausting. There were times I treated my thesis as a mere requirement and I just wrote it for the sake of fulfilling it just to get by. It was not my passion for History that brought me to the finish, but my commitment.” He emphasized that it was important to look for founts of inspiration and strength to remind himself of the reason why he started in the first place. In his case, he always goes back to the purpose for which he is pursuing further studies: to have a shot at teaching in one of the best universities in the Philippines; everything he did along the way was in service of that end. For Djai, “that fire is something one has to constantly renew because you do not expect it to be always burning; and commitment will make sure that the fire persists and endures over time.”
Writers: Kailtyn Magno and Margarette Asinas
Layout: Guia Balid and Serg Sales
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