Zeus A. Salazar

Zeus Atayza Salazar (born April 20, 1934) is a Filipino historian, anthropologist, and philosopher of history, best known for pioneering an emic perspective in Philippine history called Pantayong Pananaw (The "We" Perspective), earning him the title "Father of New Philippine Historiography."

He is a major player in the indigenization campaign in the Philippines.

Salazar spent 30 years teaching at University of the Philippines Diliman and held both history department chair and college dean positions.

Salazar was born on 29 April 1934 in Tiwi, Albay, the eldest of seven children.

His father was the town's first lawyer.

Salazar attended El Colegio de San Beda for primary school and Albay High School for secondary, then earned a BA in history from University of the Philippines Diliman (UP) in 1955.

He was the history program's first graduate to achieve summa cum laude.

After working as an assistant history instructor at UP for a year, Salazar went to Paris, where he stayed for 12 years (1956-1968) for his graduate studies.

He completed his dissertation, Le concept AC+ 'anitu' dans le monde austronesien: vers l'etude comparative des religions ethnique austronesiennes (The Common Austronesian Anitu in the Austronesian World: Toward a Comparative Study of the Ethnic Austronesian Religions) under Roger Bastide.

While there, he also earned a number of diplomas and licenses from National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations, Musée de l'Homme, and Sarbonne in a number of topics, including French, Russian, Malay-Indonesian language, linguistics, history of religion, prehistoric archaeology, ethnology, and cultural anthropology in Oceania.

By the time he left France, he could speak and write in Spanish, French, German, Russian, Bahasa, and other languages.

He taught in Filipino, continuing a tradition started by his mentor Guadalupe Fores-Ganzon in 1965.

He worked closely with scholars in the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, including Virgilio Enriquez and Prospero Covar.

Salazar left Paris in 1968 and returned to the Philippines, where he rejoined UP's history department.

In the 1970s, Salazar was among a number of scholars who questioned the validity of whether the recently discovered Tasaday people had indeed developed their civilization completely isolated from the Philippines since the Stone Age.

He and anthropologist Jerome Bailen called the "discovery" a hoax perpetrated by President Ferdinand Marcos to increase tourism.

His participation in the Diliman Commune increased tensions; when Marcos declared martial law in 1972, Salazar was imprisoned.

He shared a cell with historian William Henry Scott, with whom he had many disagreements and arguments.

From this work, he became one of the main figures in the university's indigenization movement and became a founding member of Pambansang Samahan sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino (National Association of Filipino Psychology) in 1975 with Enriquez, Covar, and philosopher Leonardo Mercado.

Salazar became chairman of UP's history department in 1987.

He led the first national conference in Filipino historiography, which produced the proceedings Paksa, Paraan, Pananaw sa Kasaysayan (Topic, Method, and Perspective in History).

He also organized a colloquium on the use of Filipino in social sciences and philosophy, which became a collaboration between several of UP's colleges.

He left this role in 1989 after being appointed dean of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, a role he held until 1992.

During this time, he mandated that Filipino be used in all official transactions within the college and changed the name of the Philippine Studies PhD program to the Pilipinolohiya PhD program, a switch that changed perspectives employed in the field.

His self-reflective approach to studying Pilipinolohiya, Pantayong Pananaw, became the ruling school of thought within the college.

Butch Dalisay was a prisoner in the same block and reportedly drew caricatures of Scott and Salazar in his 1992 novel Killing Time in a Warm Place.

Salazar's three-year sentence was reduced to three months after his friend Leticia Ramos-Shahani, sister of future president Fidel V. Ramos, became involved.

Along with other historians, including Serafin Quiason Jr.., Samuel K. Tan, Fe Mangahas, and Reynaldo Ileto, Salzar began ghostwriting Tadhana: The History of the Filipino People, a multi-volume history book commissioned by Marcos.

His participation was controversial, with some accusing him of colluding with Marcos, while others believed Salazar was using Marcos to further his studies.

Professor Portia Reyes from the National University of Singapore pointed out that "participation in the project allowed [Salazar] to conduct research, to travel abroad and to contribute to the production of scholarly tomes."

Salazar himself argued that the commissioner does not matter so long as the project is for the common good.

An anthology of his essays, Pantayong Pananaw: Ugat at Kabuluhan, was compiled by students and colleagues and published in 1997.

Salazar retired from UP in 2000 after 30 years of teaching.

Changes in administration meant that Pantayong Pananaw was challenged, which alienated a number of scholars in this area of study.

Some moved to De La Salle University, where Salazar taught psychology between 2000-2005.

Salazar argued that the eradication of Pantayong Pananaw at UP was not necessarily a bad thing, as it disseminated the practice to other institutions such as De La Salle, Philippine Normal University, National Teachers College, University of Makati, and Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

Pantayong Pananaw has made it beyond the higher education system and is taught in some senior high schools as part of social sciences.

Two festschriften were written about him in 2015.

In 2018, he taught historiography and philosophy of history at Polytechnic University of the Philippines for two semesters.

Salazar has written or co-written more than 32 books and 125 articles during his career.