Written Records

History has always been one of the core subjects being required for the students to take
starting elementary. Intensive study on history just like any other subjects starts in the tertiary
level. As of now there isn’t any publication of a prehispanic document of a Philippine historian
that is being accepted without being challenged for authenticity. Relying on our neighbouring
countries records has been a way for the scholars to find possible references which may be
connected to our locality.
One of the most apparent documents of our neighbours is that of the Chinese Empire
whose contents date back to the pre-Christian Era. The translations into European languages of
those associated to the Philippines by Friedrich Hirth, W. P. Groeneveldt, and Berthold Laufer
pave its way for the scholars to see sufficient reference that indicates regular trade relations
between China’s Dynasties and the early Philippines. Especially the speculations on how the
cloves from Moluccas were delivered to ancient China without passing Philippine Archipelago.
There was this Chinese idea of a tribute mission, an approach from the small
neighbouring states which served as an acknowledgement of the Emperor’s primacy among
human rulers, not a tax even though it looked like one. According to the readings, there had been
Philippine tribute missions to China annually which came from Butuan on March 17, 1001. We
can infer from this that there were already systems of government before in the different parts of
the country but sad to say that we were less developed than China since we were the ones
sending missions.
Chapter 3 described different places in the country before. There was the country of Ma-i
to the north of Borneo whose natives live in large villages. The people were waiting for the
trading ships to stop in front of the official plaza of Ma-i, the country’s place for barter and trade.
The local products were beeswax, cotton, true pearls, tortoise shell, medicinal betelnuts and
cloth. San-hsu, Pai-p’u-yen, P’u-li-lu, Li-yin-tung, Liu-hsin, Li-han, etc., were all the same sort
of place as Ma-i. It was also explained that Ma-i or Ma-yit is Mindoro, for Mait was the old
name of the island when the Spaniards arrived and this name was also known to its hill tribes and
fishermen from neighbouring islands. Pai-p’u-yen is evidently the Babuyan Islands, already
known to the Chinese as the origin or route of sea-raiders who assailed the Fukienese coast. Pa-
lao-yu shows to be Pa-lao-yuan where Palawan should be in two early seventeenth-century
Chinese routers or sailing directions. Presumption by some scholars has consequently identified
Li-yin-tung with Lingayen, Liu-shin with Luzon and Li-han with Lubang. But concluding that
P’u-li-lu to be Polilio based on the text must be discarded because of the inaccessible and rocky
imagery of the Pacific coast of Luzon to be unlikely have attracted Asian transport and also the
suspicious look of the name itself like the Spanish diminutive for Tagalog pulo which means
island. A second description of medieval Filipino life presented particulars about Sulu,
Mintolang and Ma-li-lu. Mintolang is Mindanao – a location near the seas, abundant on rice and
grain. Ma-li-lu is harder to recognize but scholars had come to believe it to be Manila.
Chapter 4 was about Maragtas, or History of Panay from the first inhabitants and the
Bornean immigrants from which the Bisayans are descended to the arrival of the Spaniards. It is
an original work made by Pedro Alcantara Montecarlo based on diverse data that he collected
which enclosed many ethnographic, linguistic and historic details from old people who are
inhabitants of Panay and geological connections between Palawan and Borneo. Maragtas was
used by the author as the correspondent of the Spanish Historia.
The first chapter of the Maragtas is a kind of anthropological treatise on the former
customs, clothes, dialect, heredity, organization, etc., of the Aetas of Panay. The second chapter
begins the narrative of the coming of the ten datus from Borneo, fleeing the oppression of Datu
Makatunaw, and their purchase of Panay Island from Marikudo. The third chapter tells the
romance of Sumakwel, Kapinangan and her lover Gurung-gurung, a charming little tale in its
own right. Sumakwel’s brother-in-law, Bangkaya saved a woman from a caesarean-section
operation by massage and was rewarded with different kinds of seeds which he and Sumakwel
then plant all around the island. The fourth chapter concludes the tale of the ten datus, telling
about their political arrangements and their circumnavigation of the island. The fifth chapter is
another anthropological type of piece depicting language, commerce, clothes, customs,
marriages, funerals, mourning habits, cockfighting, timekeeping techniques and calendars, and
personal characteristics. A list of Castilian officials between 1637 and 1808 and the epilogue
which contained a few eighteenth-century dates from Miag-ao is given by the final chapter.
Chapters 2 and 3 recount the same events and contain no real historic data not contained
in the Historia and contradict it only where it is confused or itself self-contradictory. Long list of
names is omitted including the site of the barter. These also differ from the rest of the book in
being almost straight narrative, and their content appears in an earlier source which was
annotated and translated into Spanish by Father Tomas Santaren. Following the romance which
ends Montecarlo’s Chapter 3, Father Santaren’s translation adds some disconnected geographic
and genealogical data, most of which appears in Montecarlo’s Chapter 4.
The other exceptional passage of historic significance which does not occur in the
Historia comprises the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th paragraphs of Chapter 5. This chapter is a description of
a variety of general cultural information such as social customs, Visayan equivalents of the days
of the week, and dialect differences.
Maragtas is published in mixed Hiligaynon and Kin-iraya in Iloilo in 1907 which claims
to be nothing more than to be an original work by the author. It was based on written and oral
sources that were available and contains three sorts of subject matter – folk customs being
practiced by old folks, an idealized political confederation and a legend recorded in 1858 of
migration of Bornean settlers, some of whom are still remembered as folk heroes, pagan deities,
or progenitors of part of the present Panay. There is no reason to doubt that this legend preserves
the memory of some actual events but no concrete event dates and maybe just the exaggeration
of generations of oral transmission. (BASED ON UPD-KAS1 READINGS)