CHAPTER 1 : HISTORY AND SCIENCE

These news items are a record of past events. They are history. Your choices as they
confluence to a certain set of selection is an evidence that these past events have meaning and
relevance to you. Your individual choices become a collective decision as they become a
collective meaning and relevance.

DISCUSSION

Several meanings of the word history have been advanced to include its Greek origin history
which means a systematic account of a set of natural phenomena or that of the German
geschichte which means that which happens (Gottschalk, 1969, p.41). The mainstream
definition of history then is a narrative of what happened that has been systematically
accounted for or a systematic account of past events. This definition, however, is short of one
concept and that is meaning. Thus, lifting the term history from the Filipino term kasaysayan
could add more significance. Ambeth Ocampo's definition has this to include:

Kasaysayan is rooted in two words salaysay, which means a narrative or a story and, more
important, saysay or meaning. In my history classes, I always propose the working definition of
kasaysayan or history as a narrative (which can be written, visual, oral or combination of all
three) about past events that has meaning to a certain group of people in a given time and place.
These two components are inseparable. Without both you cannot have true history (Ocampo,
2013, p.xii).

The eminent historian Zeus Salazar from the University of the Philippines has this definition
"ang kasaysayan ay isang salaysay na may saysay sa mga taong nagsasaysay" o "ang
kasaysayan ayisang salaysay hinggil sa nakaraan na may saysay para sa sinsalsayang pangkat
ng tao o salinlahi" (Navarro, 2000, pp.11-12). Salazar's contribution to the definition of history is
couched on his theoretical frame of pantayong pananaw, which is monumental for adds to the
simple definition of history as a systematic account of past events. The concept of saysay or
meaning is a major element for a narrative to qualify as historical account. A narrative without
meaning to the group of people will never be history. But this definition suffers from one single
problem. Will a series of events still remain history to other people who find no meaning to it?

The news items that you choose and all other news that you may read in the newspapers
find relevance and meaning to you for reasons that you may be affected by them, or you know
who the players are, or you are a participant in the event at one time. How about other groups of
people who never and will never be participant in these events, who do not know the players and
will never be affected by these events? Will these events cease to be history for them?

If we technically stick to Salazar and Ocampo's definition, these narratives (mga salaysay)
which have no meaning (saysay) to us will not be history though it is history for those people
concerned with the event. For Salazar, if you do not understand the text of the narrative because
you don't find any meaning to it, will you still continue reading the narrative? For other historians,
this is unacceptable. Will a narrative though you don't understand it because it has no meaning
to you, cease to become history?

We are then confronted with two concepts: a) history in its objective content and b) history
in its subjective content. This book will advance another definition of history. History is any
event as a product of time and space. Everything then becomes history for time is an element
continuously existing in the natural and social world. A physicist who is smashing a particle with
another particle in order to determine its constitution is tracing the residues of particles as they
are smashed and going back to the moment of impact to ascertain what constitutes the
particles. The physicist is dealing with the history of that particle. A physicist who rolls a ball
from one point and measures the distance it covers until it stops is looking not at the present
state of the ball but at the past of the ball as it stops. Calculating the movement of a body in
space is dealing with the history of its movement. A nuclear physicist tracing the decay of a
radioactive substance as particles escape from the nucleus of an atom is dealing with the
history of radioactive decay. An astronomer who is looking at his telescope to observe a faint
light emanating from a star located light-years away is observing the history of that light as it
traveled millions of miles over the years. A chemist who is trying to determine the toxins
produced from a substance is dealing with the history of the substance as he is trying to trace
its elements. An epidemiologist trying to find the origin of an epidemic is dealing with the
history of how the disease was first contacted and how it spread. A geologist studying rocks is
dealing with the history of the earth. A medical examiner doing an autopsy of a dead body is
dealing with the history of its death. A biologist studying the cause of the destruction of bio-
diversity is dealing with the history of how ecological imbalance occurred. A biologist looking at
a tissue in a microscope is not looking at the present of the tissue on the slide but at the past of
the tissue.

This is history in its objective content. It is history that is empirically observable whether the
event and the units that caused the event occurred by itself or with human intervention or forces
other than human. However, this does not mean that the physicist, chemist, biologist, geologist,
forensic examiner are doing history or historical study. This makes history a monstrous
hegemon. They are not doing history but they are dealing with history. These are events that can
be examined as empirically observable as the events are without any meaning, particularly to
humans though they are essential to them. Meaning here implies participation as this meaning
will construct them as being human. The orbit of a planet far away has no effect to us humans.
Whether we study it or not, it will not make us human or any better. But tracing the history of the
movement of this planet can be objectively studied. This is an event or history that happens
detached neither from humans nor from any human participation. We cannot deny that an event,
though we don't understand it, did not happen because we simply find no meaning to it.
Empirically the event happened. And that is a narrative. This is history in its objective content.

The study of the death of a hero is history. The event is history and the event has its
meaning to humans with whom that hero belongs in a community.
 If the death of the hero precipitates an upheaval, then it is history with human participation
and the events created meaning to the participants and the meaning eventually constructed
them as humans living in a community within that period of time. This is history in its subjective
content. These events are also empirically observable. The event is recorded or verbally relayed.
The event can be verified. The documents narrating the event can be examined.

The interpretation of the event is also empirically observable. The documents that were
written to narrate and interpret them create meaning. Meaning can then be read. It is observable.
This is history with human participation and which will construct their being humans as they are
part of the event taken as a whole.

In both its form, history then can be studied. Thus a history of tribal medicinal practice that
occurred in a forest which other humans can hardly penetrate and which may not generate any
participation from other humans is still history for it is the tribal medicinal practice which is an
event in its objective content. The reference to Salazar and Ocampo's "kasaysayang may saysay
sa mga taong nagsasaysay" will fall under the category of history in its subjective content. This
is history that implies relevance and meaning to human participants with which such meaning
and relevance will socially construct them in the end. It is for this reason that history is needed
to create a strong sense of citizenship (Gabriel, et al., 2017).

In both objective and subjective forms, history can be studied. The study of events can be
characterized with rigor in accordance with a certain method.

The method makes the study objective for the method will expunge the study of any of the
researcher's prejudices. Can the findings of a historian be replicable as science demands? Just
like the natural science, anyone who throws a ball upward will be assured that the ensuring
event with be a ball that will fall downwards. For history, will the findings of one historian be the
same findings of another? Using the same document, using the same empirical evidences, the
event as in its objective occurrence will arrive at the same event. On September 21, 1982,
former President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law all over the Philippine archipelago.
Using the same document all historians will find that Marcos really did. This is history in its
objective content. But historians may have not just one interpretation of the event. The meaning
of the event, once subjected to interpretative theoretical analysis, is also empirically observable
for it can be read and reproduced. Other historians may have other meanings to it. Can meaning
be verified in its examination, yes by the very document it contains? Can meaning be replicated,
yes as other historians will agree on the interpretation of previous historians? Can meaning be
expanded, yes other historians could add more interpretations in a variety of perspectives. Can
historical study then be considered as a scientific enterprise, yes because of its rigorous
methodology and empirical content.

The objection to this centers on the argument that doing science is doing experiments.
History does not embark on experiments. Physicists do no less. Albert Einstein did no
experiment. He simply thought and calculated. Charles Darwin did not do any experiment, he
simply stayed in the island of Galapagos and observed. An astronomer doing his science using
his telescope is not doing an experiment. He is simply watching and observing. Then a social
scientist or a historian who is on the street observing the people behave in a certain space is
also observing just the same, he or she is not just using an instrument.

What are we all doing then? A physicist calculates the mechanics of bodies as it deals with
the history of its movement. An astrophysicist studies the stars and the cosmos as it deals with
the history of the universe. A chemist manipulates the molecules of substances as it deals with
the history of its processes. A biologist examines life as it deals with the history of its existence.

A geologist studies rocks as it deals with the history of the earth. A medical examiner deals
with the history of a dead body as it studies its death. They deal with history but they don't do
history. A historian does. A historian studies events objectively and reconstructs the story as
the story reconstructs humans.

For a historian, it is the story that is of utmost importance. The story cannot be constructed
and reconstructed without humans in it as the one who examines and the one who participates
and make up the story.

Gottschalk on History - What do historians do?

Here Louis Gottschalk's seminal work stands out helpful. Gottschalk was a modern
historian and an expert in the French Revolution. He earned his degrees from undergraduate
(1919) to post-graduate (1921) at Cornell Uni-versity. He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1928 and
1954 and published seven volumes of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. Published in
1950, his book Understanding History, lives up to its name as a primer on historical method and
historiography.

A historian recreates the past by narrating what had happened out of the relics that
remained. A historian does not just enumerates the empirical or observable data of what is now
found but presents the possible narrative or the story what had happened in the past out of the
empirical data that had survived and credibly ascertained. If a physicist presents the mechanics
of moving objects, if a biologist explains the dynamics of life, if a civil engineer draws the
structure of an edifice and if a mathematician explains the relationships of numbers, a
historian's primary task is to tell a story. The story is not a fiction but a creative narrative based
on a reconstruction of past events out of facts that have survived in the present. The surviving
facts may be a document, a coin, an edifice, or a ruin. If an old house, studying the structure is
the job of a structural engineer, its artistic façade is of an architect's area of study, but a
historian will try to find the story of who owned the house, when was it made, who dwelt there
and why was it abandoned. If a document, validating its authenticity is the job of a handwriting
expert or graphologist or a chemist if we would like to know the composition of the ink and the
paper that were used, but for a historian what he will establish is the story behind the author of
the document and the story behind the document itself. Even if it were proven to be a fraud, the
historian will try to find the story of who did the fraudulent copy and the reason behind the fraud.
Gottschalk wrote, "only where relics of human happenings can be found... do we have objects
other than words that the historian can study' (Gottschalk, 1969, p.43). These objects, artifacts
or remains of past events can be historical if there is a human element in it.

Thus a ruin remains to be a civil engineering object of study if the human element that
would the story behind it is absent. An old house will remain to be an architectural design study
if the human element is absent to draw the story behind why it was built and who lived there.

It is for this reason that history is a creative reconstruction of the past because out of a
relic, a story would have to be reconstructed. This brings us to one dilemma, what was left was
only an object or a few of them yet a story would have to be constructed. (Gottschalk 1969, p.
45) answered this by saying, only part of the whole event was observed, only a part of came into
someone's recollection, and if it were recollected, a portion only was recorded, and even if it
were recorded, only a part of the record survived, which only a portion got into the hands of a
historian and when it reaches a historian, only a part only could be grasped.
CHAPTER 2

Philippine Prehistory: Fact and Fiction? - Critique of Presumed Ancient Documents

The centerpiece of a historian's activity is the story. It has been estab-T lished in the
previous chapter that the re-created story is a product of the analysis of either primary or
secondary sources first examined as to its genuineness. This makes historical analysis and
historiographical reconstruction tedious and rigorous though what historians could account for
is only a minute of the totality of what happened for few of the elements of reconstruction
would have survived. This chapter presents artifacts that survived from our prehispanic past but
also lays down questions as some spurious materials that claims to be prehispanic sources
using historical analysis.

The Tabon Cave skull was ascertained by anthropologists as humans. The answers to
these questions prove they were.

Historical Context of the Documents

Hardly would you be excited to a movie which has no beginning, where the movie starts in
the middle and you are at a loss on how it will end. The beginning of the movie will dictate what
the middle will be and will present a logical progression of the story as it ends. This is true with
any history that concerns a group of people.

Philippine prehistory relies on theories since no one lived to recount how the islands
emerged and how the people in the islands began or even how they got here. Two theories
could give an account of how the islands emerged: a) the land bridge theory and b) the plate
tectonics theory.

The land bridge theory assumes that the islands were a product of high land elevations
connecting mainland Asia via islands in Indonesia. These are called land bridges for the
connections would permit travel from the islands to mainland Asia. During the last Ice Age, the
ice melted, sea water rose, flooding the low water elevations of these land bridges, leaving
behind the higher elevations that form the islands as they are now today. The theory, however,
was placed into question when a Fritjof Voss, a geologist, studied the islands and their
supposed connections to mainland Asia. He found out that the topographic strata of rocks and
soil are different in the islands and the mainland (Agoncillo and Guerrero, 1977, p.22).

The more accepted theory is the plate tectonics theory which assumes that the islands came
about by virtue of the rising terrestrial feature of the earth due to the collision of active plates
and the product of volcanic eruptions. This would presume that the earth is composed of large
cracks that move against each other and would still presuppose that the earth underneath is not
made up of solid substance but a jelly-like material that would permit the cracked solid crust of
the earth to move against each other. Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift was first
taunted when he hypothesized on it in 1912, where he argued that the earth was first made up
of a supercontinent called Pangaea

(Figure 2.2) which cracked and moved away like a jigsaw puzzle. But the
discovery of large lateral fractures on the ocean floor spewing volcanic
materials and forming one plate confirms the theory. It was also found
out that the plates are moving against each other.

One large plate along the Pacific is the Pacific ring of fire that crashes
against the South Asian plate. And along the collision of the plates lies
islands wherethe Philippines is located. Having known our geographic
origins, the next question to deal with is the issue of where the people in the islands come from.
Two theories will be presented here: a) the wave migration theory and b) the core population
theory.

Notice that the continents that we have now The earliest known scholar who are squeezed
in only one continent which classified Filipinos into special racial Dr. Wegener called a
supercontinent. The groupings was J. Montano in 1884-1885. supercontinent broke up millions
of years ago like Using anthropometric method, he pro- flakes, leaving behind cracks that move
against each other. posed that the inhabitants of the country could be grouped into Negritos,
Malays and Indonesians (Jocano, 1998, p.38).

It was this classification that Dr. H. Otley Beyer built on. In his wave migration theory, he
theorized that the inhabitants of the islands came as migrants in groups or waves. The first
migrants were the Negritos from somewhere in the Australian aboriginal region sometime
between 25,000 and 30,000 years ago, then came the seafaring Indonesian A at about 5,000 to
6,000 years ago, then the bark-garbed Indonesian B at about 1,500 BC, then the terrace-building
group at about 800 and 500BC, then the civilized Malays between 800 and 500 BC (Jocano,
1998, p. 43).

The basic problem of the theory is the lack of empirical evidence for which it rests, more
especially the dates of their emigration. No archeological or written record could account for
their coming. How Beyer could have thought of his theory could easily be understood. Beyer
spent most of his scholarly life in the Cordilleras. He was born on June 13, 1833 in Edgewood,
Iowa.

His first interest in the Philippines was sparked in 1904 when he visited the Philippine
exhibit in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated in Chemistry at Iowa State University, took up his
Master in Chemistry at the University of Denver and volunteered to go to the Philippines to avail
of the program to teach Filipinos during the American colonization. From there, he lived in the
Cordilleras with the Ifugaos and married Lingaya Gambuk, the daughter of an ugao chief. He
went back to the United States to pursue his doctoral studies in anthropology at Harvard
University and came back to the Philippines to lecture at the University of the Philippines. His
life was spent with the different ethnic groups of the Cordillera and the Cordillera was his
research area. The different ethnic groups have different features. The Ifugaos have distinct
features from other ethno linguistic groups like Ibaloys or Kankanaeys though they are living in
the same mountainous area with not much differences from topography and climate that would
permit the interaction of geographical and climatic differences from their anthropomorphic
features. There would only be one conclusion from those differences. That is migration. The
different groups came from somewhere else.

This theory coming from the father of Philippine anthropology was shaken with the
discovery of the Tabon Cave skull cap. The skull cap was discovered by local birds nest hunters
who chanced upon the skull and gave it to the National Museum whose chief anthropologist
was Dr. Robert B. Fox. Fox was born on May 11, 1918, in Galveston, Texas. He earned his
Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from the University of Southern California in 1941; his Master
in Arts in Anthropology from the University of Texas in 1944; and his Ph.D. in the same field
from the University of Chicago in 1954. His interest in the Philippines led him to work in the
National Museum in time when this great find landed on his assignment. When carbon dated,
the skull was as old as 22,000 to 24,000 years. Fox and his Filipino team excavated the Tabon
Cave from 1962 to 1966, which yielded tool implements and ashes within the same soil strata.

During the initial excavations of Tabon Cave, June and July 1962, the scattered fossil bones
of at least three individuals were excavated, including a large fragment of a frontal bone with the
brows and portions of the nasal bones. These fossil bones were recovered the rear of the cave
along the left wall. Unfortunately, the area which the human fossil bones were discovered had
been disturbed by Magapode birds. It was not possible in 1962 to establish association of these
bones with a specific flake assemblage. Although they were provisionally related to either Flake
Assemblage II or III, subsequent excavations in the same area now strongly suggest that the
fossil human bones were associated with Flake Assemblage III for only the flakes of this
assemblage have been found to date in this area of the cave. The available data would suggest
that Tabon man may be date from 22,000 to 24,000 years ago.

But only further excavations in the cave and chemical analysis of human and animal bones
from disturbed and undisturbed levels in the cave will define the exact age of the human fossils.
The fossil bones are those of Homo sapiens (Fox, 1970, p. 40).

Excavations also in Cagayan Valley yielded fossils of extinct animals and in Callao Cave, a
metatarsal of a far older Homo sapien was found, older than that of the Tabon Cave human.
This led Dr. F. Landa Jocano, one of Fox's associates in some archaeological diggings to
formulate the core population theory. Jocano was a born on February 5, 1930 in Cabuatan, Iloilo.
His educational background was as interesting as his career. He was a product of public school
in Iloilo but ran away to Manila for his parents could hardly support his schooling. He worked his
way to graduate at Arellano High School but went back to Iloilo to finish his Bachelor of Arts
degree in Central Philippine University in Iloilo in 1957.

It was in Iloilo when he got interested in Philippine folklore, which led him to write to Fox
who offered him a job at the National Museum as a janitor. But his typing skills were far better
useful than his cleaning skills that he became part of the museum's typing pool. This exposed
him to museum's data and led him to write about Philippine legends surrounding plant and
animal life, which were serialized in Manila Times and which the Department of Education got
interested to include them in their high school teaching supplement Diwang Kayumanggi. At this
point, he was promoted from being a janitor to research aid, to scientist. He got a grant to study
at the University of Chicago where he earned his masters and doctorate in anthropology. After a
few teaching stints while taking his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, he went back to the
Philippines to teach at the University of the Philippines. At that time, the Tabon Cave finds have
already been a breakthrough in Philippine anthropology.

Since bone fragments were also found in Java, Indonesia and Peking, China, with the same
age and features as that found in Tabon Cave, Jocano theorized that these people-groups
belong to one population, thus his core population theory.

It might be argued, on the basis of fossil evidence that premodern human represent the
core population in the area around which genetic accretions were superimposed, as later
groups of people trickled into the region, thus giving rise to new populations which we now
recognize as contemporary, Southeast Asians. The core population could have well evolved in
the region as evidenced by the presence of early human fossils in Java (Pithecanthropus
erectus) and of moderns ones in Niah and Tabon Caves (Homo sapiens sapien). However, the
continuity of the process has not yet been verified due to the lack of adequate data but the
evolutionary markers are present (Jocano, 1998, pp. 53-54).

If one migration theory is not enough, another migration theory was proposed in 1985 by
Peter Bellwood. Rather than migration, he coined it movement, and the movement did not
belong the Australoid-Sakai or Malay-Indonesian (Negrito-Malay-Indonesian migration) but by
the Austronesians, a people from Southern China who traveled via Taiwan and Batanes between
4,000 to 5,000 B.C. The same questions haunt this theory on the size of the movement to
influence the settlers as regards any physical evidence to account for its verification (Jocano,
1998, pp. 64-65).

How the wave migration theory forced itself into academic discussion was not only due to
Dr. Beyer's stature but because of a document which was thought of as the star evidence to
support the wave migration theory. The document was today known as the Maragtas tale. The
document came in two versions. Fr. Tomas Santaren while he was serving in Januay, Iloilo in
1858 wrote the Spanish version which was published as an appendix to Fr. Angel Perez's book
Igorotes studio geografica sobre algunos distrito del norte de Luzon. Pedro Monteclaro wrote it
in Hiligaynon in 1901 which he published in 1909 (Jocano, 1998, p. 66). Beyer acknowledged the
authenticity of the document and Prof.

Gregorio Zaide, a known historian, reinforced its claim when he acknowledged that the
datus whose names appeared in the tale have genealogic evidences in the island of Borneo
where the datus were believed to have originated.
 This document fell in the hands of Dr. William Henry Scott, a historian who despised to be
called an anthropologist. Scott was born on July 10, 1921 in Detroit, Michigan to a Protestant
family. His interest in archeology came when he earned a scholarship in an Episcopalian-
affiliated Cranbrook School in Michigan. He was not able to pursue his interest yet when he
joined the U.S.

Navy in 1942 and fought during the Second World War until 1946. He joined the
Episcopalian mission in China where he taught and studied in Shanghai, Yangchow and Beijing
until 1949. He was a victim of alien deportation from China after it fell in the hands of the
communists in 1949. He then went to Yale University in 1951 where he enrolled in Chinese
language and literature and took up his masters in Columbia University. He was recalled back to
military service during the Korean War (1950- 1953) and after less than a year of service, he
tried to go back to his teaching career, this time, in Japan, but opportunities presented to him
were in the Philippines instead, where he was assigned in St. Mary's School in Sagada in Mt.
Province under the Episcopalian mission.

There he taught English and history. In his stay in the Philippines, he earned his Ph.D. at the
University of Santo Tomas where his dissertation Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of
Philippine History was published in 1968. This book was revised in 1984, incorporating more
assumed prehispanic materials that he debunked, including the Maragtas tale and the Code of
Kalantiaw.

The Maragtas tale is actually the story of the Ten Bornean Datus, who fled from Borneo to
escape from the cruel Sultan Makatunaw. Sailing on a vessel called Balangay (the root word for
the term Barangay) with their expedition leader Datu Puti, they reached the island of Panay
where they met a Negrito chieftain Marikudu. They offered a golden salakot to his wife
Maniwantiwan.

From then on, they were permitted to permanently inhabit in the island of Panay while the
Negritos relocated to the mountains. Datu Sumakwel, now their leader and Datus Bangkaya,
Paiburong, Padohinog, Dumangsol, Dumalogdog, and Lubay and their families remained in the
island while Datus Balensula and Dumangsol chose another settlement and stayed in Taal,
Batangas. Content with the settlement of his fellow datus, Datu Puti went back to Borneo. The
descendant of Datu Sumakwel was Datu Kalantiaw of Panay. During his rule, he enforced a code
of rules that specified civil behavior, formulation of laws and the administration of justice.
Taken for their worth, these documents that seemed to be primary sources, which when
authenticated, are the pieces of evidence to support the wave migration theory in utmost detail.
The Code of Kalantiaw, on the other hand, would document the level of civilization the settlers
would have developed. The set of laws was translated and was published between 1903 to
1909 in English by the former director of National Library and Museum Dr. James A. Robertson.
The Monteclaro documents and the Povedano manuscripts which were analyzed in this chapter,
emerged during early 1900s at a time when the Filipino academic community was longing for
proof of prehispanic culture which could prove that the Filipino were "civilized" prior to the
coming of Spain. Politically, since the beginning of 1900s when the Philippines was under the
Americans, ancient manuscripts and artifacts of prehispanic origin, once proven genuine, would
provide the archeological and historical link of where we could have originated prior to the
coming of Spain, debunking the professed ideas of Spanish colonizers that we were once
uncivilized until they came. The Americans, however, as the new colonizer could also pin down
the former colonizer with this malicious label having propagated that the Spanish missionaries
were responsible for the burning and destruction of ancient records branded by them as
paganistic. Thus, when these alleged ancient manuscripts came in the open, even by just
portraying the life and local history of Panay and Negros, Robertson was so excited to have
accepted them as important finds, took photographs of them and took the reproductions to the
United States universities where Asian and Philippine studies as a discipline had its home. The
Code of Kalantiaw is one of Robertson's translations and here are a few of the laws:

I. Ye shall not kill. Neither shall ye do hurt to the aged; lest ye incur the danger of death. All
those who infringe this order shall be condemned to death by being drowned with stones
in the river, or in boiling water.

II. Ye shall obey. Let all your debts with the headmen (principales) be met punctually. He
who does not obey [shall receive] for the first time one hundred lashes. If the debt is
large, [he shall be condemned] to be beaten to death.

III. Obey. Let no one have women that are very young; nor more than he can support; nor be
given to excessive lust. He who does not comply with, obey, and observe [this order]
shall be condemned to swim for three hours for the first time], and for the second time,
to be beaten to death with sharp thorns; or for the second time, [he shall be| lacerated
with thorns.

IV. Observe and obey ye. Let no one disturb the quiet of graves. When passing by the caves
and trees where they are, give respect to them. He who does not observe this [order]
shall be killed by ants, or beaten with thorns until he dies.

V. Ye shall obey. He who [makes] exchanges for food, let it be always done. in accordance
with his word. He who does not comply, shall be beaten for one hour, he who repeats
[the offense] shall be exposed for one day among ants. (Morrow, 2003)

These supposedly ancient documents that would paint our prehispanic past were re-visited
and re-examined by Scott on his way towards earning his Ph.D.

His work Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History was an
outstanding execution of how historical analysis is done using both external and internal
criticisms. And talking of historical analysis, Gottschalk provides the rudiments of how it is done.
Gottschalk on Historical Method and Historiography

In the creative reconstruction of the past's story, a historian has two weapons in his or her
arsenal: historical analysis and historiography. Historical analysis is a method characterized
with four procedures:

a) selection of subject,

b) collection of sources,

c) determination of the sources' genuineness,

d) extraction of credible particulars from these sources.

If a historian's data are relics of the past, he or she is then confronted with two kinds of
sources: primary and secondary. A primary source is the testimony of an eyewitness or of a
witness by any other ... that is one who or that which was present at the events of which he or it
tells. A secondary source is the testimony of anyone who is not an eyewitness — that is one
who was not present at the events of which he tells. A primary source can also be an original
source. An original source is one which is unpolished, uncopied, untranslated as it emanated
from the hands of the author (Gottschalk, 1969, pp. 52-54). A handwritten letter is an original
source. A holographic or photocopy of it is still a primary source but not an original one.
Whether a primary or secondary source, the data would have to be subjected into historical
criticism both external in order to ascertain its genuineness and internal in order to establish its
credibility.

Let us say a historian would like to write the history of a lighthouse. He was able to get hold
of three documents, one originates from a government's maritime archive detailing the one who
built the lighthouse, when it was built and under what administration the lighthouse was
constructed. The government document also specifies the details of the engineering and
electrical details of the structure. Another document was a diary written by a caretaker
commissioned by the government to maintain and guard the lighthouse. These are all primary
sources. The last document is an essay about the experiences of the community that sprang
near the lighthouse taken from other documentary sources. This essay is a secondary source.
All of the three documents have to be subjected to external criticism which is the determination
whether they are authentic or not. Government data, taken from archive, if all the more
authenticated by the government office would establish authenticity no less. The essay if
published can be double checked with the publisher marked with a copyright notice. But the
diary is a different matter. The need to establish authenticity is a matter of ruling out if it is a
fabrication, a forgery or a fake. Even if it is not forgery or a fabrication, then is it truthful on what
it claims to be that it was written really by the one who indicates it was lest it is a
misrepresentation or someone else did the writing and indicates it was an original of the author.
In order to establish authenticity or satisfy the rigor of external criticism (Gottschalk, 1969, pp.
122-123) gives a few hints:
 a) the provenance or the origin of the document

b) the indicated date when the document was written

c) the author's handwriting or signature,

d) the anachronistic style of the author, his use of words, idioms, punctuation, semantics,

e) anachronistic references to events.

A document tells of a story, but how another person got hold of this surviving document is
another story. Thus while a document tells of a narrative, how the document survived is a
different story all together. This is provenance that has to be established. The inclusive date
when the document was written produced, together with anachronistic references to events,
would somehow indicate its authenticity.

The date when it was written may be too early or too late, as when calculated the indication
of when it was written may place the author as too young or too old, or references as to the
events may place such writing too remote. The author may claim he wrote the document, for
example, at a time of the First World War, but when timelined, the date of the writing would
suggest it was in 1898, the year when the First World War had not yet happened. The
anachronistic styles of the handwriting and signature are best aided by graphology but its
peculiar use of words, idioms and semantics would indicate the author's authentic claim. If the
document passes the external criticism test, internal criticism comes in next. Internal criticism
is the process of establishing the credibility of the material based on a few tests:

a) verisimilitude (very similar) or its high degree of similarity to other existing materials

b) the author's mental processes

c) the author's ability and willingness to tell the truth, c) if it can be corroborated with other
testimonies or materials (Gottschalk, 1969, pp. 144-170).

A high degree of similarity with other materials may tell us that the author intentionally took
his claim from some other materials which he or she misrepresents as his own without
sourcing it from where the author got it. The identification of the author is crucial if he or she is
credible to write about the event, or that if he or she really wrote it, is his or her mental
processes still lucid and clear. The eyewitness of the event may have started to write his version
of the event when he or she was in his or her old age. Without any notes to refer from, many of
his recounting of the events may have been lost. The eyewitness may also have other intention
other than simply narrating his or her version of the event, that is he or she may be covering up
or exonerating himself or herself of some sensitive details of the event. The motivation or
objective of the author should be placed in scrutiny. The author may have other purposes than
to simply tell the truth but to project himself as great or that his or her biases could be a major
factor behind his or her disclosure of the events that transpired. Here is where the ability to tell
the truth comes into question. An author may have to wait for some time to write and publish
his or her account of an event, perhaps, due to old wounds that needed to heal. Here is where
the willingness to tell the truth comes in. Corroboration with other accounts, however, would put
more credibility to the claim of the author's version of the event.

From these documents that passed both authenticity (external criticism) and credibility
(internal criticism) tests, a historian combs through the documents in search of relevant
particulars (Gottschalk, 1969, p. 144). Passing both tests would elevate the document and the
claims that it consists to be historical facts. Thus, one or a few details in the document may not
be credible but that does not mean that the document would have to be thrown away.

There could be other particulars in the document that are worth salvaging in order to move
on to the next process. That is historiography. Historiography is the imaginative reconstruction
of the past (Gottschalk, 1969, pp. 46-50). It is a creative retelling of the narrative or what took
place in the past based on historical facts. Thus the story that is produced is not a work of
fiction but based on observables or empirical evidences. What if the document is authentic (it
passes external criticism) but there is a problem with the author's credibility (internal criticism in
question)?

(Sottschalk, 1969, p. 144) responds: "for each particular of a document the process of
establishing credibility should be separately undertaken regardless of the general credibility of
the author.'

Debunking the Maragtas Tale and the Code of Kalantiaw

Path-breaking in the use of internal and external criticisms in historical analysis is the work
of Scott, Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine Prehistory.

The Story of the Ten Bornean Datus or the Maragtas Tale was accepted as historical fact
among the academic circles when it was introduced in 1918 by Robertson until 1984 when the
book by Scott went off the press, though expunging it from history books took a long while due
to institutional and academic hurdles. The popularity of the Code of Kalantiaw even made it to
the list of honorary awards given to judges during the time of President Ferdinand Marcos
(Justiniano, 2011, pp. 20-22).

Maragtas in Visayan dialect as used in the book means an account or tale though it was
more known to be the title of the book which Pedro Monteclaro wrote as a translation of the tale
originally written in Hiligaynon according to him. Scott began his examination of the document
by examining the author.

Pedro Monteclaro was born in Miag-ao, Iloilo on 15 October 1850, graduated from the
Seminario Colegio de Jaro in 1865, was twice married, and had five children. He served as
Teniente Mayor in 1891, and Gobernadorcillo in 1892-1894, and became a local hero during the
Revolution and the American invasion both for his leadership and diplomacy. He served as
Liaison Officer during the American occupation of the area, and was the first President of Miag-
ao (1901-1903), during which period he began the researches which resulted in his publication
of the Maragtas. He was also known as a poet in both the vernacular and Spanish, and a few of
his Visayan songs have survived. He died on

13 April 1909, and is memorialized in the name of the local Philippine Constabulary base,
Camp Monteclaro, at whose gate his statue stands (Scott, 1984, p. 91).

Monteclaro's background would indicate that he was a native of Panay Island where the
supposed Maragtas document was found. He knew the dialect of the town and since he was
educated in a seminary, it would suggest he was also well-versed in Spanish. This would
indicate that he had the skill in translating the document. Being a public official from the
Spanish period until the American occupation, it would be clear that he knew the town very well,
even the old town folks. The next consideration was where Monteclaro got the document.

Provenance - Consideration of the provenance of the Maragtas must begin with the
author's own statement as set forth in its "Foreword to the Readers," which is here quoted in full
I wrote this Maragtas, a history of the first inhabitants of the island of Panay, with great
reluctance for fear I might be considered too presumptuous. I would therefore have refrained
from writing it but for my burning desire to reveal to the public the many data which I gathered
from the records about the first inhabitants of the island of Panay, the arrival of Datus from
Borneo, their possession and settlement of our land, their spread to different parts of the Island,
and their customs and habits until the Spaniards came and ruled the Philippines.

In order that the readers of this Maragtas should not accuse me of having merely
composed this book from imagination, I wish to mention two manuscripts I found. One of these
was given to me by an 82-year-old man, who had been the first teacher of the town and who
said it had been given him by his father who, in turn, got it from his father, the old man's
grandfather. The long years through which the manuscript must have passed wore out the
paper so much that it was almost impossible to handle. Worse yet, it was only written in a black
dye and smeared with sap which had burned the paper and made it almost useless. The other
manuscript I found in a bamboo tube where my grandfather used to keep his old papers. This
manuscript, however, was hardly legible at all, and was so brittle I could hardly handle it without
tearing it to pieces. Having located one manuscript, I concluded there would most likely be
another copy somewhere, so I decided to inquire of different old men and women of the town.

My search was not in vain for I then came across the afore-mentioned old man in the street,
who even gave me the manuscripts dealing with what happened in the town of Miag-ao from the
time of its foundation. I copied these records in a book on

12 June 1901, as a memoir for the town of Miag-ao, but did not publish them for the
reasons stated. Besides, I was waiting for someone better qualified to write a history of the
Island of Panay from the time of its first inhabitants. I should like my readers to know that my
purpose in writing this Maragtas is not to gain honor for myself but to transmit to others what I
read in the records I collected (Scott, 1984, pp. 92-93).

From the foreword of his book, Monteclaro was caught like a fish with the hook in its mouth.
How could he have translated two documents which was hardly legible? How could he have
unfolded a document which had long stayed rolled in a bamboo when doing so was already
breaking the brittle pages? How could he have read it if it could hardly be unrolled? His going
around the town and talking with old folks to complete the details of those in the document that
he could hardly read would tell us one thing. The whole story of the emigration of the nine
Bornean datus was not at all a translation of the original prehispanic document but simply a folk
tale coming from whom he consulted with. It is not a historical fact after all.

The juicy part of the Maragtas is in Chapter, 3 which was the story of Datu Sumakwel and
his wife Kapinangan who had an extramarital affair with Gurung-gurung. Datu Sumakwel, at one
time, had become suspicious of his wite that he devised a plan to catch them one the at. While
holding on to his speat, he hid at the attic and waited for the two lovers to do their thing. It out,
suggest that Gurung gurung was already ying in bed with Kapinangan, wheld sau sumakwel
threw his spear on top any times have tola pinangan s lovet as Kapinangan remarked, "Ah, how
many times have I told Sumakwel noteto leave that spear up there where it might fall down and
hurt somebody!" Scott, 1984, p. 94) The filted husband ordered Gurung-gurung's body cut up
while Kapinangan was exiled in an island rather be killed as he was overtaken by pity. Datu
Sumakwel eventually grew lonely that at one visit to the island he found a beautiful woman by
the name of Aloyon whom he did not recognize was his former wife. They reunited and lived
happily. Datu Sumakwel's story was important for from the husband and wife's lineage would be
born Kalanti-aw from whom the code of laws would emerge. Reading 2.1 is an article written by
Paul Morrow about the Code of Kalantiaw, how it was found to be a hoax and how it was able to
creep into Philippine historiography. Paul Morrow is a columnist in the Pilipino Express a Filipino
news magazine published in Canada.

READING 2.1 Kalantiaw: The Hoax

Extract from "Kalantiaw: The Hoax," Sarisari, etc. Copyright © 2008 by Paul Morrow, Reprinted
with permission by Paul Morrow

The story of Datu Kalantiaw is often assumed to be just one of the legends contained in an
ancient and mysterious document called the Maragtas. However, the Maragtas was actually just
a book written in 1907 by Pedro Monteclaro in which he compiled the local legends of the
Visayas from mainly oral traditions and a few written documents that were fairly modern in their
origins. Monteclaro never mentioned a chief by the name of Kalantiaw in the Maragtas.

Some of the Maragtas legends have long been a part of Visayan folklore and they are a
source of fierce pride for many Visayans today. The stories of the ten datus or chiefs have been
told for generations and they are perfectly believable, as far as legends go, if we put aside the
modern additions such as obviously phoney "original" manuscripts and the use of precise but
utterly uncorroborated dates from the pre-colonial era. After all, it is not hard to believe that
exiles could have sailed from Borneo to settle in Panay.

Why not? Even though there are no ancient documents to show that Chief Sumakwel and
his followers actually existed, there is much archaeological and foreign documentary evidence
of regular trade and travel at that time between the Philippines and its neighbours.

But while Monteclaro's misguided ethnic pride, and the blatant dishonesty of other writers
who further embellished his work, blurred the line between legends and hard historical facts, the
story of Kalantiaw is more alarming because he was never a part of Philippine history or legend.
Kalantiaw was an utter hoax from the beginning.

The Incredible Code of Kalantiaw

Throughout the latter half of the 20th century Filipino students were taught about the
vicious and bizarre laws that were said to have been enacted by one Datu Kalantiaw in the year
1433 on the island of Panay. Many of his commandments contradicted one another and his
punishments were extremely brutal, usually having no relation to the severity of the crime
committed. Offences to the law ranged from as light as singing at night to as grave as murder.
Those convicted supposedly were made slaves, beaten, lashed, stoned, had fingers cut off, were
exposed to ants, drowned, burned, boiled, chopped to pieces, or fed to crocodiles.

So, why should we not believe this story that has been taught as history for so many years
in Filipino schools? There are three good reasons.

The first reason is the lack of historical evidence. There are simply no written or pictorial
documents from that time in Philippine history. There are no documents from other countries
that mention the great Kalantiaw either. There is also no evidence that Philippine culture ever
spawned such a barbaric set of laws. The early Spanish accounts tell us that Filipino custom at
that time allowed even the most serious lawbreakers to pay a fine or be placed into servitude for
a time in cases of debt. As the missionary Francisco Colín wrote in 1663:

In the punishment of crimes of violence the social rank of the slayer and slain made a great
deal of difference. If the slain was a chief, all his kinsfolk took the warpath against the slayer
and his kinfolk, and this state of war continued until arbiters were able to determine the amount
of gold which had to be paid for the killing... The death penalty was not imposed by public
authority save in cases where both the slayer and slain were commoners, and the slayer could
not pay the blood price.

Arbitration is still the custom of those Philippine cultures that were never conquered by the
Spaniards. The second reason is the lack of evidence for a Kalantiaw legend. Many ardent
admirers of the Datu, who disdain all historical evidence to the contrary, claim that he has long
been a part of Visayan culture and heritage. This is simply not true. The Spaniards never
recorded any Filipino legend about Kalantiaw. If they were aware of such a legend they had no
reason to suppress it because those Spaniards who were sympathetic to the Filipinos could
have presented the mere existence of the Code as proof that their ancestors were civilized, just
as many Filipinos do today, while detractors could have pointed to the maniacal Datu himself as
proof of their savagery - even though his methods of torture were no more sadistic than those
of the Spanish Inquisition.

It is certain that there were no legends of Kalantiaw before the 20th century. The Aklanon
historian Digno Alba was a young man at the start of that century. He looked for Kalantiaw in
local folklore in the 1950s but did not find him. On May 5, 1967, historian William H. Scott wrote
to Alba and asked him: When you were a child, Don Digno, did not the old folks of Aklan have
stories about Kalantiaw even before the discovery of the Paón documents in 1913? Were there
no popular legends or folklore that the elders told their grandchildren?

To which Alba replied in a letter from Kalibo, Aklan dated May 15, 1967: I had tried to get
stories or legends from the present generations of Aklanons living in Batan... but not one old
man can tell me now.

The third and most important reason to reject the Kalantiaw myth is its source. If Kalantiaw
was not a historical figure or a legendary character, where did he come from? Many writers on
this subject didn't bother to mention where they obtained their information. Some, like Digno
Alba, simply created "facts" from thin air. The ultimate origin of Kalantiaw was traced by William
Scott back to a single person who definitely did not live in the 1400s. He was José E. Marco of
Pontevedra, Negros Occidental and in 1913 he claimed to have discovered the Paón documents
that were mentioned in Scott's letter to Digno Alba. These documents, which contain the Code
of Kalantiaw, were in fact Marco's own creation. Kalantiaw eventually became the most
successful of many hoaxes in Marco's career of almost 50 years as a forgery and fraud.

The Origin of Kalantiaw and the Paón Manuscripts

Kalantiaw's name first appeared in print in July of 1913 in an article entitled Civilización
prehispana published in Renacimiento Filipino. The article mentioned 16 laws enacted by King
Kalantiaw in 1433 and a fort that he built at Gagalangin, Negros, which was destroyed by an
earthquake in the year A.D. 435 (not 1435). The article was written by Manuel Artigas who, only
a year before, had provided the footnotes to a poorly written essay by José Marco, Reseña
historica de la Isla de Negros.

More details about Kalantiaw emerged a year later, in 1914, when José Marco donated five
manuscripts to the Philippine Library & Museum. Among the documents was Las antiguas
leyendes de la Isla de Negros, a two volume leather bound work that was supposedly written by
a Friar José María Pavón in 1838 and 1839. The Code of Kalantiaw, in chapter 9 of part 1, was
one of six translated documents that were dated before the arrival of the Spaniards in the
Philippines. The original Code was purportedly discovered in the possession of a Panay datu in
1614. At the time of Pavón's writing in 1839 it was supposedly owned by a Don Marcelio Orfila
of Zaragoza. In 1966 the Philippine government asked the government of Spain for the return of
the original Code of Kalantiaw by the descendants of Marcelio Orfila but the Police
Commissioner there could not find any record of that family in the city of Zaragoza.

For several decades José Marco didn't explain, at least in writing, where he got Friar
Pavón's manuscripts but it seems that he had a ready explanation to tell privately. The
anthropologist and historian Henry Otley Beyer related this story to his colleague, Mauro Garcia,
in the early 1950s. As the story goes, Pavón was the priest in the town of Himamaylan, Negros
in the 1840s.

When that town was looted during the revolution in 1899, Marco's father was among some
looters who had stolen what they thought was a chest of coins or jewelry but when it was
accidentally dropped in the river it became so heavy that they realized that it was full of papers,
which were apparently the Pavón manuscripts. However if this story was true, José Marco
would have had to explain why he didn't use this wealth of information or even mention these
documents when he wrote his Reseña Historica in 1912. Perhaps Marco saw the flaw in his
story so, when he explained the origin of the manuscripts to the Philippine Studies Program at
the University of Chicago in 1954, he said that he had got them from an old cook who once
worked at the convent in Himamaylan where Paón had lived. It was this old cook, he said, who
had stolen the manuscripts during the looting and then, evidently, sold them to Marco in 1913.

Mistakes in the Pavón Manuscript

Aside from the doubtful origin of the Code of Kalantiaw and Pavón's Leyendes, which
contains it, these documents themselves are both highly suspicious. The title of the Code is The
17 theses, or laws of the Regulos [Datus] in use in 150 since 1433 (sic) but there are actually 18
laws listed, which cover approximately forty different offences, and not 16 laws as reported by
Artigas in 1913. And of course, the dates in the title make no sense.

In the 1800s it was still common to abbreviate dates by omitting the first one or two digits
of a year but never the final digits. Therefore the number 150 was not a contraction of the year
1500. It could only mean 1150, which is just as nonsensical as 150. The second chapter in part
two of Leyendes tells about the building of Kalantiaw's fortress in 433. Although this number is
a correct abbreviation of 1433, the same year in which Kalantiaw allegedly wrote his laws, the
document that shows that date was supposedly written in the year 1137! In spite of the fact that
ancient Filipinos had no clocks or a measure of time equal to one hour, Kalantiaw's third law
condemns a man to swim for three hours if he cannot afford to care for his wives, while his fifth
law metes out the punishment of a one hour lashing.

Improbable dates are typical of all the documents that José Marco claimed to have
discovered. The presumed author of Leyendes, José María Paón, translated the Code of
Kalantiaw and five other pre-Hispanic documents, but he did not explain how he had calculated
their dates. He himself even wrote that the ancient Visayans did not keep track of the years for
any extended length of time, yet his "exact" translation of a document that was supposedly
written in 1489, decades before western culture made contact with the Philippines, mentioned
the "first Friday of the year" and years with "three numbers alike, as for instance 1777". It also
mentioned coins of King Charles V of Spain who was not even born until the year 1500. And the
anachronisms are not limited to the pre-Hispanic documents.

Pavón was just as confused about his own era. Upon completing his masterwork, Paón
dedicated Leyendes to the King of Spain on August 1, 1839. Spain had no king at that time; the 8
year old child Queen Isabella II had held the throne since 1833 under the regency of her mother,
Maria Christina. There was no king again until 1874.

When Pavón described an ancient Visayan calendar in 1838-39 he happened to write that
November was called "a bad month, for it brought air laden with putrefied microbes of evil
fevers". The word microbe was not invented until 1878 and Louis Pasteur only developed his
theory that infectious germs could be transmitted through the air in the 1850s.

Pavón included the pre-Hispanic Visayan alphabet that Fr. Francisco Deza had supposedly
recorded in 1543 but he was not born until in 1620. Another document was signed by Deza on
March 23, 14, which was either six years before his birth or 94 years after, depending on which
century was intended for the year?? 14. That same document was stamped, "Parish of Ilog of
Occidental Negros" with a note, R.S. in the province and town above named on the twenty Erst
of the month of July in the year 17..." There was no province of Negros Occidental in those
centuries or in Pavón's time. The island of Negros was not divided until 1890.

The examples of ancient Visayan writing in Leyendes looked very similar to others that
were allegedly discovered by José Marco and they contained the same mistakes. Even though
the ancient Filipino letters were used in these documents, the words were not written in the
syllabic method of the Philippines but were spelled phonetically in the Spanish style. That is to
say, it seemed that each Spanish letter was merely substituted by an ancient Filipino letter.

This is wrong because in all other forms of ancient Filipino and Malaysian writing, each
letter represented a complete syllable whereas Spanish letters (our modern letters) represent
only basic sounds. Also, there were no marks above or below the letters to indicate vowels other
than "A" and there was no character for the "NGA" syllable. It was substituted by a combination
of the letters "N" and "G" with a large Spanish tilde (~) placed above! In short, pre-colonial
Filipino authors supposedly wrote in ancient Filipino letters but applied to them Spanish spelling
conventions in an era before any Spaniard had set foot in the Philippines.

Pavón's own writing was also curious. The title pages of Leyendes were obviously hand
drawn but made to look as though they were printed text. Various type styles were mixed and
the uppercase "T's were even dotted. (As in the example shown above.) The spelling throughout
the two volumes of Leyendes was also erratic. The spelling in volume 1, which was written in
1838, was similar to spelling of the 1500s. For the second volume in 1839, Pavón wrote that he
had adopted the "many changes in spelling" contained in the latest dictionary of the Spanish
Royal Academy and indeed the style of volume 2 was proper for that time, though not
consistent with that dictionary. However Pavón did not explain how he was able to employ these
new spellings in a document he wrote back in 1837 when he did not yet know about them in
1838. That document was Brujerías y los Cuentos de Fantasmas and it was also "discovered" by
José Marco.

Who was José María Pavón?

Friar José María Pavón y Araguro acknowledged many sources of information for his'
books: untraceable informants, unknown documents and authors who were already deceased or
not even born yet or who, due to other circumstances, could not have written the documents
that were ascribed to them. Thus, it is no small coincidence that Pavón's own life story, as
described in his manuscripts, was equally dubious. Pavón claimed that he arrived in the
Philippines in 1810 but there are no records to support this. He also wrote that he had lived in
the convent of his parish of Himamaylan since at least July 17, 1830 but according to the Libro
de Cosas notables of Himamaylan, he actually took charge of that parish 12 years later on
September 7, 1842. He wrote that he completed Las Antiguas Leyendes in Himamaylan in 1839,
which was the same year the Guía de Forasteros listed him as a Professor of Syntax and
Rhetoric at the seminary in Cebu. This is the earliest known record of the real José María Pavón.

The Guía de Forasteros or "Foreigner's Guide" contained a directory of various government

officials and it was released annually during the Spanish era. It always listed Paón with a "D."
(For "Don") before his name, which meant that he was a secular priest. But Paón, the author,
often signed his name as "Fray Jose Maria Pavon"", which implied that he, was a friar in a
religious order. He even mentioned taking a trip to Borneo with some "companions of the habit".
Paón claimed that he was a schoolboy in 1788 in Seville, Spain. One of his supposed
classmates at that time was Fray Jorge G. de Setién who was also mentioned in José Marco's
Reseña histórica as the author of a travel book about the Philippines in 1779. If we suppose that
Setién was a very precocious infant in 1779, he and Paón were no younger than 9 years of age in
1788. This would have made Pavón at least 87 years old in 1866 when he was known to be the
parish priest of Cebu.

It is obvious that the real José María Paón did not write the Pavón manuscripts. It is more
likely that his name was simply plucked from the records of history to be used in a very
ambitious but clumsy hoax.
Embellishments to the Myth

The Kalantiaw hoax was created by José Marco but it soon took on a life of its own. Frauds
and scholars alike began to build a history on the foundation of his artificial legend. Marco and
Kalantiaw instantly attained a veneer of legitimacy when Dr. James A. Robertson acquired the
new "discoveries" for the Philippine Library and Museum in 1914. On July 20, 1915, Robertson
submitted a paper about the Kalantiaw Code to the Panama-Pacific Historical Congress in
California and then published an English translation of the Code in 1917.

In that same year a Spanish version of the Code was published and discussed by Josué
Soncuya in six chapters of his Historia Prehispana. Soncuya, a native of Banga, Aklan, bestowed
upon the great lawmaker the title "Rajah Kalantiaw" and he concluded that the Code was written
for Aklan, Panay and not Negros because he had spotted two Aklanon words in the text.

He overlooked the fact that the title of the book that told the tales of Kalantiaw was The
Ancient Legends of the Island of Negros and that it was supposedly written on that island by
José Paón whose manuscripts were allegedly discovered there by José Marco, a native of
Negros, and according to those manuscripts, Kalantiaw built his fortress on the island of Negros.
Nevertheless, the Kalantiaw legend was successfully transplanted into the soil of Panay.
Perhaps his devotees thought that the better fertilized land of the Maragtas legends would
provide him a little more credibility. In 1949 Gregorio Zaide included the Kalantiaw Code in his
Philippine Political and Cultural History with the words "Aklan, Panay" attached to the title. And
even though Digno Alba could find no evidence for Kalantiaw as a legend, he declared in his
book Paging Datu Kalantiaw (1956) that the Datu had set up his government in Batan and made
it the capital of the sakup of Aklan. On December 8, 1956, a historical marker was erected in
Batan in honour of Kalantiaw. In the following year, 1957, a former school building in the town
was converted into the Kalantiaw Shrine by the Philippine Historical and Cultural Society and the
Code of Kalantiaw was later inscribed there in brass. The museum even boasts an "original
manuscript" of the Code.

In 1966 Sol H. Gwekoh released new details in the Sunday Times about the life of Datu
Bendahara Kalantiaw, son of Rajah Behendra Gulah. He was born in 1410 and became the third
Muslim ruler in Panay at the age of 16. Kalantiaw is thought by many to belong to a long
genealogy of Muslim rulers but it is clearly evident in his own Code that he was not even a
Muslim. He was an animist. His Code punished offences against anitos, diwatas, venerated
trees and animals, and clay idols. Aside from this, it is slightly ironic that Gwekoh gave the
exalted Datu the name "Bendahara" because it is actually an old Visayan word, which means
"prime minister" or second in power to the top datu. It has a similar meaning in modern Malay.

Other unidentified writers are often quoted throughout the Internet for many contradicting
stories about Kalantiaw. Some maintain that he was not only the third ruler of Panay, but that he
was also the third in a dynasty of rulers named Kalantiaw. His father was not Rajah Gulah but
King Kalantiaw I who captured the town of Batan in 1399 with Chinese adventurers. Incredible
though it may seem, the elder Kalantiaw I gave his name to both his sons, Kalantiaw II and
Kalantiaw III. Kalantiaw II was not the father of the more famous Kalantiaw III but his brother!
Even harder to believe is that there is an exact date for when Kalantiaw III supposedly issued his
famous commandments - December 8, 1433. Many more stories abound about the life, the
loves, the battles, the duels and the death of Kalantiaw. The title of his Code simply called him
Kalantiaw, the 3rd "regulo" or "petty king"

Kalantiaw was honoured by the Philippine Navy in December 1967 when it acquired the
World War II destroyer escort USS Booth from the United States and recommissioned it the RPS
Datu Kalantiaw. It was lost during typhoon Clara on September 20, 1981.

In 1970 the popular historian Gregorio Zaide speculated in Great Filipinos in History that
Kalantiaw's real name was Lakan Tiaw or "Chief of Brief Speech". Lakan is a common prefix to
Tagalog names that once meant "paramount ruler". Incredibly Zaide even reproduced a direct
quote from the noble king, "The law is above all men." However the most shocking aspect of
Zaide's claims was that he wrote them while knowing full well that the Kalantiaw legend was
proved decisively to be a hoax two years earlier.

The History of Kalantiaw Refuted

José Marco continued to produce forgeries almost until his death in 1963 but with ever
diminishing success. By the 1950s genuine scholars could no longer take him seriously and
despite Kalantiaw's growing renown, a new generation of academics began to question the
dogma of a half century of Philippine historiography.

In 1965, William Henry Scott was a doctoral candidate at the University of Santo Tomas
when the bibliographer Mauro Garcia suggested that for his thesis he examine the history of the
Philippines before the arrival of the Spaniards. Garcia had received several fake documents
from José Marco in the past, which made him suspicious of Marco's first discoveries upon
which so much early history was based. He only showed a few of these forgeries to Scott so as
not to prejudice his research, saving the most blatant fakes until after Scott had formed his own
conclusions about Marco's work.

Scott focused his investigation by tracing the original source of every single reference to
the pre-Hispanic history of the Philippines in the four standard college text books in use at that
time. He examined the original documents and searched archives and museums the world over
for supporting documents and artefacts. He questioned the top historians of the day about their
sources of information. He interviewed the friends and colleagues of Jose E. Marco and he
examined their correspondence with him. In the matter of Kalantiaw, all the information was
traced back to a single source; José E. Marco. Scott summarized the results of his painstaking
investigation in just two sentences:
 The José E. Marco contributions to Philippine historiography... appear to be deliberate
fabrications with no historic validity. There is therefore no present evidence that any Filipino
ruler by the name of Kalantiaw ever existed or that the Kalantiaw penal code is any older than
1914. Scott successfully defended his thesis before a panel of eminent Filipino historians, some
of whom had formerly endorsed many of the facts of Philippine history that he had proved false.
The panel included Teodoro Agoncillo, Horacio de la Costa, Marcelino Forondo, Mercedes Grau
Santamaria, Nicholas Zafra, and Gregorio Zaide. Scott's meticulous research was published in
1968 in his book Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History and since then
no historian has contested his conclusions.

The Die-Hard Lie

William H. Scott's exposé did not have an immediate effect on Filipino society. On March 1,
1971, President Ferdinand Marcos instituted the "Order of Kalantiaw", an award "for services to
the country in the areas of law and justice" (Executive Order No. 294). That same year a beauty
pageant winner was crowned Lakambini ni Kalantiaw on the supposed anniversary of the Code
(December 8), and the artist Carlos Valino Jr. depicted Kalantiaw issuing his commandments.
On January 24, 1973, Marcos also issued Presidential Decree No. 105, which declared that the
Kalantiaw Shrine, and all national shrines, were sacred. The decree prohibited all forms of
desecration including "unnecessary noise and committing unbecoming acts" Like Kalantiaw's
Code, the penalty was hefty; "imprisonment for not less than ten (10) years or a fine not less
than ten thousand pesos (P10, 000) or both."

Some Filipino historians had already discarded the Kalantiaw legend even before Scott's
thesis was published. His irrefutable proof subsequently convinced even the foremost
historians to reject it completely. However, one astonishing exception was Gregorio F. Zaide, the
author of countless school textbooks and a member of the very dissertation panel that
examined Scott's thesis in 1968. According to Scott, During the revalida [oral examination, not a
single question was raised about the chapter, which I called "The Contributions of Jose E.
Marco to Philippine historiography."

Despite this opportunity to challenge Scott's thesis directly on the matter of Kalantiaw,
Zaide apparently remained silent but he continued to endorse the myth and even add his own
details to it in books such as Heroes of Philippine History (1970), Pageant of Philippine History
(1979), History of the Republic of the Philippines (1983), Philippine History (1984), and in
reissues of his older works. Soon after Dr. Zaide's death in 1986 his daughter, Sonia M.

Zaide, revised the books that she had co-authored with her father and removed most, but
not all, of the material based on the Marco hoaxes.

Nevertheless, the ghost of Kalantiaw continues to haunt Filipinos some 40 years after the
hoaxes were exposed. He is still portrayed on the ceiling of the old Senate hall in Manila and the
Philippine government still awards the "Order of Kalantiaw" to retiring justices. The Central
Philippine University in Iloilo has its own "Order of Kalantiao" , a fraternity that was at the centre
of a serious hazing incident in September of 2001. Even the National Historical Institute (NHI)
honoured Kalantiaw in 1989 by including him in volume 4 of their five volumes of Filipinos in
History. The Gintong Pamana (Golden Heritage) Awards Foundation, a project of Philippine
Time USA Magazine, rewards community leadership among Filipino-Americans with the
"Kalantiaw Award". Buildings, streets and banquet halls throughout the Philippines still bear the
name of the imaginary ruler of Panay and tourists can still visit the Kalantiaw Shrine in Batan,
Aklan or even pass by a local high school, Kalantiaw Institute.

Old school textbooks are revised to include recent events such as the People Power
Revolution of 1986 but the fictitious codes of Kalantiaw and Maragtas remain untouched, as in
A History of the Philippines by Leogardo et al. (1986).

In newer textbooks, authors of the old school still retell the obsolete theories and fallacies
of Philippine history although some now make cynical attempts to present a fair and
enlightened view by merely inserting brief, and often dismissive, notes about rival "opinions."
Take for example these lines from Edgardo E. Dagdag's 1997 high school textbook, Kasaysayan
at Pamahalaan ng Pilipinas (History & Government of the Philippines):

It is good to examine the contents of the Kalantiaw Code, even though it is not believed to
be an authentic written law by some historians such as Professor W. Henry Scott, because it
can be seen here what kind of society the ancient Filipinos wanted to create..Filipinos wanted to
have a society that was religious and God-fearing; with respect for authority, the elderly, women
and the environment; and which valued life and a person's word.

One wonders just how closely the author examined the contents of the Kalantiaw Code
when he wrote this charitable description of such a saintly community. Would a society that
"valued life" have wanted such an irrational legal code wherein 14 of its 18 laws inflicted the
most gruesome deaths, mutilations and tortures? The bibliography in the book does not list any
works by W. Henry Scott so it can be assumed that the author was not familiar with Scott's
absolutely incontrovertible proofs that debunked the Kalantiaw myth so thoroughly. Otherwise,
he would have known that the Code and all the legends surrounding it were in fact 20th century
fabrications and thus could not possibly show "what kind of society the ancient Filipinos wanted
to create." Inferior textbooks are not likely to vanish soon if the textbook/bribery scandal at the
Department of Budget and Management in 1999 was any indicator of the state of the
educational system in the Philippines. However, the situation is not completely hopeless. For
although the Philippine public may be slow to shrug off the Kalantiaw myth, recent generations
of students have come to know it as a fraud rather than a fact. The gradual effect of this
teaching is starting to show. In 1994 the playwright Rene O. Villanueva dramatized the life of
Jose E. Marco and the creation of the Kalantiaw hoax in the play Kalantiaw, Kagila-gilalas na
Kasinungalingan (The Amazing Lie).
 Villanueva's intriguing story proposed that Marco's motivation for creating his frauds was
his intense admiration for his personal hero, Jose Rizal. Marco's ambition was to better the
accomplishments of Rizal by inventing a glorious past to fill the gaps in Filipino history.

It is only now, since most of the old guard has passed on, that the new generation of
historians have been able to set the records straight. The NHI finally admitted that Kalantiaw
was a hoax in 1998 when Chief Justice Andres Narvasa, who was about to receive the
Kalantiaw Award, asked Malacañang to look into the matter. President Joseph Estrada gave him
the award anyway.

In 2005, the NHI, under the leadership of Ambeth Ocampo, made their opinion official when
they submitted a resolution to President Arroyo to revoke the national shrine status of the
Kalantiaw Shrine in Aklan, which, of course, enraged some Aklanons.

Today some people still cite the courage and wisdom of Kalantiaw as they continue to heap
accolades upon him and the oblivious recipients of those Kalantiaw awards. However, a sober
look at the Kalantiaw's Code reveals that. his magnificent courage was merely brutality and his
exalted wisdom was in fact incredible insanity. Kalantiaw's defenders insist that his legend
must be true simply because he has always inspired them as a part of their heritage. But while
they portray such a maniac as a Filipino hero, they disregard what gross slander they lay on the
character of all Filipinos. Fortunately, the people of the Philippines need never bear this shame
because Kalantiaw never really existed.