Philippine History

I think that is a big loss on the part of the Philippines. I didn't also know that the Code of Kalantiaw is practically erased in Philippine history and it was not a Filipino who initiated it. The Filipino historians might not also be Filipinos.

More than a quarter century after the fraud was exposed in 1965, the average Filipino still believes that the Code of Kalantiaw was real. During the 20th century Filipino students were taught about the vicious and bizarre laws of Datu Kalantiaw in the year 1433 on the island of Panay. Many of his commandments contradicted one another and his punishments were very brutal, usually having no relation to the severity of the crime committed. 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 brought forth such an inhuman 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 bondage for a time in cases of debt. The second reason is the lack of evidence for a Kalantiaw legend. Many believed that the Datu 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. 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 the 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 Pavón 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 Pavón 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 forger and fraud. You can read more about this at http://www.mts.net/~pmorrow/kalant_e.htm#exposed

An anti-Filipino scheme. Instead of discovering things to prove the existence of people in the now called Philippines before its discovery in 1521, they try to erase things which were written before. Good if they exhausted everything to prove the falsity of such records. There must be people living here before its discovery.

I can't believe that they still teach this myth as real history in schools today. My cousins were studying Filipino history in school and they were asking me about the Code of Kalantiaw. I told them that it was just a hoax and there isn't even one shred of evidence to prove that it is real.. Can you believe that they won't believe me? Lol.