The Code of Rajah Kalantiaw was a supposed legal code in the epic history Maragtas that is said to have been written in 1433 by Datu Kalantiaw, a chief on the island of Negros in the Philippines. It is now generally accepted by historians that the documents supporting the existence and history of the code, according to some sources, “appear to be deliberate fabrications with no historical validity" written in 1913 by a scholar named Jose Marco as a part of a historical fiction titled Las antiguas leyendas de la Isla de Negros (English: The Ancient Legends of the Island of Negros).[1][2]
In 1990, Philippine historian Teodoro Agoncillo described the code as "a disputed document."[3] Despite doubts on its authenticity, some history textbooks continue to present it as historical fact.[4] In 2005, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines officially recognized Kalantiaw and the Code of Kalantiaw to be a 20th-century fraudulent work by José Marco with no historical basis.[5]
History and authenticity dispute
A woman at the Kalibo Ati-Atihan Festival.
Jose Marco wrote about the Code of Kalantiaw in his 1917 book Historia Prehispana de Filipinas ("Prehispanic History of the Philippines") where he moved the location of the Code's origin from Negros to the Panay province of Aklan because he suspected that it may be related to the Ati-atihan festival. Other authors throughout the 20th century gave credence to the story and the code.
It first gained scholarly acceptance when Marco donated five manuscripts of the fraudulent documents to the American historian James Alexander Robertson. Robertson presented it in San Francisco in 1915 in a paper entitled Social structure of, and ideas of law among early Philippine peoples, in a recently discovered pre-Hispanic criminal code of the Philippine Islands. Robertson was a notable proponent of Anti-Spanish "black legend" propaganda and had also deliberately distorted translations of Spanish documents of the Philippines in the compilation The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898 (1903–1907) co-authored with Emma Helen Blair.[6]
In 1965, then University of Santo Tomasdoctoral candidateWilliam Henry Scott began an examination of pre-hispanic sources for the study of Philippine history. Scott eventually demonstrated that the code was a forgery committed by Marco. When Scott presented these conclusions in his doctoral dissertation, defended on 16 June 1968 before a panel of eminent Filipino historians which included Teodoro Agoncillo, Horacio de la Costa, Marcelino Foronda, Mercedes Grau Santamaria, Nicolas Zafra and Gregorio Zaide, not a single question was raised about the chapter which he had called The Contributions of Jose E. Marco to Philippine historiography. However, in 1971 a decoration to be known as the Order of Kalantiao was created, to be awarded to any citizen of the Philippines for exceptional and meritorious services to the Republic in the administration of justice and in the field of law.[7]
Scott later published his findings debunking the code in his book Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History.[8] Filipino historians later removed the code from future literature regarding Philippine history.[9] When Antonio M. Molina published a Spanish version of his The Philippines Through the Centuries as Historia de Filipinas (Madrid, 1984),[10] he replaced the Code with one sentence: La tesis doctoral del historador Scott desbarata la existencia misma de dicho Código. ("The doctoral dissertation of the historian Scott demolishes the very existence of the Code").[11]
The authenticity of the code had been questioned previously by other scholars,[13] However, despite this and despite Scott's findings, changes in textbooks and in academic curriculum were not forthcoming until almost thirty years following the release of Scott's publication in 1969. In the interim, the Code of Kalantiaw continued to be taught as a part of ancient Philippine history.[14]
In 2004, National Historical Institute (NHI) Resolution No. 12 "[declaring that Code of Kalantiao/Kalantiaw has no valid historical basis" called for: (1) the official affirmation that the Kalantiaw Code is a twentieth-century fraudulent work by Jose Marco, (2) the President of the Philippines cease to honor retiring Supreme justices and other international dignitaries with the ‘Order of Kalantiaw’, and (3) the revoking of Executive Order 234, which recognized Datu Bondahara Kalantiaw as "The First Philippine Lawgiver" and declared a Hall of Fame and Library to be constructed in his honor in Batan, Aklan as a national shrine.[15] This NHI resolution was approved by the Office of the President in 2005.[5]
Laws of the Kalantiaw Code
In his book, Struggle for Freedom (2008), Cecilio Duka provides a full reproduction of the code for the reader's "critical examination... to decide on its veracity and accuracy".[16]
Article I
Ye shall not kill, neither shall ye steal nor shall ye hurt the aged, lest ye incur the danger of death. All those who this order shall infringe shall be tied to a stone and drowned in a river or in boiling water.
Article II
Ye shall punctually meet your debt with your headman. He who fulfils not, for the first time shall be lashed a hundredfold, and If the obligation is great, his hand shall be dipped threefold in boiling water. On conviction, he shall be flogged to death.
Article III
Obey ye: no one shall have wives that are too young, nor shall they be more than what he can take care of, nor spend much luxury. He who fulfils not, obeys not, shall be condemned to swim three hours and, for the second time, shall be scourged with spines to death.
Article IV
Observe and obey ye: Let not the peace of the graves be disturbed; due respect must be accorded them on passing by caves and trees where they are. He who observes not shall die by bites of ants or shall be flogged with spines till death.
Article V
Obey ye: Exchange in food must be carried out faithfully. He who complies not shall be lashed for an hour. He who repeats the act shall, for a day be exposed to the ants.
Article VI
Ye shall revere respectable places, trees of known value, and other sites. He shall pay a month's work, in gold or money, whoever fails to do this; and if twice committed, he shall be declared a slave.
Article VII
They shall die who kill trees of venerable aspect; who at night shoot with arrows the aged men and the women; he who enters the house of the headman without permission; he who kills a fish or shark or striped crocodile.
Article VIII
They shall be slaves for a given time who steal away the women of the headmen; he who possesses dogs that bite the headmen; he who burns another man's sown field.
Article IX
They shall be slaves for a given time, who sing in their night errands, kill manual birds, tear documents belonging to the headmen; who are evil-minded liars; who play with the dead.
Article X
It shall be the obligation of every mother to show her daughter secretly the things that are lascivious, and prepare them for womanhood; men shall not be cruel to their wives, nor should they punish them when they catch them in the act of adultery. He who disobeys shall be torn to pieces and thrown to the caymans.
Article XI
They shall be burned, who by force or cunning have mocked at and eluded punishment, or who have killed two young boys, or shall try to steal the women of the old men (agurangs).
Article XII
They shall be drowned, all slaves who assault their superiors or their lords and masters; all those who abuse their luxury; those who kill their anitos by breaking them or throwing them away.
Article XIII
They shall be exposed to the ants for half a day, who kill a black cat during the new moon or steal things belonging to the headmen.
Article XIV
They shall be slaves for life, who having beautiful daughters shall deny them to the sons of the headman, or shall hide them in bad faith.
Article XV
Concerning their beliefs and superstitions: they shall be scourged, who eat bad meat of respected insects or herbs that are supposed to be good; who hurt or kill the young manual bird and the white monkey.
Article XVI
Their fingers shall be cut off, who break wooden or clay idols in their olangangs and places of oblation; he who breaks Tagalan's daggers for hog killing, or breaks drinking vases.
Article XVII
They shall be killed, who profane places where sacred objects of their diwatas or headmen are buried. He who gives way to the call of nature at such places shall be burned.
Article XVIII
Those who do not cause these rules to be observed, if they are headmen, shall be stoned and crushed to death, and if they are old men, shall be placed in rivers to be eaten by sharks and crocodiles.
↑ Molina, Antonio M. (1984). Historia de Filipinas[History of the Philippines] (in Spanish). Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica del Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana. ISBN8472323226.
This article presents a timeline of Philippine political history focused on governmental transitions of the Philippine archipelago, major polities, invasion attempts, and insurgency movements from the pre-Hispanic period to the present. The information presented here is highly summarized, and more complete information can be found in more detailed articles linked below.
Andrés Bonifacio y de Castro was a Filipino revolutionary leader. He is often called "The Father of the Philippine Revolution", and considered a national hero of the Philippines.
Datu Kalantiaw is a widely publicized pseudohistorical figure based on an early 20th-century hoax by José Marco. Kalantiaw was credited with allegedly creating the first legal code in the Philippines, known as the Code of Kalantiaw in 1433. He gained national prominence in the 20th century in the Philippines, particularly in the island of Panay where allegedly held office.
Freedom of religion in the Philippines is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Philippines.
A national hero of the Philippines is a Filipino who has been recognized as a national hero for their role in the history of the Philippines. Loosely, the term may refer to all historical figures recognized as heroes, but the term more strictly refers to those officially designated as such. In 1995 the Philippine National Heroes Committee officially recommended several people for the designation, but this was not acted upon. As of 2023, no one had ever been officially recognized as a Philippine national hero.
The Philippine Republic, now officially remembered as the First Philippine Republic and also referred to by historians as the Malolos Republic, was established in Malolos, Bulacan during the Philippine Revolution against the Spanish Empire (1896–1898) and the Spanish–American War between Spain and the United States (1898) through the promulgation of the Malolos Constitution on January 23, 1899, succeeding the Revolutionary Government of the Philippines. It was formally established with Emilio Aguinaldo as president. It was unrecognized outside of the Philippines but remained active until April 19, 1901. Following the American victory at the Battle of Manila Bay, Aguinaldo returned to the Philippines, issued the Philippine Declaration of Independence on June 12, 1898, and proclaimed successive revolutionary Philippine governments on June 18 and 23 of that year.
The Pact of Biak-na-Bato, signed on December 14, 1897, created a truce between Spanish colonial Governor-General Fernando Primo de Rivera and the revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo to end the Philippine Revolution. Aguinaldo and his fellow revolutionaries were given amnesty and monetary indemnity by the Spanish Government, in return for which the revolutionary government would go into exile in Hong Kong. Aguinaldo had decided to use the money to purchase advance firearms and ammunition later on return to the archipelago.
The Aklanon people are the ethnolinguistic group who lived in the province of Aklan. They are part of the wider Bisaya ethnolinguistic group, who constitute the largest Filipino ethnolinguistic group.
William Henry Scott was a historian of the Cordillera Central and pre-Hispanic Philippines.
There have been several names of the Philippines in different cultures and at different times, usually in reference to specific island groups within the current archipelago. Even the name Philippines itself was originally intended to apply only to Leyte, Samar, and nearby islands. It was bestowed by the Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos or one of his captains Bernardo de la Torre in 1543 in honor of the crown prince Philip, later PhilipII. Mindanao, which they reached first and assumed to be the greater land, they named after the reigning emperor CharlesV, who was also Spain's king CarlosI. Over the course of Spanish colonization, the name was eventually extended to cover the entire chain. It has survived with minor changes. The Philippine Revolution called its state the Philippine Republic. The US military and civilian occupations called their territory the Philippine Islands. During the Third Philippine Republic, the state's official name was formally changed to the Philippines.
Tawalisi is a Southeast Asian kingdom described in the journals of Ibn Battuta.
The Republic of Biak-na-Bato was the second revolutionary republican government led by Emilio Aguinaldo during the Philippine Revolution that referred to itself as the Republic of the Philippines and was seated in what is now Biak-na-Bato National Park. The current designation was adopted by historians to avoid confusion with the name of the current Philippine government, which also refers to itself as the Republic of the Philippines, and with other past Philippine governments using the same designation.
The Cry of Pugad Lawin was the beginning of the Philippine Revolution against the Spanish Empire.
The National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) and its predecessor agencies in the Philippines and abroad installs historical markers to signify important and historic events, persons, structures, and institutions. The commemorative plaques are permanent signs installed by the NHCP in publicly visible locations on buildings, monuments, or in special locations. The NHCP also allows local municipalities and cities to install markers of figures and events of local significance, although these markers are barred from using the seal of the Republic of the Philippines.
The history of Luzon covers events that happened in the largest island of the Philippine Archipelago, Luzon. Luzon wrested the record of having the oldest man ever discovered in the Philippines with discovery of the Callao Man in 2007, which predated the Tabon Man by around 20,000 years. The written history of Luzon began in around 900 CE with the discovery of the Laguna Copperplate Inscription in 1989. After that, Luzon began to appear in the annals of the Japanese. One example would be the, wherein Luzon appeared in 22 records. Luzon was split among Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, Muslim principalities, and ethnoreligious tribes, who had trading connections with Borneo, Malaya, Java, Indochina, India, Okinawa, Japan before the Spanish established their rule. As a result of the Spanish–American War, Luzon became American territory. In the Second World War, Luzon saw one of the fiercest battles during the Japanese occupation. Luzon, apart from being the largest island, had been the economic and political center of the Philippines ever since the country entered the Western Calendar, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, and the country's largest metropolis, Metro Manila.
The historiography of early Philippine settlements is the academic discipline concerned with the studies, sources, critical methods and interpretations used by scholars to understand the history of settlements in early Philippine history. By modern definitions, this does not involve a story of "events in the past directly," but rather "the changing interpretations of those events in the works of individual historians."
The historiography of the Philippines includes historical and archival research and writing on the history of the Philippine archipelago including the islands of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
Jose E. Marco was a Filipino writer and forger who created some of the most infamous hoaxes and forgeries relating to Philippine history, producing artifacts purported to have come from the pre-colonial and Spanish eras such as the Code of Kalantiaw, touted as the first law code in the Philippines, and La Loba Negra, a novel supposedly written by Filipino proto-nationalist priest Jose Burgos which became part of the country's educational curriculum for decades.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
