Kalantiaw, Sikatuna and other hoaxes

Posted by WritingThirty v5.0
Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Kalantiaw. Sikatuna. Limasawa.

What's common to them? All three are untruths.

The first one is a hoax. The other is a product of ignorance. The last is the result of errant logic.

In 1996, the National Historical Institute (NHI) was forced to admit the Code of Kalantiaw was a hoax. Last year, the NHI as a body officially declared it as such 36 years after discovery of the hoax.

The Order of Sikatuna meanwhile, was created by Executive Order No. 571 signed by Pres. Elpidio Quirino on 27 February 1953 based on ignorance of Antonio Pigafetta's account of Magellan's voyage. Section 2 of the E0 states, "The Order of Sikatuna...commemorates the first treaty (Pacto de Sangre) between the Philippines and a foreign country..."

Point of clarity. The first blood compact was between Ferdinand Magellan and the king of Mazaua, Raia Siaiu (Si Ayo for easier reading). This happened on Holy Thursday, March 28, 1521 44 years before the Sikatuna event in Juan Luna's Pacto de Sangre.

Again, to the point of being redundant - the first recorded treaty between the Philippines (named San Lazaro at the time, and to be precise it was only Cebu that was bound by the treaty) and a foreign country was on Tuesday, April 9, 1521. This was negotiated by Magellan and Cebu's Raia Humabon's nephew aided by Raia Siaiu and 11 others.

Hopefully, Raia Siaiu will replace Sikatuna. The process is on-going with a letter to President Gloria-Macapagal-Arroyo pointing out the historical error. Speedy action is needed; it is internationally embarrassing for the Philippines to be awarding foreign dignitaries a decoration that represents the apotheosis of ignorance in history.

Jardine Davies blogs in The Political Convenience of Rewriting History:

How convenient it is to fabricate a history? Nobody cares if you tell the wrong story anyway. If you're caught you just say, "I lied", and you're back in office by the next term. How convenient has it become for politicians to tell versions of history that suit their politics? Easy. Just Lie, Lie and Lie. It has come to that. Accountability is no longer a fad.

How easy is it to invent a diploma, fake medals, recreate a myth, redefine culture to suit one's politics? Easy if you have the power. It has happened before in the small country named the Philippines. Happened elsewhere in the other small countries in the world. Certainly it can happen in a more powerful country. In fact it happens as we speak. How many care enough to refute?

Digression. The hoaxes all remind me of an Orwellian 1984-ish Winston Smith working in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, rewriting, faking and altering records, such as newspaper articles, of the past. The relativity is not lost.

And how grave, you ask, was the Kalantiaw hoax?

In 1957, a former school building in Panay 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.

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 which 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.

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 who further embellished the hoax.

Zaide 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 hoaxes.

Nevertheless, the ghost of Kalantiaw continues to haunt Filipinos more than 30 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 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).

Of the Sikatuna hoax?

Malacanang continues to confer the Order of Sikatuna to unwitting local and foreign diplomats. The last one given the dubious award was outgoing US Ambassador to the Philippines Francis Ricciardone, who was given rank of Datu or Grand Cross.

Limasawa is the result of a less than elegant logical construct of Carlo Amoretti who in 1800 equated Pigafetta's Mazaua, where an Easter mass was held, with Limasaua of Francisco Combes whose story does not mention any mass anywhere on March 31, 1521.

Following the universal standard of peer review, the hypothesis that Mazaua is at 9 degrees North not in Limasawa's 9 deg. 56' N latitude was presented before the world's leading minds on geography, exploration history, cartography on Oct. 13, 2000 at the U.S. Library of Congress. (Type Mazaua on Googles to bring you to sites where paper is published on the Net) No one has challenged the validity of that
hypothesis except Lawrence Bergreen who's a good writer but an awful historian. (He purloins the Enrique de Malacca tale without crediting its various authors, i.e., Martin Torodash, Carlos Quirino, and William Manchester).

And following the scientific method of "winnowing truth from lies and delusion" (1. observe; 2. invent a theory consistent with your observation; 3. use the theory to make a prediction; 4. test those predictions by experiments and further observations; 5. modify theory in light of results; 6. go back to step 3) scientists found an improbable island at 9 deg. N which is fused with mainland Mindanao comprising of the geo-political entities of Bgys. Bancasi and Pinamanculan in Butuan City.

I won't even repeat myself how proto-politico false the Order of Lakandula is. posted by Jojo Pasion Malig @ 7:58 PM

Article Link: http://writingthirty.blogspot.com/2005/05/kalantiaw-sikatuna-and-other-hoaxes.html