Code of Kalantiyaw, purported pre-Spanish Philippine penal code claimed to have
been written in 1433 and discovered on the island of Panay in 1614. Later research cast
doubt on the code’s “discoverer,” José E. Marco, as a peddler of historical frauds.
Marco was a prolific writer on the history of the Philippines, although his work was rife
with errors and outright fabrications. Nevertheless, throughout the 20th century many
scholars in both the Philippines and the United States accepted Marco’s precolonial
“source materials” at face value. Chief among these was the Code of Kalantiyaw, which
listed 18 orders for the proper punishment of certain moral and social transgressions.
Depending on the gravity of the offense, punishment ranged from a light fine to being
cut to pieces and thrown to crocodiles. As early as the 1960s, historians began to
question the validity of the code, but many Filipinos continued to regard it as an
important legal document. Nonetheless, in 2004 the National Historical Institute (now
the National Historical Commission of the Philippines) declared the Code of Kalantiyaw
to be a hoax perpetrated in the early 20th century.
law code, also called Legal Code, a more or less systematic and comprehensive written
statement of laws. Law codes were compiled by the most ancient peoples. The oldest
extant evidence for a code is tablets from the ancient archives of the city of Ebla (now at
Tell Mardikh, Syria), which date to about 2400 BC.
THE CODE OF KALANTIAW
ARTICLE I
You shall not kill, neither shall you steal, neither shall you do harm to the aged, lest you
incur the danger of death. All those who infringe this order shall be condemned to death
by being drowned in the river, or in boiling water.
ARTICLE II
You shall obey. Let all your debts with the headman 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 thrust his hand in boiling water thrice. For the second time, he shall be
beaten to death.
ARTICLE III
Obey you: 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
ARTICLE IV
Observe and obey; let no one disturb the quiet of the graves. When passing by the caves
and trees where they are, give respect to them. He who does not observe this shall be
killed by ants, or beaten to death with thorns.
ARTICLE V
You shall obey; he who 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.
ARTICLE VI
You shall be obliged to revere sights that are held in respect, such as those of trees of
recognized worth and other sights. He who fails to comply shall pay with one month's
work in gold or in honey.
ARTICLE VII
These shall be put to death; he who kills trees of venerable appearance; who shoot
arrows at night at old men and women; he who enters the houses of the headmen
without permission; he who kills a shark or a streaked cayman.
ARTICLE VIII
Slavery for a doam (a certain period of time) shall be suffered by those who steal away
the women of the headmen; by him who keep ill-tempered dogs that bite the headmen;
by him who burns the fields of another.
ARTICLE IX
All these shall be beaten for two days: who sing while traveling by night; kill the Manaul;
tear the documents belonging to the headmen; are malicious liars; or who mock the
dead.
ARTICLE X
It is decreed an obligation; that every mother teach secretly to her daughters matters
pertaining to lust and prepare them for womanhood; let not men be cruel nor punish
their women when they catch them in the act of adultery. Whoever shall disobey shall be
killed by being cut to pieces and thrown to the caymans.
ARTICLE XI
These shall be burned: who by their strength or cunning have mocked at and escaped
punishment or who have killed young boys; or try to steal away the women of the elders.
ARTICLE XII
These shall be drowned: all who interfere with their superiors, or their owners or
masters; all those who abuse themselves through their lust; those who destroy their
anitos (idols) by breaking them or throwing them down.
ARTICLE XIII
All these shall be exposed to ants for half a day: who kill black cats during a new moon;
or steal anything from the chiefs or agorangs, however small the object may be.
ARTICLE XIV
These shall be made slave for life: who have beautiful daughters and deny them to the
sons of chiefs, and with bad faith hide them away.
ARTICLE XV
Concerning beliefs and superstitions; these shall be beaten: who eat the diseased flesh of
beasts which they hold in respect, or the herb which they consider good, who wound or
kill the young of the Manaul, or the white monkey.
ARTICLE XVI
The fingers shall be cut-off: of all those who break idols of wood and clay in their
alangans and temples; of those who destroy the daggers of the tagalons, or break the
drinking jars of the latter.
ARTICLE XVII
These shall be killed: who profane sites where idols are kept, and sites where are buried
the sacred things of their diwatas and headmen. He who performs his necessities in
those places shall be burned.
ARTICLE XVIII
Those who do not cause these rules to be obeyed: if they are headmen, they shall be put
to death by being stoned and crushed; and if they are agorangs they shall be placed in
rivers to be eaten by sharks and caymans.
Jose E. Marco and his pre-colonial ‘Code of Kalantiaw’ The antiquarian and
stamp collector from the island of Negros in the Visayan region by the name of Jose E.
Marco became part of ancient Philippine historiography when he presented several
manuscripts containing significant historical information about ancient Filipino society
to James A. Robertson, Director of Philippine National Library, in 1914. One of these
source materials was the Pavon manuscript, Las antiguas de leyendas de la isla de
Negros (Ancient Legends of the Island of Negros) that was allegedly written by Father
Jose Maria Pavon y Araguro, a Spanish secular priest in the Diocese of Cebu, during the
mid-nineteenth century. This two-volume manuscript supposedly contained the only
reference to one of the oldest penal codes in pre-colonial Philippines, the so-called Code
of Kalantiaw promulgated by Datu Kalantiaw from the island of Panay in 1433.
The Discovery and Debunking of Marco’s pre-colonial documents for most of
the twentieth century, Marco’s historical documents were rarely scrutinized or
questioned until a retired American lay missionary, William Henry Scott, examined the
available pre-hispanic source materials, including the Pavon manuscript, which
supposedly contained invaluable information on pre-colonial Philippine state and
society.
Filipino Scholars’ Responses to Scott’s Findings It is interesting to know why
many Filipino scholars chose not to directly address such findings - whether to publicly
acknowledge Scott’s claims or even to merely review Scott’s published dissertation A
Critical Study of the Pre-hispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History
(1969). It seems that many Filipino scholars would rather not deal with, or even
acknowledge, Scott’s assessment of the validity of some Philippine source materials that
shaped the study of ancient Philippine history
Responses from Government Institutions Dealing with Public Education
and Historical Memory While the initiatives must come from the Filipino scholars
themselves to ensure that the historical information that they included in their
textbooks and other publications are based on reputable and authentic source materials,
government institutions dealing with public education and public historical memory
must also undergo changes and careful deliberation to properly regulate the version of
history being taught to Filipino students.
Filipino Public’s Ambivalence or Apathy towards Discourses on Philippine
History It is interesting that some Filipinos (both scholars and non-scholars) continue
to believe that the Code of Kalantiaw and the datu/chieftain who supposedly
promulgated these laws actually existed; and therefore, there is no need to pursue the
issue any further. On the other hand, it is also surprising that some Filipino scholars,
who were aware of the Kalantiaw Code’s questionable provenance, chose not to
acknowledge it and just continued to treat the existence of the Kalantiaw Code as
historical fact.
https://www.chanrobles.com/codeofkalantiaw.html#.YiqmqXpBzrc
https://www.britannica.com/place/Philippines
https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/20312/1/Justiniano-
%20Kalantiaw%20Code-%20EXP%202011.pdf
