Salcedo, Adrian Ador M.

CBA 1-3

GINTONG PAMANA: Surigao Treasure

Introduction
One day in the year 1981, a bulldozer driver named Berto Morales stumbled upon
several pieces of golden belts, cups, earrings, pendants and necklaces. He dig
them while he was doing some clearing operations on a land that will be used for
an irrigation project. His life changed after that and rest is an amazing history.
This story was part of the documentary program, Probe, hosted by Cheche
Lazaro. The Filipino Channel has been showing some of the best episodes and
this episode was one attention-catcher.

Body
The show presented Berto’s story about the golds that he accidentally found in
Surigao. He sold some of these golds, and some he left to a Surigao priest, who
also sold them one by one.

The golden pieces were believed to have been made between during the 10th and
13th century. In that case, these golds were already worn by our ancestors even
before the Spanish colonialists found our country. These artifacts speak of how
our ancestors lived during the old times. According to some historians, the
colonizers found the people in our country as having ornamented by golds from
head to foot. Our country was very rich in gold that our ancestors used them in
trades. Even before the pre-colonization period, our country already had a
sophisticated civilization. This is something to give us a sense of identity and
pride as a people.

The Zobels (of the Ayala group of companies) realized the importance of these
pieces in our cultural heritage, so they tried to locate the pieces and bought them
one by one. They did not get the complete collection but those that they were
able to buy are now displayed at the Ayala Museum, and some at the Central
Bank of the Philippines.
The archaeological gold collection in the museum are now considered the largest
in the country, as well as in the rest of the world. Nothing of this scale and
magnitude has ever been seen before, according to Dr. Florina Baker, former
curator of the Ayala Museum.

Conclusion
The evidences that will prove that Filipinos have a rich culture in pre-colonial
period are the gold jewelleries and their technology. Gold is a precious metal that
surpasses all ores in the world. It is the most expensive to the point people
search for it, fight for it, and even kill for it.