Various events and ideas commonly known to Filipinos as truths might actually not be.

The
passage of time, wrong information, and inaccurate portrayals have left us picturing famous events just
a way bit off-tangent. However, the abundance of various historical frameworks and ideological
perspectives allows any historian to adopt and apply methods to recreate the past unhampered.

Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, a penal code called the “Code of Kalantiaw” has
been taught to Filipino students before. The Code of Kalantiaw is found in the Pavon Manuscript in
1838, the manuscript were considered significant because they contained information about the ancient
history and customs of Visayan indigenous people. The famous writing, Code of Kalantiaw, embodies the
capital punishment for crimes, offences to the law ranged from as light as singing at night to as grave as
murder. 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.

The writer, Jose E. Marco donated his manuscripts to Director James A. Robertson for the
Philippine Library and Museum. Among the manuscript was the Pavon manuscript entitled Las Antiguas
leyendes de la Isla de Negros (Ancient Legends of the Island of Negros) that contained the only
reference to one of the oldest penal codes in pre-colonial Philippines, called the Code of Kalantiaw
which was promulgated in 1433 by a datu from the island of Panay named Kalantiaw. The Code of
Kalantiaw, in chapter 9 of part 1, was one of six translated documents that were dated before the arrival
of the Spaniards in the Philippines. Then the original Code was purportedly discovered in the possession
of a Panay datu in 1614. And at the time of the Pavons writing in 1839 it was supposedly owned by a
Don Marcelio Orfila of Zaragoza. And the story on this Code has been recognized through the ages by
known authors. However, historian William Henry Scott’s study and research demolished the claims of
authenticity of the documents. The documents were found to be containing anachronisms, improper
use of orthography, errors in measuring and dates, and many other problems.