Code of Kalantiaw

The Code of Rajah Kalantiaw was a purported 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. The code is now believed by many historians to have been a hoax and that it had actually been written in 1913 by Jose E. Marco as a part of his historical fiction Las antiguas leyendas de la Isla de Negros (English: The Ancient Legends of the Island of Negros), which he attributed to a priest named Jose Maria Pavon.

Philippine historian Teodoro Agoncillo describes the code as "a disputed document." Despite doubts on its authenticity, some history texts continue to present it as historical fact.

In 1917, the historian Josué Soncuya wrote about the Code of Kalantiaw in his 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.

In 1965, then University of Santo Tomas doctoral candidate William Henry Scott began an examination of prehispanic 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.

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