Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
IF you want to read a good single-volume English-language overview of Philippine society before the coming of the Spanish colonialists, you can bet on William Henry Scott's Barangay: Sixteenth-century Philippine Culture and Society, published in 1994. It features descriptions from accounts from all over the islands. Except that it could be sporting the wrong title.
Why and how could it be wrong? We were always told by previous history books that the basic unit of society in the ancient Philippines was the barangay, headed by a datu. In fact, the law that declares all barrios in the Philippines to be called barangays, Presidential Decree 557 signed by Ferdinand E. Marcos on Sept. 21, 1974, said, "Whereas, the barangay was the basic political unit existing in the Philippines before the arrival of the Spaniards." He used this historical information on the barangay to reinforce that he is the new datu of the new society who ratified constitutional amendments through hand-raising in the citizen's assemblies.
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