Maragtas

The Maragtas is a work by Pedro Alcantara Monteclaro titled (in English translation) History of Panay from the first inhabitants and the Bornean immigrants, from which they descended, to the arrival of the Spaniards.

Scott said that in 1947, a book co-authored by historian H. Otley Beyer, founder of the Anthropology Department of the University of the Philippines, refers to Margitas and "the ancient writing in which it was originally inscribed.

[7] Scott quoted Beyer stating: A remarkable document known as 'Margitas', dating probably from about 1225, was preserved in Panay and transliterated into romanized Visayan in early Spanish days.

[13] Beyer claimed that the Maragtas written in original syllabary "was brought to Spain in the early 19th century by a Spanish colonel, but it can no longer be traced".

[13] On the other hand, the American Anthropologist seemed also sure in his description of the text, and he described it as follows: Another feature of the Panay manuscript, now called "Maragtas", is the ancient writing in which it was originally inscribed.

[21]The text contains native language names of old settlements in Panay which were later hispanized and lists of stream and river deltas where the Malay settlers established coastal villages and cultivated with seeds of plants brought with them from the southern islands.

[23] Historian Robert Nicholl implied that the Srivijayans of Sumatra, Vijayans of Vijayapura at Brunei and the Visayans in the Philippines were all related and connected to each other since they form one contiguous area.

Angel Perez)[26] However, the written dates go earlier since Rajah Makatunaw was recorded to have been from 1082 AD as he was a descendant of Seri Maharaja in Chinese texts.

He later extracted from it the verse tragedy The Heart of Emptiness is Black, which won the Palanca Award in 1973, and produced by the UP Repertory Company and directed by noted stage director Behn Cervantes in June 1974.

It was directed by Cervantes, with music by Ryan Cayabyab, and starred Kuh Ledesma as Kapinangan, Robert Arevalo as Datu Sumakwel, and Hajji Alejandro as Gurong-gurong.

US-based dancer/choreographer Dulce Capadocia also used the Kapinangan strand of the Maragtas in her multi-media dance epic Ma'I Lost, which premiered at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex in 1999.