Why do some Historians believe that Ophir is the Ancient Name of the Philippines and not Maharlika?

Answer 1

With the debates sparked by the Principalia Theory of Austronesian Theory of Intermigration which basically combines the Bellwood Theory, Solheim Theory and the French study about the 700,000 - year - old rhinoceros excavated in the Philippines, a more relevant debate has emerged among Filipino historians: which one is the historical ancient name of the Philippines, Ophir or Maharlika?

The following arguments had been presented by the historians:

Foreign historians have identified the Philippines as the Ophir. In Tomo III (1519-1522), pages 112-138, of the book Colección general de documentos relativos a las Islas Filipinas existentes en el Archivo de Indias de Sevilla, found in the General Archive of the Indies in Spain, Document No. 98 describes how to locate the land of Ophir. The navigational guide started from the Cape of Good Hope in Africa to India, to Burma, to Sumatra, to Moluccas, to Borneo, to Sulu, to China, then finally Ophir which is said to be the Philippines. On the other hand, there is no mention of Maharlika in both foreign and Philippine textbooks.

The existence of Ophir in the Philippines is supported by the writings of respected Philippine historians like Alcina and Scott centered on Samar island in the Philippines. They mentioned the name of Lawan settlement led by a Hebrew Datu Iberein who heads the lequios tribe locally which the natives call waray hadlok (or no fear in sailing to the seas). Squires Magazine described Datu Iberien as one of the richest ancient rulers of the Philippines in the level of Lakan Bunao Dula of Manila and Sultan Kudarat of Mindanao. Datu Iberein seems to be responsible for naming the third largest island in the Philippines as Samar, in honor of his ancient homeland Samaria. On the other hand, Maharlika was first mentioned as the alias of President Marcos when supposedly he got a medal working as an intelligence officer in the army in the WWll. The name Maharlika is not even in the book commissioned by Marcos himself to rewrite Philippine history, much less in respected history books, and not even in Blair’s book.Maharlika is the basis of claiming back the ill gotten wealth of Marcos as a legitimate source of the so called Marcos gold. It is looked at as a historical laundering of the Marcos ill gotten wealth. The biggest group of Maharlika proponents is the one led by Dr. Julian Canonoy while minor groups seem to be initiated by some Muslims.

The Ophir, locally known as the Lakanate of Makarato (Lawan), is in line with the Principalia Theory of Austronesian Intermigration which says that the Rhinoceros Man, Dawn Man and Callao Man in the long years of intermarriages dating back to 700,000 BC which native Filipinos called lumad. These lumads with early intermarriages from Samarian and refugees from other countries evolved a prosperous settlement in Samar and some other places like Butuan, Mactan, Ibalon etc, that scattered people to Taiwan, according to Solheim Theory, as early as 5000 years BC and who went back to the Philippines as early as 2000 BC as lapita people, according to Bellwood Theory, and started to scatter people all over polynesian islands, inward to the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Madagascar on the guise of looking for gold and metals. On the other hand, Maharlika was not attributed in any intermigration theories but it is being linked by some proponents to the Tallano claim. It seems to be a historical scam perpetuated by people closed to the Marcos family to justify their ill gotten wealth.