00000cab a22000004cb4500 IPP-00000662819 IPP 20250729090725.0 250729s2016 xx d | ||r |||||eng|| eng Alfonso, Ian Christopher Revisiting the provenance of the very strange 1589 last will and testament of Don Fernando Malang Balagtas Revisiting the provenance of the very strange 1589 last will and testament of Don Fernando Malang Balagtas 2016 Notwithstanding the fact that the formal writing of testamentos (last will and testament) only begun during the Spanish period, epics and legends also contain genealogies of some folk heroes and nobles. In his 1663 posthumous work Labor Evangelica, Fr. Francisco Colin, S.J. mentioned about "fabulous genealogies" of the natives of Manila and its suburbs embedded in their songs and legends. The interference of the religious fathers influenced the stylistics of the testamentos. A Spanish period testament usually starts with a prayer and then the genealogy of the testator, which is haply inspired by the recounting of gospels of Luke (3:23-28) and Matthew (1:1-17) of Jesus Christ's genealogy. However, there is this testamento by a certain Don Fernando Malang Balagtas written in 1589 that contains "fabulous genealogies," that by the second half of the 20th century, many historians paid insignificant attention to. :On this point, as on many other points, in Philippine history, the living scholars and historical pundits had better come together and arrive at an official board of historians or historical society in the Philippines that can pontificate on disputed and vague passages in the history of the Filipinos." This paper aims [1] to establish the events and circumstances leading to the discovery of the testament by Luther Parker, a Thomasite initially assigned to Pampanga, in the early 20th century, and [2] to provide a critique of the English translation he popularized in comparison with four extant Spanish copies of the testament, provided by Isabelo de los Reyes, a 19th-century Filipino folklorist, and by the descendants of Balagtas. Instead a contributing to the reliability of the testamento, Parker manipulated the important contents of the document in the said English translation, which became popular and circulated the most. Despite contentions and issues, Balagtas' testamento is still one of the most interesting materials in Philippine history. During the height of 20th-century American studies on the Philippines, Luther Parker became interested in studying Balagtas' testamento and had poured significant effort in collecting sources to corroborate it and culling substance out of it. These constitute a part of what is now the Luther Parker Collection (LPC) of the University of the Philippines Diliman Library's Filipiniana Special Collection. Balagtas, Fernando Malang -- Will Parker, Luther Historiography Translating and interpreting Translations Historical Bulletin Vol. L (2016), 31-61 Article FI