EARLY HISTORY
Legends claim that the Philippines was settled by Bornean datus who founded a political confederation in the Visayas and wrote legal codes. These legendary and fictional accounts, found in Maragtas and Code of Kalantiaw,were taught as factual history by thy Spanish colonizers showed that the Philippines developed an early civilization of free barangay kingdoms ruled by a datu (chief) with a class structure and a rich Indo-Malay culture influenced by China, India, Arabia and Japan. two early Chinese writers, Chao Jukua (1225) and Wang Ta-yuan (1349) described Sino-Philippine trade and praised the honesty of the Filipinos to China from 1371-1421. Islam came to Southern Philippines in 1380 and the first Islamic was established in Jolo in 1450.
