https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/inside-track/dan-fernandez-delivers-privilege-speech-theorizing-philippines-ophir-bible/
For 24 minutes, Congressman Dan Fernandez discusses the theory that the Philippines could be the biblical place called Ophir. Historians weigh in.
At least once a week, lawmakers in the House of Representatives can take advantage of the so-called “privilege hour” to talk about anything of general interest in an open session
Judging from the headline alone I was wondering why he was able to do this... and that explains it. May equivalent pala ng RD thread sa congress.
Also, TIL that he's the husband of Sheila Ysrael. Pillow talk must be a pain with him, lmao.
Santa Rosa City Representative Dan Fernandez is flirting with – or maybe seriously entertaining – the idea that the Philippines is the land of Ophir, a biblical region or port that is supposedly rich in gold.
Its exact location is unknown, but a quick search on Facebook would indicate that it has caught the attention of conspiracy theorists in the Philippines.
In his speech, Fernandez said:
- a Spanish colonial document in the Archivo General de Indias from the 16th century states that to reach Ophir, one must sail from the Cape of Good Hope in Africa to India all the way to a group of islands opposite China that was rich in gold;
- that the Philippines has the second largest gold deposit in the world after Africa;
- that the Tagalog baybayin is similar to Hebrew, the primary language of the Bible, which mentions Ophir numerous times.
This guy might be on some good stuff. This shit deserves a three-part series depicting a group of lost Jews and their epic journey. They face life-threatening adventures, but are saved due to the interventions and guidance of the angel Gagoni, tasked by g'd to guide these lost ones to the promised lands of Ophir to the far east.
On a more serious note, while the first two points are somewhat acceptable, it's the last one that's pains me. Unless he's willing to say that every writing system that has developed along the belt from Morocco to Israel, to India, all the way to the Philippines are all descended from the Egyptian hieroglyphs, itself an ancestor of the Hebrew alphabet as we know it, then... Yeah! I'd sooner believe that the Japanese language is an Austronesian language though.
We're so insecure that we're inserting ourselves into the history of ancient, influential civilisations through historical distortionism, in order to feel good about ourselves by engaging in both self-delusion and self-deception. Using pseudo-history to put ourselves alongside historically influential groups of people to inflate our own self-worth. We are like the Afrocentrists who insist ancient Egyptians were mostly black Africans; materialising this pseudo-history narrative into Netflix's controversial show "Cleopatra". It is clear why the showrunners did this, to make their own sense of identity feel more important. The fact is, they never had to even distort the history of Egypt to place the importance of black Africans in the former glory of ancient Egypt. Ancient Nubia (now known as Sudan), a country predominantly populated by black people, did rule ancient Egypt for over a century. Why not start from there instead of pointlessly re-writing history?
It is the same for us Filipinos who don't try to look back and embrace our ancient past. We do not embrace and are not proud of the rich, pre-colonial heritage we have as descendants of sea-faring Austronesians. We were more gender egalitarian, even revering baklas as "babaylan". We were also already democratic, at the microscopic social level when people lived in ships called balangays, from where the word barangay come from, and long before the introduction of European liberal democracy. Our ancestors also wore gold in their everyday fashion because it was so abundant in the country. We should embrace these facts as Filipinos and show it with pride. Our heritage is already great without distorting and "ume-epal" into the history of others. Respect others heritage, not bastardising it. How can we respect others if we can't respect ourselves? We're like social climbers pushing ourselves next to famous people. This is the product of colonialism and the hang over of needlessly belittling ourselves, because we were taught we are never good enough.
My guy might be into something. Still if it's true or not I doubt it's worth to rename a country just for this. Whatever was the situation before no longer match now.