University of Santo Tomas Baybayin Documents


The University of Santo Tomas Baybayin Documents or UST Baybayin Documents are two 17th century land deeds written in baybayin, an ancient Philippine syllabary. Due to its cultural and historical significance, the documents were declared as a National Cultural Treasure by the National Archives of the Philippines Director Victorino Manalo during the Second Baybayin Conference at the Museum of the Filipino People, Manila on August 22, 2014. It was the first declaration made the Philippines' national archives and the first paper document declared as a National Cultural Treasure.
It is the fifth declared National Cultural Treasure for the University of Santo Tomas after the declarations on UST Main building, UST Central Seminary building, Arch of the Centuries and UST Open Ground.

Baybayin

is an ancient Tagalog alphabet used in the Philippines even before the arrivals of the Muslims and Spanish colonizers. It has three vowels and fourteen consonants. As an alpha syllabic script, its character can either stand as a single consonant or vowel, or an entire syllable. It is still currently used by Palaw'an and Tagbanua ethnic groups of Palawan and the Hanunuo and Buhid Mangyan of Mindoro.

Description

The UST baybayin documents cover two legal real estate transactions in 1613 and 1625 which are the "longest and most complete documents completely handwritten in baybayin". The two documents are part of a book compilation of baybayin documents dubbed as the "biggest collection of extant ancient baybayin scripts in the world". They are also the oldest known deeds of sale for land in the Philippines during the Spanish colonization.
The 1613 documents established Don Andres Capiit as the land owner after buying an irrgiated land in Tondo from Doña Catalina Baycan as described in Document A. He was married to Doña Francisca Longar who bought the land in Mayhaligue from Doña
Maria Silang as described in the 1625 document. When Capiit died sometime between 1613 and 1625, Longar was remarried to Don Luis Castilla, who sold some lands to the University of Santo Tomas in 1629. When the ownership of Castilla was contested in court, he showed Documents A and B as proof of ownership. Since the university already acquired the land, the deeds of sale were later transferred into the university's custody.
The baybayin documents were first shown in the public during the tricentennary of the university in 1911. That same year, the documents were first published in Libertas, a daily newspaper published by the university.

Management

The Archives of the University of Santo Tomas at the Miguel de Benavides Library take care of the documents. The original baybayin documents are not available to the public and only replicas of the documents are made available through the university archives' bulletin board in the fifth floor of the Central Library.