It’s the return of the Ticao AKA the Rizal Stone! This past August 5-6 was the 1st Philippine Conference of the Ticao Stones where various speakers from different disiplines provided their insight on the infamous stones and other related topics.
Many of us couldn’t go but the organizers have just uploaded the presentations for the 2 days. I’ve read through some of it a couple weeks ago thanks to Christopher Miller who was in attendance. I must say the research is very comprehensive and well documented. However, there was no definitive conclusion as to the authenticity of the stones. As expected, it will take more time. The question is how long and what will be the communication method?
One of the interesting presentations was:
Integrating Baybayin Scripts into the School Curriculum
(Speaker: DepEd Region V Curriculum Expert)
Download all the presentations
Questions:
- What do you think of this conference?
- Is it premature make Ticao Island the epicenter of Baybayin when it hasn’t even been proven to be a “real” artifact?
- What are some of the interesting things you read in the documents?
Kristian Kabuay 
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Well, unfortunately I missed the first day because I missed my transfer flight from Manila to Legaspi: I arrived just as the first day was ending, soaked in seawater from a choppy ferry ride to Ticao island. The handouts I got did show some interesting steps toward getting a better grasp on what was written in the stones and their overall context (archeological, possible origins of the stones) without coming to any clear conclusions. Some of the other presentations (mostly from the second day) were brave efforts that got tangled up in misunderstandings of basic facts and the importance of a strict methodology for research. (Without one, you end up on a wild goose chase and end up ready to accept or dismiss anything and everything without valid reasons.) There were three different readings proposed for the stones; one of them I haven’t seen because the paper was withdrawn before the conference. The problem here is how to tell on the basis of independent methodological principles which is more likely close to what was intended than any of the others; given the history of trying to decipher inscriptions around the world with no backup corroborating texts, I’m not very hopeful that we can be certain of a clear result. And the fact that large triangular pieces of the large stone are broken off from either side, and very likely at least a small part of the bottom is also missing – perhaps even a very large piece – we can be pretty certain that a lot of information is missing.
I think some of the papers people presented are a good step in the right direction. It will take more discussion and more basic research on some things like the geological structure of the stones before any firm conclusions about where the stones themselves came from and when exactly the inscriptions may have been made — though I get the sense that the people looking at the script accepted that the issues that came up in our informal Internet discussions back in June do make it fairly unlikely the inscriptions are “ancient” rather than post-Hispanic.
Now to wait for a proceedings volume of more complete papers to appear!
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