Should government archaeologists accept money from people who have destroyed archaeological sites? Should they prevent local archaeologists from participating in research? Should they ignore artifacts and fossils found by local archaeologists? Should they ignore middens? Whatever your answers to these questions, you might be interested to read on. This is a narrative of how government archaeologists made a fake science report to please a politician:

Many people in the Philippines where alarmed when news about the damage of the Huluga archaeological site in Cagayan de Oro came out in the June 2003. Anthropologists were exchanging information about it for days, sending emails and text messages. "Huluga" became a buzzword, and members of the Heritage Conservation Advocates (HCA) were invited to speak in several gatherings. The counter of the HCA website also made a steep rise, as people from different countries read the pages.

This exchange of information led to calls for Cagayan de Oro mayor Vicente Y. Emano -- the person responsible for the damage on Huluga -- to stop the destruction. The Archaeological Studies Program (ASP) of the University of the Philippines issued a manifesto that partly said, “we … strongly support the call of the Heritage Conservation Advocates (HCA) and all concerned sectors in Cagayan de Oro City to stop further destruction of the Huluga Open Site …”. The manifesto also asked government agencies “to stop the construction of the bridge …”

In similar manner, The Katipunan Arkaeologist ng Pilipinas, Inc. (KAPI) wrote an open letter to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, appealing for “her intercession in behalf of the Filipino people and the Cagayanons in particular for the preservation of our cultural heritage.” The National Museum also sent archaeologists Leee Anthony Neri and Clyde Jagoon to Huluga to assess the damage, and National Museum lawyer Trixie Angeles met with HCA members and expressed interest to file a case against Emano. She even suggested that the 4th Infantry Division be asked to guard Huluga.

This apparent unity of archaeologists and other concerned people in the Philippines continued until October 2003, when KAPI asked HCA president and archaeologist Dr. Erlinda M. Burton to give a presentation about Huluga during its 4th annual conference in La Mesa Dam Conference Hall, Quezon City. In that meeting, which I attended, National Museum director Cora Alvina responded to Burton’s presentation by expressing her support for HCA. “We are with you,” Alvina said twice during her speech, looking at Burton. Alvina also said the National Museum was preparing a case against Emano.1

Negotiations. But in November and December 2003, no such case was filed, although Angeles kept assuring HCA vice-president Antonio J. Montalvan II that a case was underway. In late December 2003 or early January 2004, Neri told me that the case would mention my father John L. Elizaga because he was the vice-mayor. I told Neri it was okay to include him.

Apparently, Emano was negotiating with the National Museum and the ASP during this period. Because on January 19, 2004, the City Council -- monopolized by members of the mayor’s political party2 -- enacted an ordinance authorizing the mayor to hire the ASP for the research and excavation of Cagayan de Oro, specifically in Huluga, Macasandig, and Indahag. This development was concealed from the HCA. Burton learned about it only on the 21st, when she received a tip from a friend in the City Hall. Surprised, Burton spoke to Neri using a cell phone. Neri confirmed the news.

Burton was aghast that the ASP had made the deal with Emano without informing the HCA or other concerned groups in Cagayan de Oro. “What about [the archaeological code of] ethics?” Burton asked Neri repeatedly but Neri3 told Burton that the ASP had already submitted a proposed budget to the mayor.

Burton also told Neri that the ASP should not touch Huluga because the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) in Cagayan de Oro had issued an order4 to Emano on August 18, 2003. This order was in response to the administrative case filed a month earlier by the HCA against Emano and UKC Builders, Inc. It states, partly, that the respondent must pay P50, 000 “as fine for violating ECC conditions No. 3” and that the respondent must “immediately organize a team” to preserve Huluga in coordination with the National Museum, the Research Institute for Mindanao Culture (RIMCU) and the Department of Tourism.

Burton was the director of RIMCU when she spoke to Neri. The EMB order does not mention the ASP.

The ASP and the National Museum. In the months that followed, Burton and the rest of the HCA would be stunned to discover that the National Museum, instead of filing a case against Emano, had approved a P450, 000 contract5 between the ASP and the City Hall for the ASP to do a two-week salvage archaeology in Huluga and two other sites in Cagayan de Oro.

The amount appeared to be extraordinarily high: In 2003, at the Huluga Open Site, Neri told Lourd Ostique of Museo de Oro at Xavier University and I that a digging in Huluga alone would require only P80, 000 for the same duration.

A more startling development: On October 29, 2004, one year after the inauguration of the illegal road-and-bridge construction that partially destroyed the Huluga Open Site, a team from the ASP team led by its director, Dr. Victor Paz, gave Burton a visit in her office at RIMCU. Paz told Burton that they had began digging on Obsidian Hill.6 Burton couldn’t believe her ears. They did not even ask Burton to be part of the project, nor consulted her about it, during and prior to that visit.

Paz also told Burton that he had to obey a contract that he had signed with Emano. I discovered later that the contract was not notarized that day. A lady staff member from the Historical and Cultural Commission (HISCCOM) of the City Hall, responding to Susan Palmes of radio station DxJR,7 who was asking for a copy of the contract, said on air on November 2 that the contract could not yet be released to the public because "wala pa man ni na notarize."

Palmes, a law student, naturally raised an obvious concern: Speaking in Cebuano, she said, “So, why is the ASP digging already?”

Even more astounding: When I learned about Paz’s visit, I called up the two landowners of Obsidian Hill and asked if they knew about the digging. They said no. The landowners, who requested anonymity, consequently went to Obsidian Hill on November 2 and 6 separately and talked with the diggers. One8 was very upset: "Why did you not consult us? We are all professionals here. I'm a professional, too. Why did you not inform my family about this digging?"

The angry landowner said Nanette Roa of HISCCOM and a National Museum representative who came with the ASP apologized and promised to return the soil when the project would be finished on November 14. The landowner told me: "Next time, we will not allow them to dig in our lot."

A few days later, Mindanao Goldstar Daily and Mindanews published my article “Parachute Archaeologists”, which was about the ASP and its excavation. In this write-up, I quoted Burton, who said that Paz and his team violated the "universal" Code of Ethics of Archaeology when Paz signed a contract with Emano to do archaeological digging in Cagayan de Oro without consulting her.

Goldstar also reported HCA lawyer Manuel Ravanera, who said HCA was planning to slap charges against Emano and the archaeologists of the ASP. Ravanera said nobody should have been allowed to touch Huluga since there was a pending case filed by the City Hall on this matter. 9 "They (city hall) should not have commissioned anyone to do any archeological digging until such case is resolved," Ravanera said.

On November 11, 2004, the ASP held a press conference at the Philippine Information Agency in Cagayan de Oro about their findings in Huluga and two other sites. Several journalists, among them Palmes, asked them about Burton’s concern about ethics. Dr. Eusebio Dizon of the National Museum responded by saying "there is no such thing as a universal Code of Ethics for Archaeologists -- none whatsoever in the archaeological world".10 DxJR also reported an unnamed Manila archaeologist during that press conference who said, "We don't follow any code of ethics. We just follow the law of the land.”

Montalvan also recalls: " In the Channel 39 interview, both Paz and Dizon said, when asked why they did not coordinate with Burton, that Burton's style of archaeology was outdated, or words to that effect. I remember this very well. This was unethical too, aside from being arrogant. It is almost badmouthing a peer in the profession, and in media at that."

Montalvan also questions ASP's coordination with Roa:

"When the protracted Huluga debacle took place, Nanette [Roa] was just a member of the HISCCOM, receiving an honorarium of a little over a thousand pesos a month. Today she is the manager of the Lawndale resort [renamed Kagay-an Resort] which, ironically, is just the next-door neighbor of the destroyed Huluga Open Site.

"If you look at the timing, it would appear that her appointment was a reward for defending Emano to the hilt. She did not lift a finger to defend the destruction of the Open Site. In fact, she and Teddy Bautista DENIED that there ever was a destruction.

"These things have to be laid out in the open for it was Nanette who almost was the apologist for the Paz-Dizon group. That is another ethical question. They refused to coordinate with Burton but they had no qualms believing the words of a charlatan."

Code of Ethics. What is the archaeological code of ethics that Burton was so concerned about? Is it “universal” or subject to local opinion? Burton used to work with British-Kenyan paleoanthropologist Louis S. B. Leakey, and she insists that there is a universal Code of Ethics for Archaeologists, "because archaeology is a science." She said the code requires that archaeologists must coordinate: Archaeologists planning to examine an area must inform other archaeologists already working in that area. Burton has been working in Huluga and vicinities since 1975.

I haven't seen one "universal" code, if by "universal" we mean a constitution-like set of rules for all archaeologists. But I've seen several, similar codes published in websites. They support Burton’s call for outside archaeologists to coordinate with resident archaeologists: The Code of Ethics of The Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA) states that an archaeologist must “Communicate and cooperate with colleagues having common professional interests; Give due respect to colleagues' interests in, and rights to, information about sites, areas, collections, or data where there is a mutual active or potentially active research concern; Determine whether the project is likely to interfere with the program or projects of other scholars ....”

The Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Association also requires that an anthropologist must "consult actively with the affected individuals or group(s), with the goal of establishing a working relationship that can be beneficial to all parties involved". This requirement is similar to the Code of Ethics of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists, Inc: "A member shall respect the professional interests of colleagues ... The consultant should not knowingly compete with another for employment to the detriment of professional standards."

Morever, the Canadian Archaeological Association Principles of Ethical Conduct states: “respect colleagues, and cooperate with them.”

Perhaps, the ASP can claim exemption from these requirements by saying it does not have a code of ethics. It may even claim ignorance of the subject. Indeed, its website does not show that the teachers of the ASP follow a set of archaeological ethics. But, curiously, the Archaeological Society of ASP, which is composed of students, claim to follow such a code.11 What this code contains, however, is not shown online.

Moreover, nine days before the ASP dug in Huluga without permission from the landowners, and without coordinating with local archaeologists, KAPI had held a workshop on archaeological code of ethics on October 20, 2004. Many members of the ASP are also members of KAPI.

The Solheim Foundation Bulletin, October to December 2004 issue, has this report about the workshop:

"Finally, a code of ethics the Philippine archaeological community can call its own. A workshop for the completion of the Code of Ethics was held last October 20, 2004, at the National Museum, along with the annual Katipunan Arkeologist ng Pilipinas Inc. business meeting.

"Presided over by National Museum archaeologist Amalia dela Torre, KAPI members from all over the Philippines discussed and debated the proposed code of ethics that was adapted from the codes of the Society of American Archaeologists [sic] and the Society of Professional Archaeologists.

"The draft includes eight principles archaeologists should adhere to: stewardship, accountability, commercialization, public education, intellectual property, publication, records and preservation, and training.” At the end of the workshop, the proposed code was turned over to the KAPI Executive Board for fine-tuning and final approval."

I placed “sic” because the correct name is The Society for American Archaeology (SAA). The Society follows the code of ethics of the RPA.

HCA has no copy of the KAPI code of ethics, so we don’t know what KAPI adopted from the RPA code. But in February 2005, Angeles met Montalvan in Manila. Angeles said, "I told Sandy Salcedo and Victor Paz that you (Salcedo and Paz) have broken archaeological ethics in Cagayan de Oro because archaeological ethics dictates that local archaeologists always enjoy primary preference." Dr. Salcedo is also a faculty member of the ASP.

But, strangely, Burton was excluded in the Emano-funded research. The ASP also refused to recognize a midden discovered by Burton at the Open Site. Neri saw this midden on August 5, 2003 and even took an animal bone from this site. It is only about 20 meters from the excavation of the ASP, but the report12 of the ASP states that Huluga has no midden.

The ASP also ignored the fossils and artifacts found by HCA in 2003, including the whale harpoon head, which has a National Museum accession number. Moreover, the ASP didn't ask permission from the Open Site landowners. They used Wilson Cabaluna as guide, thereby associating the ASP with illegal activity since Cabaluna is a treasure hunter.13 They miscalculated the response of the media, and were immensely surprised when asked about the project cost and archaeological code of ethics.

In the end, the ASP made the impression that though it was prepared to oppose an illegal act in the beginning, it was ready to look the other way when a huge sum of money was involved. In justifying the deal with Emano, Paz said on Channel 39 in Cagayan de Oro: “We cannot do anything anymore with the bridge because it is already finished.” This explanation is chillingly similar to the rhetoric of Emano and his supporters in 2003: “Why is the HCA complaining when the bridge is almost finished?” Roa also said, when HCA asked Emano not to sell the historical City Hall: “Why are they complaining when the mayor is only planning?”

The 25th edition of Tambara contains Elson T. Elizaga's article, "The Battle for the Huluga Archaeological Site." Tambara is the journal of Ateneo de Davao University, Philippines. Read Gail Ilagan's article in Mindanews.

In other words, when a crime is being hatched, or when a crime is in progress, or when a crime has been completed, don’t call the police.14

Such thinking explains why ethics is being ignored. People who defy the law find it much easier to ignore ethics, because unlike the law, ethics has no police to enforce it. Ethics requires nothing but individual will to do good, borne out of good breeding. It’s not a set of behavior forced by fear of punishment, but respect for the needs and rights of others. Where people are ethical, people are usually law-abiding. Where people are confused about good and evil, there we find crime proliferating. In a country where law and order continue to decay, it is sad to see a group of highly educated scientists and teachers failing to demonstrate a clear understanding of right and wrong.