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Datu Puti
The Maragtas, a 1907 book, names Datu Puti as the leader of ten datus who left Borneo and came to Panay. In that account they traded with the local Ati chief, Marikudo, for land. Historians dispute how far the Maragtas is real history.
Folklore is retold; versions differ.
Sources: Wikipedia: Datu Puti (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikidata (CC0) · Wikipedia: Madja-as
The story
Datu Puti is the leader of the ten datus in the Maragtas, a Panay history written by Pedro Monteclaro in 1901 and published in 1907. The story says the ten datus fled the harsh rule of a Bornean ruler named Makatunaw. They landed at the mouth of the Siwaragan River, in what is now San Joaquin, Iloilo.
In the book, the datus got coastal land from the Ati people. Their chief, Marikudo, received gold, pearls and other goods in return. A priest later moved the group to Malandog. The Maragtas gives no clear date. A later text, the Code of Maragtas, says 1212, but historians Paul Morrow and William Henry Scott doubt it.
This is the line between history and legend. No outside record names Datu Puti. A 2019 thesis argues that the Maragtas is a secondary source, since a similar tale appears in the work of Fr. Tomas Santaren. Historians therefore treat the Maragtas as a mix of memory and later writing. Many Panay families still tell it as their founding story.