Lots of people hunting the Yamashita treasure anywhere in the Philippines. Some found the gold, and many of them are not lucky.
In 1981, Mr. Berto Morales, a farmer working as a bulldozer operator in an irrigation project in Surigao struck gold. He discovered a treasure trove of gold ornaments while bringing down a hill to collect filling materials.
According to the Probe documentary film, the treasures were discovered in an excavation site in Surigao. There were belts of pure gold, gold masks, gold daggers, gold ornaments, bowls, bracelets, rings, pectorals, earrings, and a pure gold rope that turned out to be a sacred thread or "sablay" and weighs 400 kilos, so intricately designed that one could just stare at it in wonder. The man who allegedly found these valuable pieces of treasure sold some of them and left most of the treasure to a priest in their parish. Eventually, these gold pieces found their way to the Ayala Museum and the Central Bank of the Philippines.
Gintong Pamana Video Made by Probe Team
After Probe's documentary, I made it a point to search more about the gold of our ancestors. What I found is something important to me since I never learned this in school. We were taught that the Spaniards came here for the spices. Maybe it is partly true but there is more to spices. I actually found a blog that proposes that the Philippines is actually a gold-rich land. In some of the accounts made by the colonizers, they described our ancestors as adorned with gold from head to toe. "Gold as big as eggs" could be found just "lying around." The king had gold in his teeth and ate in golden plates. Even his abode has pure gold as part of the structure. Wow!
