<P> When Islamic missionaries came to Mindanao and converted the Moros to become Muslims, some changes were adapted for the Mindanaoan epics to conform to this change of faith, thus, there are more epics from mostly Visayas and Mindanao that did survive . In the epic of Maranao, Darangen, for instance, they have made Muslim prophet Muhammad as the forefather of the hero, Bantugen . Today, there are twenty - one epics that survived from Visayas and Mindanao . </P> <P> Some of the epics however, especially in Luzon, perceived to center on pagan beliefs and rituals, were burned and destroyed by Spanish friars during the Spanish colonization of the Philippines islands in the 16th century . There are only two folk epics that survived from Luzon . </P> <P> Truly, there were substantial writings by early natives that Jesuit historian Fr . Pedro Chirino noted: "All of the islanders are much given to reading and writing . And there is hardly a man, much less a woman who did not read and write ." (Relacion de las isles Filipinas - 1604). </P> <P> Stories of epics in verse displayed tremendous vitality, color and imagination . Tales of love and adventures about native heroes, endowed with powers from the gods, battle monsters, and triumphs over formidable armies, rode the wind, vanguard shields and protect the earliest communities of the islands . </P>

Philippine epics are usually named after the hero of the story (addition)