In the Philippines, many Filipinos consider the term "Malay" to refer to the indigenous population of the country as well as the population of neighboring countries like Indonesia and Malaysia. This misconception is due in part to American anthropologists H. Otley Beyer who proposed that the Filipinos were actually Malays who migrated from Malaysia and Indonesia. This idea was in turn propagated by Filipino historians and is still taught in schools. However, the prevalent consensus among contemporary anthropologists, archaeologists, and linguists actually proposes the reverse; namely that the Malays of Malaysia and Indonesia originally migrated south from the Philippines during the prehistoric period. Among these are scholars in the field of Austronesian studies such as Peter Bellwood, Robert Blust, Malcolm Ross, Andrew Pawley, and Lawrence Reid.
I don't know if this is true, but it's an interesting thought, isn't it?
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