About 20 kilometres from Cebu City, on the northern tip of Mactan Island in the Philippines, lies Magellan Bay. In this area on 27 April 1521 the famous Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived during a detour on his major voyage to find a western route from Spain to the Spice Islands (known also as the Moluccas). Magellan had recently converted Cebu's monarch, Rajah Humabon, to Christianity and sailed to Mactan Island to help him suppress a regional rival Rajah Lapu Lapu. The detour, foolish in hindsight and unnecessary even to many of those who sailed with him, turned out to be fatal for Magellan. Grossly outnumbered and deftly outmanoeuvred the Magellan-Humabon force was overwhelmed by Lapu Lapu's men. The great explorer was hit with poisoned spears and died soon after on the shores of the bay.
Most of the details of this story were recorded by a Venetian scholar, Antonio Pigafetta, who sailed with Magellan on the journey. He produced one of the most detailed accounts of the voyages of exploration from the period and a version is now freely accessible online. Pigafetta's account is full of the drama, tragedy and probable exaggeration one would expect from such an eyewitness. The meaning and the accuracy of the account are, unsurprisingly, the subject of much controversy and debate. Nevertheless, the broad contours of the narrative about Magellan's death are repeated across many books written by scholars even if the particulars are not always agreed upon.
If you visit the site today it is marked by a number of monuments, statues and plaques. Some honour the people involved in the events of 27 April 1521 while others try to provide commentary on the importance of those events. One inscription tells of the great ‘encounter’ (not battle) between Magellan and Lapu Lapu within the larger story of the first European to 'circumnavigate the globe'. Another tells of Lapu Lapu’s heroic effort to resist Spanish colonisers. An annual reenactment of the battle, Kadaugan sa Mactan, now takes place within the park on 27 April.
On a recent trip to the Philippines I visited this site and began to read more about the history and memory of these events. It became obvious quite quickly that they have always been difficult to place within the history of the Philippines. Magellan, a Portuguese explorer working for the Spanish, was certainly not the first foreigner to make contact with the people living on the islands; that credit belongs to Chinese traders, Muslim explorers and other groups in the region. Nor did Magellan’s voyage begin Spanish occupation of the Philippines; that was completed by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi who established the first permanent Spanish settlement there in 1565. There is also the divisive fact that Magellan was the first to introduce Catholicism to the Philippines though the extent to which it took root after his visit is debatable. To the devout the introduction of Christianity is obviously something to be celebrated. To secular nationalists and to some members of the Islamic community perhaps not so much.
Still, there are many contemporary Filipinos who appear frustrated by the nation’s ‘ambiguity’ towards Magellan. For them, Magellan’s arrival in the Philippines was important for both their nation and the world. They believe it has be grossly underplayed in the national narrative for too long. One commentator, Yen Makabenta, has called on the government to declare 16 March (the date Magellan reportedly arrived in the Philippines) ‘Magellan Day’ or ‘Discovery Day’.
Others see things a little differently. Without discounting the importance for global exploration that Magellan’s voyage had, Jerry Tundag argues that Magellan’s influence on the Philippines was relatively minor. For him, it was a 'voyage of exploration and discovery' and not a 'voyage of Christianization and colonization'. The more culturally important figure for the nation’s history, he argues, was de Legazpi who began a more thorough ‘Christianisation’ of the Philippines.
Lapu Lapu’s case seems a little clearer. He has long been regarded as the nation’s ‘first hero’ because he resisted Spanish colonisation. It was one of my more interesting realisations while travelling from east to west across the Phillipine Islands that most people I talked to could celebrate the Spanish bringing Christianity to their country but at the same time celebrate the many stories of resistance to their colonisation. One museum guide I talked to admitted that determining attitudes to Spanish occupation in the Philippines could be quite confusing though she herself was unreservedly critical.
Despite some concern that Lapu Lapu may not have been truly ‘Filipino’ – since there was no cohesive nation at that time and he would almost certainly not have thought of himself as Filipino – he seems much more easy to integrate into the national story. On National Heroes Day in July 2017 the Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte proclaimed 27 April ‘Lapu Lapu Day’. He vented frustration at claims Magellan had ‘discovered’ the Philippines and made arguments almost diametrically opposed to Makabenta’s mentioned above. He suggested it was not Magellan who had been undervalued but Lapu Lapu.
Interestingly, and probably without coincidence, Duterte made that announcement not long after the army had defeated ISIS insurgents in the city of Marawi on the island of Mindanao. No doubt promoting a local hero (rather than a European one) played into his duty to rally a nation racked by recent acts of brutality. It might also be possible to speculate that Duterte's decision to promote a hero that many consider to have been Muslim could also have been part of an attempt to draw closer to the more moderate members of the nation’s Islamic community but that is a more complicated matter.
To my mind, there is something universal and something very particular in all of this. No nation can really escape the difficulty of trying to develop a story that is both faithful to the events of the past and acceptable to all of its current citizens. In my own context, the annual debates about Australia Day are one testament to that. But the Philippines, Magellan and Lapu Lapu are also unique in the way global history, nationalism, religion and secularism collide. This is not simply 'the Australia Day debate' in the Philippines and it is not even completely analogous to Australian debates about colonial monuments. It is something more complex again.
From what I can tell, the debates about Magellan, Lapu Lapu and the Spanish colonisation of the Philippines will be one of those 'arguments without end' (to borrow from Peter Geyl). It is an argument unlikely to be won with 'facts' and as the 500th anniversary of Magellan’s arrival in the Philippines approaches in 2021 it will be interesting to see how the debate evolves.
Elsewhere I have written that: ‘… the past can be pushed and pulled in any direction depending on social, political and economic forces. Whose history dominates… is, therefore, as much a question of culture and power as it is of evidence and method.’ That is a sentiment that echoes many earlier commentators and although in that context I was writing about the First World War, it seems just as apt to the story of Magellan, Lapu Lapu and the Philippines.
Other sources:
Luis H. Francia, A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos, The Overlook Press, New York, 2010 (Chapter Two: 'Expeditions, Entrenchment, and Spanish Colonial Rule, 1521 - 1862')
American Historical Association: 'When did Philippine History Begin?'