A SECOND LOOK AT LAPU-LAPU OR WHY HE SHOULD BE DISCONTINUED AS A “NATIONAL HERO”.
By Guillermo Gómez Rivera
I. EVENTS AND A SECTARIAN PROVOCATION
The vast majority of Filipinos were euphoric due to the canonization in October of 2012 of San Pedro Calungsod and the appointment, in November of the same year, of a new Filipino Cardinal in His Eminence Antonio Tagle y Gokim, Archbishop of Manila, by Pope Benedict XVI. The story of San Pedro Calungsod is that of a martyr who died together with a Spanish Jesuit missionary, Padre Diego San Vítores, in Guam or in the MarianasIslands. Both were hacked to death by a pagan islander who did not care to know who is Jesus Christ.
Since the martyrdom of San Pedro Calungsod was hailed as a national event, an Inquirer lady columnist wrote: “And I couldn’t help thinking then: What if the Vatican canonized Magellan or some zealous Spanish friars who, as we were taught in school, brought the sword and the cross in the name of Spain and God and made Christians of almost all of us? What would that make of our Lapu-lapu and his bare-breasted braves who fought and killed some of the invaders? Villains? Would we protest? I, a Christian and Catholic, would.”
Now, that is a provocative reaction from a so-called Catholic and misled writer vis-à-vis Philippine History and the canonization of San Pedro Calungsod. In answer to this provocation we can also ask the following questions: “And why should Magellan not be canonized a Saint when it was he who brought to Cebu the first Catholic Mass, the first Catholic Cross which he planted there, the first image of Mama Mary and the first Santo Niño for the City and Island of Cebú? Why? Because there is a sectarian WASP demonization of Magellan in all our history books as taught to that mentioned PDI lady columnist in both our public and private schools under US colonial policy.
2. WHY IS THERE AN “OFFICIAL DEMONIZATION” OF FERDINAND MAGELLAN?
Why is there, indeed, a sectarian, and now “official”, demonization of Ferdinand Magellan in the teaching of Philippine History? The answer is simple but hard to say because we will have to bring out the matter about US WASP American colonization of this country which is a topic that is inconvenient to present-day Filipinos, supposedly English trained in politics and in certain social positions. To bring this topic out is not what is understood today as “being politically correct”. But the time has surely come when the truth must be told for the Filipino’s own interest as a “free and democratic people”.
Ferdinand Magellan has to be demonized up to now because he discovered in 1521 the Philippine archipelago for himself, the Spanish King and people, the world and the Filipinos themselves. And, with his discovery he, Magellan, started and caused the eventual Catholic evangelization of the original inhabitants of these Islands, ---something which traditional Anti-Catholics, like the White Anglo Saxon Protestants of the United States, the WASPs, do not approve of.
Among the WASPs, we still can find the traditional bias against Catholics, a bias which even the President, Mr. William Donohue, of the American Catholic League calls “the greatest bias in the USA”.
Thus Magellan, a Portuguese, has been demoted as “a rediscoverer” of the Philippines and has always been depicted as “an invader” which he was not. He was a merchant explorer in search of the fabled spice Islands who accidentally stumbled upon these Islands, then imagined as being disputed between Spain and Portugal due to a demarcation line drawn over a World Map by the Pope of Rome. Upon arrival at Cebú, then Sugbu, he claimed it as the zone belonging to the Spanish Crown asking the local Kinglet, or Rajah Hamabar, or Humabon, to accept the Catholic King of Spain as his superior in exchange of commerce and military protection. A blood compact, as was the custom of the time, was celebrated between Magellan and Hamabar.
But Hamabar had internal problems with his own lieutenants over his neighboring Island of Mactan divided between his two sub-chiefs, Sula and Pulaco.
Pulaco for a reason refused to pay his tax to Hamabar, or Humabon. And he was declared a tax delinquent. In the past, Pulaco had given his own sister as a concubine for Humabon, but after tiring of her Humabon demanded that Pulaco must finally settle the payment of the taxes (tribute) due him. (pages 41, 44, 46, Antonio M.Molina, The Philippines through the Centuries, Manila, UST).
Because of this tax delinquency Pulaco was in a state of rebellion against Humabon. To discipline the tribute evader, Humabon had sent Sula to capture Pulaco, but Sula failed. That is why, when Magellan came along as an ally, Humaban got Magellan, on the strength of the blood compact they had, to run after Pulaco in the Island of Mactan. Unfortunately, Pulaco appeared to have many more men and succeeded in having Magellan killed “after sand was thrown on his face and two hundred men” with spears and swords felled him while Pulaco was watching from a distance.
This is how Pigafetta describes the encounter. This is also how José Rizal, in his pertinent annotation on Morga’s “Sucesos de las islas Filipinas” describes the same encounter quoting Pigafetta. But the US WASP propaganda has made all of us understand that there was a man to man and hand to hand engagement between the so-called Lapulapu and Magellan, which is not true. But this falsity is what is left in the minds of present day Filipinos.
But an older account in verse of the Magellan Pulaco encounter, written in Spanish by a Chino Cristiano principal of Binondo in 1614, Don Carlos Calao, that belies the US WASP propaganda using Pulaco. Don Carlos Calao reproduces the same encounter but added with some observations which simply tells us that, at that time, Pulaco, was not held as a hero but the exact opposite. Wrote Don Carlos Calao in 1614:
“Que Dios le perdone al salvaje, /al pagano de Mactán/ que no entendió la palabra/ de Dios en el Capitán, /Magallanes, a quien muerte/ dió por orden de Satán, /el enemigo de Cristo,/ el punsuñoso alacrán.
“A dos cientos cobardes/ Cali Pulaco mandó/ que se le tire arena, /en los ojos a traición, /y que con pedradas y palos, /se le cayera el toisón: /¡un hombre contra dos cientos /salvajes sin corazón!
“El Capitán Magallanes /los invitó a servir /al verdadero Dios nuestro; /mas, aquel rúgulo vil /llamado Cali Pulaco /no quiso ver ni sentir / la dádiva de la Fe / y nos lo hizo morir.
“Mas, no fue en vano la muerte /del noble conquistador, /el Niño Jesús que se entrona /en Cebú es hoy la flor /que a su martirio perfuma. /Nadie recuerda al traidor /que a Magallanes dio muerte, /tal vez, otro vil traidor.
And we translate the foregoing into English:
(May God forgive the savage, /the pagan from Mactan /who did not understand the word / of God in Captain /Magellan, whom death /he gave by order of Satan, / the enemy of Christ, /the poisonous scorpion.)
(Two hundred cowards, Cali Pulaco commanded /to throw sand with treachery /upon his eyes / and with stones and sticks / cause his insignia to fall: /one man against two hundred /heartless savages!.)
(Captain Magellan, /had invited them to serve /the true God of ours/ but that vile chieftain/ called Cali Pulaco/ did not want to see nor feel, /the gift of Faith/ and he had him put to death.
( But the death /of the noble conquistador was not in vain, / the Child Jesus that is now enthroned /in Cebú is now the flower /that perfumes his martyrdom. /Nobody remembers the betrayer/ that gave death to Magellan, /perhaps, but another betrayer.)
This account in verse is eloquent enough and it appears to reflect the truth and the feeling of the early Chinos-Cristianos as well as the early Catholic natives of all these Islands with regard Lapulapu. But US WASP propaganda, through our compulsory history subjects, in a revised school system in English, has twisted the truth.
3. WHY WAS LAPU-LAPU MADE INTO A HERO BY THE US WASP INVADERS?
The demonization of Magellan, and with him, the Spanish friars and the Spanish administration over these Islands, was greatly needed by the 1899 US WASP invaders to justify, and if possible, hide, the very bloody invasion they launched against the First Filipino Republic over which they killed three million Filipinos, of the nearly ten million that then were counted by 1890, and they stole the gold and silver reserve of the República Filipina worth over a hundred billion US dollars according to Presidente Don Emilio Aguinaldo in a declaration he made to us in 1958.
With this hideous atrocity for a historical backdrop, the surviving Filipino people of the 1900s naturally despised the American invaders. To subjugate the then recalcitrant Filipinos, the US Colonial and Military Government here had to launch a war propaganda upon the unsuspecting Filipino children in the guise of free public instruction in English where the History of the Philippines was changed to depict the US invaders as the liberators of Filipinos from “the tyrannical, inhuman and cruel Spanish friars, encomenderos, guardia civiles and corrupt government officials”. As they blackened the Spanish record, the US WASP “liberators” also humored, fed and propped up “native pride”. Thus, the colonial US American WASP government likewise invented, or re-invented, several native heroes. It was the so-called “Philippine Commission” that legislated and proclaimed a so-called Lapulapu a “national Filipino Hero” to start the demonization of Magellan and Spain as “the invaders” of the Philippine islands.
Between 1916 and 1917 an American Committee was formed in Cebu City to draw a Resolution for the erection of a “monument to Lapulapu in Mactan”.
There were many prominent Cebuanos who objected to the “monument to Lapulapu in Mactan”, among them Bishop Juan Gorordo y Garcés and “el jurisconsulto Don Mariano Cuenco Abao” who resided in Cebú’s Parian. Congressman Miguel Cuenco y López from Cebú, with whom this writer worked for a period of twenty years, directed us to read part of that Resolution as published in the book “Crónicas Visayas” (pages 294-296, Manila, UST, 1917) authored by newspaperman, writer and academician Don Esteban Lanza e Iturriaga, a columnist of the Visayan journal “El Porvenir de Visayas”.
Even during the early 1970s, more accurately during the 1971-73 Philippine Constitutional Convention, the Delegates from Cebú like Judge Gerardo M.S. Pepito and radio commentator and Cebuano movie producer Natalio Bacalso, with Congressman Miguel Cuenco himself, as well as his brother Jaro Archbishop José Maria Cuenco, D.D., commented that the name Lapulapu was given by Rajah Humabon to Pigafetta as “Lapuklapuk” which in Cebuano Visayan means “dirty mud” which, in turn, makes the name Lapulapu not only that of a fish but a total deviation from the other name popularly given to the same individual such as Cali Pulaco or the abakadized “Kalipulako”.
Up to now there is a street in Lipa City called “Kalipulako” which continues to report on the error of the name “Lapulapu”. But what can we expect? The name “Lapulapu” was given by a clumsy Committee composed of clumsy sectarian Anti-Catholic US WASP invaders and colonialists who probably did not even know any Cebuano or Sugbuhanon. That is why there is this popular joke about “Lapulapu being cooked and eaten in Cebú’s Magellan Hotel.”.
Part of the mentioned Resolution as reproduced in the book “Crónicas Visayas” reads:
“(1) Que los propósitos que informan a dicho Comité de monumento a Lapulapu, son identicos a los de los habitantes…”
“(2) Que por deuda de gratitud a la veneranda memoria de aquel que se llamó Lapulapu, el que siendo régulo de la isla de Mactán resistió contra los españoles y los frailes (¿frailes?) en 1521..., estos Consejos solemnemente ratifican y aprueban lo actuado por Lapulapu.”.
“(3) Porque por aquella resistencia, el pueblo filipino disfrutó su independencia (selvática) durante cuarenta y cuatro años, o sea desde la llegada (y asesinato) de Magallanes a 1565 de la vuelta de Legazpi”.
“(4) Que los Consejos, “no olvidando a los que cayeron durante la noche” y considerando a Lapulapu el padre de los que cayeron, es y debe ser indiscutiblemente acreedor al homenaje”... (p. 296, Esteban Y. Lanza (Ysla de Panay), Crónicas Visayas, UST, Manila, 1917).
The inserted and italicized comments between parentheses are of the mentioned columnist. The reasons given for the erection of the Lapulapu Monument were refuted, not only by the inserted comments of Esteban Y. Lanza, but by lawyer Don Mariano Cuenco Abao as recounted to us by his own son, Congressman Miguel Cuenco, who was a distinguished historian and writer of Cebú along with his brother, Jaro Archbishop José Maria Cuenco, editor of the Catholic weekly Véritas in Jaro, Iloilo, whom we also knew since our student days in the same City of Iloilo.
Each of the given reasons for the monument to Lapulapu was contested and belied by both the Ecclesiastic and Catholic lay leaders of Cebú in the following manner:
(1) “That the purpose that inform the said Committee on the Monument to Lapulupu, are the same as that of the people…”
This was called a “blatant lie” (una gran mentira) because the people of Cebú, being Catholic in general, vehemently disliked Lapuklapuk for killing the one that brought them the first Mass, the first Cross and the Santo Niño. But then, who could stop the mis-ruling Americans of that time? The WASPos with their local lackeys went ahead with the Lapulapu monument even if the vast majority of Cebuanos, because devout Catholics, objected to it.
(2) “That out of a debt of gratitude to the venerated memory of the one called Lapulapu, who as Chieftain of Mactán resisted against the Spaniards and the Friars in 1521…, these Councilmen solemnly ratify and approve the actions of Lapulapu…”
This reason was resoundingly answered that the one called “Lapulapu” was never a “chieftain” since the true Chieftain of Cebu, including Mactan, was Hamabar, or Humabon, and not “Si Lapuklapuk”, which is how the said Rajah Hamabar called the individual now being called with the name of a fish.
That Lapuklapuk was a traitor to the duly constituted authority of Cebu and Mactan who was Rajah, or Datu, Hamabar or Humabon, therefore a traitor to all Cebuanos. That if ever a monument is to be raised, it should be in homage to Rajah Hamabar or Humabon, who drove away from Cebú the remaining followers of Magellan with Elcano commanding the return galleon ship to Spain.
That there is absolutely no record that Si Lapuklapuk ever resisted against the Friars since no Spanish Friar went to Mactan to subdue him. That the addition of the word “Friar” in the said Resolution just reveals the sectarian Anti-Catholic prejudice and bias from those who want a monument for Lapuklapuk to confuse, mislead and divide the Cebuano people in order to wean them away from the Catholic religion of their fathers.
(3) “Because due to that resistance, the Filipino people enjoyed their independence during forty four years, or since the arrival of Magellan and 1565 when Legazpi returned....”
This reason was pointed out as completely false by many knowledgeable Cebuanos of that time since between Magellan and Legazpi there was no such thing as “an independent Philippines” since the concept of the country now known as Filipinas started with the founding of both the Filipino State and Manila as its Capital City by Legazpi in June 24, 1571. That if any independence was lost by all Filipinos, this was due to the 1899 American invasion of these Islands and the plunder and destruction of the 1899 República de Filipinas under Presidente Emilio Aguinaldo.
“(4) Que los Consejos, “no olvidando a los que cayeron durante la noche” y considerando a Lapulapu el padre de los que cayeron, es y debe ser indiscutiblemente acreedor al homenaje”... (p. 296, Esteban Y. Lanza (Ysla de Panay), Crónicas Visayas, UST, Manila, 1917).
This reason was likewise contested by the same Cebuano intellectuals, historians and writers, as manipulative and a lie because what the new generations of Filipinos should not forget are the millions of Filipinos, both military and civilian, that were massacred by the invading American forces under Otis and Arthur MacArthur for defending the independence and sovereignty of their República de Filipinas born since 1896 and declared independent since 1898. They added that the culmination of the struggle and the work of Rizal was precisely the establishment of that independent 1896-98 República de Filipinas which was precisely the one destroyed by the invading 1899 Americans. That in view of the present situation of the Filipinos now under American rule, that their children be given better models to follow and not a tax-tribute evader like Si Lapuklapuk.
But as we said, nobody could stop the US WASP colonialists in their sectarian MacKinleyan agenda to “Christianize, Civilize and Uplift” an already Christian Catholic Filipino people to hide their atrocities, both actual and economic, and even gratify their vanity.
Present day Filipinos, and Catholic Cebuanos in particular, have no alternative but to tolerate the error of having an American imposed ‘”hero” like Lapulapu with a monument in Mactan and even in Manila. But once the truth is known by the thinking new generations of Filipinos, those monuments to Lapulapu will become meaningless, as they are indeed to a vast majority of mis-educated Filipinos. As a matter of fact, these monuments may even become landmarks that will instead expose the sectarian evils and the bigotry of the US WASP colonialists who have come to believe their own sectarian propaganda even in an impoverished country like the Philippines of our days. Let our tourists see these monuments to Lapulapu as the result of their tyranny over Filipinos whom they oppress economically with the most expensive electricity rates in the World, among other despicable things. In the meantime, the fish lapulapu is still eaten in Magellan Hotel and in the many other and new and luxurious hotels now sprouting in the shores of Mactan Island itself where locals and tourists continue eating a fish called “lapulapu”.
There is, moreover, a new data about “Si Lapuklapuk”, brought about by new research on him. The new research says that this Mactan sub-chieftain was already over seventy (70) years old when Magellan landed in both Cebu and Mactan. While an armored Magellan was in his thirties our revised history on this particular event tends to depict a young Lapulapu having a hand to hand combat with an armored Magellan. This is a blatant lie. In the first place how can a seventy year-old “Si Lapuklapuk” face a much younger Magellan, who was even armored, in a hand to hand, face to face, combat and defeat the said younger and armored Magellan?
But the other fact is that the only eye witness to this event, the Italian chronicler Pigafetta, does not say that there was such a hand to hand, face to face, combat between Magellan and “Si Lapuklapuk. No such combat. What Pigafetta describes is not a combat but an ambush of over 200 men over a Magellan heavy with armour and stuck down in the muddy shores of Punta Engaño in Mactan Island and attacked by hundreds of men who speared him down. What "battle of Mactan" are they talking about? Liars! But the Lapulapu superstition they have been lying about will soon die.
This is a perfect example of how history is blatantly falsified to satisfy and gratify a sectarian prejudice against Catholicism and its missionaries.
