500th anniversary of freedom from invaders

THE Treaty of Tordesillas, signed at Tordesillas on June 7, 1494, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Portuguese Empire and the Crown of Castile. The lands to the east would belong to Portugal and the lands to the west to Castile [Spain].

Spain thus had to find westward route to the Spice islands in the Moluccas.

Magellan was confident he would find that westward route to the Spice Islands in the Moluccas, because he was there before, leading the Battle of Malacca in 1511, under the Portuguese flag.

He was right, of course, that the world is round, except that with his meager navigational instruments, he miscalculated the true size of our planet.

And so, for nearly two years, he sailed through uncharted waters, until he discovered the Strait that was named after him, connecting the southern Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

The expedition reached Homonhon Island on March 16, 1521.

In Cebu, a local chieftain, Rajah Humabon and his ally Datu Zula convinced Magellan to kill their enemy, Datu Lapu-Lapu, of Mactan.

Magellan wanted to convert LapuLapu to Christianity, as he had Humabon, but Lapu-Lapu refused. On the morning of April 27, 1521, Magellan sailed to Mactan with a small attack force.

Lapu-Lapu, also called Kaliph Pulaka, was, according to Sulu oral tradition, a native Muslim chieftain and known as the first native of the archipelago to resist Spanish colonization.

There are plans to observe the 500th anniversary of that battle in March, 2021, in which Lapu-Lapu fought and killed Magellan.

Antonio Pecho Alviso Jr. who spoke at the recent “Quincentennial Symposium on the Discovery of the Philippines,” said the Battle of Mactan in 1521, asserted the people’s claim to freedom from foreign intervention, and avenged the defeat of the Malay race in the battle of Malacca which was conquered by the Portuguese in 1511.

The Filipinas Quincentenario is the marker that led to our nationhood. It also marks the arrival of Christianity in the Philippines which evolved as the main belief system in our country.