First Mass controversy: Butuan or Limasawa? Why Limasawa won

First word

IT’S useful to be reminded of the signification and meaning of words that are part of our Christian faith and calendar. Some things are perennially in danger of being forgotten or mislaid in the bewildering world of bytes and information overload.

In this week of commemoration of the most solemn time of our Christian faith, I remain fascinated and transfixed by the incredible implantation of Christianity in the archipelago 503 years ago.

While some among us persist in griping why Christ was planted among us and why it supplanted other religions that arrived in the islands much earlier, the substantive question is what grew from the Christian seed sown 500 years ago, and why it developed the sinews of a powerful civilization and culture, and has proved much sturdier and more deeply rooted than other plants.

History with no dates before Spanish conquest

The late National Artist Nick Joaquin pointedly wrote in an essay on culture and history that before the Spanish conquest and the coming of the Cross in the 16th century, our people and our country did not have a history with dates. He dared the naysayers of Filipino Christianity to point to any authentic dates before 1565, when Miguel Lopez de Legazpi came to town.

I looked up Prof. Teodoro Agoncillo’s “History of the Filipino People” (R. P. Garcia Publishing Co., Quezon City, 1977) to verify Joaquin’s point. Agoncillo opens his history with a long section entitled “Pre-colonial Philippines.” I was startled to discover that this part of our history indeed has no dates before 1565.

Subsequent efforts by scholars to find links of the islands to the ancient Sri Vijaya and Madjapahit empires in Southeast Asia and to the Chinese imperial dynasties have not been successful. This consequently left the search for links and dates to the ministrations of archaeologists and anthropologists.

Tabon Man, of course, was a real find, but who wants to begin a history of our country and our people from as far back as 50,000 years ago.

In our case, it really does make practical sense to start the national tale from the accidental discovery of the archipelago on March 16, 1521, by Ferdinand Magellan and his epic circumnavigation of the globe.

Miguel Bernad on the First Mass

Apart from writing a much anthologized and memorable essay on Ferdinand Magellan’s landfall and the first encounter between his expedition and the natives of the islands, the Jesuit scholar Miguel Bernad also wrote the definitive account of the controversy regarding the site of the first Mass ever celebrated on Philippine soul, and how the issue was settled.

In his book, “The Great Island: Studies in the Exploration and Evangelization of Mindanao” (Ateneo de Manila University Press, Quezon City, 2004), Fr. Bernad features as the first chapter his 1981 essay, which was first published in the Kaadman Journal, “Butuan or Limasawa? A reexamination of the evidence on the site of the first mass.”

The Butuan claim

The Butuan claim, says Fr. Bernad, rests on a tradition that was almost unanimous and unbroken for three centuries, namely, the 17th, the 18th and the 19th centuries.

On the strength of that tradition, and embodying it, a monument was erected in 1872 near the mouth of the Agusan River, on a spot that was then within the municipal boundaries of Butuan, but which today belongs to the separate municipality of Magallanes. Named after the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. An inscription on the monument said that it commemorates the arrival on this site of Magellan and the celebration of the first Mass on April 8, 1521.

Belief in the tradition lasted several centuries because several scholars, notably the Jesuit scholars Fr. Francisco Combes (1620-1665) and Fr. Francisco Colin (1592-1660) published works that misplaced the first Mass in Butuan, Mindanao, and not on Limasawa island in Leyte.

Fathers Colin and Combes wrote of Magellan as visiting both Butuan and Limasawa. Both exercised a strong influence on subsequent writers and this led to the mistaken presentation of Butuan as the site of the first Mass.

Shift in opinion to Limasawa

The shift in opinion from Butuan to Limasawa came about principally because of the publication of two major works:

– The publication in Cleveland from 1903 to 1909 of the 55-volume collection of documents on the Philippine islands by Emma Blair and James Alexander Robertson; and

– The publication in 1894 of Antonio Pigafetta’s account of the Magellan expedition and its discovery of the Philippine islands.

Pigafetta’s chronicle of the Magellan expedition radically changed perception of the expedition and scholarly opinion on the site of the first Mass from Butuan to Limasawa.

Blair and Robertson reprinted Antonio Pigafetta’s account in the original, together with an English translation.

Among the Philippine scholars who generally accepted the Limasawa opinion were Trinidad Pardo de Tavera and Jaime de Veyra, who were much respected.

The evidence for Limasawa

The evidence in favor of Limasawa may be outlined as follows, wrote Fr. Bernad:

1. The evidence from Francisco Albo’s logbook. Albo was the pilot in Magellan’s flagship Trinidad.

2. The evidence from Pigafetta, who narrated the events from March 16, 1521 when they first sighted the islands in the archipelago up to April 7, when the expedition landed in Cebu.

3. The evidence from Pigafetta’s maps.

4. The two native kings who attended the Limasawa Mass.

5. The seven days that the expedition spent at Limasawa.

6. The summary of the evidence of Albo and Pigafetta.

7. Confirmatory evidence from the Legazpi expedition.

The basic reason why a mistaken tradition started concentrating on siting the first Mass in Butuan was the fact that the full and genuine account of Pigafetta’s chronicle of the Magellan voyage was not published until long afterwards in the 19th century. What was circulated in Europe was only a summary.

On Dec. 11, 1953, a national historical committee was petitioned for the rehabilitation of the Butuan monument to Magellan’s alleged visit to Butuan and the celebration of the first Mass there. The committee passed a resolution to rehabilitate the monument, but it stipulated, however, that the marble slab of the monument claiming that it was the site of the first Mass should be removed.

The thing came down to a question of fact. Was the first Mass on Philippine soil on Easter Sunday, March 31, 1521, celebrated in Butuan or Limasawa?

The overwhelming evidence pointed to Limasawa. Ferdinand Magellan never went to Butuan as alleged by some. The first Mass was not celebrated there.

But Butuan was a kingdom in its own right at the time of discovery; it is a place of much historical importance and should be given its due.