1521, Magellan Slain in The Philippines                                                 
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Here in Mactan, there is a statue of a Filipino who lived in 1521 and was named Lapu Lapu.  He is celebrated by many Filipinos as a National Hero, and called The Hero who repelled the first foreign invaders. Invading what?  Philippines was not a nation. It was an archipelago of warring tribes without even a common language.  As a Filipino myself, I have always been perplexed at the reasoning behind Lapu Lapu being called a hero and bewildered at the concept of an invasion. 
       An invasion? Do we embrace Christianity or not?  The only invasion made by Magellan was to bring Christianity, Catholicism, The Bible, Jesus, Santo Nino, and Mother Mary to the Philippines.  At the age of 41, Magellan, a crippled man, who walked with a pronounced limp, who had sailed almost all the way around the world, without attacking anybody, baptized King Humabon of Cebu, and the people of Cebu. Days later, Magellan was killed  by Lapu Lapu of  Mactan Island.  Why?   It was just Lapu Lapu's way of refusing to accept Catholicism, baptism, and Jesus.  He did not believe in Jesus and Mary, Santo Nino, or anything Magellan had to say. Pontius Pilate did not believe in Jesus either.  Why don't we erect him a statue?

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IS LAPU LAPU A HERO?
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Magellan spent two weeks on the island of Cebu before that dark day he sailed to Mactan.  He never attacked anyone on Cebu Island. Quite the opposite. He spent those two weeks baptizing the King and Queen of Cebu and their people. He erected them a holy cross, and gave them the Santo Nino.  (Until this day, we Filipinos gather by the millions to celebrate Sinulog in honor of Santo Nino. Every Christian I know displays Santo Nino in a place of prominence in their home.) But Lapu Lapu, wanted no part of Santo Nino nor anything that went with Magellan.  Lapu Lapu sent word from Mactan Island, that he would not be baptized. Magellan had 150 men and three ships, all with cannons, yet when he sailed to Mactan, in his effort  to baptize Lapu Lapu, he took only 60 men and one ship. The other 90 men and two ships were left behind in Cebu. Of these 60 men, 11 stayed offshore with the ship’s longboats, only 49 made the trek to the Mactan shore. Not what you would call an invasion force.

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Antonio Pigafetta Lived To Tell
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Antonio Pigafetta was one of the Spanish survivors of that fatal day; his diary records the following: "When morning came, forty-nine of us leaped into the water up to our thighs, and walked through water for more than two cross-bow flights before we could reach the shore. ..... When we reached land, [the natives] had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred people. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries... Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice... A native hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the native's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass,  which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide...  Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could….”

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Goodbye Navigator
Outnumbered 25 to One.
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The Battle of Mactan. It was not the glorious one on one sword fight between Magellan and Lapu Lapu, as portrayed by yearly re-enactments in Mactan, and by Pinoy movie directors. Nor was it a gallant display of eskrima arnis kali, the Filipino martial arts, as many like to fantasize. In reality it was a staggering and savage ambush by a mob that outnumbered Magellan’s forces, 25 to 1. An ambush that killed the man who brought us Jesus Christ. A battle that would convince future Spanish explorers to display their wrath and their mighty weapons instead of their Bibles.

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