Why are we turning our backs on history?

ByYen Makabenta
March 16, 2021

First of 3 parts
We cannot escape history…We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last
best hope of earth.
— Abraham Lincoln

First word
TODAY, on this 16th day of March 2021, the whole world and the Filipino
nation will jointly mark and celebrate the Quincentennial (or
quincentenary) of Ferdinand Magellan’s epic circumnavigation of the
world on March 16, 1521, a date which coincidentally also marks Europe’s
discovery of our archipelago and hence our entry into world history.

The voyage was indisputably epic and incomparable until that time. The
discovery of our island world was similarly consequential because it
enabled Magellan and cartographers to complete a map of the world by
supplying the measures of longitude and latitude. Magellan himself
completed his personal circumnavigation of the world because in an
earlier voyage he had reached the Spice Islands (or the Moluccas) by way
of India.

You would think that commemoration of such a great moment in history

will proceed in earnest and vest it readily with the appropriate honors
and tributes.

Strangely, however, as though the disease of the United States’ cancel

culture has also infected our society, there is an official effort here, led
by the National Historical Institute to mount what it calls a “Filipino-
centric” commemoration of the circumnavigation. This is their way of
rejecting the world commemoration led by Spain and Portugal, which
they tag as “Eurocentric.”

This silliness matches in scale the country’s unchallenged possession

today of the longest pandemic lockdown (quarantine) in the world. It will
invite derision in the same measure.

This is not the first time that we have had clashing views in our ranks of
the circumnavigation and the discovery. I researched and discussed the
issue before in a column published by the Times on Dec. 26, 2014. I want
to reprint the column today because it is relevant in every way to the
present furor. It reads:

Turning our back on history

“‘Before 1521, there is not one authentic Philippine date.’ Thus did the
inimitable national artist Nick Joaquin launch his remarkable book,
Culture and History (Solar Publishing Corp., 1989), which singlehandedly
impelled many of us to take national history and dates as seriously as we
keep tabs on our birthdays.

In the book, Joaquin presents and discusses his thesis that until we
Filipinos made the transition from ‘a history without dates’ to a ‘history
with dates,’ we were a people without a sense of history and a sense of
national community.

I looked up my copy of the book when I realized that in our national

calendar, we do not officially honor or commemorate Ferdinand
Magellan’s historic circumnavigation of the world with his expedition’s
discovery of the Philippine archipelago on March 16, 1521.
It dawned on me as well that as we are stumbling all over ourselves and
quibbling about preparations for Pope Francis’ visit to the Philippines on
January 17 to 22, we do not in fact recall in our history books and
calendars the precise dates when Christianity was first implanted here,
when the first Mass was celebrated in the islands and when the first
baptisms were performed.

Antonio Pigafetta’s classic account

The omissions are remarkable because the events are faithfully recorded
and told by the great Italian chronicler of Magellan’s voyage, Antonio
Pigafetta, in his classic account of the epic expedition.

It is told and retold in countless books, most especially by William

Manchester’s magnificent book on the Renaissance, A World Lit Only By
Fire, which hailed Magellan as the greatest figure of the Renaissance.

Manchester wrote of the voyage: ‘The little armada’s 12,600-mile

crossing of the Pacific, the greatest physical unit on earth, is one of
history’s imperishable tales of the sea, and like so many of the others, it
is a story of extraordinary human suffering, of agony so excruciating that
only those who have been pushed to the extremes of human endurance
can even comprehend it.’

Of the captain-general who commanded the expedition, Manchester

writes movingly: ‘Magellan became what, as a child he had yearned to be
— the era’s greatest hero.

‘The hero acts alone, without encouragement, relying solely on conviction

and his own inner resources. Shame does not discourage him; neither
does obloquy. Indifferent to approval, reputation, wealth or love, he
cherishes only his personal sense of honor, which he permits no one else
to judge. La Rochefoucald, not always a cynic, wrote of him that ‘he does
without witnesses what we would be capable of doing before everyone.’

‘Guided by an inner gyroscope, he pursues his vision singlemindedly,

undiscouraged by rejections, defeat, or even the prospect of imminent
death. Few men can even comprehend such fortitude.

‘In the long lists of history, it is difficult to find another figure whose
heroism matches Magellan’s.’

First Philippine Mass

Of the first Mass in the Philippines, Manchester wrote:

‘Easter’s arrival on March 31, their first Sunday at Limasawa, had

provided an opportunity which, the devout Magellan believed was God-
sent. He had seized it by entertaining his hosts in Limasawa with a
theological version of bangles and beads — a flamboyant Mass.

‘Padre Valderrama was asked to celebrate the services with flair, and the
flota’s officers were ordered to provide him every possible assistance.
Their commander wanted a show and he got it. An altar having been
brought ashore, a glittering cross was attached to it. The priest, wearing
his vestments, performed Eastertide rituals, after which the Captain-
general and his men approached in twos, kissed the crucifix, and received
the host while gunners aboard the ships fired volleys and all hands
cheered.

‘The armada’s guests that morning had been Rajah Kolambu and his
brother Siaui. Already Magellan was singling out influential chieftains
who could rule in the king’s name until royal administrators arrived from
Spain.
‘The Easter spectacle served its purpose admirably.

‘After Valderrama’s Mass, the two guests of honor knelt before the altar,
imitated the movements of the supplicants who had preceded them, and
then, according to one account, they ordered native carpenters to build a
cross so large that when it had been ‘set on the summit of the highest
mountain in the neighborhood, all might see and adore it.’

The sword and the cross

The transition to a history with dates, according to Joaquin, was
triggered by the mass arrival in the islands during the 16th and 17th
centuries of revolutionary tools that wrought radical changes in the
culture and societies then existing in the archipelago.

One of these tools was plainly Christianity, whose proselytizing was as

critical to the success of the expedition as the conquest of the islands
itself.

The sword and the cross, it has been called. And they were fittingly the
symbols of Spanish possession and dominion over the islands.

Filipino recollection of these key events in national history is riddled

with holes unless it incorporates them into the national memory.

Six years to Quincentennial

Within six years, on March 16, 2021, the world will be commemorating
and celebrating the quincentennial of Ferdinand Magellan’s
circumnavigation of the globe.

Within six years also, the Roman Catholic Church will be commemorating
and celebrating the quincentennial of the Christianization of the
Philippines.
In Spain and Portugal, preparations are already under way for these epic
commemorations. No doubt, something is also already astir in the
Vatican.

We Filipinos would be dumb and insensate not to join in the chorus of

anticipation, preparation and celebration.

For it was truly in these islands where the map of the globe was first
completed. And it was here where the international date line was
discovered by Pigafetta, through his painstakingly accurate logs and
journals.

Why would anyone among us, particularly the publicly funded historical
institute, dare to prevent us from properly remembering and treasuring
these great events in national history?” (To be continued)

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