Lapu-Lapu

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This article is about the ruler of Mactan island. For the city, see Lapu-Lapu, Philippines. For the fish
also known as "lapu-lapu", see grouper.
In this Philippine name for indigenous people, this person is addressed by the sole name, Lapu-
Lapu.

Lapu-Lapu

The statue of Lapu-Lapu on Mactan Island

1st Datu of Mactan

Reign fl. 1521-fl. 1542

Predecessor ??

Successor Mangubat[1]
 Born c. 1491

Opong, Rajahnate of Sugbu

Died 1542 (aged 50–51)

Mactan, Kingdom of Mactan

Lapu-Lapu (Baybayin: ᜎᜎᜎᜎᜎᜎ, Abecedario: Lápú-Lápú) (fl. 1521), also known

as Çilapulapu,[2] Si Lapulapu,[3] Salip Pulaka,[4] Cali Pulaco,[5] and Lapulapu Dimantag.[6], was a
ruler of Mactan in the Visayas. Modern Philippine society regards him as the first Filipino hero
because he was the first native to resist imperial Spanish colonization. He is best known for
the Battle of Mactan that happened at dawn on April 27, 1521, where he and his soldiers defeated
Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who was killed in the battle.[7] Magellan's death ended
his voyage of circumnavigation, and this delayed the Spanish occupation of the islands by over forty
years until the expedition of Miguel López de Legazpi in 1564. Monuments to Lapu-Lapu have been
built in Cebu and Manila, while the Philippine National Police and the Bureau of Fire Protection use
his image as part of their official seals.
Besides being a rival of Rajah Humabon of neighbouring Indianized Cebu, very little is known about
the life of Lapu-Lapu. The only existing documents about his life are those written by Antonio
Pigafetta, and according to historian Resil B. Mojares, he was never seen in person by any
European who left a historical record.[8] His name, origins, religion and fate are still a matter of
controversy.

Contents

 1Name
 2Early life
 3Battle of Mactan
 4Religion
 5Legacy
 6In popular culture
 7Shrine
 8Notes
 9References
 10Further reading
 11External links

Name[edit]
The historical name of Lapu-Lapu is debated. The earliest record of his name comes from Italian
diarist Antonio Pigafetta who accompanied Magellan's expedition. Pigafetta notes the names of two
chiefs of the island of "Mactan", the chiefs "Zula" and Alqader alias "Çilapulapu" (note Ç).[2] In an
annotation of the 1890 edition of Antonio de Morga's Sucesos de las islas Filipinas, José Rizal spells
this name as "Si Lapulapu".[3] The honorific Çi or Si is from si (plural siná), an article in Philippine
languages used to indicate personal names. Patanñe (1999), however, proposes that in this usage,
it was derived from a corruption of the Sanskrit title Sri.[9] The Aginid chronicle calls him "Lapulapu
Dimantag".[6]
The title Salip (and its variants Sarripada, Sipad, Paduka, Seri Paduka, and Salipada, etc.) is
frequently used as an honorific for Lapu-lapu and other Visayan datus. Despite common
misconception, it is not derived from the Islamic title Khalīfah (Caliph). It was derived from
the Sanskrit title Sri Paduka, denoting "His Highness". The title is still used today in Malaysia as Seri
Paduka.[4]
The 17th century mestizo de sangley poet Carlos Calao mentions Lapu-Lapu under the name of
"Cali Pulaco" (perhaps a misreading of the Ç used in Pigafetta's spelling) in his poem Que Dios le
perdone (May God Forgive Him).[10] The name, spelled "Kalipulako", was later adopted as one of
the pseudonyms of the Philippine hero, Mariano Ponce, during the Philippine Revolution.[11] The
1898 Philippine Declaration of Independence of Cavite II el Viejo, also mentions Lapu-Lapu under
the name "Rey Kalipulako de Manktan [sic]" (King Kalipulako of Mactan).[12]

Early life[edit]

Mactan Island in Cebu

There had been many folk accounts surrounding Lapu-Lapu’s origin. One oral tradition is that
the Sugbuanons of Opong was once ruled by datu named Mangal and later succeeded by his son
named Lapu-Lapu.[13]
Another is from oral chronicles from the reign of the last king of Cebu, Rajah Tupas (d. 1565). This
was compiled and written in Baybayin in the book Aginid, Bayok sa Atong Tawarik ("Glide on, Odes
to Our History") in 1952 by Jovito Abellana. The chronicle records the founding of the Rajahnate of
Cebu by a certain Sri Lumay (also known as Rajamuda Lumaya), who was a prince from the
Hindu Chola dynasty of Sumatra. His sons, Sri Alho and Sri Ukob, ruled the neighboring
communities of Sialo and Nahalin, respectively. The islands they were in were collectively known
as Pulua Kang Dayang or Kangdaya (literally "[the islands] of the lady"). Sri Lumay was known for
his strict policies in defending against Moro raiders and slavers from Mindanao. His use of scorched
earth tactics to repel invaders gave rise to the name Kang Sri Lumayng Sugbo (literally "that of Sri
Lumay's great fire") to the town, which was later shortened to Sugbo ("conflagration").[6]
Upon his death in a battle against the raiders, Sri Lumay was succeeded by his youngest son, Sri
Bantug, who ruled from the region of Singhapala (literally "lion city"), now Mabolo in modern Cebu
City. Sri Bantug died of a disease during an epidemic and was succeeded by his son Rajah
Humabon (also known as Sri Humabon or Rajah Humabara).[6] During Humabon's reign, the region
had become an important trading center. The harbors of Sugbo became known colloquially
as sinibuayng hingpit ("the place for trading"), shortened to sibu or sibo ("to trade"), from which the
modern name "Cebu" originates.[6]
According to the epic Aginid, this was the period in which Lapu-Lapu (as Lapulapu Dimantag) was
first recorded as arriving from "Borneo" (Sabah). He asked Humabon for a place to settle, and the
king offered him the region of Mandawili (now Mandaue), including the island known as Opong
(or Opon), hoping that Lapu-Lapu's people would cultivate the land. They were successful in this,
and the influx of farm produce from Mandawili enriched the trade port of Sugbo further.[6]
The relationship between Lapu-Lapu and Humabon later deteriorated when Lapu-Lapu turned to
piracy. He began raiding merchant ships passing the island of Opong, affecting trade in Sugbo. The
island thus earned the name Mangatang ("those who lie in wait"), later evolving to "Mactan".[6]

Battle of Mactan[edit]
Lapu-Lapu was one of the two datus of Mactan before the Spanish arrived in the archipelago, the
other being a certain Zula, both of whom belong to the Maginoo class.
When Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the Philippines in the service of Spain,
Zula was one of those who gave tribute to the Spanish king while Lapu-Lapu refused.[14]

A depiction of the Battle of Mactan in the Magellan shrine

In the midnight of April 27, 1521, Magellan led a force of around sixty Spaniards and twenty to thirty
war boats (karakoa) of Humabon's warriors from Cebu. They arrived in Mactan three hours before
dawn. However, because of the presence of rock outcroppings and coral reefs, Magellan's ships
could not land on the shores of Mactan. Their ships were forced to anchor "two crossbow flights"
away from the beach. According to Antonio Pigafetta, they faced around 1,500 warriors of Lapu-
Lapu armed with iron swords,[note 1] bows, and "bamboo" spears.[note 2]
Magellan repeated his offer not to attack them if Lapu-Lapu swore fealty to Rajah Humabon, obeyed
the Spanish king, and paid tribute, which Lapu-Lapu again rejected. At the taunting request of Lapu-
Lapu, the battle did not begin until morning. Magellan, perhaps hoping to impress Humabon's
warriors with the superiority of European armor and weapons, told Humabon's warriors to remain in
their balangay. Magellan and forty-nine of the heavily armored Spaniards (armed with lances,
swords, crossbows, and muskets) waded ashore to meet Lapu-Lapu's forces. They set fire to a few
houses on the shore in an attempt to scare them. Instead, Lapu-Lapu's warriors became infuriated
and charged. Two Spaniards were killed immediately in the fighting, and Magellan was wounded in
the leg with a poisoned arrow. He ordered a retreat, which most of his men followed except for a few
who remained to protect him. However, he was recognized as the captain by the natives, whereupon
he became the focus of the attack. Outnumbered and encumbered by their armor, Magellan's forces
were quickly overwhelmed. Magellan and several of his men were killed, and the rest escaped to the
waiting ships.[14][15]
Illustration from Antonio Pigafetta's journal showing Cebu, Mactan, and Bohol; with a label indicating that the
"Capitaine general" died on Mactan (c. 1525)

The historian William Henry Scott believes that Lapu-Lapu's hostility may have been the result of a
mistaken assumption by Magellan. Magellan assumed that ancient Filipino society was structured in
the same way as European society (i.e. with royalty ruling over a region). While this may have been
true in the Islamic sultanates in Mindanao, the Visayan societies were structured along a
loose federation of city-states (more accurately, a chiefdom). The most powerful datu in such a
federation has limited power over other member datu, but no direct control over the subjects or lands
of the other datu.[4]
Thus Magellan believed that since Rajah Humabon was the "king" of Cebu, he was the king
of Mactan as well. But the island of Mactan, the dominion of Lapu-Lapu and Zula, was in a location
that enabled them to intercept trade ships entering the harbor of Cebu, Humabon's domain. Thus it
was more likely that Lapu-Lapu was actually more powerful than Humabon, or at least was the
undisputed ruler of Mactan. Humabon was married to Lapu-Lapu's niece. When Magellan demanded
that Lapu-Lapu submit as his "king" Humabon had done, Lapu-Lapu purportedly replied that: "he
was unwilling to come and do reverence to one whom he had been commanding for so long a
time".[4]
The Aginid chronicle also records that Humabon had actually purposefully goaded the Spaniards
into fighting Lapu-Lapu, who was his enemy at that time. However, the men of Humabon who
accompanied Magellan did not engage in battle with Lapu-Lapu, though they helped with recovering
the wounded Spaniards. Humabon later poisoned and killed twenty-seven Spanish sailors during a
feast. According to the Aginid, this was because they had started raping the local women. It was also
possibly to aid Magellan's Malay slave interpreter, Enrique of Malacca, in gaining his freedom. The
Spanish were refusing to release him, even though Magellan explicitly willed that he be set free upon
his death.[6][14] A discourse by Giovanni Battista Ramusio also claims that Enrique warned the Chief of
"Subuth" that the Spaniards were plotting to capture the king and that this led to the murder of the
Spaniards at the banquet.[16] Enrique stayed in Cebu with Humabon while the Spanish escaped
to Bohol.[6][14]
The battle left the expedition with too few men to crew three ships, so they abandoned the
"Concepción". The remaining ships – "Trinidad" and "Victoria" – sailed to the Spice Islands in
present-day Indonesia. From there, the expedition split into two groups. The Trinidad, commanded
by Gonzalo Gómez de Espinoza tried to sail eastward across the Pacific Ocean to the Isthmus of
Panama. Disease and shipwreck disrupted Espinoza's voyage and most of the crew died. Survivors
of the Trinidad returned to the Spice Islands, where the Portuguese imprisoned them.
The Victoria continued sailing westward, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano, and managed to
return to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain in 1522. In 1529, Charles I of Spain relinquished all claim
over the Spice Islands to Portugal in the treaty of Zaragoza. However, the treaty did not stop the
colonization of the Philippine archipelago from New Spain.[17]
According to Aginid, Lapu-Lapu and Humabon restored friendly relations after the Battle of Mactan.
Lapu-Lapu later decided to return to Borneo with eleven of his children, three of his wives, and
seventeen of his men. Nothing more is known of him after this.[6]
After Magellan's voyage, subsequent expeditions were dispatched to the islands. Five expeditions
were sent: Loaisa (1525), Cabot (1526), Saavedra (1527), Villalobos (1542),
and Legazpi (1564).[18] The Legazpi expedition was the most successful, resulting in the colonization
of the islands.[19][20][21]

Religion[edit]

Depiction of the Visayan Pintados in the Boxer Codex (c. 1595)

Lapu-Lapu's religion and beliefs are another subject of debate. The inhabitants of the Sulu
archipelago believe that Lapu-Lapu was a Muslim of the Tausūg or the Sama-
Bajau people.[22][23] There are anecdotes from Sulu oral history that claim Lapu-Lapu was a Muslim
Tausug warrior called Iliji Rajiki who was allied to the Sultan of Sulu and an expert in the Tausug
martial art of swordsmanship called Silatan.[24] Some also believe that Lapu-Lapu and Rajah
Humabon were the founders of a Muslim Rajahnate of Cebu (as the "Sultanate of Cebu"); or at least
that Lapu-Lapu had founded a colony of the Sultanate of Sulu in Cebu Island, existing alongside the
Rajahnate of Cebu with the consent of Humabon.[25] However, prominent
Cebuano anthropologist Jose Eleazar Bersales disputes this claim, saying in comments regarding
an excavation in southern Cebu, “Cebu was never Islamized.”[26] Further studies of the ancient
tradition as discussed in a previous section, the Sugbuanon epic also suggests otherwise as records
the founder of the Rajahnate of Cebu as Sri Lumay, who was the grandfather of Rajah Humabon,
and a prince of the Indianized Chola dynasty.[6]
Ultimately, it is undoubtedly suggested that the Cebuanos were predominantly animist (not unlike the
Mindanao Lumad) or Indianized (like the contemporary Kingdom of Butuan) on the arrival of the
Spanish.[27][28][29]
A school of thought also suggests that Lapu-Lapu may have been from Borneo, according to one
account, recorded in the Aginid as being an orang laut ("man of the sea") and an outsider who
settled in Cebu from "Borneo".[6][23] The Oponganon-Cebuano oral tradition effectively disputed the
claim saying his father was Datu Mangal, the ruler of Mactan before him indicated that Lapu-lapu a
native of Opong.[30]
The Visayans were noted for their widespread practice of tattooing; Spaniards referred to them as
the Pintados.[31] Pigafetta, who recorded Magellan's encounter with the Cebuanos, explicitly
described Rajah Humabon as tattooed. He also records the consumption of pork, dog meat, and
palm wine (arak) by the Cebuanos,[14][32] as well as the common custom of penile
piercings (tugbuk or sakra).[14][33] Tattooing, body modification, pork, dog meat, and alcohol
are haram (forbidden) in Islam.[34]
The supreme god of the religion of the Visayans, when explicitly recorded by contemporary
historians, was identified as "Abba" by Pigafetta and "Kan-Laon" (also spelled "Laon") by the Jesuit
historian Pedro Chirino in 1604, comparable to the Tagalog "Bathala". There is no mention of
Islam.[35] This is in contrast to the other locations visited by the Magellan expedition where Pigafetta
readily identifies the Muslims whom they encountered; he would call them Moros after the
Muslim Moors of medieval Spain and northern Africa, to distinguish them from
the polytheistic "heathens".[14][27][36] In fact, during the mass baptism of the Cebuanos to Christianity,
he clearly identifies them as "heathens," not Moros:[14][28]
We set up the cross there for those people were heathen. Had they been Moros, we would have
erected a column there as a token of greater hardness, for the Moros are much harder to convert
than the heathen.

— Antonio Pigafetta, Primo viaggio intorno al mondo, c. 1525

Indeed, the Visayans were known for their resistance to conversion to Islam in the epic
poem Diyandi of the Aginid chronicle. The name of the capital city of the island (Sugbo,
"conflagration" or "blaze")[note 3] was derived from the method of defense used by the natives against
Moro raiders from Mindanao, which was to burn their settlements to the ground to prevent looting.
They referred to the raiders as Magalos.[note 4] Furthermore, direct evidences such as accounts of
Pigafetta and the native oral tradition did not indicate Lapu-lapu as a Muslim but a Visayan animist
and a Sugbuanon native.[30]

Legacy[edit]
Left: Lapu-Lapu's profile on the obverse of a Philippine 1-centavo coin from the Pilipino
Series. Middle and Right: Lapu-Lapu is a central figure in the seal of the Philippine National Police and
the Bureau of Fire Protection.

Lapu-Lapu is regarded, retroactively, as the first Filipino hero.[37][38] The government erected a statue
in his honor on Mactan Island and renamed the town of Opon in Cebu to Lapu-Lapu City. A large
statue of him, donated by South Korea, stands in the middle of Agrifina Circle in Rizal
Park in Manila, replacing a fountain and rollerskating rink. Lapu-Lapu appears on the official seal of
the Philippine National Police.[39] His face was used as the main design on the 1-centavo coin that
was circulated in the Philippines from 1967 to 1974.[40]
According to local legend, Lapu-Lapu never died but was turned into stone, and has since then been
guarding the seas of Mactan. Fishermen in the island city would throw coins at a stone shaped like a
man as a way of asking for permission to fish in the monarch’s territory.[41] Another urban
legend concerns the statue of Lapu-Lapu erected at the center of the town plaza. The statue faced
the old city hall, where mayors used to hold office; Lapu-Lapu was shown with a crossbow in the
stance of shooting an enemy. Superstitious citizens proposed to replace this crossbow with a sword,
after three consecutive mayors of the city each died of heart attack.[41]
In the United States, a street in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco, California is
named after Lapu-Lapu.[42] That street and others in the immediate neighborhood were renamed by
the San Francisco Board of Supervisors with names derived from historical Filipino heroes on
August 31, 1979.[43]
During the First Regular Season of the 14th Congress of the Philippines, Senator Richard
Gordon introduced a bill proposing to declare April 27 as an official Philippine national holiday to be
known as Adlaw ni Lapu-Lapu, (Cebuano, "Day of Lapu-Lapu").[44]
On April 27, 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte declared April 27 (the date when Battle of Mactan
happened) as Lapu-Lapu Day for honoring as the first hero in the country who defeated foreign
rule.[45][46] Duterte also signed the creation of "Order of Lapu-Lapu" earlier in April 7, to recognize the
government workers and private citizens on supporting his advocacies.[47]