No real Christians emerged from 1521 baptisms

It is both fallacious and distortive of history to think and insist that Christians emerged from Magellan's baptism of a few Cebu natives in 1521 such that the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines would now celebrate the 5th centennial of the "Christianization" of the country next year, 2021. It is also sickening that it would have to come to this because it is very evident why the bishops want it in 2021 instead of the real 5th centennial in 2065.

Magellan had no intent on Christianizing anyone in 1521. His was a voyage of exploration and discovery, to find a way west for the Spanish crown, not a voyage of evangelization. That he, in fact, baptized a few natives was a tactical ploy to avoid getting killed. His gift of the Santo Niño image was part of that ploy. Beyond baptism, the Spaniards taught no one any prayers, much less what baptism signified and what the new faith meant.

In fact, just four days after Magellan was killed while meddling in a local turf war, most of his remaining officers and men were slaughtered by the natives they had just baptized days earlier. So much for proudly calling these murderers the first Filipino Christians in whose honor some present-day bishops would now go to the extent of revising history by having in 2021 the 5th Centennial of the Christianization of the Philippines instead of 2065.

The real 5th Centennial of the Christianization of the Philippines should be in 2065. That is counting 500 years correctly and accurately from 1565 when Miguel Lopez de Legazpi came, this time with a whole retinue of priests accompanying his soldiers to start the colonization and Christianization of the Philippines. This time they stayed to nurture the faith, to teach Filipinos how to live what he sacrament of baptism truly signified.

That the 4th Centennial was celebrated in 1965, of which I was already a part of, being then a 5th grade student at the Colegio del Santo Nino, shows that the counting of the centenaries started in 1565 and not 1521. The Vatican recognized this as such. For the celebration, Pope Paul VI sent Cardinal Ildebrando Antoniutti as his papal legate. His presence was the unassailable papal imprimatur of the 4th Centennial's legitimacy.

More significantly, to make the 4th Centennial celebration more fitting, Pope Paul VI issued a papal bull elevating the Santo Nino Church to the status of a minor basilica. In elevating the church to a minor basilica, the pope declared it to be "THE SYMBOL OF THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE PHILIPPINES." Pope Paul VI could not have put the issue to rest more clearly.

And yet the powerful bishops of present-day Roman Catholic Philippines would have none of it. They insist on holding the 5th Centennial in 1521 for no other reason than that 2065 is just too far off and that a centennial celebration is too great an opportunity to miss. That those backing 2021 are now tweaking the celebration with new terminologies does not alter what the real score is.

What saddens me is that many, if not most, of those who, like me, were already around when the 4th Centennial happened in 1965, have elected to remain quiet and deferential to this blatant corruption of historical fact. Many of these people probably line up on occasion to kiss the Santo Nino image at the basilica. As the lines move past the galleries of pictures chronicling the 1965 4th Centennial, maybe they will look away from truth's silent stare.