Lapu-Lapu and early Visayans were not Muslims

In your 17 Feb 2018 issue on p. 4 is a short report by Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon about Senator Richard Gordon endorsing 27 of April as Lapu-Lapu working day thru Senate bill 108. She added in that short article that while Sen. Gordon worked as secretary of the Department of Tourism he labored to have a Lapu-Lapu monument at the Luneta Park to represent the Visayans and Muslims.

Outstanding among the many errors her story contained was the designation of Lapu-Lapu and the Visayans as Muslims. Mind you there were no Muslims in this part of the world when Magellan came. I was taken aback when Palaubsanon rolled Lapu-Lapu and the Visayans into one - they were Muslims. According to the history book I’ve read the Muslims came 60 years after Magellan. But by that time God had already claimed most Filipinos as his own. He made Magellan cut through the Visayas to control the future advance of the Muslims (he was directed to Cebu from Limasawa in search of provisions for his crew). Later Spanish Conquistadores moved up to Luzon for the conversion to Christianity of the natives. If there were Muslims in the land, King Humabon and Queen Juana must have been some of them and these two would not have converted easily to Christianity as accounts indicated because it is hard to convert a Muslim. No historian ever assumed these Filipino chieftains were Muslims. They were not Muslims. If they were not then what were they?

They were ANIMISTS. They believed in the souls of their ancestors, that’s where the word “animists” came from. They believed in the ANITOS and this was not a religion. No historian I’ve read ever assumed Lapu-Lapu was a Muslim. They knew what he was by his actions and many other things.

Therefore Palaubsanon just parroted Gordon, who is by the way a good senator, and fell into the pit which she should not have done. This is not the first time this happened among journalists. As a journalist she should have been more accurate and consulted her history. But she chose an easier way out. A parrot does not consult anything. A parrot does not go to school.

Sorry about his short lecture. But in the interest of history I wrote you this one so that Filipinos will be more careful about their history. Mind you I corrected an entry on Wikipedia about this one too.

Thank you.

Rev. Fr. Jonathan D. Lao