(Part 3)
In 1980, a book “Glimpses in History of Early Cebu” written by Lina Quimat, a newspaperwoman and president of the Cebu Historical Society, was published. Her book presented facts that challenged the conventional history presented to the Filipinos by foreigners. CEBUpedia is reproducing the first few page of her book, and may this enlighten the present generation:
“It is ironical that until very recently nothing specific was written about Cebu, her history and culture. While she is distinct in several ways from the rest of the islands in the Philippines, yet all that has been written about her are mere “scratches on the surface” of what is a very rich storage of historical and cultural treasures Cebu has in reality. All of these history books about the Philippines had dealt mostly on the activities of the people in Luzon and Mindanao.
“Inevitably, mention of historical events would always include the Bisayan Islands although restraint was very obvious. As shown by our so called historians in their writings we found their work wanting of facts about the natives of the Bisayan Islands what were honorable and important.
“The book of Teodoro A. Agoncillo and Oscar M. Alfonso “History of the Filipino People”, states “On March 17 1521, the Spaniards set foot on the (what is now) the Philippine soil for the first meeting between Filipinos and the Spaniards took place when some natives from the nearby island of Suluan arrived in Homonhon. The first meeting was friendly, indicating that the Filipinos were accustomed to seeing strangers come to the Islands.” The Islands here mentioned were the Western Islands, the name given to the Bisayan Islands during the pre-Spanish times.
““The fleet made its next important stop at Limasawa, an islet south of Leyte. In Limasawa the Spaniards celebrated their first Spanish Christian mass there on March 31, 1521, which happened to be Easter Sunday.”
“Who must have officiated this mass when all the religious men who were supposed to be in Magellan’s fleet to Sugbu were taken back to Spain by Juan de Cartagena, the inspector-general of the fleet, when the men became mutinous? Since Cartagena left Magellan’s fleet in two of the five ships which composed the original fleet, the sailors killed one another as soon as time provided the occasion; those alive continued to go with Magellan’s adventure-to find the lands full of gold and other jewelries and luxuries and then get the “fifth” of the “discovered lands” as was the agreement of Magellan and the king of Spain.” (To be continued)