From Fire To Freedom: A Rescripted Edition: Reverberations of Childhood in Colonized Philippines With Opportune Post-WWII Adulthood in America

By Jaime Alonso Yrastorza

From Fire to Freedom narrates an insight into the tapestry of the life of Dr. Jaime Alonso Yrastorza. His weave of reminiscences begins in his idyllic upbringing in rural Philippines. He reflects on the legacies that centuries of turbulent Spanish and American colonial overlords had influenced the mores and traditions of present-day Filipin

• Language: English
• Publisher: ReadersMagnet LLC
• Release date: Jun 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781955603249

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From Fire To Freedom: A Rescripted Edition

Copyright © 2021 by Jaime Alonso Yrastorza

Published in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Today, the world continues to face yet again another of innumerable crises that have passed since those decades of halcyon days. These crises are occasions to pause and contemplate about the legacies we leave those others who are part of the interlocking relation with ourselves.

In writing about profiles of my past, I am fortunate to have had the able assistance, collaboration and anecdotal gifts of many. Pleasant to single are my siblings Josefina, Adelina and Gregorio, Jr. I am grateful for the competent critique and fine-tooth editorial scrutiny by Carol Irwing, Ph.D., Author Art Meyers and Barbara Stimson, M.Ed.

The book From Fire To Freedom was published in 2014 by Tate Publishing of Oklahoma. Incredibly, its CEO & Founder were arrested and on charges of embezzlement, closed the organization. Through the past two years of writing effort with cooperation of ReadersMagnet Publishing, together, we present:

FROM FIRE TO FREEDOM

A RESCRIPTED EDITION

I thank my lovingly devoted, ally, partner, lifetime companion and fetching wife, Patricia Anne Laverty. And, to them all daghan salamat, muchisimas gracias, thank you!

DEDICATION

To my ‘twins’: Hannah, Marie, Luke, Melissa, Grace, Leah, Cole, Gabriela, Jaime, Ellie, Jack, John, Will and Dylan whose beliefs, mores and viewpoints reflect the values inculcated by their parents: Teresa and Bassam; David and Wanda; Timothy and Arlin; Laura-Pete and Kent; and, Anne and Jeffrey. Overall, the influence and love of their grandmother, mother and my wife Patricia Anne Laverty Yrastorza. Through each of them, this biographical endeavor has inspired.

Composing Surviving the War personally did evocative sentiments. The whirlwind of emotions and sacrifices that the catastrophe exacted on my parents while sustaining the love and devotion they held for their family as well as for each other is a valued memory to treasure, beyond words. It is with moist eyes I dedicate the narrative in their memory.

Contents

IThe Dawning

A Prologue

The Islands… A Historic Perspective

Southeast Asia Islanders… The Archipelago

The Explorers …Marco Polo

Ferdinand Magellan

Armada de Molucca

On Reflection

IIPivotal Shadow of Spanish Imperialism

Hispanic Entrenchment… The Onslaught

Colonist Bestowals ... Caveat Emptor

On Reflection

IIIDecades of Confluences

Ilustrados … Propaganda

Martyrdom… Katipunan… Biak-Na-Bato

On Reflection

IVBodacious Americans

Amenity … Gone Awry

The Treaty Of Paris

The Forgotten War

American Benevolence

On Reflection

VGrowing Up in Antebellum

Primordial Family Times In Ormoc

The Relatives

St. Peter’S Academy

Halcyon Times Of Ormoc

Lores And Traditions

Momentous Pre-Adolescent Years

1941

On Reflection

VISurviving the War

America To Battle

Our Discordant Earth… A Foretaste

The Protagonists

The Unfolding Events

Complying Perspectives Under Occupation

The Bataan Death March

My Family At Risk

The Manila Interlude

Mamá…The Underground Backlash

Puppets…Foreboding Days Of Liberation

Darkening Clouds Of Danger

U.S. Forces Return…The Price Of Liberation

The Battle Comes To Manila

Orphanhood … Other Tragedies

On Reflection

VIIPost-War Adolescence

The Ormoc Tragedy

Seeking Normalcy

Independence…The American Requited Promise

Ateneo De Cagayan

Manila Revisit

On Refection

VIIIOnward to America

A Farewell

Quid Pro Quo

San Francisco

The Emersion

Duluth … The University

1953

Stepping Onward

On Reflection

IXPursuit of a Profession

Adios, Duluth …Hello, St. Louis

Meeting My Better Half

1957

On Reflection

XA Partner…A Career

Matrimony… Our Love Avowal

The Internship

Newborn And Parenthood …Blessings

Training For The Specialty…And Parenting

U.S.A. Citizenship … Jfk Rendezvous

My Epiphany

On Reflection

XINurturing A Family And Earning A Living

Ormoc Homecoming

The Transilient Decades

Growing Roots In Colorado… My Career

Colorado…Our Family Homestead

On Reflection

XIIThe Blessings Reciprocated

Of Compassion Without Borders

Uplift Internationale

XIIICornucopia Savored And Shared

Of Bloodline

Of Parenting

Of My Fourteen Twins

Yrastorza Family

Attribution Of Sources…Illustrations

Suggested Readings

I

The Dawning

"Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be

always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the

world must rema/;in always in the infancy of knowledge."

—Marcus Tulius Cicero (Roman philosopher, Statesman…

b106-43 BC)

"It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves,

together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and

conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s

judgment."

—Francis Bacon (Philosopher, Scientist… b1561-1626)

"We can chart our future, clearly and wisely, only when we

know the path which has led us to the present"

—a Spanish proverb.

A PROLOGUE

My early beginnings were spent in a rural community with a society having an everyday pace that was tranquil and untroubled. Together with my parents, I was enfolded with kinfolks and friends and many of whom, like me, had ties with Spanish relatives. Among us, on occasions, topics of discursive tales would include curiosities and anecdotes about the centuries of Spanish colonization as well as their reciprocating relations with the islanders.

Of our reader’s interest, Philippine historians over decades past tended to bemoan the dearth of uncovered archeological findings pertinent to the pre-Hispanic era. The scarcity had been commonly attributed to the aboriginal who had yet to discover and learn the art of indelibly preserving calligraphic manuscripts, in exchange for etching messages on impermanent banana leaves.

As a matter of course, the populace, instead, had traditionally regarded storytellers of a given community to be the credible source of historic occurrences. With passing time, however, preserving the accuracy of particular events temptingly tended to succumb to prevaricating modifications. As its consequence, the suggestive beginnings of the human migration to the islands have continued to challenge archeologists to unearth related objective evidence.

During my youth, the halcyon times I remember were scrambled when WWII spread through the Far East. The Philippines was a battleground in the enraging conflict between America and Japan. It was destructive to people’s lives, institutions and treasures. My family and I were among the millions who found themselves in harm’s way.

Faced with the aforementioned curiosities to clarify, our narrative will begin by learning about the epoch that brought the aborigine to the archipelago and the enticing environmental circumstances that prevailed at that time.

Thereafter, we intend to view how the colonization and occupation of the country over four centuries by three major powers exacted consequences to themselves as they, in turn, may have marred the mores, traditions and society of the natives by way of their pretensions. And, at the terminus, the narrative aspires to inform on my upbringing as well as my adolescent and adulthood experiences.

THE ISLANDS… A HISTORIC PERSPECTIVE

Of our related interest are a duo of authors: Steven Mithen of After the Ice and Anthony Reid of Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450-1680. They have each presented an anthology that broadens a perspective of a time-span when there occurred worldwide escalating behaviors of the dwellers and a look-see at the environmental changes during that ancient epoch. By selectively referring to their investigative data, our narrative will aim to thematically plod on with profundities about a geographic region germane to pre-Hispanic Philippines.

We begin with an informative dissertation by archeologist Steven Mithen on the Paleolithic Age – that period of history when man evolved from an ape-like existence, able to hunt, and use fire for gathered food. It lasted from 2.6 million years ago until 10,000AD (before Christ). Further, he traced and alleged that the global phenomenon was part of a see-saw recurrence of frigidity and warmth that occurred every 100,000 years. Following the trajectory of the happening, around 50,000—20,000BCE (before the common era), an Ice Age occurred. The frigidity had glaciers expanding and the sea levels began dropping. With time, the uncovered land began forming bridges to forge into continents.

At around 20,000BCE, the Holocene warming period was beginning. During the epoch, the accompanying major glacial ice sheets of the Ice Age were melting. By 1700AD, the continuing thaw did increasingly uncover once buried land masses.

Concomitantly, the seas elevated from an estimated 450 feet lower than its current level. The uncovered land thereafter formed identifiable groups. Among them, one became known as the Afro-Eurasia region and would become the largest contiguous landmass on earth. At its western edge were offshore islands of present Britain and Ireland, and Japan, with its satellite islands, at its opposite extremity.

Another was a landmass of two loosely abridged continents which would be known as North and South America. At the eastern periphery of their juncture, the ocean formed the Caribbean Sea. The body of water was separated from the Gulf of Mexico to its north by uncovered mounds of earth that are the intervening islands of Cuba and Jamaica.

At the end point of the rising seas, likely about 30,000 to 20,000 BCE, the world’s largest expanse of water that prevailed is now known as the Pacific Ocean. At its southern zonal limit the uncovered land became known as the Australasia region, composed of Australia, New Guinea, Tasmania and their nearby islands.

Seemingly scattered thither and yon were separately uncovered land of the Pacific Ocean. Northward, the islands became the Marianas, Hawaii; southerly, they were the islands of Polynesia and, the largest of them, New Zealand.

At about its mid-southwesterly border, a body of water abutted from the west. It was a sea whose westerly expansion blended with the Indian Sea but was partly-separated by a southward linear extension of Malaysia. Its northward limit was bordered along the southern rim of the trans-national Greater Mekong, viz. Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. Southward, its expansion was limited by Indonesia, a country that formed to comprise over seventeen thousand islands.

At the region’s eastern perimeter, there emerged a group of islands whose landmass once abutted with Borneo, Sumatra and the Asian main land. They would be fated to be known today as the Republic of the Philippines*. The formative overarching sphere, together with its bordering landmasses, is presently referred as the Southeast Asia Region (SAR).

*Pre-Hispanic history of the islands suggest that certain native groups inhabited coastal communities. There, some had likely established trading enterprises with merchants coming from distant regions and countries. In the ongoing narrative, when referring to the islands, I use the common name as reflected by their epochal changes, as follows: Las Islas Filipinas – as designated by Spanish Colonialists in 1571; Repoblikang Pilipino briefly in 1898 – when Filipinos revolted against Spain and until after the follow-up unsuccessful battle with American Forces; Philippine Islands – as designated by the United States of America as its overlord, 1903-1935; Commonwealth of the Philippines – when U.S.A. allowed Filipinos preindependence governance until 1946; Philippines Republic – in 1943 as a puppet while occupied by Japan; Republic of the Philippines in 1946 on declaring independence from the U.S.A.; and, the Archipelago – for referring during their pre-Hispanic past.

Overall, by about 150,000 years ago, the land bridges were likely being fully connected into continents. Importantly, the archeological phenomena has lent the suspicion that it was during the era when the earliest man—and companions—

had begun to explore from Africa. It would take another 90,000 years until they approached Australia, and, it would be even longer to reach Central and East Asia. The latter is when telltale residues of hunter-gathering excursions have been noted throughout the regions of the Archipelago. Were they the inhabitants of those islands?

Maritime Southeast Asia Region (MSAR) regarded to consist of Indonesia, Malaysia, East Timor, Brunei and the Republic of the Philippines

REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES

Situated in western Pacific Ocean, the archipelago of over 7, 641 islands is in three main geographical regions: northward is Luzon, the largest; second biggest and southern-most is Mindanao; Visayas in the mid-breast comprises 60% of the islands. The over 106 million population speak 175 Pilipino and English are the official languages. The country has many volcanoes that constitute the Circle of Fire that lines the periphery of the Pacific Ocean.

SOUTHEAST ASIA ISLANDERS… the ARCHIPELAGO

Anthony Reid, a New Zealand-born historian of Southeast Asia has postulated that since early 5,000 BCE, the inhabitants of the region were known to havebeen the beneficiaries of a salubrious ambiance.

Additionally, by the fifteenth century, Indonesians and Malaysians had come to nurture a flourishing maritime commercial intercourse that expanded to distant community centers. They reached westward to India; northerly to China and Japan; and, eastward to the Archipelago.

Today, the perceptible commonality of Indonesia, Malaysia, East Timor, Brunei and the Republic of the Philippines is regarded to comprise the Maritime Southeast Asia Region (MSAR).

Concomitantly, the coming and going of people may have also begun during the Early Ages. The milieu might have also invited the migrant interchange. Among those joining in the gallivanting may well have been Hindu invaders who were known to have reached the entrepôts of the islands of the Archipelago. Their legacy appears among converts of the Brahmin religion who mixed idioms of Sanskrit origin among some of the spoken dialects, even today.

While those inhabitants of the Archipelago appear to have benefited from the happenings of the Early Middle Ages, they were likely preceded by nomadic migrants, as we noted. Some of the latter are supposed to have come from Australasia or the multi-directional areas of SAR.

To have survived as hunter-foragers, they may have needed to scatter throughout territorial corridors that the islands offered. With time, their compelling livelihood needs probably separated them into subgroups, thereby acquiring varied behaviors and designations distinctly suitable to their habitat. The aborigines were pygmies in stature and had negroid features. Presently, their descendants are collectively referred as Aeta and are found secluded, in various craggy regions of the islands of Luzon, Palawan and Negros, among others.

Of our interest, in 1962, fossilized human skull fragments were uncovered in a coastal cave of Palawan by the noted anthropologist and leading historian on prehistoric Philippines, Dr. Robert B. Fox. He labeled the discovery the Tabon Man in reference to the locus that had presence of earthenware and stone tools. Assuming the surrounding charcoal were remnants from cooking fires, Carbon-14 studies were obtained. The specimen was age-dated to be from 22,000BCE. The scientifically supported evidence does narrowly point to an early presence of the primitive inhabitants of the islands.

Likewise, it seems probable that during the 10,000BCE era people who were primarily of Indonesian-Malaysian extraction may have also begun to join in inhabiting the islands of the Archipelago. By having demonstrably developed a relatively edified lifestyle and a higher level of technological know-how, they were the tribes known to have brought talent to melt and produce iron tools, pottery, glass ornaments, and, among others, the cultivation of rice. By preferably locating their dwellings at coastal and riverine areas, in time the Aeta who had previously resided thereat did forfeit spaces to the more assertive newcomers.

The communities they formed, known as barangay, were, as those of the inhabitants of Malaysia, tribal and plutocratic. Their headman, chosen for his wealth and leadership was referred as the Datu—a chief of any indigenous native tribe of the Archipelago. The clans did have alliances between each other; and, they were ceremoniously sealed by respective Datus with a blood compact known as sandugo, a wine drink tinged with each other’s blood drawn on-site by self-infliction.

Nonetheless, it was not uncommon for quarrels to arise between tribes from a range of accusations, such as pilfering of harvested grains to abducting members for slavery. Importantly, the internecine behavior not only prevented harmonious interactions, they deterred concepts of a united realm and a centralized mode of governance.

Over the ensuing generations, the descendants of those archaic ancestors would be the natives who met the early Spanish conquistadors in the islands of Cebu, Bohol, Leyte, and Samar of the Visayas region.

Today, living in the Cordillera mountains of northern Luzon are progenies of the Igorot-Ifugao tribe who were likely among the inhabitants during the 22,000 BCE era. Remarkably, two thousand years ago, their ancestors are said to have carved mud walls of terraces aside mountain slopes to build an intricate irrigation system which collected water drained from the forests to elaborate ponds suitable facilitate the growth of rice. Known as the Ifugao Rice Terraces in and around the town of Banaue, it is a worldwide wonder that remains functional and is recognized a UNESCO World Heritage Site.*

*Philippine anthropological archaeologist Stephen Acabado’s contrarian study factually traced the rice terraces to have begun four centuries ago, 1,600 years younger than commonly believed. He posits its beginnings were likely modest and sufficiently plotted only to grow taro, not rice. Speculatively, in time the terraces were gradually expanded to apply the more productive wet-rice cultivation and thereby satisfy their growing population needs. While the Ifugao had always regarded their locale and consolidated isolation in the mountains to be their advantage, they viewed the increasing arrival of migrants and Spanish colonists as outsiders with possessive intentions that risked the preservation of their culture, society and heritage, Nonetheless, as ably fit to connect with the world at their choosing, records attest that the Ifugao had maintained episodic reciprocating trade with regional and foreign sources.

Notably, since antiquity, mountainside terrace farming to cultivate rice was harnessed by ancient Chinese, by the Incas of South America, and by Vietnamese and Indonesian farmers.

Rice Terraces of Banaue, Ifugao Province, Luzon

As early as the sixth to the tenth century, well before the Spanish colonial presence, the Archipelago was known to already having had well-established maritime-centered harbor principalities through which inter-regional trades were occurring.

Among the merchants were Muslim traders from nearby Borneo and Indonesia who had relations with natives of Palawan and those of Mindanao’s Sulu archipelago. Those outside traders brought with them their dominant religion.

As their proselytizing efforts gained converts, the religion did conveniently spread to mainland Mindanao, and, together with the expanding commerce, Muhammadanism would propagate northward. Believers of the religion were organized into caliphates, their sultan leaders serving as overlords over religious edicts and societal concerns.

Maynilad and Sugbu—present day Manila in the island of Luzon and Cebu City in the Visayas region—were communities that were profiting from their geographic surroundings. Subsequently they became active entrepôts of inter-island and region-wide trade, as ruled by sultanates. The overseas merchants were Arabians, Indians, Japanese and most numerously, Chinese. Notably, in the absence of common currency, trading of goods and services were accomplished by barter.

THE EXPLORERS …MARCO POLO

On the other side of the globe, between the fifth and fifteenth centuries in the Middle Ages, adventurous traders from Italy were introducing the Old World to Oriental rarities such as gems, linen, beautifully loomed carpets, even rich silks and unusual tastes from sugarcane and a variety of spices. Among them, in 1271, was the 17-year old Venetian explorer Marco Polo. In the company of his father and uncle, they traveled to China by retracing the overland path known as the Silk Road. At that travel, Polo discovered the inhabitants of the region were nomadic. They were subsisting by producing varied merchandizes and trading exchanges with local, regional, and foreign merchants who were coming from regions as far as India, China, and the nearby Middle East.

Goods traded were animals—camels, horses; agricultural crops – grapes, beans, pomegranates, figs, spices; woolen goods – carpets, blankets, rugs, furs; jewelries of gold, silver, glass; and, silk. Polo’s adventures and exotic findings so animated a curiosity about the Orient that there followed numbers of travelers and explorers who would further enlighten the West to the civilization of the East and their exotic markets. The era is regarded as the Age of Discovery. One is tempted to speculate that early among the interested explorers must have included the royal families of Portugal and Spain.

FERDINAND MAGELLAN

By the fifteenth century, the avowed major powers and seekers of unknown places were Portugal and Spain. Interestingly, eight years earlier, at a closely guarded event by the Portuguese King Manuel the First, the explorer Bartolomeu Dias was appointed to seek and lead an untested seaward exploration into the Indian Ocean. His route cruised southward along the littoral edge of western Africa and at its southern tip, passed eastward through the Cape of Good Hope. On return two years later, the cargo was loaded with such spices as cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and pepper. The Portuguese voyages that followed remained financially rewarding. Cargo-loaded Spanish ships that sailed the same itinerary were thereafter risking attack and seizure by the ubiquitous Portuguese armadas.

On 7th June 1496, in an allegedly search for a seaward path to the East and in compliance to a papal bull, Portugal and Spain agreed to divide the world and its newly discovered lands for exploration, conquest and trade along a north-south line of demarcation of the globe.

Known as the Treaty of Tordesillas, the signatories acquiesced to bestow Portugal the rights over the eastern segment of the Atlantic Ocean and Spain the western half. The treaty, in effect, was an agreement that coerced the Spaniards to search for a different route.

During the early years of the 16th century, a 39-year old Portuguese navigator, Fernão de Magelhães—Ferdinand Magellan—gained the attention of Spain’s monarchy. Born into Portuguese nobility, he became a skilled sailor in service as one among the conquistadors battling for a colonial settlement of India’s port-city Goa and dominion over the Molucca islands, a group within eastern Indonesia. They were experiences that gained him knowledge and acquaintance with their spice markets.

He envisioned a shortened route thereto by plying westward across the Atlantic Ocean towards the South American continent. There, he believed was a channel to traverse that was the threshold to the uncharted sea where lay the fabled Spice Islands of the Orient.

ARMADA de MOLUCCA

When Magellan’s plan was spurned by the Portuguese, the beguiled King Charles the First of Spain, assured that the cruise would avoid conflicts with the agreed treaty, tendered Magellan Spanish citizenship and approval of the adventure, officially referred to as the Armada de Molucca.

The adventuresome voyage would be undertaken at an epoch when people were beset with imaginative beliefs of strange creatures lurking in unknown land. They were saddled by beliefs in superstition and myths of seas that included, among others, mermaids and devilish giant serpents. Furthermore, the sailors had to travel in predominantly uncharted seas.

In short, Magellan’s excursion would be by trial and error. And, it was unknowingly fraught with peril, including the risk from capture by the ubiquitous Portuguese. Nonetheless, on 20th September 1519, the armada sailed from Spain’s Sanlúcar de Barrameda port in a five-ship convoy having a multi-ethnic crew of 260 sailors, three priests, and the adventurous Italian Antonio Pigafetta who kept a journal that would fortuitously immortalize details of the historic expedition.

Importantly, among them was a slave named Enrique, whom Magellan had acquired in his earlier travel to the Moluccas; he would serve as an effective interpreter in future conversations with the natives. While speculations of Enrique’s kindredship see-sawed between Malaysia and the Archipelago, more pertinently, his interpreter role would underscore the expansive distribution of the Austronesian language.

The names of the ships and their captains were:

Trinidad – Ferdinand Magellan, Captain-General

Concepción – Gaspar de Quesada

San Antonio – Juan de Cartagena

Santiago—Juan Serrano

Victoria – Luis de Mendoza

Before the convoy reached Rio de Janeiro in Brazil three months later, the fleet would be tormented by inclement storms. After having managed the confrontation, Magellan would next be challenged to quell mutinous dissensions that were instigated by disaffection to his leadership.

On continuing down the southern course, yet another storm developed, so fierce it awashed the Santiago ashore with damages beyond repair; its crew hitched among the remaining four ships.

On 28th November 1520, sailing on, the ships passed near a strait of the continent’s southern isthmus which dead-ended. In frustration and betrayal, the San Antonio turned backwards, leading Magellan to speculate that their mutinous scheme was to return to Spain. Undaunted, the three remaining ships would sail on. At this instance, they coursed westward through narrow passaged and past several islets that opened up to an enormous sea that Magellan named Mar Pacifico – Pacific Ocean—and the channel, Estrecho de Magallanes—Strait of Magellan. Unknowingly, they would traverse the yet unknown largest body of water in the world.

In periods of calm, Pigafetta pensively accounted that the accursed voyage had tormented the crew with hunger and thirst. It terrified everyone on board with the dreaded fatal risk of ancient sailors who underwent extended sea travel. It was the disease resulting from deficiency of vitamin-C, known as scurvy. Yet unknown preventives were the prophylactic sources of fruits and vegetables in the diet. The adventure claimed one life after another of the armada.

At their first landfall, the titillated inhabitants were so attracted to the ships that they boarded and took with them fixtures for souvenirs. The fleet promptly departed, naming the island Isla de Ladrones—Isle of Thieves—which is present-day Guam, located in the midst of the Marianas Islands.

Sailing onward, they sighted a group of islands where on 16th March 1521, they disembarked on one the natives called Homanon. Aided by suggestions of the natives, they sailed southerly abreast the adjacent island of Leyte. At its tip, they dropped anchor at nearby islet Mazama.

Being a Sunday, the accompanying priests celebrated Easter Sunday mass, a tradition that the crew thereafter followed on like feastdays. A wooden cross that was allegedly planted on the occasion. Today it is immortalized in effigy in the City of Cebu, province of Cebu and is among the tourist attractions.

With assistance of a newly-found Datu, the fleet reached to the more populated island with a community named Sugbu (Cebu), where the visitors found a comparatively affluent, literate community that gave evidence of long-standing commerce with Chinese and Arab traders. There, the reigning Rajah Humabon, along with his subjects, assented to be baptized in conversion to the Catholic faith. The adventurers were subsequently offered, and received, the sustaining supplies needed to proceed on their journey.

As an afterthought, Humabon shared his brewing grievances with a tribe in nearby island of Muktan—today’s Mactan. In a response, contrary to his avowed peaceable mission, Magellan chose to demean the inimical Datu Lapu Lapu. He took sides between warring tribes in a battle, after boastfully declining offers to boost his armed force with the allied Datu’s warriors.

On 27th –152l, while fighting against an overwhelming native force led by Datu Lapu Lapu, Magellan was killed, felled by spears made of bamboo. The tragic fiasco was as much a result of overconfidence in the invincibility of the Spanish armored troops as it was a flawed underestimation of the fighting spirit of their opponents. In retrospect, the bigoted deportment of the outsider Spanish complement apparently added to aggravate the actions of their indigenous hosts whose own relationship had initially begun courteously.

History would regrettably regard Magellan’s demise as needless and improvident. Pigafetta’s narrative has best described the nitty-gritty happenings during the few in-between days of the fleet’s historic visit to Cebu.

Before preparing for departure, the badly weather-beaten, disintegrating Concepción was purposely burnt to ashes. It left the flotilla with two ships: Victoria and Trinidad.

Unbeknown to the remaining crew, there was a happening on the other side of the world. On 6th May 1521 the weather-battered San Antonio with a starved crew anchored at Spain’s Sanlúcar de Barrameda port, to the community’s unbelieving surprise and aghast. At the inquest the crew was found unaware of Magellan’s death. However, in defense of their mutiny the crew hyperbolically concocted and distorted the behavior of the captain-general as one of abuse, torture and disobedience of the king’s advocated orders. In empathy, the survivors were set free. By successfully impugning Magellan’s reputation, the truth of his brilliance would be left to history to uncover; principally, it would be by Pigaffeta’s comprehensively detailed journal.

Back on the other side of the world, the Victoria and Trinidad crew did discover the Moluccas and their