Haban, Joshua P.

BS-Architecture

Reflection Paper

First and foremost, I would like not to talk about the history and to those two videos that I had
watched. I would like to express myself of how we know, and I know about the truth behind Philippine
History. The first humans who inhabit the Philippines which is not yet called “Philippines” those days,
the first human who traveled and circled the world, the first human to establish states, language,
writings, traditions, trades, and even more. The basic knowledge we know about its history was only just
a part of a whole which many of us are still ignorant about it.

We can find interesting facts in those videos which is very intriguing to our part. One of the most
important members of Magellan’s voyage was his personal slave Enrique, who had been with the
captain since an earlier voyage to Malacca in 1511. A native of the East Indies, Enrique reportedly spoke
a Malay dialect and acted as the expedition’s interpreter during their time in the Philippines. As many
historians have noted, if Enrique was originally from that part of the world, then by the time the
expedition reached the Philippines he would have already circled the earth and returned to his
homeland. If true, this would mean the slave Enrique—rather than any of the European mariners—was
the first person to circumnavigate the globe.

Also, we can learn that although it was a Spanish expedition, Magellan’s fleet featured a
culturally diverse crew. Spaniards and Portuguese made up most of the sailors, but the voyage also
included mariners from Greece, Sicily, England, France, Germany and even North Africa.

The beauty of still not knowing our history is somewhat exhilarating in a sense that we still have
a lot of works to do and to learn from. This could be a jumpstart to an adventure where the truth about
everything our history hold would risen from its slumber.