Name: Maxine J.

Dela Rosa
Address: Sitio Guiwanon, Purok Santan, Looc, Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu

Lapulapu Statue

About eight kilometers away from the pomp and circumstance that marked the
celebration for the 500th year of the Battle of Mactan at the Lapulapu monument in Mactan
Shrine is a much older and less glamorous statue of the national hero that has a history
checkered with alleged murders.
The Lapulapu statue in Lapu-Lapu City is the oldest in the country. But it is quite
obscure that it does not even have its own Wikipedia entry.
But what it lacks in contemporary publicity, it gains in lore and oral history.
The statue was erected on Dec. 31, 1933 at the center of a town that was then called
Opon. It was the first statue put up to honor Lapulapu in the country.
When it was built, the statue depicted a regularly-built Lapulapu carrying a bow and
arrow aiming at the old municipal hall across the town plaza. It’s unrecognizable by a
generation used to seeing him with bulging muscles and highly toned abs.