Butuan or Limasawa?

The Site of the First Mass in the Philippines: A Reflection

I was very uninterest when I first started reading this journal. But as I was reading the entire thing,
I became intrigued by the events that happened during Magellan's journey and the subsequent debacle
between the scholars and historians centuries later.
The site of the first mass in the Philippines was highly debated up until the early 20th century.
For three centuries, it was widely undisputed that the site of the first mass was Butuan. This belief
endured due to writers and historians who were “quite careful” with their facts, just regurgitating
information that they read from other secondary sources without doing their research. I find this quite
funny and relatable.
This journal shows the importance of primary sources and how secondary sources should be
taken with a grain of salt and verified. I can relate what happened with the Butuan Tradition to a game
of telephone, where the information becomes more and more altered the further removed you are from
the primary source.
I have never really been interested in Philippines history, especially the Spanish era. But
reading through Magellan’s journey was so engaging. It made me open up a new tab and look at maps
and research how the places mentioned have different names today and how those new names came to
be. It was also fun reading about the other versions of Magellan’s account that were wrong, because
with one look at a map, you can see how those accounts make no sense. Overall, it was a fun
experience learning about this event in Philippine history.