Limasawa, not Butuan, affirmed

as site of first Mass in PH

By: Ador Vincent Mayol, Joey Gabieta
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net

CHRISTIANITY TAKING ROOT An artist’s

rendition of the first Mass in the Philippines,
from the book “The Encounter” by Fr. Jose
Vicente Braganza, depicts the planting of the
cross on Limasawa Island on March 31,
1521.
—CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

CEBU CITY — Eight months before the 500th anniversary of the “first” Mass in the
country, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) has determined
that Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his Spanish contingent held the
event in Limasawa town, Southern Leyte.

The NHCP adopted the recommendation of a panel of experts reaffirming earlier

findings that the 1521 Easter Sunday Mass was celebrated in Limasawa and not in
Butuan, as claimed by some historians.

“The panel unanimously agreed that the evidence and arguments presented by the pro-
Butuan advocates are not sufficient and convincing enough to warrant the repeal or
reversal of the ruling on the case by the NHI (National Historical Institute),” NHCP chair
Rene Escalante said in a statement released on Wednesday.

The body made its decision on July 15.

Church support

The issue of the exact location of the historic Mass was earlier resolved by the NHI, the
forerunner of the NHCP, through two panels of experts: the first led by former Supreme
Court Justice Emilio Gancayco in 1995 and the second by historian Benito Legarda in
2008. Both panels ruled that the site of the 1521 Easter Sunday Mass was Limasawa
Island.

The recommendation of the recent panel led by historian and National Artist for
Literature Resil Mojares was supported by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the
Philippines, which had sent its own church historian as panel member and several
members of the Church Historians Association of the Philippines, the NHCP said.

The panel reassessed the studies and literature on the matter, gathered the extant
copies of Antonio Pigafetta’s chronicles and other accounts abroad, surveyed the
presumed sites of the event in Butuan and Limasawa, consulted experts in geology and
cartography, and submitted its report for review by the history departments of various
Philippine universities.

Per Pigafetta, chronicler of the Magellan Expedition, the Easter Sunday Mass that
expedition chaplain Fr. Pedro Valderama celebrated on March 31, 1521, happened in a
place he identified as Mazaua.

Gift to the people

Limasawa Mayor Melchor Petracorta said he and his constituents were very happy that
the NHCP stood by history and were hopeful that its decision would “settle longtime
disputes on the issue.”

The ruling was made about a week before Limasawa marks its 37th founding
anniversary on Aug. 27, Petracorta told the Inquirer. “It’s really a gift to the people of
Limasawa. Actually, it’s a victory not only of Limasawa but of the entire Eastern
Visayas,” he said.

The Diocese of Maasin, which has jurisdiction over Limasawa, was also overjoyed by
the NHCP’s decision.

Fr. Johnrey Sibi, head of the Limasawa Commission, said everyone was now “inspired
to work hard” for the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the first Mass in March
2021.

IT’S SETTLED A panel of experts has affirmed earlier records that the March 31, 1521,
Easter Sunday Mass held by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his Spanish
contingent took place in Limasawa town, Southern Leyte, where a shrine nowstands to
commemorate the event. It found as ‘’not sufficient and convincing enough’’ evidence
and arguments claiming that the Mass happened in Butuan. —PHOTOS BY DANNY
PETILLA/CONTRIBUTOR

Paper trail

Local historian Rolando Borrinaga, who had researched on and represented Limasawa
before the panel of experts and the NHCP, considered the decision “sweet vindication.”
In its report, the panel and the NHCP endorsed Borrinaga’s claim that the historic Mass
was held in Barangay Triana, and not in Barangay Magallanes. They said Saub Point in
Triana should likewise be recognized as the site of the cross planted by Magellan and
his men.

The National Quincentennial Committee (NQC) appropriated funds and provided the
panel with pertinent documents.

Through official correspondences with various foreign institutions, the NQC obtained a
high-resolution digital copy of the Pigafetta manuscripts, including the French version
(Nancy Codex) currently kept in Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library; the Italian version in the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana (Ambrosiana
Codex) in Milan, Italy; and the two French versions in the Bibliothèque Nationale de
France.

It also secured from the Edward Ayer Collection at Newberry Library in Chicago the
transcriptions and notes made by American scholar James Alexander Robertson, who
translated Pigafetta’s manuscripts into English in 1906. The panel likewise obtained and
consulted the accounts of other survivors of the Magellan expedition, like Gines de
Mafra, Francisco Albo, and the “Genoese Pilot.”

Pigafetta’s eyewitness account is the most detailed and only surviving account of the
first Mass in the Philippines. But there are different interpretations of his account on
where it was held.

Historian Gabriel Atega said Butuan had long been considered the site of the Mass. He
argued that the shift from Butuan to Limasawa occurred after the publication of
Robertson’s notes.

Atega said Robertson’s translation of Pigafetta’s manuscripts into English was based on
the “garbled” Italian text of the Ambrosiana Codex that Carlo Amoretti, prefect and
conservator of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, transcribed and published in 1800.

He said the Ambrosiana Codex was “heavily edited and full of inaccuracies” and, vis-à-
vis Robertson’s translation, should not be used as the basis for determining the nautical
coordinates of the Magellan expedition.

Expedition

Instead, he encouraged the panel to use the Nancy Codex, of which a translation by
English scholar Raleigh Ashlin Skelton was published in 1969.
But according to proponents of the Mass in Limasawa, Robertson provided a footnote
that the present name of Mazaua, the site of the historic Mass, is Limasawa.

They said Skelton also identified Limasawa as the current name of Mazaua.

On the Mojares panel’s request, the NHCP secured a copy of each extant Pigafetta
manuscript abroad and had the section that narrated the 1521 Easter Sunday Mass
transcribed and translated.

The panel later noted Robertson’s observation that the Ambrosiana Codex was
“workmanlike rather than elegant.” It agreed with Skelton that it might have been
derived from the original Pigafetta journal while the Nancy Codex was a copy where
Pigafetta reworked some of his text to entice sponsors to publish his manuscript for the
use of future explorers.

“After noting that Robertson and Skelton agree that the aforesaid codices complement
each other and their translation had only minor differences, the panel dismissed Mr.
Atega’s claim that Skelton should be used as the standard text in determining the site of
the 1521 Easter Sunday Mass. The panel also disagreed with Mr. Atega’s assertion that
historians who supported the Limasawa position relied only on the Ambrosiana Codex
and the Robertson translation,” the NHCP’s Escalante said.

Atega emphasized the determination of longitude to pinpoint the location of the first
Mass. Citing primary sources, he traced the route taken by the Magellan expedition and
concluded that 93⁄4 degrees latitude combined with his reading of longitude coordinates
in other sources led to Butuan as the site of the Mass.

Although it deemed Atega’s research commendable, the panel said longitudinal

measurements during the Age of Exploration were “imprecise and unreliable” because
these navigational coordinates were estimates and scientifically imprecise.

It pointed out the chronometer, the instrument invented by John Harrison to measure
longitude accurately, was only invented in the 1760s.

RESOLVING DEBATE ON SITE OF FIRST MASS IN PH

By: Tonette Orejas - 7 days ago

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net
** FOR SUNDAY REGIONS RE SITE OF FIRST MASS BUTUAN ** AUGUST 12, 2020
A monument depicting the first mass along the shores of Butuan CIty with the statue of
Ferdinand Magellan together with Rajah Kolambu, King of Butuan, and his brother
Rajah Siagu, King of Mazaua. The commemorative site is located at the Bood
Promontory Ecopark situated at a hill overlooking the Masao River or El Rio de Butuan.
PHOTO BY ERWIN MASCARIÑAS

Eight months into the official rites for the 500th anniversary of the first Mass in the
country, a set of evidence was presented to refute historical accounts that the
contingent of world voyager Ferdinand Magellan held the event in Limasawa, Southern
Leyte.

Dr. Potenciano Malvar, chair of the Butuan Calagan Historical Cultural Foundation, will
assert that the first Mass was held at another site in Mindanao in the soon-to-be-
published book, “Site of the 1521 Easter Mass, Butuan Not Limasawa.”

“It is my desire that this manuscript shall initiate the National Historical Commission of
the Philippines to unlock and expose the concocted and fabricated published versions
of the existing, disputable site of where the Easter Mass continued to be celebrated,” he
said in the introduction to the 144-page draft.

Malvar, a 75-year-old doctor, spent five years of research in the country and abroad to
help resolve a dispute that a 1959 law, two panels in 1998 and 2009, and several
appeals had failed to settle.

“I conclude with complete confidence that it was Butuan,” he told the Inquirer in a recent
telephone interview.

According to him, those determining the actual site should first have in mind that the
goal of the voyage of the Magellan-led Armada de Moluccas was to reach the Spice
Islands using the westward route and trade.

‘Disguised’

On the order of Spain’s King Charles 1, Magellan, in a 1521 map, “disguised the island
of Spice by putting the latitudes at 9 ⅔ degree latitude and cartographed those islands
of Mindanao and Visayas by making South, North and East, West.”

The logs of six sailors of the three ships in the expedition also concealed the location of
Butuan Island. “Magellan intended them to have contrasting latitude,” Malvar said. “So
the 9 ⅔ degree latitude and the purpose of the cartographs were to conceal.”
He said the Limasawa proponents “need to explain why if the 9 ⅔ latitude was that land
they wanted to go, why was there a need for Magellan to cartograph those islands that
way?”

King Charles’ order on April 19, 1519, read in part: “I know for certain, according to the
much information which I have obtained from persons who have seen it by experience,
that there are spices in the islands of Maluco; and chiefly, you are going to seek them
with this said fleet and my will is that you should straightaway follow the voyage to the
said islands in the form and guise which I have said and commanded to you, the said
Ferdinand Magallanes.”

A copy of the order is kept in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain.

Secret

Concealment was practiced for centuries by Arab and Chinese traders, Malvar said. An
order, dated May 8, 1519, by the Casa Contratacion, also owned by the king, gave
Magellan instructions on how to treat and trade with the natives.

Malvar said these negotiations were not known to the chronicler Antonio Pigafetta, who
was taught by Magellan to keep secrets after warning that “unauthorized people caught
with a chart from his cabinet in the ship faced death.”

The site where Magellan erected a cross with crown was documented by Francisco
Albo, who kept an official logbook of the voyage.

It was “upon a mountain,” locating Butuan Island at 9 ⅓ degree North latitude. Later,
King Charles referred to this as the proof of his conquest of the Spice Islands.

BISHOP’S ORDER The unpublished book “Butuan not Limasawa” features a copy of a
1581 edict (right) by Manila Bishop Domingo de Salazar, which declared “El Capella
Butuan” as site of the Easter Mass celebrated on March 31, 1521 (Julian calendar), or
April 8, 1521 (Gregorian calendar).

No ‘Limasawa’

Malvar said Mazaua, an island near Butuan, was replaced with the word Limasawa in
the preface of the “First Voyage Around the World” by James Alexander Robertson and
Emma Helen Blair that was published in December 1907.

The authentic Pigafetta manuscript has no word Limasawa, Malvar said, attributing the
change to a third editor, Edward Gaylord Bourne.
“Limasawa at 9 degree 55’ latitude was very far north of the 9 ⅓ degree North latitude,”
he noted to eliminate Limasawa.

Congressional archives of Republic Act No. 2733, the 1959 law that declared Limasawa
as official site of the first Mass, showed “many irregularities,” Malvar said.

Of the 39 lawmakers, only 11 were present when the bill was approved.

Proponents, even Church leaders, were not invited to committee hearings. No ocular
visits were done. The law did not bear the signature of then President Carlos Garcia.

Malvar also found out that the Gancayco panel, in its 1998 report, deleted six sentences
in Pigafetta’s accounts because these would “debunk the Limasawa claim.” The panel
was created by the former National Historical Institute in 1996 to resolve issues in the
country’s history.

Deleted

According to Malvar, among the deleted portions was that the Easter Mass happened in
the domain of the first king, Raia Colambu, which was Butuan. Magellan’s setting up of
tokens —cross and crown—was deleted although this confirmed the conquest. The
items were not found though to this date.

The “bull’s eye” against Limasawa was the three actions that Pigafetta recounted but
were deleted in the Gancayco report: “The ships fired all their artillery at once when the
body of Christ was elevated, the signal having been [given] from the shore with
muskets.”

These, Malvar said, could not be done all at the same time in Limasawa because
Magellan’s shrine and landing are 700 meters apart.

He said “Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas 1565-1615,” a chronicle of Miguel Lopez de

Legazpi’s expedition by Gaspar de San Agustin, extolled the exploits of Magellan in
Butuan, 44 years after the explorer was killed in Mactan.

“[The natives and king] built him a house and during Easter, the First Mass celebrated
[on] these islands was held in Butuan and the First Cross was raised, which Ferdinand
Magellan himself placed on a hill not very far from the beach … ”

The same chronicle mentioned Butuan, describing it thus: “That on Masagua there was
a town located to the east with a port for the ships on the west side of the island.”
Disappeared

Malvar said the evidence that Mazaua Island existed was a 1683 map by Augustinian
Recolletos. The island disappeared in a 1902 map because earthquakes had fused it
with the mainland while siltation by floods filled it. The present day Mazaua is thought to
be Barangay Masao, one of the 85 villages of Butuan City.

Using a 1739 map, Malvar tracked Pigafetta’s distance of 35 leguas (legua is an

obsolete unit of length; 1 legua is equivalent to 3 miles, or 4.84 kilometers) from
Mazaua to Gatigan to Zzubu. The distance between Limasawa and Zzubu was less
than 20 leguas, however.

Malvar twice doubted if Limasawa could supply spice, citing the large haul of the ship
Victoria when it returned to Spain. Also, the tadpole shape of Limasawa contrasted
Pigafetta’s cartograph of Mazaua Island.

Jesuit priest Rey Pedro Chirino’s “Relaciones de las Islas Filipinas” mentioned the
missionary activities of the Jesuits from 1581 and the Recolletos in 1622 in Butuan.
Books by five missionaries dated 1663, 1667, 1787 and 1818 chronicled the growth and
forms of Catholic faith in Butuan.

Then, too, the first bishop of Manila, Domingo de Salazar, issued an edict in 1581
declaring “El Capella Butuan” the site where the Easter Mass was celebrated on March
31, 1521.

The edict was published in a special newspaper supplement published in 1926, a copy
of which is in the archives of the Archdiocese of Manila.

In Butuan, there was also a group called “Folks of Magallanes” that celebrated the
Easter Mass for 300 years until 2000 at the Carballo Monument. The date of the Mass
was on April 8, 1521, following the Gregorian calendar.