FIRST MASS IN THE PHILIPPINES

I. TOPIC

The first mass was instituted by Christ at the cenacle in Jerusalem. Today, Jewish

people are not going out in the streets telling everybody that the institution of the mass

happened in their place. Does it make sense for Butuan or Limasawa to quarrel in this

conundrum about the first mass in the Philippines two thousand years after? Since

today Butuan is much noisier than Limasawa, probably because apparently they are in

the losing side, does it make sense to continue its stubborn clamor by not giving up its

claim for the first mass of the country when there is a very strong possibility, though lack

of historical records, that masses could had been celebrated in the archipelago long

before March 21, 1521. Given the presence of the Portuguese in Moluccas during the

first quarter of the sixteenth century which provided a good navigational access into the

islands of Mindanao and Visayas makes such historical allusion not so difficult to

believe. Is it not also highly plausible that when the Magellan’s fleet landed in

Homonhon on March 16, 1621 which was Holy Tuesday, a mass could have been

already celebrated in there? These questions obviously are very disturbing for us

Butuan proponents because there seems to be no strong reason no to accept the

plausibility of the above claim.

And even if the first mass happened in Butuan, was it worth the trouble of the local

historians to tediously do their research in the vast libraries in Europe and America just

simply to prove their point which was in fact already twice turned down by the National

Historical Institute (NHI)? The prostration of some local historians is heightened by the

growing sentiment that recourse to the NHI is practically futile and therefore deserved to
be abandoned. There is now an increasing mood of cynicism on the part of some of

local historians to rethink whether or not such an endeavor was just a mere product of

sudden emotional outburst of losing something which Butuanons are convinced to be

rightfully theirs without even weighing the relevance of whether or not that something

does have really worth. Does it have a cash value? Indeed, not a few people in the

academe and even some clergy of Butuan diocese shared this sentiment.

Butuan’s reaction to Limasawa’s claim in fact is intriguing to me because obviously for

more than three hundred years this was not exactly the case. We all know that people

in Butuan were, in fact, remiss or at least, indifferent to the issue for the first three

hundred years after that Easter mass was celebrated in the Philippine archipelago.

Prior to Martial Law period, first mass issue was just taken for granted by the majority

and that very few people from Butuan bothers the issue. Yet as the time goes by the

clamor is getting stronger, evidences seem to refuse to be silence by politics, and that

more and more Butuanons are beginning to be aware that the claim in fact is worth

pursuing for. But why it has been taken for granted in the first place?

II. LANDFALL CONTROVERSY

Like a more famous landfall in the Atlantic a generation before Magellan’s there is a

parallel debate in the Pacific Ocean side as to where Mazaua is although there is an

official version that is almost universally believed except for a few holdouts. There is a

major differ-ence between the Columbus first landfall controversy and the Mazaua. As

far as I know, no one asks, Where was the first mass held in America? In the Philippines

the only question asked is, Where was the site of the first mass, Butúan or Limasawa?
This question—as the framework against which the identity of Mazaua is being sought

to be ascertained—has led to a historiographical and geographical disaster in which a

lee shore—where anchoring is almost certainly impossible—represents Magellan’s safe

haven. My paper will discuss the making of the Mazaua conundrum, how Magellan’s

safe haven became a lee shore, and why an agency of government has willfully

proclaimed what is fraudulent, and lastly I will locate where Mazaua is today.

III. Five Eyewitness Accounts

A. Antonio Pigafetta—

Ambrosiana codex (in Italian)—the first transcription was done by the discoverer of this

manuscript, the Augustinian Encyclopedist Carlo Amoretti, 1800. His work is seen by

scholars as defective because of liberties taken with Pigafetta’s text (Stanley lv). “The

value of Amoretti’s find was severely undermined, however, by the fact that the text he

published represented a rewriting or translation of Pigafetta’s 16th-century Italian.

Are the two isles identical: perfect, exact, total equal of one another?
Limasawa

area =

698 has.

Mazaua with a circumference of 3-4 leguas (9-12 nautical miles) has an area of from

2,213 to 3,930 hectares

The Limasawa hypothesis asserts the Leyte isle is the equal of Magellan’s port,

Mazaua. That is, they are identical: perfect, exact, total equal of one another. In terms of

size Limasawa’s 698 hectares ill fit Mazaua’s area of 2213 to 3930 hectares converted

from Ginés de Mafra’s estimate of its 3-4 leguas circumference, A list of 32 Mazaua

properties shows in no instance do the two coincide.

that king getting interchanged with the king of Butúan, which error has been rectified by

the latest editions by Pozzi and Cachey. Pigafetta’s relation has been hailed as “nearly

definitive—and is almost universally accepted as such—as any historical document

about the actual events of the voyage” (Torodash 323). This fact has been wrongly

translated as being also definitive in terms of the correctness of his latitude reading for

Mazaua.
Map of “Cap. de Gatighan” with Mazaua at top right hand corner. Orientation is south-

north against today’s north-south convention. Mazaua’s location is southeast of Bohol.

Note isle sandwiched between Ceilon (Panaón) and Bohol. In today’s map this isle is

identified as Limasawa. By wrongly classifying Ceilon as Leyte historians have mis

appreciated the tracks drawn by Pigafetta and Albo. R.A. Skelton, Donald F. Lach, and

Theodore J. Cachey have correctly identified it as Panaón. This map is taken from the

Mario Pozzi edition of the Ambrosiana.

Phillipps-Beinecke-Yale codex, one of three French extant manuscripts of Antonio

Pigafetta’s account of the first circumnavigation. The facsimile book was published by

Yale University in 1986. The cross west of Mazaua indicating location where Magellan’s

fleet anchored is repeated in all the French manuscripts. So are the “stilt” houses facing

a cove. Of 23 charts in the Yale codex (and in all other codices) this is the only one

where the scrolls for placenames are empty. It does tell us Pigafetta himself did-n’t have

a hand in its execution. This map is from the companion facsimile book to the English tr.

by R.A.Skelton.
Mazaua (upper right-hand corner) in French MS. 24224, one of two extant manuscripts

in the possession of Bib-liotheque Nationale and the only one unpublished still. Note

houses on “stilts” facing cove and cross west of Mazaua indicating location where

Magellan’s fleet anchored. None of these features are seen in Robertson’s and

Bernad’s maps. The map shown here has not been published on the Net or in print.

B. Francisco Albo
1. Madrid ms—transcribed and published by Martín Fernandez de Navarette in

Colección...1837. A wrong latitude 90 40’ N (Alboa 202) resulting from an amanuensis

er-ror has fortified a fallacious argument that has propped up the Limasawa hypothesis.

1874. This manuscript has the correct latitude 9 0 20’ N (Albob 225) as read also by a

Bel-gian scholar (Denucé 309, Pigafettak 110) and a Portuguese maritime historian

(Lagoa 88). Professional Philippine historiographers are not aware of this latitude. The

NHI willfully ignored it;

C. The roteiro of the Genoese Pilot

1. Lisbon copy—in Portuguese, as all the three others, was published in Lisbon

in 1826, collated with the Paris Ms. Amanuensis’ and transcription errors have led to

faulty analysis. Robertson has translated parts of the roteiro’ s scattered throughout 650

annotations. The sharp dismissive remarks of one historiographer, “Nothing very useful

can be gained from a reading of this rather boring account,” (Torodash 319) has waylaid

Philippine historians into ignoring even dismissing the Genoese Pilot’s latitude

(Schumacher 15) which my analysis shows and corroborated by the 2001

geomorphological study is the correct fix. ;

D. Ginés de Mafra—written by the only seaman to return to Mazaua, (CDIU 54)

published in Spain only in 1920. It is the second to the last primary account to surface. It

has been accessed by Western navigation historians and Magellan scholars but is

almost unknown in the Philippines. An unfortunate remark by a Magellan historiographer

Mazaua episode and directly lead to the discovery of a lost isle fused with mainland

Mindanao that has the hallmarks of Mazaua. The National Historical Institute, with full

knowledge of expert acceptance of its authenticity and in fact after admitting it as

evidence on 17 December 1996, dismissed Mafra in March 1998 giving neither

explanation nor reason.

Two Philippine historiographers, William H. Scott and Martin J. Noone, had

accessed Mafra much earlier. It’s certain the two had translated the book into English

independently of each other. Both failed to grasp Mafra’s testimony on Mazaua and the

revolutionary geographical view he depicts of the 16th century Surigao-Leyte zone.

III. OUR STAND

Mazaua is universally believed to be Limasawa, an isle in Leyte in latitude 9 0 56’

N and longitude 1250 5’ E. Every literature on the circumnavigation makes the ritualistic

foot-note that Mazaua is present-day Limasawa. Recent writings tend to skip this ritual

altogether, and Mazaua is not mentioned even once in Bergreen’s book.

A notable exception is French maritime historian Léonce Peillard who pays no

obeisance to this literary tradition. In fact he locates Mazaua in the Genoese Pilot’s 9 0 N

(Pigafettad 314) declaring outright the isle is in Mindanao (Pigafettad 317). These bold

as-sertions seem calculated to directly address key points in the Mazaua controversy,

which has otherwise been a parochial issue unknown outside the Philippines. If
Peillard’s departure from orthodoxy results from an awareness of the issue, he gives no

indication, but he is the only navigation historian to hold such a maverick view. Even so

Peillard gives no explanation of his operation in arriving at his conclusion that Mazaua is

in Mindanao. For our purposes, therefore, his opinion while worthy of note is not all that

helpful.

In any case, the belief Limasawa is Mazaua—except for a few unreconstructed

hold outs for whom the arbitrary powers of the National Historical Institute hold no terror

is total. Two Philippine laws enshrine it, Republic Act 2733 and Republic Act 7822. Top

Philippine historians, living or long gone, support it. The national historical agency, as

the Philippine Historical Commission in 1953 and as the National Historical Institute in

1980 and 1998, has thrice affirmed its validity. In its latest affirmation, the National

Historical Institute claims it had “conclusively established” the final truth about Mazaua

being Limasawa. (Gancayco 24) It even invokes the Bible for moral support in making

its findings. Its former chairman, when this “final truth” was promulgated even advised

“unbelievers” to foreswear investigating the issue further—a strange notion for a

professional historian to embrace and a dangerous if abhorrent principle to proclaim.

There are just a number of difficulties with NHI’s “final truth”:

1. Limasawa has no anchorage. The Coast Pilot and Sailing Directions

describe the isle as “fringed by a narrow, steep-to reef, off which the depths are too

great to afford anchor-age for large vessels.” (Hydrographic 482) Local historians are

unfamiliar with technical navigation and none thought of consulting either a Coast Pilot
or Sailing Directions. One writer clearly spoke from unfamiliarity when he said,

“[Limasawa] has a good har-bor…” (Bernad 29) A notable exception was the past head

of NHI who, in a slim essay co-written with another historiographer cited and quoted the

whole entry on Limasawa in the

1968 Coast Pilot but deliberately omitted the above-quoted sentence. (Tan, Medina 35)

Such an unseemly behavior, suppressing an inconvenient fact, if in an academic setting,

would have very serious consequences; the deliberate occultation of a vital fact is

anathema to the pursuit of truth. In more civilized circles it could cause one’s permanent

ostracism. The NHI-Gancayco panel, composed of non-Magellan scholars and non-

navigation historians, was able to surmount the impossibility of anchoring in Limasawa

by declaring Magellan’s ignorance of Limasawa’s shoreline allowed him to anchor

wherever he pleased.

comer when he sailed into Philippines shores of 1521, he could not have anticipated up

front which island had adequate anchorage for ships. There is logic in assuming that he

an-chored his fleet in whatever island he touched at, and that island happened to be

Limasawa (Mazaua) ‘as (because) we had seen a fire (on it) the night before’. So, it was

actually the light from a fire that Magellan saw, not the better anchorage which he could

not have anticipated anyway, that attracted Magellan to Limasawa.” (NHI 20) This

statement reveals an appalling ignorance of navigation. Soundings—knowing the nature

of the ground below, its depths, the character of the sea-floor—is to navigation as
grammar is to language, arithmetic is to mathematics, breathing is to living. It’s so

fundamental it assumed. “The oldest navigating instrument of which we have definite

evidence is the familiar lead and line, which remains the safeguard of sailors to this

day.” (Taylor 35) As a great helmsman put it, “Probably the most dangerous phase of

navigation occurs when the vessel is ‘on soundings.’ Since man first began navigating

the waters, the possibility of grounding his vessel has been a major con-cern, and

frequent soundings have been the most highly valued safeguard against that ex-

perience. Undoubtedly used long before the Christian era, the lead line is perhaps the

old-est instrument of navigation.” (Bowditch 14) An older “soundings” instrument was a

long rod or pole.

2) East Limasawa where supposedly Magellan’s fleet anchored is a lee

shore. The 1993 Sail-ing Directions state: “The predominant winds are the

Northeast monsoon, which prevails from October to March or April, and the

Southwest monsoon, which prevails from June to September.” (Defense 197)

Dumagsa is the local name for the Northeast monsoon. The phe-nomenon is

alluded to in De Moluccis where a storm drives the fleet “to another island called

Massana.” (Maximilian 121) This incident refers to the time the fleet left

Homonhon and was coasting along the eastern side of Leyte. The lee shore,

also known as the dangerous side, is improbable as the anchorage since a

violent movement of the wind will dash the ships to Limasawa’s rocky shore and

there is no escape from shipwreck.

East shore of Limasawa

Easterlies/Dumagsa

“Every sailor has In his account of Magellan’s voyage, Ginés de Mafra said the fleet

anchored west of Mazaua. This is corroborated by Pigafetta’s map in all 3 French

codices. There is a technical reason why the port was west not east as asserted by the

Limasawa hypothesis. It has to do with a basic rule of navigation in the Age of Sail.

Renaissance ships, powered by wind, worked along the limits of nature. One
unchanging “law” is that up to the 30th parallel south or north of the equator pre-vailing

winds blow east to west. (See above illustration) These are the easterlies, the trade

winds. In March and April this is further aggravated by the powerful northeast monsoon

called Dumagsa by the Limasawans. The side exposed to Dumagsa is called the lee

shore. It is impossible to anchor on a lee shore. Had the fleet stayed on a lee shore

these will have been driven towards shore by the Dumagsa and will have no way to

escape shipwreck. In Maximilian Transylvanus’ De Moluccis, a storm is mentioned that

forced Magellan to leave Leyte towards Mazaua. This is the Dumagsa. It is impossible

to anchor on a lee shore.

A non-navigation historian does not appreciate the gravity of this rule. “Shipwreck” to

him is just a word. To the seafarer it is the end of the world, of his dreams of wealth, of

his life even. No reason is more compelling to ensure seafarers obey this cardinal rule.

The idea Magellan’s fleet anchored east is navigationally untenable and has no

historiographical support. One writer says it is an “established” point (Bernad 28) but

offers no evidence nor reasoned argument. No eyewit-ness talks of east. The NHI

simply insists on its own authority that Magellan’s port was east.

We conclude that will all the proofs and evidences from both sides, we decided to

believe that it is Masao.

De Jesus, V. C. (n.d.). Mazaua: Magellanùs Lost Harbor. Retrieved from www.xeniaeditrice.it ›

mazaua

Licayan, H. (n.d.). Interpreting the First Mass. Interpreting the First Mass, 1–12.

Members:

Gene Gulanes

Troy Roble

Laimee Pisao