Lapu-Lapu Mactan Shrine: The First Battle OF Filipinos Against The Spanish Conqueror

Hello everyone! Hi to all hivers, especially to all who love to visit or explore new places and enjoy discovering or looking back at the history that makes us what we are today in our own different country. For today's blog let me share with you all our visit to the historical place here in Mactan Shrine,also known as Liberty Shrine or Lapu-Lapu Monument,is a memorial park on the island of Mactan in Lapu-Lapu city,Province of Cebu Philippines.

My daughter’s and I agreed that we would visit the Mactan shrine that way as a Filipino and as a Catholic we can see the place and remember how our ancestors fought to protect our land from the conqueror who came to the Philippines to Christianize us from Islam. So we leave home and ride a bus going to the place we want to visit. We arrived at the shrine in the afternoon and it was cloudy at that time.

After we enter the gate we are amazed by the shrine because it's very clean,peaceful and with beautiful trees and flowers with landscape on it. Then we saw the Monument of Lapu-Lapu. Lapu-Lapu was a Visayan chieftain of Mactan who is remembered in Philippine history for his resistance against the Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his forces in the Battle of Mactan in 1521,marking the first recorded stand against foreign invaders in the Philippines.

Fernando Mallanes or Ferdinand Magellan’s makes expedition to the Philippines and it was not driven by personal interest but by the strategic goal of finding a new trade route to the Spice islands(Moluccas) for Spain,circumventing Portuguese control and ultimately to Spread Christianity. According to my history teacher way back in highschool Magellan was looking for a spices for the Beef that is why they look for it until they found it in this island in Phillipines. Amazing!. They found our country because of the Black pepper, it is there necessity of the black pepper for their cuisines that Plilippines was discovered by Magellan.

Mactan is a small island near Cebu and Lapu-Lapu was the Datu or chieftain of the island. Magellan’s forces were killed during the battle and the Spanish expedition was forced to retreat. Lapu-lapu's recorded name as Cilapulapu was the first national hero of the Philippines but it is not officially proclaimed.April 27th is the date of the Battle of Mactan and is celebrated as Lapu-Lapu Day.

Lapu-Lapu forces,armed with spears,arrows and other native weapons,fought valiantly against Magellan's heavily armed conquistadors. Magellan was hit by a poison arrow on his leg and was fatally wounded by spears by Lapulapu forces that made him die. We saw here the painting of the Battle in the year 1521 where MAgellan was defeated.

Lapu-Lapu and his people have Tattoos on there bodies, so now we would not wonder that many Filipinos likes to have Tattoos in there bodies because our ancestors have tattoos too. As we walked near to the beach side we feel a bit sad because it was low tide .We remember how the filipino's bravely fought to protect our sovereignty from the conqueror.

It is a bloody battle that took place in this Shrine and that is a must to remember. For me Magellan makes a sacrifice to die b ecause he aims to make a trade but above all to make the Filipinos a Christian. Lapu-lapu showed us that we Filipinos would not be allowed to surrender our sovereignty. That we must protect what is ours as a Filipino people.

While we walk around we also read what is in there, we keep sharing ideas about what we learned from the books of History and we are glad that we only read it before on the books and now we are really here on the Mactan Shrine visiting and looking back to the history. The place was filled with people and many of them are tourists who also explore the place.
The rain starts to poured just the right time when we finished walking around the Shrine. We decided to go back home because it started to get dark for the night.

We walked going back to the bus terminal and we pass by The Mactan Newtown.We enjoyed our time together spending on travelling,walking,talking and exploring this new place we visit.

Thank you so much for reading my blog my dear Hiver’s here in Worldmappin community. I am looking forward to share with you again my blog. This is your Hiver friend @ronimarie82 from the Philippines. Have a wonderful day and Let’s Spread LOVE NOT HATE. See you next time.