Today, Apr. 27, should be Ph Thanksgiving Day. 502 years ago, on Apr. 27, 1521, Datu Lapulapu and his forces slayed Ferdinand Magellan and his group of foreign invaders during the Battle of Mactan in a masterful display of tactics and self-defense warfare using iron lances and bamboo spears laced with poison. Brilliant.

Today, Apr. 27, should be Ph Thanksgiving Day. 502 years ago, on Apr. 27, 1521, Datu Lapulapu and his forces slayed Ferdinand Magellan and his group of foreign invaders during the Battle of Mactan in a masterful display of tactics and self-defense warfare using iron lances and bamboo spears laced with poison. Brilliant.

Crowd-sourced: This “crowd-sourced” YouTube video below depicting how Datu Lapulapu and his warriors repelled the foreign invaders a few seconds when the invaders stepped on the sandy shore of Mactan (according to Magellan’s Pigafetta, inabangan sila (the warriors of Mactan were prepared, lying in wait for them); is a compilation of clips from the following:
Lupang Hinirang – Philipine national anthem GMA 7 (2010)
Conquistadores: Adventvm (2017)
Magellan – 5 entscheidende Schritte zur Weltumsegelung (2020)
A Malay and Magellan (2016)
Ruta Maritima de la Seda (2011)
The King Maker (2005)

File photo from the blog archives (this site has been featuring Datu Lapulapu since the beginning of this blog because the significance of the feats of the early inhabitants of the archipelago was never recognized enough) — this stone bas relief of Datu Lapulapu (see photo below) stands at the portal of the University of the Philippines Diliman