"The Battle of Maktan" by Angel Carnio (watercolor).

This is a tentative, speculative piece to support the following theories:

1. That Lapulapu, our first national hero, settled in a village called Bagasumbol, the old name of Naval, the capital town of Biliran Province north of Leyte;

2. That the word Bagasumbol was a reverential folk attribute to Lapulapu for his spectacular feat, the victory over the attacking Spanish troops led by the ill-fated Ferdinand Magellan during the Battle of Mactan in April 1521;

3. That Bagasumbol was the "provincial" abode of Lapulapu, his vacation spot, and the farming and hunting ground of his tribe; and

4. That Mactan Island was merely Lapulapu’s "urban" abode near Cebu (Sugbu), an ancient trade center, an abode which he shared with Sula, another datu (chief).

These speculations surfaced quite eclectically after I had finished researching and writing the paper on the beginnings of Naval together with a group of local intellectuals.¹


The Meaning of Sumbol

The former name of the town of Naval was Bagasumbol (i.e., "like sumbol"). According to local folklore this "war-like" name, Bagasumbol, was changed in 1859 to a more "peaceful" name, Naval, supposedly to commemorate the historical La Guerra Naval de Manila in 1646, which was believed to have been won by the Spaniards against the powerful Dutch squadron because of the miraculous intercession of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary. The Blessed Virgin is the adopted patroness of the town of Naval.²

The folklore of the town, therefore, has a ready explanation for the "Naval" name. However, the natives have always been at a loss to explain the origin of its former name, Bagasumbol. This old name has been provided with explanations by several authors and writers in the past.

Artigas³ wrote that the word bagasumbol meant "an obstacle to enemies." Lepasana⁴ mentioned that the settlement was named after its founder who happened to be called Bagasumbol. Chico⁵ noted the theories advanced by Artigas and Lepasana, but added that whatever may be the case, "the place (Bagasumbol) may either refer to the founder who earned the name of an obstacle to the enemies for his prowess and fearlessness against the hostile attacks of the enemies, or it may refer to the inhabitants themselves, who were reputed for their bravery and courage which enabled them to repel the almost insuperable (sic) invasions of their antagonists."

The diverse interpretations of Bagasumbol, borne largely out of word-play rather than out of a discreet inquiry into the etymology of the word, certainly did not put an end to the debate.

In 1990 I finally came across a direct reference to the word sombol, together with its definition, in an English translation of the Alzina manuscript of 1668. Alzina defined the Bisayan word sombol as "a great feathered ornament (gran plumaje) which they tie to the prow (of their boats, when returning from war or a mission) as a symbol of their victory or as the greatest sign of conquest."⁶ The word therefore always referred to the ethnic, self-made equivalent of the modern victor’s trophy.

Thus the word Bagasumbol or baga sumbol had always meant "like or similar to (baga, in Waray) a symbol of a great victory or conquest (sombol)." With the meaning of Bagasumbol now known, I was left with speculating on how the place became referred to as Bagasumbol.


"Urban" and "Provincial" Abodes

Pigafetta’s account of his observations in Limasawa Island gives us some clues that the native datus in 1521 had both "urban" (i.e., near a trade center) and "provincial" abodes, where they farmed, hunted, or vacationed. For instance, the brothers Rajah Kolambu and Rajah Awi, whom Magellan and Pigafetta met in Limasawa, happened to be in that island at the Spanish contact only because they had previously agreed to meet each other and do some hunting there.⁷ In the case of Rajah Awi, he appeared to have an "urban" abode in Butuan, but his "provincial" abode appeared to be Calagan (Surigao). As for Rajah Kolambu, Limasawa Island appeared to be just a favorite "provincial" abode, but he probably came from his "urban" abode in the present Carigara town in north Leyte, which was the abode of his grandson, Rajah Bankaw, of the Bankaw Revolt fame in the 1620s.⁸

With the above examples in mind, we might surmise that Lapulapu, the other datu of Mactan, must have also had a "provincial" abode. And this could have been Bagasumbol, the old name of the town of Naval in Biliran Island.


Historical Inference

The historical proof for Bagasumbol as the "provincial" abode of Lapulapu could partly be inferred from the accounts on the expedition of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi in 1565.⁹ When Legazpi and his expedition settled in Cebu that year, he found that the people of Mactan persistently refused to come to terms with the Spaniards, as Lapulapu had done to Magellan in 1521. When Legazpi tried to negotiate peace with them, the Mactanese instead fled eastward, to Leyte. Later, when a force was about to be sent to Leyte, the refuge of the Mactanese, the people of Cebu begged of Legazpi not to launch the attack until they had warned their relatives trading there to get out.¹⁰

One of the interesting native characters dealing with the Legazpi expedition was a person named Makyaw. He was the brother of Rajah Tupas, the datu of Cebu in 1565, and the husband of a woman and the father of two girls who had been taken hostage by Legazpi to guarantee peace following the burning of Cebu by the Spaniards. After his family was released, Makyaw played a front-line role in a native attempt to drive the Spaniards out of the islands by hunger, a passive resistance approach to preserving their way of life. But this tactic failed because the Spaniards had decided to settle in these islands, though they left Cebu after a few years in favor of Panay, from where they proceeded to Manila to establish their permanent settlement.¹¹

Makyaw appeared to be the same person as Capitan Basio (a corruption of Makyaw?), the legendary founder of the settlement of Kawayan, now a town 18 kilometers north of Naval. The historical data paper of Kawayan tells that Capitan Basio was a resident of Cordova in Mactan. It also tells that he fled from Mactan and settled in Kawayan supposedly to escape the injustice inflicted on his family by the Moros and the Spaniards.¹² If Makyaw of history and Capitan Basio of legend were indeed the same person, then we have proof that Biliran Island was the Mactanese domain in Leyte where Makyaw fled to.¹³ This could provide a tenuous association with the claim that the neighboring Bagasumbol may have been the "provincial" abode of the famous Mactanese, Lapulapu, who probably sired a similarly brave and defiant son who also became chief of Mactan.¹⁴


Was Lapulapu Bagasumbol?

Lapulapu’s victory over Ferdinand Magellan during the Battle of Mactan in the morning of 27 April 1521 was a memorable event in the Western world. Magellan’s death was mourned as a great loss to world history. However, if my speculation is correct, the natives of the Philippines at the Spanish contact may have also acted like true victors: they apparently memorialized Lapulapu’s victory by revering him as a living human trophy, baga sumbol ("like a symbol of a great victory"). Taking Lepasana’s explanation cited earlier, was Lapulapu the person called Bagasumbol, the founder of the settlement of the same name?

In a previous article published in Kinaadman concerning the beginnings of Naval town,¹⁵ I apparently erred in interpreting Artigas’s Bagasumbol, "obstacle to enemies." I wrote that Bagasumbol became the name of the old poblacion site of Biliran pueblo only after the local residents showed a belligerent attitude against their deluded and heretical first parish priest, following the latter’s decision to transfer the poblacion to another site sometime between 1765 and 1775. I now believe that Bagasumbol had been the name of this village long before it was made the poblacion of Biliran pueblo, and that the "obstacle to enemies" perception contextually evolved out of a different "war-like" stance showed by the local residents -- that of protracted resistance. The new meaning expanded, but did not necessarily alter, the original meaning of Bagasumbol.

But it might be asked, if the village was named after Lapulapu, why was it not named Lapulapu? Why Bagasumbol instead? The answer to this question reflects the civilities, terms of courtesy, and good breeding of the prehispanic natives. Their greatest courtesy was in their form of address. They never spoke to anyone as "you" or in the second person but always in the third person.¹⁶ Thus, in the case of Limasawa Island, for example, the island was not named after Rajah Kolambu in his name, but after one of his probable attributes -- his having five wives (i.e., of him who has lima asawa).¹⁷

One of the interesting events in Naval history occurred sometime in the 1930s. The predominantly Spanish names of the town’s 14 streets were abruptly renamed mostly after illustrious local forebears.¹⁸ However, one old street name was retained: Magallanes. (Another renamed street, Gran Capitan or Great Captain, probably referred also to Magellan.) It probably would not strain our credulity if the redundant folkloric reference to Magellan in this town subconsciously alluded to the fact that it was Magellan’s conqueror who founded the settlement that became known as Bagasumbol and who may have brought there some trophy from the battle of Mactan.


NOTES

In the middle of 1996, Fr. Miguel Bernad, SJ, editor of Kinaadman, brought to my attention a letter from Fr. Peter Schreurs, MSC, reacting to my article about Lapulapu. Fr. Schreurs is a retired Dutch Columban missionary who served in Mindanao. He was formerly parish priest of Magallanes town in Agusan del Norte, which covers Masao, the other claimant of the recorded First Mass in the Philippines. As a historian, he had refuted the Masao claim in favor of Limasawa.

Fr. Schreurs wrote from Tilburg, Holland. His letter, published in Kinaadman (Vol. 18, Nos. 2 and 3, 1996, p. 246), went as follows:


On Lapulapu in Biliran

Dear Editor,

Kindly allow me to comment on the article ‘Lapulapu in Biliran?’ (Kinaadman Vol. XVII, No. 2, p. 213-214).

1) I am not aware if Kolambu of Limasawa did indeed have ‘lima asawa’ (five wives) but the island certainly did not get its name from that attribute!

2) As for the street names of Biliran: ‘Gran Capitan’ does not refer to Magellan but to the great Spanish warrior Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba (1443-1515) who transformed the Spanish infantry of King Ferdinand of Aragon into the most feared military force of Europe."

Peter Schreurs MSC
Tilburg, Holland

I immediately wrote a response to Fr. Schreurs’ comments. Fr. Bernad published this in the latest issue of Kinaadman (Vol. 21, 1999, pp. 370-371), the text of which went as follows:


Lapulapu in Biliran

Dear Editor:

I write to clarify Fr. Peter Schreurs’ comments (Kinaadman, XVII, 2-3) on my article "Lapulapu in Biliran?" (Kinaadman, XVII, No. 2).

(1) The "lima asawa" (five wives) explanation of the name of Limasawa is a folklore that I have known since childhood. Whether or not this is mere word-play is still debatable.

In 1990, a student of mine from Limasawa wrote a short composition on the origin of her home barangay. She wrote: "Triana got its name from one of the five wives of Rajah Kolambu (Bancao) named Tirana." Of course, Kolambu and Bankaw were two different persons, but the Limasawa tradition seems no longer sure which of them had five wives.

My student also mentioned the names of the five wives as follows: Tirana, Maanyag, Ujaja, Fujing, and Istamona. Five beaches in Limasawa had been named after each of them.

I know that the late Dr. William Henry Scott had a different theory about Limasawa’s name (i.e., Five Phyton or Phyton Place). But this was not sufficient for me to dispense with my own theory.

Like his convincing refutation of the Butuan tradition of the First Mass (in favor of Limasawa), I wish Father Schreurs will further explain his certainty that Limasawa did not get its name from the "five wives" attribute.

(2) I stand corrected on the name "Gran Capitan," a street name which I had mentioned in a parenthetical sentence as a reference to Magellan. I shall remove this erroneous interpretation from future versions of the article.

(3) While that article was in process of publication, I came across other place-names and published references to bolster my theory about Lapulapu. A Lapulapu District in the poblacion of Dagami, Leyte, helped firm up my theory that Dagami, who was executed on orders of Legazpi in 1567, was probably the son of Lapulapu and successor of his "urban abode" in Mactan. Dagami and his mother, perhaps one of Lapulapu’s several wives, may have been natives of Dagami (whatever its former name remains unknown to me), a town that was probably named after a heroic son.

Scott had written a lengthy article about Dagami’s betrayal by Tupas of Cebu.

The probability of Dagami’s being a Waray led me to the hypothesis that Mactan was possibly a Waray enclave during Lapulapu’s days, and to the related hypothesis that Lapulapu was probably a Waray himself. In his book, The Jesuits in the Philippines, Father Horacio de la Costa, SJ, mentioned about a chief of Bohol named "Waray Tupung" (Peerless One). If his part of Bohol was Waray territory, would it be far-fetched to presume that nearby Mactan was also ruled by a Waray during those days?

Of course, Father Schreurs is a historian I admire much. I own a copy of his Caraga Antigua, which I have cited as reference for several articles. Indeed, I feel honored by the attention he has given my article. He has better access to archival sources than I do.

But I have more intimate knowledge of Leyte culture and geography, and of the nuances of both the Cebuano and Waray languages. Since these have not yet been totally discredited as alternative data sources for hypothesis-testing historical studies, then I shall continue availing of them to complement "conventional" sources for my speculations.

Rolando O. Borrinaga
UP - School of Health Sciences
Palo, Leyte