What’s in a name? Lapulapu or Lapu-Lapu for the national hero?

National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) Chairperson Rene Escalante leads the offering of flowers at the statue of Datu Lapulapu at the Mactan Liberty Shrine in Barangay Mactan, Lapu-Lapu City on April 27, Saturday. | CDND file photo

Cebu City, Philippines—  Everyone knows about the famous Cebuano hero who defied Ferdinand Magellan. 

But, how do we really spell the name of the famous ruler of Mactan?

The National Quincentennial Committee (NQC) has submitted a comprehensive plan to President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, last January 29, 2019 and made a stand on the hero’s name. 

NQC took a stand that the name of should be written as Lapulapu, without the hyphen. 

“The NQC cited for its basis the recorded name of the historical figure found in Antonio Pigafetta’s chronicle of the Magellan-Elcano expedition: Çilapulapu. 

“Çi” in the recorded name of the Mactan leader is most likely the ancient honorific title ‘Si.’ Citing past scholars, the NQC added that “‘Si’ was an indigenized form of the Hindu title ‘Sri’ (‘gentleman’ in Sanskrit) to refer to a nobleman.” (Other variations of ‘Sri’ are sari, seri, and sali.) posted NQC in their Facebook page. 

The NQC saw the need to clarify the name Lapulapu because he is considered as  the central figure of the quincentennial and having two names for the hero might cause confusion to the people. 

With the consent of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), the comprehensive plan reads, “the NQC will use ‘Lapulapu’ (without the hyphen) as the name of the Mactan leader” said NQC in their Facebook post. 

While in referring to the historic city, it should be spelled as Lapu-Lapu, with the hyphen. 

This stand from both NQC and NHCP is their move to slowly educate the Filipino people of what was written in our history books and should stick with it./dbs