Posted on YouTube and Facebook is a video titled “The History of Cebu.” On Facebook, it is posted under the name “I Am A Cebuano” and on YouTube, under the username “The Island Bookshelf”. Friends in the heritage advocacy group in Cebu (specifically Ka Bino Guerrero, Dondon Dimpas and Masi Cabanes) asked me to react to this short video because apparently, a number of viewers are now mesmerized at certain historical fictions that are being passed on as facts in this beautifully done video. Unfortunately, for some reason, I could not post my comment directly on the Facebook page. And the comment I made on the YouTube posting was deleted a few hours later. And so let me take this space to react to that video.
Consider these first three so-called “Facts” that are part of the video posted on Facebook:
1. Cebuanos are the ones responsible for the birth of the Chavacano language. Notwithstanding, Cebuano remains to be the predominant language in the Zamboanga Peninsula. Chavacano is mainly spoken in Zamboanga City, but they also know Cebuano.
2. Santander, Cebu is the place where the Spaniards first established their permanent settlement in the Philippines. Thenceforth, most of the Spanish mestizos and mestizas originate in southern Cebu.
3. The religion of Mactan during the Pre-Spanish period was Islam; while Hinduism for mainland Cebu.
I will let Zamboangueños react to the first “fact” because I know for a fact that there are many varied explanations for the emergence of this pidgin language. But I seriously doubt Cebuanos had something to do with this alone. Language, after all, is never invented but evolves. But the second “fact” is quite a surprise. We know from unassailable historical records, including the letters sent by the Spanish conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi to King Philip II of Spain that he established the first Spanish settlement right where you find Fort San Pedro today. So I wonder who wrote this whole episode about Santander and why there is no Fort San Pedro there. Incidentally, Santander during the early period of conquest was most probably called Tañon as this was the name used when it was placed under the Augustinian mission in Cebu by 1599. How times must have changed just 50 years after Legazpi’s conquest because Santander was only a mere mission station by 1599 under the Vicariate of Carcar or Sialo, if we believe this second “fact.”
The third “fact” is about Mactan’s religion as Islam. It does not hold water. There is but one written account mentioning this place at the point of Spanish arrival, via Ferdinand Magellan’s chronicler and eyewitness to history, Antonio Pigafetta. Throughout the entire period of early Spanish conquest, i.e., between Magellan’s demise on the shores of Mactan and the arrival of Legazpi 44 years later, Pigafetta is the only one that mentions Mactan, an account that revolves around the Battle of Mactan.
Pigafetta was no stranger to Muslims inasmuch as he mentions in his description of the court of the Sugbuanon chieftain Hamabar (or Humabon) which had, according to him, a Muslim in it. His telling differentiation between Hamabar and Cebuanos as well as a Muslim in the Hamabar court shows that he was well aware of Islam and of Muslims. So, why did he not describe Lapulapu as Muslim? Why did he not describe the other chief of Mactan, Zola, also as Muslim? Because they were not. Talks of Caliph Pulaku as Lapulapu are later writings based on questionable folklore (fakelore may be the more appropriate term) that emerge only during the last century when it became fashionable to assert such claims. Remember Jose Marco and his fake Code of Kalantiaw and the stories of the ten Bornean datus? Given his prowess of defeating a foreign invader, anyone would understandably claim Lapulapu as their own. But a claim does not immediately constitute historical fact. It is the datable, original written record that holds more water.
The YouTube version of this video, posted on November 14, the blurb states: “The Cebuanos are descendants of a Malay-Austronesian people that migrated from Borneo a thousand years ago.” Here comes the Bornean origin story again. Worse is yet to come. According to the video, the word Sugbo means “scorched earth.” The video explains it this way: “800 years ago… Cebuanos would burn the town of Sugbo and drive away the Moros of Mindanao”! Really now? And then a few minutes later in the video, the root word for Cebu is explained away as from the word “Sibu, which is an ‘archaic’ word for trade.” Wow, where did the author of this video get his or her sources?
The Internet is indeed becoming a dangerous place for truth-telling. Of course, it is always great to be proud at what Cebuanos have done. But we should not base it on unfounded assertions. Fiction and fakelore made to appear as historical facts have no place for people who have many more reasons to be proud of, reasons that are in the historical record and not from someone’s version of an imagined past.
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