Sunday, September 07, 2008

Lapu-Lapu

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Lapu-Lapu
was the king of
Mactan, an island in the Visayas, Philippines, who is known as the first native of the archipelago to have resisted Spanish colonization. He is now regarded as the first Filipino hero.

On the morning of April 27, 1521, Lapu-Lapu and the men of Mactan, armed with spears and kampilan, faced Spanish soldiers led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. In what would later be known as the Battle of Mactan, Magellan and several of his men were killed.

According to Sulu oral tradition, Lapu-Lapu was a Muslim chieftain, and was also known as "Kaliph Pulaka". The people of Bangsamoro, the Moro homeland in the Philippines, consider him to be a Muslim and a member of the Tausug ethnic group.

The 1898 Philippine Declaration of Independence refers to Lapu-Lapu as "King Kalipulako de Maktan". In the 19th century, the reformist Mariano Ponce used a variant name, "Kalipulako", as one of of his pseudonyms.

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