Lapulapu

Lapulapu (b.1491 - d.1542) or Lapu-Lapu, whose name was first recorded as Çilapulapu, was a Raja (Datu) of Mactan, an island now part of the Philippines.

Lapulapu is known for the 1521 Battle of Mactan, where he and his men defeated Spanish forces led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his native allies Rajah Humabon and Datu Zula. Magellan's death in battle ended his voyage of circumnavigation and delayed the Spanish occupation of the islands by over forty years until the expedition of Miguel López de Legazpi which reached the archipelago in 1565.

Modern Philippine society regards him as the first Filipino hero because of his resistance to Spanish colonization. Monuments of Lapulapu have been built all over the Philippines to honor Lapulapu's bravery against the Spaniards. The Philippine National Police and the Bureau of Fire Protection use his image as part of their official seals.

Besides being a rival of Rajah Humabon of neighboring Cebu, very little is reliably known about the life of Lapulapu. The only existing primary source mentioning him by name is the account of Antonio Pigafetta, and according to historian Resil B. Mojares, no European who left a primary record of Magellan's voyage/vessel "knew what he looked like, heard him speak (his recorded words of defiance and pride are all indirect), or mentioned that he was present in the battle of Mactan that made him famous." His name, origins, religion, and fate are still a matter of controversy.

The earliest record of his name comes from Venetian diarist Antonio Pigafetta who accompanied Magellan's expedition. Pigafetta noted the names of two Rajas of the island of Matan (Mactan), the chiefs Zula and Çilapulapu. Pigafetta's account of Magellan's voyage, which contains the only mention of Lapulapu by name in an undisputed primary source, exists in several variant manuscripts and print editions, the earliest dating to around 1524.

In an annotation for his 1890 edition of Antonio de Morga's 1609 Sucesos de las islas Filipinas, José Rizal spells the name as Si Lapulapu. This supplements a passage where Morga mentions Magellan's death in Mactan, but does not mention the Mactan leader by name. In Philippine languages, si (plural siná) is an article used to indicate personal names. Thus Si Lapulapu, as rendered by Rizal, was subsequently interpreted by others to mean this way (though Rizal never explicitly asserts this himself) and the Si was dropped, eventually cementing the Mactan leader's name in Filipino culture as Lapulapu, Lapu-lapu, or Lapu-Lapu (e.g. Siya si Lapulapu "He is Lapulapu" vs. Siya si Si Lapulapu "He is Si Lapulapu"). However, this meaning for Si or Çi in Lapulapu's recorded name is doubtful because not all names recorded by Pigafetta contain it, as would be the case if it were. In an annotation of his 1800 edition of Pigafetta's account, Carlo Amoretti surmised that the Si or Çi found in several native names recorded by Pigafetta was an honorific title. E. P. Patanñe (1999) thus proposes that this usage of Si was derived from a corruption of the Sanskrit title Sri.

In 1604, Fr. Prudencio de Sandoval in his Historia de la Vida y Hechos del Emperador Carlos V spelled the name as Calipulapo, perhaps through transposing the first A and I and misreading the Ç. This further became Cali Pulaco in the 1614 poem Que Dios le perdone (May God Forgive Him) by mestizo de sangley poet Carlos Calao. This rendition, spelled as Kalipulako, was later adopted as one of the pseudonyms of the Philippine hero Mariano Ponce during the Propaganda Movement. The 1898 Philippine Declaration of Independence of Cavite II el Viejo, also mentions Lapulapu under the name Rey Kalipulako de Manktan [sic] (King Kalipulako of Mactan). This name variation has further led to claims that Lapulapu was a Caliph and thus Muslim, whereas Pigafetta notes that the region was not Islamized.

In 2019, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines' National Quincentennial Committee, tasked with handling preparations for the 500th anniversary commemoration of Magellan's arrival, stated that Lapulapu without the hyphen is the correct spelling of the Mactan ruler's name, being based on Pigafetta's original spelling, which they took to be Çilapulapu (approximately rendered as "Silapulapu", not "Kilapulapu", in equivalent Philippine orthography). The committee agreed with previous scholarship that the Si in his name reported by Pigafetta probably was an indigenous form of the Hindu honorific Sri, so Lapulapu would probably have been called Si Lapulapu.