WHO has an idea who Lapu-Lapu was before Ferdinand Magellan came to the Philippines and what happened to the local chieftain after his momentous victory upon defeating Magellan by the shores of Mactan?
True-blue Cebuano lawyer and former Commissioner for Commission on Audit, lawyer Sofronio B. Ursal, thought that the present generation should have the consciousness of the pre-colonial past of the people of Cebu and Mactan and of the dauntless feats of their heroes.
Blending historical facts and one’s creative imagination, he came up with a historical fiction entitled The Bisayan, which centers on the life of the Bisayan Hero Lapu-Lapu.
“I wanted to give Lapu-Lapu a proper history,” he said, emphasizing how generations have little known facts about this epic hero.
Lawyer Ursal produced an artistic license using history and folklore. Regarding the book—five years in the making—the author had undergone a lot of research just to come up with this fine literary work.
The novel starts with Lapu-Lapu’s early life noting him as the son of the ruling rajah of Sugbo, Sri Bantug Lumay who was banished to Mactan where he was raised as a son of the local datu upon the brutal death of the ruling rajah.
Lapu-Lapu was said to have undergone the cultural rite of passage to manhood. He also learned the Baybayin which was an early Cebuano writing system, and he was trained in the martial art of Arnis or Kali. A vivid telling of Lapu-Lapu’s courtship and marriage, and of the adventures he took as mercenary in the Sultan of Malacca’s army fighting with the Portuguese in 1511 then followed.
With citations from one of the author’s primary historical sources, Pigafetta’s journal, the book included a portrayal of the arrival of Spaniards in 1521 and of the remarkable battle of Mactan. It was described in bloody detail, complete with a fictional burial of Magellan at Marigondon’s underwater cave.
Lawyer Ursal argued convincingly in his novel that Enrique de Malacca, one of Magellan’s slaves who spoke Bisayan, was a Mactan boy who Magellan had captured after being sold at the Malaccan slave market.
The reason the title Bisayan is spelled with a B rather than V as Ursal explains, is that it covers Cebu, Bohol, Samar and Leyte only whereas Visayan includes the whole Visayas region.
Ursal also noted that he might be writing a sequel of Lapu-Lapu’s story upon the coming of Miguel López de Legazpi, if God graces him with more years.
This 85-year-old lawyer and author has truly made Cebuanos proud and ever grateful. The book was launched last Nov. 24 at the Cebu City Public Library. Daryl Kate Dizon, STC Mass Com Intern