First Mass in The Philippines - Legacy

Legacy

The Christian religion brought by Magellan holds a distinction of being embraced by 94 percent of the Philippine population with 81 percent to the Roman Catholic Church, two percent composed of Protestant denominations and 11 percent either to the Philippine Independent Church (Aglipayan), Iglesia ni Cristo and others. The remaining percentage belongs to Muslim religion and others.

In 1984 Imelda Marcos had a multi-million pesos Shrine of the First Holy Mass built, an edifice made of steel, bricks and polished concrete, and erected on top of a hill overlooking barangay Magallanes, Limasawa. A super typhoon completely wiped this our just a few months later. Another shrine was inaugurated in 2005.

Limasawa celebrates the historic and religious coming of the Spaniards every March 31 with a cultural presentation and anniversary program dubbed as Sinugdan, meaning "beginning."

The story comes from Fr. Francisco Combés, S.J., that contains no reference at all to a Catholic mass being held on March 31, 1521. Indeed, his "Limassaua" was meant to signify that the southern Leyte isle was not the "Mazaua" in the historical account of Magellan's voyage of Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas which Combés dismissed as untrue in favor of the garbled account of Giovanni Battista Ramusio who wrote the place of anchorage from March 31-April 4, 1521 was Butuan not Mazaua.

Combés had not read a single firsthand or eyewitness account of Magellan's voyage. His invention, "Limasawa", was meant to repudiate the idea the anchorage was Magellan's Mazaua since he thought it was "Buthuan" as Ramusio said.