Cebu Experience - Cebu Island Philippines
" Mactan Island "

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Mactan is an island located a few kilometres from the island of Cebu in the Philippines. The island is part of the province of Cebu and it is divided into Lapu-Lapu City and the municipality of Cordova. The island is connected to Cebu by the two bridges one of which is the Marcelo Fernan Bridge and the Mactan Bridge. The Mactan-Cebu International Airport, the country's second busiest airport is located on Mactan island. The only aquarium attraction in the Visayas is also located on the island. Mactan Island History Mactan island was inhabited by Islamic and Indigenous tribes before Europeans first settled in the island. In 1521 Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the island and was convinced by the chieftain Rajah Humabon and Datu Zula, to subdue their rival, Datu Lapu-Lapu who was one of the chieftains of Mactan island. "When morning came, forty-nine of us leaped into the water up to our thighs, and walked through water for more than two cross-bow flights before we could reach the shore. The boats could not approach nearer because of certain rocks in the water. The other eleven men remained behind to guard the boats. When we reached land, [the natives] had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred people. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries... The musketeers and crossbow-men shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly... Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice... A native hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the native's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off." The Battle of Mactan is commemorated by a memorial monument, known as the Lapu-Lapu shrine and Magellan shrine in honor of Datu Lapu-Lapu and Ferdinand Magellan where a cross brought by Magellan can also be seen.Magellan had wished to convert Datu Lapu-Lapu to Christianity, as he had already done with Rajah Humabon, a proposal to which Datu Lapu-Lapu was dismissive. On the morning of April 27, 1521 Magellan sailed to Mactan with an army of soldiers. During the Battle of Mactan against native forces of Datu Lapu-Lapu, Magellan was shot by a poisonous arrow and later surrounded and finished off with spears and other weapons, as described by Italian and Spanish historian Antonio Pigafetta and Ginés de Mafra, who provided written document of the events:

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