The Diplomat
The Spanish Navy Training Ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano arrived yesterday off the coast of the Philippines, in the same place and on the same date that 500 years earlier the expedition led by Fernando Magallanes arrived in the first circumnavigation, a feat that changed the perception of the world.
The ship anchored in the morning in the waters of Guiuan, on the island of Suluan, in Eastern Samar, the first point in the Philippines that the navigators, still commanded by the Portuguese Magallanes, sighted from the ship, although they did not go down, on 16 March 1521.
As happened five centuries ago with the expedition, the crew of the Juan Sebastián Elcano will not go ashore and no one will be able to board the ship, but not only in Guiuan, but also in the rest of the stopovers along the Philippine coast due to the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, reports Efe.
The Spanish ambassador to the country, Jorge Moragas, said when welcoming the training ship in Guiuan: “There will be a coincidence of time and space, as the exact route that the expedition took 500 years ago will be replicated. And we are going to remember that feat with the inauguration of several commemorative monoliths that marked the beginning of the Spain-Philippines relationship”.
A commemorative plaque will be unveiled there tomorrow, Thursday, at a ceremony with the Spanish ship in the background, which is expected to be attended by the Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte.
After the stop in Suluan, the training ship will set sail for the neighbouring island of Homonhon, where the expedition crew went ashore, set foot on Philippine soil for the first time and made the first human contact with the local tribes.
To commemorate this historic milestone, the Spanish Embassy in the Philippines has also organised, together with the Cervantes Institute and Casa Asia, a series of conferences with historians and experts on this episode that will run until June, in addition to the exhibition ‘The Longest Voyage’, which will open in May at the National Museum of the Philippines.
The ship’s route will then continue to the island of Cebu (20-22 March), where Magellan and his men also headed, a course that marked the fate of the expedition.
Before the first baptisms were performed in Cebu, the missionaries of the expedition had already celebrated the first mass on the small island of Limasawa, so that these days the Philippines is also celebrating 500 years of Christianity, one of the most valued legacies of the Spaniards, since it is the country with the most Catholics in Asia, 80% of its current population.
Magellan was killed in a battle with the natives of the Philippine island of Mactan and was replaced by the Spaniard Juan Sebastian Elcano, who completed the first circumnavigation when he reached the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda on 6 September 1522.
