EDITORIAL - Celebrate this victory

Philippine history is full of struggles against foreign powers that tried to or succeeded in subjugating our people. Needless to say, this history is fraught with a lot of battles and skirmishes.

If one were to pay close attention to our history, it can be determined that our defeats at the hands of foreign powers seem to be remembered more than our decisive victories.

For example, the day we offer to our veterans, the Day of Valor on April 9th, is the day Bataan fell to the Japanese in 1942.

While we can say this was a moral victory of our courage and Filipino spirit, it is a defeat nonetheless.

Don’t get this wrong. We say this not to disparage our soldiers or others who have fought in the name of our country. Our soldiers are among the bravest in the world. There is no question about this.

It just so happens that, more often than not, our fighters came up against enemies with better arms, with better understanding of tactics, or with sheer numbers that they could just not hold out against.

This is why we should celebrate the few decisive victories we have against foreign powers. And today, we celebrate the 500th anniversary of one such victory, in fact the first such victory, the Battle of Mactan.

Today, 500 years ago, a band of rough, hardy sailors, with not just the blood of conquerors in them but also with better arms and armor, and a better understanding of battlefield tactics thought they could handily defeat a group of native warriors, most of whom were likely fighting with traditional weapons.

They thought wrong and they paid for it with their lives.

Still, it’s sad that this momentous occasion doesn’t get the national recognition it deserves.

Some will say, it could not have been a Philippine victory because there was no Philippines yet in 1521, that Lapu-Lapu was technically not a Filipino because back then this was not a country per se, but a group of islands settled in by different tribes and ruled by different chiefs.

That is a mere technicality. Some religions rightly claim saints or champions who lived long before that religion was established. Many countries rightly claim heroes who helped build up what would later become a nation. Lapu-Lapu did not know it yet, but he was representing the Philippines when he slew Spaniards and chased the ones still alive fleeing in terror back into their boats.

Still, this occasion doesn’t seem to get the recognition it deserves given the other 500th occasion we celebrated so recently.

If we are so keen on celebrating the day we became slaves to a foreign power, shouldn’t we also mark the occasion when we, for once, became a dominant force over them?