CASE STUDY

1st Yr. BSA

WHERE DID THE FIRST CATHOLIC

MASS TAKE
PLACE IN THE PHILIPPINES?
INTRODUCTION

In this case study, we will focus on both the significance of the site of the first

catholic mass in the Philippines to use it as historiographical exercise in the utilization of

evidence in reading historical events and why was there a lot of speculations going on about the

topic. There are two primary sources that historians refer to in identifying the site of the first

mass. One is the log kept by Francisco Albo, a pilot of one of Magellan’s ship, Trinidad. The

other one is Antonio Pigafetta who has more complete, and also a member of Magellan

expedition and an eye witness of the first mass (Mendoza, 2004). In Albo’s account the location

of Mazava fits the location of the island of Limasawa, at the southern tip of Leyte, Albo didn’t

mention the first mass but only the planting of the cross upon a mountain-top from which could

be seen three islands that also gits the southern ends of Limasawa. Eight months before the

500th anniversary of the “first” Mass in the country, the National Historical Commission of the

Philippines (NHCP) has determined that Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his

Spanish contingent held the event in Limasawa town, Southern Leyte. The NHCP adopted the

recommendation of a panel of experts reaffirming earlier findings that the 1521 Easter Sunday

Mass was celebrated in Limasawa and not in Butuan, as claimed by some historians (Ayol and

Gabieta, 2020).

BODY

In 1872, a monument to commemorate the site of the first mass on the Philippines was

erected in Masao, Butuan City. In1953, the people in Butuan ask the Philippine Historical

Committee to rehabilitate the monument. After, Gregorio Zaide a Filipino Historian, author and

politician claims the location of the first mass is in Butuan’s base on Pigafetta’s account. On

March 31, 1521, an Easter Sunday, Magellan orders a mass to be celebrated which was officiated
by Father Pedro Valderrama, the Andalusion chaplain of the fleet and the only priest the then.

The Holy First Mass marked the birth of Roman Catholicism in the Philippines. In the afternoon

of the same day, Magellan instructed his comrades to plant a large wooden cross on top of the

hill overlooking the sea. Pigafetta recorded the event saying “After the cross was erected in

position, each of us repeated a Pater and an Ave Maria, and adored the cross” (Mendoza 2004).

On June 19, 1960, Republic Act No. 2733, called the Limasawa Law, was enacted without

executive approval on June 19,1960. The legislative flat declared “The site in Magallanes,

Limasawa Island in the Province of Leyte, where the first mass in the Philippines was held is

hereby declared a national shrine to commemorate the birth of Christianity on the Philippines”

(Mendoza, 2004). Jesuit Priest Miguel A. Bernard, studied Cigarette’s map and notice that in

Pigafetta’s journal, he didn’t mention the aspect of Butuan – the rives which makes a distinct

characteristic of Butuan’s Geography. The issue of the exact location of the historic Mass was

earlier resolved by the NHI, the forerunner of the NHCP, through two panels of experts: the first

led by former Supreme Court Justice Emilio Gancayco in 1995 and the second by historian

Benito Legarda in 2008. Both panels ruled that the site of the 1521 Easter Sunday Mass was

Limasawa Island. The recommendation of the recent panel led by historian and National Artist

for Literature Resil Mojares was supported by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the

Philippines, which had sent its own church historian as panel member and several members of

the Church Historians Association of the Philippines, the NHCP said (Ayol and Gabieta, 2020).

CONCLUSION
 The most complete account of the Magellan expeditions is that by Antonio Pigafetta

entitled Primo viaggio intomo al mondo (First Voyage Around the World). Like Albo, he was a

member of the expedition and was therefore an eyewitness of the principal events which he

describes, including the first mass in what is now known as the Philippine Archipelago, but

which Magellan called the Islands of Saint Lazarus (Bernad, 2002). The First Catholic Mass in

the Philippines was held on March 31, 1521, Easter Sunday. It was officiated by a priest named

Father Pedro Valderrama in the shore of Mazaua in Pigafetta’s journal, whom people believe is

the town specifically in the shore of Limasawa in Southern Leyte, popularly known as the

birthplace of the Church in the Philippines. Pigafetta’s eyewitness account is the most detailed

and only surviving account of the first Mass in the Philippines. But there are different

interpretations of his account on where it was held. (Bernad, 2002).

REFERENCES

Electronic Devices

Where Did the First Catholic Mass Take in the Philippines

https://www.scribd.com/document/401255858/Where-Did-the-First-Catholic-Mass-Take-

in-the-Philippines

Case Study 1, Slideshare

https://www.slideshare.net/FayeCastro2/case-study-1-163036166#:~:text=6.&text=In

%201996%2C%20The%20first%20ever,declared%20the%20National%20Historical
%20Institute.&text=Therefore%2C%20the%20First%20Catholic%20Mass,31%2C

%201521%20%2C%20Easter%20Sunday%20.

Limasawa, not Butuan, affirmed as site of first Mass in PH

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1325039/limasawa-not-butuan-affirmed-as-site-of-first-mass-

in-ph

Journals

Butuan or Limasawa: The Site of the First Mass in the Philippines: A Reexaminationof the
Evidence by: Miguel A. Bernad
https://journals.ateneo.edu/ojs/index.php/budhi/article/view/582/579