1st Mass in PH held in Limasawa, Southern Leyte, mayor presses

Cover of “Butuan Not Limasawa” unpublished book by Dr. Potenciano Malvar. Photo from “Butuan not Limasawa” book by Dr. Potenciano Malvar

TACLOBAN CITY –– The mayor of Limasawa town in Southern Leyte maintained that the first Mass in the country was held in the municipality in 1521.

“I respect the opinion of others. But there were several studies and commissions created that pinpointed Limasawa as the place of the first Mass in the Philippines. It’s universally acknowledged,” said Mayor Melchor Petracorta.

His reaction came after Dr. Potenciano Malvar, chairperson of the Butuan Calagan Historical Cultural Foundation, claimed that the first Mass was held in Masao, Butuan City, not in Limasawa.

Petracorta said this dispute has long been settled by several commissions put up by the government, including the Gancayco Commission of the National Historical Institute (NHI) which asserted that the historical event took place in Limasawa on March 31, 1521.

The commission was created by the NHI in 1996 to settle the dispute as to where the first Mass happened.

Local historian Rolando Borrinaga backed up claims that the site of the first Mass was indeed in Limasawa and not in Butuan.

“As to the Butuan claim, it was based on a garbled translation of Pigafetta by Ramusio early on, and it would stay that way for centuries until the first person Pigafetta account in Italian surfaced in 1800, and reached the Filipino intellectual community around 1895. Ramusio mentioned Butuan but Pigafetta mentioned Mazaua as the site of the mass. Dr. T. Pardo de Talavera had dismissed the centuries-old Butuan tradition as ‘un suceso imaginado (imaginary event),” he said on his Facebook account.

Antonio Pigafetta was Ferdinand Magellan’s chronicler during his expedition.

Dr. Trinidad Pardo Talavera is a Filipino historian while Giovanni Ramusio was an Italian geographer and travel writer.

Petracorta said they would not allow the latest brouhaha to disrupt the preparations for the 500th anniversary of the event next year.

The coronavirus disease, however, caused the cancellation of several activities related to the event.

LZB