Lapu-Lapu was the king of Mactan, an island in the Visayas, Philippines, who is known as the first native of the archipelago to have resisted Spanish colonization. He is now regarded as the first Filipino hero.
On the morning of April 27, 1521, Lapu-Lapu and the men of Mactan, armed with spears, and kampilan, faced Spanish soldiers led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. In what would later be known as the Battle of Mactan, Magellan and several of his men were killed.
According to Sulu oral tradition, Lapu-Lapu was a Muslim chieftain, and was also known as "Kaliph Pulaka". The people of Bangsamoro, the Islamic homeland in the southern Philippine Islands, consider him to be a Muslim and a member of the Tausug ethnic group. A variant of the name, as written by Carlos Calao, a 17th century Chinese-Spanish poet in his poem "Que Dios Le Perdone" (Spanish, "That God May Forgive Him") is "Cali Pulacu".
The 1898 Philippine Declaration of Independence refers to Lapu-Lapu as "King Kalipulako de Maktan". In the 19th century, the reformist Mariano Ponce used a variant name, "Kalipulako", as one of his pseudonyms.
The Cebuano people have erected a statue in his honor on Mactan Island, and renamed the town of Opon in Cebu to Lapu-Lapu City. A more recent statue was given as a gift to the Philippines by South Korea in 2005. It stands in Rizal Park in the national capital of Manila.
Lapu-Lapu appears as a central figure in the official seal of the Philippine National Police and as the main design on the defunct 1-centavo coin circulated in the Philippines from 1967-1974.
During the First Regular Session of the 14th Congress of the Philippines, Senator Richard Gordon introduced a bill proposing to declare April 27 as an official Philippine national holiday to be known as Adlaw ni Lapu-Lapu, (Cebuano, "Day of Lapu-Lapu").
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