Adlaw ni Lapu-Lapu

In France the “yellow vests” claimed that they cannot live a decent life because their income is too low. They challenged President Macron to resign. Now the president challenges the French to work longer in order to create more values and consequently to have higher incomes.

The discussions are about the how; work one hour longer per day, have the free Saturdays transformed into working days, shorten the yearly vacation, work a year longer before retirement, or suppress a holiday or two.

In the Philippines we have already a host of holidays, national, communal and days-off on the level of barangays and sitios on the occasion of their numerous fiestas. The work-free days interrupt production and consequently are injurious to the enterprises and the national economy.

In the last resort they also affect the workforce. The unions have a poor stand in negotiations when they claim higher salaries for their clientele if the available funds to distribute are low. Consequently an excess of holidays promotes poverty.

The employers of small and medium enterprises close shop when expenses get higher than income. President Duterte newly vetoed the Security of Tenure Bill saying such a law would destroy us all businessmen, workers, and the government alike.

Now a politician of Lapu-Lapu City has filed a bill in the House of Representatives to add one more nationwide holiday without suggesting what other holiday could be suppressed instead.

Her arguments are flimsy. She believes that the hero after whom her city is named was a native of this archipelago that was later named Philippines. That is wrong.

Lapu-Lapu was a native of Borneo. That is part of another archipelago. He was a subject of a mighty Sultan there. His parents were part of the nobility. For fear the abusive and jealous sultan would hurt their son they sent their highly-talented boy abroad. His teacher took the teenager first to the Sultan of Sulu and then to Rajah Humabon of Sugbu. The latter gave Lapu-Lapu Matan and Mandawili as his fief. That is what he defended against the Spanish invaders and finally expulsed them. He as the highest warlord who never touched a sword. He had devised the strategy. The fighting was done by his well-trained army. In that sense it is correct to say that Lapu-Lapu killed Magellan. He is a hero.

At the time of the Battle of Mactan, Lapu-Lapu was already in his seventies. He then soon returned to his home country with three of his wives, 11 of his children, and 17 of his warriors. Why does nobody read the excellent book of Professor Jose Madrid Gerona?

The Philippines is the only nation in the world that has a foreigner as a hero.

Erich Wannemacher

Lapu-Lapu City