Gerona lectures on Urdaneta

from Bicol Mail

BIKOLANO HISTORIAN Danilo Madrid Gerona, a Professor and Director of the Bicol Studies at the Ateneo de Naga University and a Naga City Mayoral Awardee in 2000, was one of the ten speakers during the two-day cycle of conferences, dubbed as An Adventurous Journey with Urdaneta, held on June 25-26, 2008 at the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Building and at the Instituto Cervantes in Manila.

Professor Gerona delivered a well-researched paper entitled Beyond the New World: The Crew and Cargo of the Magellan Expedition, asserting that the achievement of Fray Andres de Urdaneta and Adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legazpi was a result of a series of historical development which could be traced back to the discovery of the islands by the Magellan Expedition. It was this expedition, according to Prof. Gerona, which effectively catapulted this remote and isolated territory to the European’s expanding cosmological awareness. Professor Gerona’s paper focused on the little known aspects of this expedition, particularly the crew and cargo’s decisive effects on the daily life inside the ships and their influence on the course of the incipient colonial transactions between the Spaniards and the natives in the Philippines.

An expert in the history of the early Spanish colonial years in the Philippines, Professor Gerona was well applauded after his talk and the open forum because of the masterly manner he discussed his research paper and answered questions.

The conference was organized by the Urdaneta 500 Philippine Commission in cooperation with the San Agustin Museum, the NCCA, the Embassy of Spain, and the Instituto Cervantes. One of the activities designed to honor the achievements and contributions of Basque Augustinian Friar Andres de Urdaneta, the conference was aimed to further the body of knowledge on Fray Urdaneta who made substantial contributions to Philippine history and culture in the 15th century, but is largely under-recognized especially in the Philippines and in his home country Spain.

A great sailor, scientist and cosmographer, Fray Urdaneta was commissioned by King Philip II to prepare an expedition to the Philippines under the command of Don Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, known as the “Legazpi-Urdaneta Expedition”, which arrived in the Philippines in 1565. On June 1st of same year, he returned to Mexico and discovered the tornaviaje, the route which has been used by the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade for the next 252 years from 1565 to 1817, which brought Philippines and Asian cultures to Europe through Mexico.

Fray Urdaneta is arguably one of the most important historical figures in our country. In mapping the Manila Galleon route, he put us on the world map and gave Philippines its name as he was the first to call the entire archipelago as such. In 1521, Magellan originally named the archipelago the Isles of San Lazaro. In 1544, Ruy Lopez de Villalobos named the islands of Samar and Leyte Las Islas Felipinas.

On December 4, 2007, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, by virtue of Proclamation 1423, declared 2008 as the “Year of Urdaneta” to mark the 5th centenary of Friar Urdaneta’s birth in 1508 in Ordizia, Spain.

Aside from historians, and people from the religious, the academe and the tourism industry, the conference was attended to also by Spain’s Ambassador to the Philippines, the Mayor of Ordizia City and the Mayor of Urdaneta City in Pangasinan.