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Can you keep a secret? The influences from various visitors and invaders to this jewelled archipelago have shaped it's geography, affected it's demography, established it's heritage, formulated it's language, produced it's cuisine, and influenced everything from arts to architecture. Above all it created the people we have today.

Hospitable, charming, musical and extremely friendly, they will smile with you, celebrate with you, dance with you and sing with you. Their food is your food, their home is your home. Your happiness is their happiness.

Visitors to the Philippines can expect a wealth of wonder. 'Wow! Philippines' is the very successful slogan in the vanguard of the Department of Tourism's worldwide campaign to raise the profile of what they call 'the best kept secret in Asia'. Secrets are meant to be kept, so the challenge is to visit, explore, experience, be overwhelmed by the rich and diverse culture, then return without uttering a single word to anyone. Good luck!

However a little knowledge of the nation's history would not go amiss, and may even enhance the visitor's perception, understanding and appreciation. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin...

The Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, under service to Spain, landed on Homonhon Island, Eastern Samar on March 16th, 1521. Magellan was killed the following month on April 27th by Lapu Lapu chief of Mactan, an Island off the east coast of Cebu, in the central archipelago. The Battle of Mactan as it was later to be known, is commemorated as the first Philippines conflict to repel alien invaders, and Lapu Lapu lauded as the first Filipino to fight and win over foreign imperialist forces. He is commemorated with a statue in Mactan, and Lapu-Lapu City is named in his honour.

Of course, it's worth noting that at that time Lapu Lapu was not a Filipino because the islands had not been named as such then. A technicality perhaps, but decidedly in his favour was that he was a local chieftain who was not going to kowtow to Spanish superior forces as had his neighbouring tribal leaders with such surprising submission. Magellan claimed his new found land for Charles I (often referred to as Carlos V), who only five years earlier had become sovereign of a unified Spain. His only surviving son, born in 1527, succeeded him as Philip II in 1556 to rule over an ever expanding empire.

It is often a misconception that Magellan named the Islands the Philippines. It was not until 22 years later, in 1543 that Ruy

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