Ram Felix Rengel, Jr.

The Treaty of Friendship: Blood Compact of Legaspi and Sikatuna

One of the most important historical events etched in the annals in the Philippine history and immortalized in canvass by the famous Filipino painter Juan Luna as one of his masterpieces, is the famous Blood Compact between Datu Sikatuna, a local native chieftain, and Captain Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, the intrepid Spanish explorer and colonizer. That historic event took place on an unpretentious coast of Bool, now a district of Tagbilaran, on March 16, 1565, a day after Miguel Lopez de Legaspi and his crew of conquistadores on four ships were drifted into the shores of Bool during the course of their trip to the province of Butuan from Camiguin Island because of strong southwest monsoon winds and low tide. On that day, March 16, 1565, Captain General Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, the conquistador from Zumaraga, Spain, with Fray Andres de Urdaneta and some of his crew set foot on land for an audience with the local chieftain Sikatuna. The two bands of different nationalities, race and creed met at a murky place, a few hundred meters away from the beach, and after a few pleasantries, the Basque seafarer and the native chieftain of Bool sealed off and strengthened their newborn friendship in a historic Blood Compact.

In that Blood Compact, Sikatuna and Legaspi each made a cut on the left arm and collected the dripping blood oozing therefrom in a single vessel and mixed with wine. From that single vessel, two others were filled giving one to Sikatuna and the other to Legaspi. The two leaders drank the mixture of their blood.

The Blood Compact sealed the ties of friendship between two people once different in religion, nationality, culture and civilization. The Tagbilaran native chieftain who swore by his ancestral Anito and Bathala, and the Spanish intrepid explorer and colonizer who sought New World with the sword and the cross, drank to the common cause - friendship. It was the first international treaty of friendship and comity between the Filipinos and Spaniards.

To perpetuate the memory and spirit of that first treaty of friendship and comity, the late President Elpidio Quirino established the "Order of Sikatuna", a presidential award and decoration conferred upon visiting dignitaries. A historical marker now stands on the very spot where Sikatuna and Legaspi perpetrated that famous Blood Compact.

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