By Harold Hisona

Published: August 28, 2010

Considering the inadequacy of marine instruments at the time, Magellan´s voyage can be considered as the greatest single trip ever undertaken. In terms of the hardships the men endured and the courage they displayed, Magellan’s maritime exploit has perhaps never been surpassed. The route he took to reach the Philippines was entirely new, and the Venetian monopoly of the trade route to the east was thus broken. Spain became the supreme power in the building of a colonial empire.

Magellan’s voyage vastly increased the geographical knowledge of mankind and proved once and for all that the earth is round.

Finally, the voyage paved the way to Spanish colonization and Christianization of the Philippines. The later voyages of Fernando de Villalobos and Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, to a certain extent, owed their success to Magellan’s epochal voyage to the Far East.

From the point of view of the Filipinos, Magellan’s expedition was significant because it paved the way for contacts between the Philippines and western civilization.