What If Magellan never came?

Metro Manila, Philippines - March 16, 1521—or perhaps the 17th. Historians say Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan’s chronicler, may have missed a day when they crossed the International Date Line. Either way, it was a day that would forever change the course of the Philippine islands.

Ferdinand Magellan’s arrival marked the beginning of Spanish colonization, a force that would shape the country’s identity, language, religion, and governance. But what if history had taken a different turn? What if Magellan had never set foot on these shores? Would we still be the Philippines as we know it today?

A nation without the “Philippines”

“Wala kasing konsepto ng Pilipinas talaga bago dumating ang mga Kastila,” says Dr. Nestor Castro, an anthropologist from the University of the Philippines Diliman. Before colonization, the archipelago was a collection of independent polities—barangays and sultanates—that thrived through trade and maritime exchanges.

Our identity, Castro argues, was not bound by a singular national consciousness.

“Yung kultura natin sa Pilipinas ay shared o may pagkakapareho sa kultura ng mga surrounding islands and areas in southeast Asia. Kaya andami-daming similarities sa kultura ng what is modern-day Malaysia, modern-day Indonesia, modern-day Taiwan dahil ito yung ating neighboring communities.”

[TRANSLATION: Our culture in the Philippines is shared or has similarities with the cultures of the surrounding islands and areas in Southeast Asia. This is why there are many similarities between our culture and that of modern-day Malaysia, Indonesia, and Taiwan, as these are our neighboring communities.]

Historian Karl Ian Cheng Chua, an assistant professor at the Asian Center, UP Diliman, points out that most pre-colonial records of the Philippines are colonial in nature—written accounts from the Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Portuguese traders.

He said without Magellan and the Spanish, our interactions with neighboring nations would have continued to shape our culture in a more organic way.

“The problem with that premise kasi is a “what if” history will only work if we had a lot of pre-colonial records to develop the speculation. Most of our accounts are colonial accounts,” he said, explaining that the term “colonial” means Spanish/American so technically we have written (based on the point of view) by Chinese, Japanese, Southeast Asians or Portuguese, who were trading in the island.

A language unchanged, a religion undisturbed

If Spain had never colonized the Philippines, what would our language and faith look like today? According to Castro, Baybayin, the pre-colonial script, might have remained dominant.

“May ebidensya as early as 900 AD doon sa Laguna copperplate inscriptions na nagko-code switch ang mga Pilipino. Ito ay sa wikang Tagalog at Malay,” Castro said.

[TRANSLATION: There is evidence as early as 900 AD in the Laguna Copperplate Inscription that Filipinos were code-switching. It is written in Tagalog and Malay.]

This suggests that our linguistic development would have leaned more towards Southeast Asian influences rather than Spanish and English.

Religion, too, would have taken a different path. While Islam had already begun spreading in Mindanao, the entire archipelago was not fully Islamized when the Spaniards arrived.

“Noong dumating ang mga Kastila, hindi pa fully-islamized ang Philippines. Meron lang ilang lugar na naging muslim na. Ang sultanate ng Sulu naitayo lang noong 1450, o halos isandaan taon bago dumating ang Kastila. So hindi pa siya ganun ka-entrench,” he described.

[TRANSLATION: When the Spaniards arrived, the Philippines was not yet fully Islamized. Only a few areas had converted to Islam. The Sultanate of Sulu was established only in 1450, nearly a hundred years before the Spaniards arrived, so it was not yet deeply entrenched.]

Some influences, however, would have remained strong. Circumcision, for instance, was introduced not by the Spanish but by Islamic traditions. The Tausug term for the practice, “pagislam,” directly ties it to Islamization. “Even non-Muslims adopted the practice, from Tawi-Tawi to Pangasinan, though it never reached the Cordillera, Ilocos, or Cagayan,” he added.

“Pero hindi ibig sabihin na Muslim lahat ng iyon, pero in-adopt yung ganitong practice.”

[TRANSLATION: But that doesn't mean all of them were Muslim, but they just adopted the practice.]

A maritime powerhouse?

With no Spanish colonization to introduce roads and Catholic mission towns, would the Philippines have developed differently? “Siguro mas maunlad ang ating maritime industry,” Castro speculates. Instead of being land-focused, our transportation and commerce might have prioritized boats, river ferries, and seafaring industries since ancestors were great navigators and that tradition could have been preserved and advanced.

History also tells us that the pre-colonial Filipinos were equal trading partners with China. When Paduka Batara, the King of Sulu, visited the Chinese emperor in 1417, the Tausugs saw themselves as equals. However, in Chinese records, Sulu was considered a vassal state.

“Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia saw us as trading partners. The dynamic could have remained that way if colonization never happened,” Castro noted.

A Philippines like Thailand or Indonesia?

If we were never colonized, what would our modern identity look like? Castro believes it would be a mix of Thailand and Indonesia. “Thailand was never colonized, so it preserved its indigenous architecture, governance, and traditions,” he explained. Meanwhile, Indonesia had strong Islamic influences.

A non-colonized Philippines might have developed a syncretic belief system—blending animism and Islam.

Chua, however, challenges the idea of a singular Filipino identity before colonization.

“That’s where the debate on ‘pantayong pananaw’ (our point of view) comes in,” he said, referring to the concept that the Philippines had a distinct pre-colonial identity. “When you examine historical records, Mindanao had different cultures from the Visayas and Luzon. There was no unified ‘Philippines’ yet.”

The Philippines, but different

So, what if Magellan had never arrived? The archipelago would likely have continued as a diverse set of trading states, deeply connected to its Southeast Asian neighbors, and might have had stronger maritime industries, preserved Baybayin, and maintained indigenous belief systems. The concept of a unified Filipino identity as it is known today might not have existed at all.

History unfolded the way it did, for better or worse. But imagining the possibilities reminds us that Philippine culture is not merely a product of colonization—it is a complex tapestry woven through centuries of interaction, resilience, and adaptation.

Perhaps, even without Magellan, we would still be who we are: a people shaped by the tides yet always charting our own course.