New Delhi, Nov. 22 -- The ferry sped over the rolling swells of the Sulu Sea, past little tropical islands that appeared on the horizon and fell away unknown, towards the port city of Cebu and its twin township of Mactan in the Philippines. The islands are still the same but life on them has changed beyond recognition from that day in 1521 when the explorer Ferdinand Magellan, captaining a fleet of five ships, sailed in, the first expedition to have ever crossed the Pacific Ocean. There, on the islands of Cebu and Mactan, Magellan and his men halted, but rest was perhaps not in his nature.
The Portuguese mariner embroiled himself in a local rivalry and led 60 of his men, mostly Spaniards, into battle on the shores of Mactan in a clash with...