The fascination with the problematics of how to interpret the past has always troubled scholars of Southeast Asia.
David Steinberg' s, In Search of Southeast Asia, open with this wonderful passage:
On the small island of Mactan in the Philippines there is a monument erected by the Spanish in the nineteenth century to glorify God, Spain and Ferdinand Magellan.
In 1941, during the American era, a historical market inscribed "Ferdinand Magellan' s Death" is erected nearby.