2016Joint Issue Portugal-Philippines - First Day Cover

It was nearly 500 years ago that the Portuguese and the Filipinos met for the rst time. Around a year after his discovery of the strait linking the Atlantic and Paci c oceans, in 1520, Ferdinand Magellan, in the service of the Spanish king, Charles V, and actually with the intention of nding a westward route to the Maluku or “Spice” Islands, reached the Philippines, where he died in combat in April 1521. Tomé Pires, in Suma Oriental, was the rst European to mention the archipelago of the Philippines (1514?) and gave an exact description of the Moluccas.