Dapitan (country)



Dapitan, officially known as the Kedatuan of Dapitan, was an ancient Philippine polity once based at Bohol at the Tagbilaran strait. Bohol's first indigenous people settled in the Anda peninsula. These people came from northeast Mindanao. These people were responsible for the Anda petrographs which are one of the most important indigenous rock writing in the country.

Around the 12th century, a group of people from Northern Mindanao settled in the strait between mainland Bohol and the island of Panglao. Those people came from a nation in northern Mindanao called Lutao (probably the animist kingdom of what will soon be the Islamic Lanao). Those people established the Kedatuan of Dapitan in western Bohol because the true indigenous people of Bohol in the Anda peninsula and nearby areas were not open to them, forcing them to establish settlement in the western part of the island. The kedatuan was first built with hardwood on the soft seabed. It engaged it trade with nearby areas and some Chinese merchants. A Jesuit named Francisco Ignacio Alcina tells tales about a rich nation he called the "Venice of the Visayas," pointing to the Kedatuan of Dapitan at that time. Another Jesuit also tells of a Dapitan princess named Bugbung Hamusanum, whose beauty caused her suitor, Datu Sumangga of Leyte, to raid parts of southern China to win her hand.

By 1563, before the full Spanish colonization agenda came to Bohol, the Kedatuan of Dapitan was at war with the Sultanate of Ternate in the Moluccas (who were also raiding the Rajahnate of Butuan). At the time, Dapitan was ruled by two brothers named Dalisan and Pagbuaya. The Ternateans at the time were allied to the Portuguese. Dapitan was destroyed and Datu Dalisan was killed in battle. His brother, Datu Pagbuaya, together with his people fled back to Mindanao and established a new Dapitan in the northern coast of the Zamboanga peninsula. The displaced people had to wage war against the Sultanate of Lanao as they settled territories that used to belong to that Sultanate. The new Dapitan was eventually incorporated by the Spanish. Pagbuaya's son, Manooc was among those who sided with the Spanish that had arrived from Mexico. He converted to Christianity and aided the Spaniards in the conquest of Islamic Manila and the Camarines area in Luzon. The people of Dapitan also assisted the Spanish in the conquest of Northern Mindanao. Eventually, the Dapitans took their vengeance against the Ternateans when Manooc's cousin, Laria, guided the Spanish in their invasion of the Moluccas (Ternate).

In When the Cold Breeze Blows Away, it is revived by the Unified Soviet Red Assault Command, Fauwan, the Southern Song Dynasty, the Cholan Federation, Majapahit, Tondo, the Idjang Federation, Samtoy, the Igorot Plutocracy, Caboloan, Namayan, Cainta, Maynila, Ma-i, Ibalon, Madja-as, Taytay and Cebu as a member state of the Beleninsk Pact after the invasion of Tagbilaran City.

Its capital city is Tagbilaran City and its president is Bañaga Marinova.