CEBU CITY—A rapper emerging as a hit on YouTube is in hot water in Lapu-Lapu City after making a false claim in one of his songs about the hero after whom the city was named.
At a press conference on Monday (Feb. 8), Lapu-Lapu Mayor Junard Chan said he was pushing for a persona non grata declaration against rapper EZ Mil over the lyrics of his song Panalo.
A line in the track reads “Nanalo na ako nung una pa pinugutan si Lapu sa Mactan (I’m already victorious even before Lapu was beheaded in Mactan).”
“We were hurt by this. This is a big insult to us,” said Chan. “This is very unfair on our part that he changed the history. He mocked the person that we consider a hero,” Chan said.
“If his purpose was to become famous, this is not the right thing to do. You can achieve rhyming but do not make up your own story. It seems like he mocked us,” he added.
Aside from declaring Mil as an unwelcome in the city, Chan said he’s also contemplating on filing charges against the rapper.
A video of Mil performing the rap track has more than 27 million views since it was shown on YouTube last Jan. 21.
Mil has apologized for the lyrics, saying the line was for “rhyming pattern” although inaccurate since Lapu-Lapu was not beheaded.
Lapu-Lapu was the chieftain of the island who helped defeat Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in what has been known as the Battle of Mactan in 1521.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, President Rodrigo Duterte had expressed lament that the hero’s name was also used for a fish.