It is not known who the first Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

ans were to visit any part of what is now known as the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

. However, books published in western Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 before Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in Sabrosa, in northern Portugal, and served King Charles I of Spain in search of a westward route to the "Spice Islands" ....

 landed in the southern Philippines in 1521 show that the members of Magellan's 1521 expedition were not. The common belief that Magellan was the first European to reach the Philippine Islands is therefore incorrect.

Tome Pires, 5 volumes published 1512-1515

The first European reference to the Philippine archipelago appears to have been made by Tomé Pires

Tomé Pires

Tomé Pires was an apothecary from Lisbon who spent 1512 to 1515 in Malacca immediately after the Portuguese conquest, at a time when Europeans were only first arriving in South East Asia...

 (1512-1515) who writes,

"The Luções

Luções

Luções or Luzones is the name that the Portuguese explorers in Southeast Asia used to refer to one of the ethnic groups that occupied the island of Luzon around the time of the early 16th century...

are about ten days' sail beyond Borneo. They are nearly all heathen; they have no king, but they are ruled by a group of elders. They are a robust people, little thought of in Molucca. They have two or three junks at the most."

They take the merchandise to Borneo and from there they come to Molucca.

"The Borneans go to the lands of the Luções to buy gold, and foodstuffs as well, and the gold which they bring to Molucca is from the Luções and from the surrounding islands which are countless; and they all have more or less trade with one another. And the gold of these islands where they trade is of low quality - indeed very low quality ...

Contesão commentary

"This is the first European reference to the Philippine Archipelago, called Luções from its largest and north-westernmost island, Luzon ... Galvao (p.239) informs us that in June 1545 a Portuguese called Pero Fidalgo left the city of Borneo on a junk, and by contrary winds was driven towards the north, where he found an island in nine or ten degrees, which they called dos Luções, because its inhabitants were thus named ... Galvao gives the date of the first known Portuguese visit to Luzon, but it is quite likely that some other Portuguese ship on the China voyage had called before at the Luções, either on purpose or by accident. The Account of the Genoese Pilot (Leone Pancaldo) says that when, in March 1521, Magellan's expedition arrived at the small island of Malhou, in the south-eastern Philippine Islands, the natives informed them that 'they had already seen there other men like them', which suggests that possibly even before 1521 the Portuguese had visited the archipelago.