As you mentioned, anyone claiming Enrique was the first man to circumnavigate the globe will be basing their conclusion almost entirely upon conjecture because there is no written evidence to support the claim Enrique returned to his homeland, nor are we even sure of where Enrique was actually born. That said, several aspects of Enrique's life lead most historians to conclude that he was not the first man to circumnavigate the globe.

Magellan bought Enrique in Malacca after the Portuguese took control of the area in 1511. In Magellan's will, Enrique is referred to as a 'captured slave' which could, at face value, imply he was originally from Malacca and was captured by the Portuguese before being sold to Magellan. However, it is also possible that Enrique was already enslaved before the Portuguese arrived as slavery was widespread in the area. Malacca's king, for example, Sultan Mahmud Shah, had over three thousand of his own slaves.

In his account of the first circumnavigation, Antonio Pigafetta refers to Enrique as Sumatran. Pigafetta may not be the most reliable source on all matters, but even if we discount his statement as wrong and assume Enrique was from Malacca, the Armada de Molucca never visited Malacca.

As to the possibility that Enrique continued on an undocumented journey to his homeland (where ever that may have been) after the Armada de Molucca left Cebu in 1521, this seems unlikely. Enrique was fluent in Malay and Portuguese and likely had some grasp of Spanish and would therefore be indispensable to the Cebuano king, Humabon. Humabon was an intelligent leader who was almost certainly aware of the Portuguese presence in the area of the Spice Islands and would surely have placed great value upon having a translator should he ever come into contact with the Spanish or Portuguese again. It is an unhappy thought, but Enrique was simply too useful to Humabon to allow him to slip away in search of his homeland and would likely have spent the rest of his life in Cebu.