The balangay

I first met Art Valdez in a meeting we arranged with Chinese embassy officials. We wanted to see how we could push for a common effort to preserve the sea rather than fight about it. 

I knew Art more as the leader of the Filipino group which successfully climbed the Mount Everest.  I regret I was not able to attend the launch of his book and he might have thought I was no longer interested. 

We lost touch until last month with the announcement that a replica of the wooden balangay was set to sail from Manila to China on April 28, 2018. Three identical wooden boats crafted from a centuries-old design set off from the Philippine capital for China on April 28 to retrace a historic trip by a Filipino sultan and showcase longstanding maritime ties.

I have not followed up the progress of the trip of the balangays. The voyage retraces a historical trip made by a Filipino sultan, Sultan Paduka Batara in 1417 that proves Filipinos and the Chinese had long maritime ties to facilitate trade and migration.           

There are 29 crew members on the three vessels of this modern journey. Of these three two are propelled by engines and the third by sail. They hope to make it across the South China Sea, a near-1,000-kilometer voyage, to the eastern city of Xiamen by May 2.

The sultan died there but the Chinese emperor at the time honored him with a shrine. I met some of his relatives in a visit a few years ago.

The state weather bureau in Manila expects a period of good weather from Saturday to the morning of May 2 but after that, conditions could get rough.

The crew, which includes three women, are hoping they can slip through before the bad weather hits their route, Valdez said. The trick is to stay as close to the shore as it navigates. 

Valdez is aware of the implications of the trip at a time when the Philippines and China still have a territorial conflict over parts of the South China Sea. But that is the point. There should be no conflict.

“These waters never divided us. These waters unified us,” he said. “And this boat, as a replica of an ancient boat, is a symbol of that relationship.”

He wants to “rekindle Filipino pride and faith in a forgotten heritage, our maritime consciousness.”

“It is very sad because we are a maritime people. We should be gifted and natural in the waters but colonialization robbed us of that consciousness. I am doing this to help rekindle that spirit,” Valdez said. This project reconnects us to our pre-Spanish period at the same time that we need to reach out to our neighbors in the Asian region. There has been a hiatus in which we lost that connection in the Spanish and American colonial periods.

“We explore our past and our capacity as a people with the balangay. We can be proud of a race that was not reluctant to take the high road of adventure by relying only on instinct and nature. We should look to that past as we face contemporary problems.”

On the other hand, the galleon symbolizes the important role the Philippines played in the development of early trade between Europe and Asia. 

Long before the arrival of the Spaniards and the Americans we were intrepid travelers from a country long regarded an entrepot and a trading center not only of the region but also between East and West. To return to the original message of this column we must revisit our past as often as we can to understand the country’s challenges: whether it is church vs. state, the invention of the Filipino Badjao made balangay and the success of the Galleon trade with the Philippines as its entrepot.

“Declaring it the country’s national boat will ensure that future generations will recognize the invaluable contribution of our forefathers in shaping our maritime tradition and passing on the values of solidarity, harmony, determination, courage and bravery,” Agusan del Norte Rep. Lawrence Lemuel Fortun, principal author of the bill, said.

He noted that the ‘balangay,’ known as the Butuan boat, was the first-ever wooden watercraft to be excavated in Southeast Asia demonstrating early Filipino boat-building genius and seamanship expertise during the pre-colonial times.

“Found only in the Philippines where a flotilla of such ancient boats exists, the Butuan boat was utilized by our ancestors to maintain trade relations with neighboring islands around the country and empires around Southeast Asia,” Fortun said.

He said the extensive utilization of balangay for trade “confirms the active involvement of our forefathers in robust commercial activities in Asia as early as the 10th and 11th centuries.”

 “The boat was first mentioned in the 16th century in the Chronicles of Pigafetta,” Fortun noted, citing that there are nine balangay boats known to be in existence, the oldest of which has been carbon-dated around 320 A.D.

Born on Oct. 10, 1948 in Bacolod, Valdez’s parents are from Negros, a farmer and a teacher. In his teens, he became a boy scout and developed a great love for the outdoors. He climbed his first mountain, Mount Kanlaon in Negros, at 16.

Bal Lumayno, of the Philippine Sugar Commission, said of Valdez: “When it comes to problem solving, Art has this do or die attitude. If there is a problem, he will not sleep until he is able to find a solution.”

He is also able to find the best people for the job. “It doesn’t matter to Art what kind of background the person has or what he has done. What is more important to Art as to what can this person can do and if he is willing to see the project through from start to finish.”

In 1982, he considered organizing the first all-Filipino climb of Mount Everest, but the project never got beyond the planning stage.

His goal: to inspire and unify the nation with this historic climb. He recruited top local mountaineers Leo Oracion, Erwin Emata and Carina Dayondon.

To reconstruct the boats, Valdez and his team hired boat builders from the Sama Dilaya tribe from Sibutu and Sitangkai islands of Tawi-Tawi.

But all these difficulties were made up for by the beauty they encountered on their voyage. Dolphins swam alongside the boats. You will see just how beautiful the Philippines is if you make a round around all the islands. 

He said it’s time to bring back the rich maritime culture of the Filipinos and also to show the world that the Filipino Can, in tagalog “Kaya ng Pinoy.”