When I left government in January 2005, I decided to pursue a lifelong dream – that of climbing Mount Everest. More than a thousand people of various nationalities have climbed Mt. Everest, the first two being Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. However, no Filipino has climbed Mt. Everest – well not until 2006. In October 2003, I made a public call for Filipinos interested in climbing Mt. Everest. I was the expedition leader of the all-Filipino Mt. Everest team. We short listed a small group. With scandalously low funding and meager resources, our group trained in lower mountains. Due to fund limitations, only an all-male Filipino team (two to be exact) could be supported and successfully scaled Mt. Everest in 2006. Then last year, three Filipinas scaled Mt. Everest. The Filipinas notched two records, namely, the first Southeast Asian females to do so, and the first women in the world to transverse Mt. Everest, i.e., climb up one way and go down another way. Please note that, while I led these two expeditions, I myself let go of the opportunity to climb Mt. Everest itself. It is a case of the common good being a priority.

In the trainings and two Mt. Everest expeditions, our team learned some valuable lessons: Belief in one’s self and each other was important. Teamwork and unity were paramount necessities. While we saw the beauty of nature, we also witnessed the ill effects of global warming. To highlight, in our first year, we saw the Mt. Everest base camp blanketed in snow. In our second year, we saw patches of snow at the base camp; last year, there was no more snow at the base camp. We also saw and experienced the poverty of people living in the mountains. Though the Sherpas are a sturdy people and gain economically from the climbers from various nationalities, their lot in general is still poor. In fact, our Philippine Coast Guard doctor, Dr. Ted Esguerra, attended to the medical needs of the Sherpas, and this gesture endeared us to them.

We asked ourselves: What next? As a team, we are still keen in pioneering outdoor adventure, specifically adventure with a national significance. While the Philippines is a mountainous country, it is also an archipelago. Thus, it was natural for us to look to our seas.

This is where the balangay comes in. Our plan is to construct a balangay, the sailboat used by our forefathers to travel across the Southeast Asian islands. The inspiration for this project comes from the maritime achievements of our ancestors. Sailing along the South China Sea, the Gulf of Thailand and the Java Sea despite the presence of obstacles and dangers, our people considered the seas to be unifying rather than divisive. It is a means of transport and communication. In fact, nearby countries have their own version of the balangay. There is the tatara for Taiwan, the lepa for Malaysia and perahu for Indonesia.

Our plan now is to construct a replicate of this boat. The wood will come from the established traditional source in southern Philippines, specifically Tawi-Tawi. We have pinpointed Badjao master boat builders, whose predecessors actually built such boats. We will use traditional tools and not modern ones. However, we will construct right here in Manila Bay, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex. This is meant to generate national awareness. We estimate construction of the first boat to be around 90 days. For 2009, we expect to sail to different Philippine islands. For 2010, we plan to go to different ASEAN countries. From 2011 onwards, given our two-year training and travel, we hope to take on the challenge to sail to Madagascar to the west and to the Polynesian Islands to the east; two places reached by the balangay of our glorious past.

Aside from the outdoor adventure endeavor, we will use the balangay trips to assist in community-building, particularly for coastal communities. The balangay’s construction was meant for travel hugging the coastline and not for deep waters. This then is a plus factor in our community-building efforts. We will travel along the shorelines and stop at communities and key human settlement centers, including cities, to hold seminars. We intend to heighten awareness of global warming. We aspire to challenge our people to help out in watershed management and also in coastal rehabilitation. We also plan to support wholesome coastal tourism and development.

In our travels, we will share our self-image and self-assertion that the Filipino can do the impossible. By exhibiting and challenging Filipino ingenuity and native survival skills in this modern age with the use of ancient seafaring technology, we aim to rekindle maritime consciousness among our people which colonialism took away.

The Balangay will become the catalyst to stir up historical consciousness among Filipinos today, a sine qua non in transporting our people to our cherished goals. Without that keen knowledge of history, our people will continue to suffer as our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, aptly described, “Ang taong hindi lumilingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa patutunguhan.” With these efforts, we can identify our counterparts in the various Southeast Asian countries through the balangay and its reconstruction for cultural unity, an ongoing identification and traveling of the ancient sea routes of our forefathers, and, more important, partnership with the coastal communities. Indeed, with the balangay and the modern transport and related facilities, together we can make concrete our balangay theme for Southeast Asia: We are one!

-Art Valdez-
from: http://www.balangay-voyage.com

The voyage aims to bring us back to the greatness of our ancestors and how colonialism robbed these away from us and produced the FILIPINO today.

To Rekindle the Maritime Consciousness Among our People.

The Butuan Boats (Balangay) represent an important part of the understanding of Southeast Asian shipbuilding technology. The lashed lugs have parallels in other parts of Southeast Asia, particularly in archaeological finds in Malaysia and Sumatra (Evans, 1927; Gibson-Hill, 1952 and Manguin, 1985). The technique is still found in the Moluccan and Solar Archipelago and the Solomon Islands (Burningham, personal communication and Horridge, 1982) and also has parallels in Europe (Hornell, 1946). Vedstigial lugs are also found in South Sualwesi (Burningham, personal communication), the Maldives (Millar, 1993) and other areas.

To install Enrique De Malacca, the Indo-Malay, his rightful place in history as the first circum-navigator of the world.

The Philippine archipelago has always been underestimated in its role on the early migrations and movement of the peoples in Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Until the current archaeological work that done in the Batanes areas (Dizon 2007; Hung et al. 2007; Bellwood and Dizon 2005; Bellwood, Anderson, Dizon and Stevenson 2003), it was believed that the early peopling of the Philippines was through a “wave of migrations” coming from Indonesia and Malaysia from about 10,000 years ago (Beyer 1947;1948), although some other researchers had earlier disagreed with this, such as (Jocano 1967; Fox 1970; Solheim 1981), however, without further substantial archaeological evidence. Generally, it is still taught in the Philippine textbooks and schools that the early Filipinos were Aetas, and the more recent populations were coming from Indonesia and Malays (the Aetas have another story). Recent archaeological and other scientific studies now points to the reverse of this idea. The present peoples of the Philippines were of Austronesians in origin where the homeland could probably be Southern China and Taiwan who migrated first around 5,000 years ago and reaching Itbayat and other islands of the Batanes at least some 4,500 years ago and continuing their voyage to the rest of Luzon ie. Lallo area in Cagayan Valley . Austronesian is a very large language family formerly known as the Malayo-Polynesian language. This language is comparable to the Indo-European language family, like French, Spanish, Italian etc., only that it has more speakers and more wide spread in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, ie. Ilocano, Kapampangan, Tagalog, Bahasa (Malay, Indonesia ), Bisaya, etc., including Chamorro spoken in the Marianas (Saipan, Guam, Rota , Tinian etc.). There are about more than 350 million Austronesians speakers now in the world! The Polynesian language is related to the Austronesian languages.

In order for people to move and occupy the vast islands of both Southeast Asia and the Pacific, one very important and significant technology is needed, and this is the Boat-Building capacity and technology. Researchers believe that after the initial crossing of the Austronesians from Taiwan to Batanes and the rest of Luzon, their boat-building technology was greatly developed and improved here in the Philippines, learning from their experience and so building better boats that would allow them to move further in all directions, southward, eastward, westward and also to go back northward where they came from. Following this argument, it can be said that the early people who occupied the Philippine archipelago were the one responsible in moving to Indonesia, Malaysia, the Marianas and to some extent in the south-easterly islands of Polynesia by around 3,500 to 3,000 years ago. This should be a big pride for the present Filipinos, who are still great voyagers until the present time. Perhaps, the Filipinos have the most seamen in the world among with the Indonesians.

By: Dr. Eusebio Z. Dizon
from: http://www.balangay-voyage.com

The Balanghai or Balangay or Butuan Boat is a plank boat adjoined by a carved-out plank edged through pins and dowels. It was first mentioned in the 16th Century in the Chronicles of Pigafetta, and is known as the oldest Pre-Hispanic watercraft found in the Philippines.

The first wooden watercraft excavated in Southeast Asia, the Balangay is only found in the Philippines where a flotilla of such prehistoric wooden boat exists throughout the world. Nine specimens were discovered in 1976 in Butuan City, Agusan Del Norte, Mindanao and 3 of which have been excavated. Examination and extensive investigation reveals that the extant boats found in the excavation site date back to 320, 990 and 1250 AD.

The finely built boat, made without the use of blueprints but was taught from one generation to another, uses a technique still used by boat makers of Sibutu Island. Made 15 meters long and 3 to 4 meters wide, the Balangay is propelled by sail of buri or nipa fiber or padding and is large enough to hold 60 to 90 people. With the Balangay’s size, it was used for cargo and raiding purposes, giving proof that Butuan played a central role in trade.