Thousand years have passed since pre-Hispanic times when Filipinos braved the vast open oceans and ventured across Southeast Asia to maintain trade ties and commercial activities but a historic relic from that time still lives on.
Balangay boat, the first-ever wooden watercraft excavated in Southeast Asia, is proof of early Filipinos’ boat-building and seamanship expertise during the pre-colonial period.
To keep its legacy alive, Balangay Sailing Association (BSA), an organization based in Butuan, was established in 2019. The group is primarily anchored on the goal of promoting sailing for recreation and education, preserving a region’s thousand-year maritime heritage.
Annually, the group organizes several regattas of dinghy sailing vessels.
“This activity is inclined towards educational awareness, for our historic past as Butuanon and the sailing culture of the Balangay, and to incorporate and teach that awareness through experience and learning sailing. We have been doing several regattas in the past since we started in May of 2019, we had several hiccups during the COVID-19 pandemic, but this year we opted to have this commemorative event,” said Patrick B. Ruiz, co-founder of BSA and one of the crew members of the Balangay boat expedition team that sailed to several parts of Southeast Asia.
The sailing coach of BSA, Ruiz credited his passion when he was invited to become a part of the Balangay boat expedition team. It was with that experience he learned the importance of embracing one’s cultural identity and hopes to pay it forward by teaching others.
He pointed out that, as a member of the Balangay boat expedition, he often envied other Southeast Asian countries that took pride in their history and culture.
“When we visited the museums of other Southeast Asian countries during our expedition I saw how much they gave significance to their pre-colonial past. It hit my pride how much we lacked that sufficient knowledge and interest in our rich history and culture. A lot of people in Caraga region and even in Butuan don’t even know our amazing sailing Balangay ancestry that traded to China,” said Ruiz.
Ruiz stated that their association was created with the hopes of teaching sailing while giving insights on how it is linked with the historic Kingdom of Butuan. In the process, people will learn through experience while discovering the identity of the once proud seafaring culture of Butuan.
New Breed of Sailors
To step up their advocacy, BSA has incorporated sailing into the curriculum of one of Caraga Region’s biggest maritime schools in Butuan City and in its training facility in Nasipit, Agusan del Norte.
Gilbert Maturan, co-founder and chairman of BSA, explained that the biggest lesson to be learned from history is that the pre-colonial people of Butuan are the maritime masters that spearheaded the modern seafaring export workforce the Philippines has contributed worldwide.
“We are a nation that is one of the biggest producers of the maritime seafaring workforce. As a licensed Master Mariner who used to work in the industry and help hire people with global competency, we connected to this. To strengthen the young roots of Filipinos as natural seafarers, we mean to come up with a certain program that would somehow (include) the tradition of balangay sailing as a part of the academic program for the maritime profession,” said Maturan.
Maritime cadets from Saint Joseph Institute of Technology (SJIT) are trained in sailing under the Physical Education program.
“We share with students our team’s experience on sailing, with this program, we addressed three things: one, is to introduce the boat building program; second, to let them learn about the balangay sailing culture; and third, to equip them with the skills on navigation, showmanship, and understanding meteorology. So this is the first program in the maritime institution in the Philippines wherein we were able to integrate into the curriculum,” said Maturan.
Sailing Again
On September 2010, three balangay boat replicas namely Diwata ng Lahi, Mazuau Hong Butuan, and Zama Tawi-Tawi made history after it proved to the world that sailing throughout Southeast Asia was possible using the early shipbuilding technology used by early Filipino sailors.
The expedition headed by Artur Valdez, and its crew and boats successfully traveled to Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, and back to the Philippines and their respective ports in 18 months.
On May 2018, balangay boat replicas, Zama Tawi Tawi, Lahi ng Maharlika, and Sultan Sin Sulu made their historic voyage to China to commemorate the travel 600 years ago of Sultan Paduka Pahala of the Sultanate of Sulu to the Middle Kingdom.
Valdez pointed out that Sultan Pahala sailed to China in 1417 for a tribute mission but he died there and was buried in Shandong, China.
“Sailing is in our DNA, we should embrace this. The great Filipino maritime heritage has sailed across Asia long before Spain first set foot in our islands,” said Valdez.
On December 2019, two replicas of the ancient Balangay boats returned to their home in Butuan, after successfully participating in the Kick-Off Ceremonies for the 500-Day Countdown to the 500th Anniversary of the Battle in Mactan in Cebu City.
The two boats, Raya Siyagu and Raya Kolambu, named in honor of the King of Mazaua and King of Butuan, are now placed in Balangay Boat Building Site in Luna Compound, Barangay Bading with the help of the Butuan Global Forum Inc (BGFI).
Jody Navarra of BGFI said the return of these boats to the city is significant in hopefully reviving the pride of the people towards the rallying efforts of preserving the dig sites.
Artur Valdez, who headed the return, added that the historic balangay boat is something that the people in Butuan could be proud of, with concrete evidence, that nowhere in the Philippines that a boat this old can be found.
“A boat found only here in Butuan, evidence that one time in history, Butuan was a center of trade and commerce in this part of the world long before the arrival of the Spaniards. We have a boat that precedes even the Viking ships,” he added.
Balangay Legacy
Since 2019, former Congressman now Vice Mayor of Butuan City, Lawrence Fortun, has pushed for the bill that will declare the Balangay as the National Boat of the Philippines.
“Building the Balangay and sailing it on the high seas entails solidarity and harmony among boat-builders and seafarers. It is for this reason it is now used by the Philippine government as a term to refer to the smallest political unit, now popularly known as barangay. It is a symbol of the Filipino community’s character of unity, cooperation, determination, and resilience,” said Fortun.
In 1987, President Corazon Aquino issued Presidential Proclamation No.86, declaring the Balangays in the vicinities of Butuan City as National Treasures, and the sites where these Balangays were found, as archeological sites in accordance with the Cultural Properties Preservation and Protection Act.
In 1976, the historic pre-colonial balangay boats were discovered in Butuan City, Initially, the team from the Philippine National Museum counted around nine boats, but in 2012, a new boat was discovered underneath a previously discovered boat making the number 10.
Presently, only five boats had been dug up from the two sites in Barangay Libertad in Butuan City and the most complete is on display at the National Museum in Manila.
By 2014, a shortage in funding ceased the digging and excavation of the remaining balangay boats and further research stopped as issues on the right of way and ownership of the land of the dig site have yet to be formally addressed.
Archeologists pointed out that our ancestors used the Balangay boats to maintain trade relations with neighboring islands near the archipelago as well as empires around Southeast Asia during the 10th and 11th centuries.
Image credits: Klesteer Macasero