The search for peace in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) continues as China claims most of it, including the Philippine’s exclusive economic zone, as its own despite evidence based on international law and historical records.

Art Valdez, a former undersecretary of the Department of Transportation and Communications and organizer of the first Philippine Expedition Team to climb Mt. Everest, is rekindling Filipinos’ spirit to rediscover their nation’s maritime skills and culture to prevent being swayed by false claims and help the government assert Philippine sovereignty on the disputed sea.

Valdez is doing this by educating Filipinos and other races about Balangay, a type of boat used by Filipino ancestors or those belonging to Austronesians to sail from mainland Asia to the Philippine archipelago.

Daring maritime seafarers

“This will not only showcase the capability of the Filipino boat builders but would also be our way of instilling and propagating the idea among the present Filipinos, particularly the youth, that the Filipinos have been world-class boat builders and a nation of daring maritime seafarers even before the coming of Western colonizers,” he said at a meeting by Rotary Club of Manila last Thursday at the Manila Polo Club in Makati City.

On 27 May this year, the Balangay named Florentino Das left the Agusan River in Mindanao so Valdez and his team could reach the Pag-asa Island in the WPS. The vessel arrived on the island on 12 June.

“I can only deliver or express this narrative on board a replica of an ancient boat – the Balangay for the boat symbolizes our presence in these waters by the dawn of history; for thousands of years long before the Chinese even ventured into our maritime domain — the WPS. The medium is the message,” he said.

China has been arguing that it owns the WPS based on history and under its nine-dash line map.

“This is the trigger that prompted me to sail to the WPS all over again to deliver a narrative that will demolish their preposterous assertion,” Valdez said.

Naval travel in the WPS

Valdez said the balangay as a vessel for ancient trade proves that Filipinos dominated naval travel in the WPS and more seafarers and shipbuilders than land-based workers.

Valdez said his team, which includes the Sama tribe of Tawi-Tawi, worked to replicate the Balangay excavated in Butuan, Agusan del Sur in 1976. He said only a few Filipinos know how to build a traditional balangay.

“Sad to note that Filipinos shipwrights living between these extreme islands lost their craft because the Spanish colonizers discouraged them from building the swift and highly manoeuvrable Balangay boats from threatening the slow and lumbering Spanish Galleon especially in naval warfare,” Valdez said.

Brainwash

“Simultaneously there was a concerted effort to brainwash the rest of the populace to believe that they were insulares (land based people) rather than peninsulares (island based people) — the quickest way to subjugate a people uprooted from their natural environment,” he added.

Valdez said other proof that Filipinos have long lived and traded in the WPS include the Manunggol Jar dating back to 890-710 B.C.) and found in Tabon Cave in Palawan, the wooden remains of the balangay boat (320A.D.) in Butuan, and the wave of Austronesian migrations on board balangay-type of boats when they had better tools during the Metal Age.

“Even as late as the 11th to 12th CE, China was too busy fending off the Mongolian hordes of Genghis Khan, which was the reason they enhanced, lengthened and fortified the Great Wall of China,” he said.

Based on accounts studied by historian Ambeth Ocampo about the people of Visayas or Pi-she-yeh in the 12th century, Valdez shared the reputation of Visayan warriors who raided China aboard balangay.

“They showed a passion for iron vessels, spoons, and chopsticks. People would escape from their hands by shutting the door; then they would tear these off and take away the door knobs,” Valdez said.

“When a spoon or a pair of chopsticks was thrown at them, they would stop to pick it up. When they saw an iron-clad cavalryman, they would rush forward to peel off his armor, showing no remorse even if their heads were lopped off left and right,” he continued.

Valdez also cited China’s Chu-fan-chi, a book which loosely translates to A Description of the Barbaric People.

“During the period A.D. 1174-1190 these raids on the Fukien coast were of frequent occurrence. The Pi-she-yeh was consequently established along the south-western coast of Formosa (Taiwan) at that time, but it seems probable that they were of Philippine origin,” he said.