RP balangay expedition team welcomed in Brunei

Brunei warmly welcomed the three-ship Filipino "balangay" expedition team as it began its international tour last week. The Department of Foreign Affairs said on Friday the 39-member expedition team, on a mission to retrace the migration of the early Filipinos, was welcomed by officials from the Philippine Embassy and the Brunei government. Among those who welcomed the expedition team were Philippine Embassy Chargé d' Affaires Celeste Vinzon Balatbat, members of Filipino community, Brunei Tourism Chief Executive Officer Sheikh Jamaluddin Sheikh Mohamed and senior management of the Royal Brunei Yacht Club in Serasa. The embassy reported that the three balangays (ancient wooden vessel) arrived in Bandar Seri Begawan on August 26. They left for Miri, Malaysia the following day. Aside from Brunei and Malaysia, the team will also proceed to Singapore, Vietnam, and China. The team hopes to arrive in Vietnam in time for the the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in September. The three vessels left Manila on September 1 last year, and had traveled around the Philippine islands, covering some 3,000 kilometers (km) during the last 11 months. The expedition is led by Arturo Valdez, who is on board the "Masawa Hong Butuan," the largest of the three vessels. The names of the two other balangays are: Diwata ng Lahi and Sama Tawi-Tawi. Valdez, a former undersecretary of the Department of Transportation and Communications, is also a veteran marathon runner and mountaineer, having led the first Philippine expedition team to Mount Everest. He emphasized the main purpose of the voyage of the three balangays was to commemorate and promote the common bond of kinship and friendship shared by the people of Southeast Asia. The balangays (also called balanghays or Butuan boats) were built using traditional methods and materials of ship-building employed by the ancestors of the Filipino people. The vessels are plank boats adjoined by a carved-out planks edged through pins and dowels and measures 15 meters long and three to four meters wide. Propelling the balangays are sails made out of buri or nipa fiber or padding. These boats were first mentioned in the 16th century in the Chronicles of Pigafetta and is one of the oldest wooden vessels ever to be discovered in Southeast Asia. The balangay voyage if a project of Kaya ng Pinoy Inc., which aims to retrace the migration of our ancestors across the oceans using the native balangay, built faithfully according to the craftsmanship and materials used by the early Filipinos. The navigation methods that the expedition team used were those employed by the earliest mariners - steering by the sun, the stars, the wind, cloud formations, wave patterns and bird migrations. –VVP, GMANews.TV