An Ancient Sea Route is Being Reopened-The Manongs.

An ancient sea route is being reopened.

From Orchid Island off Taiwan’s southeast coast, 20 Tao men have set out on a hand-carved longboat bound for Batanes in the northern Philippines, retracing a journey their ancestors once made across the western Pacific.

The voyage is being described as the first of its kind in 300 years. The Tao people of Orchid Island and the Ivatan people of Batanes share deep cultural, linguistic, and ancestral ties that stretch back thousands of years.

Long before modern borders divided Taiwan and the Philippines, both communities were part of the vast Austronesian world. Austronesian seafarers are believed to have originated in Taiwan several thousand years ago before spreading across the Philippines, Indonesia, Madagascar, and eventually across the Pacific Ocean to places as distant as Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island. Today, the Tao and Ivatan languages remain so closely related that speakers can still recognize many words and traditions shared between them.

The connection was once maintained through regular voyages across the Bashi Channel, a notoriously rough stretch of water separating Orchid Island and Batanes. Trade, marriages, fishing expeditions, and cultural exchanges linked the two island communities for generations before those journeys gradually disappeared.

Now, the crew hopes to revive that connection.

Their vessel, named Golden Friendship, is a 12-meter tatala, a traditional Tao boat carved from living trees and painted in red and white. Smaller versions of the tatala were historically used to catch flying fish, a cornerstone of Tao culture and survival.

The crew was expected to row about 100 nautical miles, or roughly 185 kilometers, through powerful currents and open ocean conditions before reaching Batanes. For many participants, the voyage was more than a physical challenge—it was a journey back to their roots.

After departing Orchid Island on June 15, the crew successfully arrived at Mahatao Shelter Port in Batanes at 2:16 p.m. on June 16. There, they were warmly welcomed by Ivatan Filipinos, turning the historic voyage into an emotional reunion between two communities whose ancestors once maintained regular contact across the sea.

The expedition was organized by Syaman Maraos, chairman of the Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation, who hopes it will strengthen ties between Indigenous communities across the Pacific. There are already hopes that Ivatan islanders may row the Golden Friendship back to Orchid Island next year.

For centuries, the sea between Taiwan and the Philippines has acted as both a barrier and a bridge. This week, a group of rowers crossed the Bashi Channel and proved that the ancient connection between the Tao and Ivatan peoples never truly disappeared. After 300 years, descendants of the same Austronesian family met again, not as strangers from different countries, but as relatives rediscovering a shared history

Meanwhile, Have You Heard of the Manongs?

Long before the world knew the word OFW, a generation of young Filipino men crossed the Pacific to feed America with their bare hands. They called them the manongs.

In the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of Filipinos came to the farms of California, the canneries of Alaska, and the fields of the American West. They picked the asparagus, the lettuce, and the grapes that fed a nation, working backbreaking hours for low pay and facing harsh discrimination and laws that kept them apart. Yet these men built community, sent money home, and never forgot who they were. In 1965, Filipino farmworkers led by figures like Larry Itliong launched the Delano grape strike, helping ignite one of the most important labor movements in American history.

The manongs were pioneers who turned exclusion into solidarity and hardship into legacy. Every Filipino nurse, engineer, and worker abroad today walks a path these men cleared with their hands.