Filipino Crosscurrents: Oceanographies of Seafaring, Masculinities, and Globalization

1. The Race of the Century: Galleons and Global City Desires in Manila

C H A P T E R O N E The Race of the Century Galleons and Global City Desires in Manila It was on the Manila Galleon that we began to become the Philippines. NICK JOAQUIN, Manila, My Manila You have to ride the boat. You can’t miss the boat. There’s only one boat. J. M. LAMORENA (representative of [former] President Joseph Estrada’s administration), personal communication. Manila Bay, Tondo, Metro Manila, Philippines, 1998 Dockside. A band in red uniforms plays traditional fanfare music. A small crowd waits eagerly for boats to arrive. A television helicopter flies overhead , apparently broadcasting live. Everyone is excited, full of anticipation , but no boats arrive. Tired of the waiting and playing during false alarms, the band eventually sits down along a ledge to rest. I sit close to the band members and listen to their conversation.1 “Maybe they’ve hit an iceberg,” a trombone player jokes, speculating on why the boat has been delayed. We laugh at his ironic imagery. We are in tropical latitudes, after all, thousands of miles away from the nearest iceberg. It is the year of the megahit film Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, but we are not in the Northern Atlantic. We are standing at the edge of Manila Bay in Tondo in Manila. The event we are attending is advertised as the Race of the Century. In other promotional materials it is called the Manila–Acapulco Commemorative Regatta. In trying to ethnographically interpret the maritime land- and seascapes of Manila, I read newspapers daily, learning about shipping and 42 T H E R AC E O F T H E C EN T U RY seafaring matters. One morning, I notice an advertisement for the Race of the Century in The Inquirer, a leading newspaper in Manila. The event appears to bring together many different things that I love and am interested in: Philippine maritime history, seafaring, sailing, and Manila Bay. On the day of the closing events for the commemorative regatta, I wake up early in Quezon City and take two jeepneys (a form of local transportation) and a taxi, eventually making my way to Tondo where the Karakoa-MHC (Manila Harbour Centre), a yacht, is supposed to arrive. The Karakoa-MHC is named after “karakoas,” the ancient indigenous boats that once sailed the seas of Mindanao and the Moluccas in the sixteenth century; the Manila Harbour Centre is the yacht’s corporate sponsor. The Karakoa-MHC has just sailed across the Pacific from Acapulco, Mexico, and according to race organizers, it is the first officially sanctioned boat in centuries to retrace the old Manila–Acapulco galleon trade route, a maritime circuit of trade between two of Spain’s former colonies (Las Filipinas [present-day Philippines] and New España [present-day Mexico]), which was active for 250 years (1565–1815). When I started ethnographic fieldwork in Manila, I observed a strong interest, appreciation, and nostalgia for Manila–Acapulco galleon trade histories. Upon return to the San Francisco Bay Area, I noticed similar sentiments. The Race of the Century was, therefore, not the only time in Manila that Manila–Acapulco galleon trade histories were evoked by locals. For example, when I spoke to Filipino seamen on docked ships in the port or where they congregated in Ermita, many discussed the Manila–Acapulco galleon trade, the Indio/Native sailors who sailed the galleons back and forth across the Pacific, and some of the challenges seamen (past and present) face(d). “Rudy,”2 a young seaman from San Carlos, Negros Oriental, when asked why he thought Filipinos were considered “number one” in the global shipping industry, replied, “We’re a seafaring people. We’ve been sailing and working on the seas even before the Spaniards arrived, but during the galleon times, that is when we proved ourselves as seamen.” Another young seaman, “Romeo” (from Zamboanga City), commented , “The history of Filipino seafaring is long. Native seamen worked on ships for centuries and now we are just carrying on that tradition.” Seaman “Victor” (from Mandaue, Cebu) observed, “Just imagine, the Native sailor didn’t have modern instruments during the galleon times like we have now. The Native sailor was a real sailor. Their life was hard. Our life is hard too, but their life was harder.” As a final T H E R AC E O F T H E C EN...