05/06/2026
In the beginning there was no Philippines, but there was Butuan.
In 1976, workers in Butuan City, Agusan del Norte were digging near the Masao River when they found the remains of an ancient boat buried in the mud.
Then they found another. And another.
The Butuan Balangays are the oldest watercraft ever recovered in Southeast Asia. The earliest dates to approximately 320 AD. They were plank-built, pegged together without nails, and large enough to carry dozens of people and tons of cargo across open ocean.
Filipino ancestors were crossing the seas more than a thousand years before Magellan arrived claiming to have discovered anything.
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