ITCHY FEET TRAVELS

Manila, Philippines

Aug 24, 2026

The National Museum of Anthropology has a couple of floors devoted to weaving, textiles and looms, but it is a small section on the first floor that has my eyes pop open. A large chart displays two hypotheses of populating of the Philippines. It is an old chart, since the prevailing theory nowadays is the Out-of-Taiwan model and not the out-of-the-islands. Here it is – the very thing I am trying to retrace! I pore over it eagerly.

A nearby case displays small slate points. The sign reads “3200-2000 BP” (Before Present) from Itbayat island”. This was the same slate that I saw in the Taitung Museum of Prehistory from the Peinan Site! And here they are, found on Itbayat island. My eyes now resembling saucers, I turn to the other case. There are the same spindle whorls, the same circle-incised pottery sherds also from Peinan that I had seen in the Taitung museum.

And then, around the corner I stop tranfixed. The round jade earrings with protuberances stare me in the face. I had seen this just ten days ago! And here they are, the sign saying they were found in northern Luzon.

As if that isn’t enough, another chart shows the evolution of a couple of words in different languages of the large Austronesian language family. Of the many tools used to trace evolution, language offers one of the most reliable clues. These similarities are unarguable!

Like a trail of bread-crumbs, the tale of the Austronesian migration unfolds. Those early seafarers left the shores of Lanyu in their outrigger canoes and first made landfall on a group of tiny islands called the Batanes. Scattered between Lanyu and mainland Philippines, these ten islands are in Philippine territory today. Only three of them are inhabited – Batan, Sabtang and Itbayat.  Their remoteness has preserved their culture here more than anywhere else in the Philippines. These islands are the link in the chain between Taiwan and the Philippines. The Lanyu plan had fizzled out but maybe, just maybe, I could get to the largest of these three islands, the only one with an airstrip. But I would need requisite permissions and information.

I turned up at the National Commission of Culture and Arts only to find that everyone was working from home. My chirpy face had fallen and I suspect I groaned aloud. Or perhaps the person at the information desk was just a kind-hearted soul. She dialed a number and I was soon speaking with the person in charge. She in turn, put me in touch with another woman, who is herself an Ivatan, the tribe from Batanes. She was most kind and graciously spent half hour explaining the rules and regulations. She also gave me the unwelcome news that current bad weather had meant no flights for the past twelve days. Moreover, expecting another typhoon shortly, none were expected for another week or so at least. Slayed!  Before I even started.

But wait; maybe all is not quite lost yet. The jade earrings were found in northern Luzon. I am already on the island, at its southern end. I could just head north. Of course, I’d first have to locate the tribes descended from the Austronesian speakers. No easy task, but I intend to try.