The inscriptions which are carefully written at the foot of each shipment on the galleon's manifest more than 500 years ago, could also be said today, for the 51 meter replica of the great wooden galleons that plied the Manila-Acapulco (Mexico) calmly sways with the gentle swells of Catagbacan Port in Loon, Bohol. Now safely protected from the betraying and foaming shoals, shallow reefs and the lurking pirates that haunts and hunts for the treasures carried by these galleons, the cruise ship port Catagbacan which was blessed and inaugurated yesterday October 23, ideally offers deep waters and the lee side to provide the right shelter to a foreign boat without disturbing the daily commercial traffic at other ports considered to host the wooden hulled ship, said Gov. Edgar Chatto.

The inscriptions were just as apt, for the often overloaded ships from safe harbors of Manila challenged the infamous and treacherous Pacific storms, insatiable pirates and uncharted waters in a shippling route that is largely dependent on trade winds and the ever-changing monsoons. For 250 years, these galleons carried silks, spices, and other rich goods from the Orient to trade with European products and Mexican silver. Here, the East meets West across the routes of the galleons making the trade route the most significant pathway for commerce and cultural inter-change between Europea and Asia through the Americas, an article from the National Geographic September 1990 issue states. The trade also puts the Manila in the Philippines the center of the web of trade and commerce by linking India, Southeast Asia, Japan, and China. In all of them, the galleons are the crucial links that ferry all these oriental goods, ranging from exotic spices of Moluccas, silk from China, pewter, table ware, furniture, pearls and diamonds, fine stones and gems, musks and other essences and still a treasure hoard for Europeans where these products command high prices.

Largely credited for breathing life into the Manila-Acapulco (Nueva Espana) trade route, the galleons, many of them built and fitted in Cavite in the Philippines also facilitated the exchange of culture and commerce. The ship that has moored in the Port of Catagbacan Loon however is one replica of the Andalucia galleons. It was in the province where they lay the keel and raised the masts of these galleons, between Puerta Umbria and Huelva, Ignacio Hernandez Vial, expedition director and ship builder. With its crucial role in the exchange of culture and commerce, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization declared the Dia del Galleon, a festival to commemorate the crucial role the galleons brought to human history, said a UNESCO Jakarta Director during the launch in Bohol last July 22. The great wooden boat replica of the Galleon Andalucia rises forty feet high, made even more daunting by her three masts anchoring seven sails re-traces the journeys of the galleon, the formidable ships overloaded with spices and precious cargo from the east to stimulate the taste and embellish the royalties of Europe.

Coming to the Philippines from Seville, the largest city in the southern Spanish province of Andalucia, the ship, which has six decks is largely made of iroko wood, oak, pine, fiberglass and polyester resin, the boatbuilder married the 15tyh century boatbuilding skills with modern technologies still took a combined work of 150 men 2 years to complete. In Manila, a religious ceremony, the enthronization of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage (Our Lady of Antipolo) was done to keep the museum ship and its crew away from harm. Coming to the Philippines from Manila to Cebu and then to Bohol, the Andalucia sails off from Bohol on Tuesday and is expected to retrace its journey, not eastward across the Pacific but by the south and then west to Indian Ocean back, to Seville. When it leaves Bohol, like the silent whispers of the Manileno, who stands to gain a fortune upon every galleon that arrives safely, Boholanos who have the undeniable traces of the Spanish, Chinese, Malay and the European races may again say “Dios llevandolo en salvamento.” (racPIABOhol)