THE FERRY SLIPPED out of Dumaguete’s city port just before dawn. On the roof deck, I joined the scattered silhouettes of morning people, each of us drawn there by an unspoken desire to greet the sea. I breathed deeply, greedily, each inhale a cool balm easing the back of my throat and each exhale exiting as a faint fog. I was heading back home, to Zamboanga, a city on another island some 16 hours south of the Philippines’ Central Visayas region, where I had once lived.

This particular return weighed heavily on me. As the ferry cut through the waves, I found myself thinking of my ancestors who had once traveled these same waters, moving from one coastal home to another across the country’s islands in search of better fishing grounds — guided only by knowledge passed down among navigators in their communities and the very real need to provide food for the family. The whisper of the breeze and the gentle rocking of the ferry seemed to carry echoes of their existence, drifting like the sea’s own breath, reminding me of the threads that still bound me to them.

I grew up immersed in seafaring tales. I heard stories of how, once, after enduring days with no substantial catch, my maternal grandfather and his brother ventured out on the cold, open waters off their fishing village in Cotabato, on the island of Mindanao. When they returned, my great-uncle developed a fever and severe cough. By the time they sought help, it was too late. A month after he died, news spread through their fishing village that those who ventured farther south to the Zamboanga Peninsula were met with bountiful catches. The same news had reached my paternal grandparents in village of Iloilo, in the Western Visayas, which inspired them to make the journey as well. In the 1950s, both families settled in Zamboanga, unaware that they would be among the last generations of artisanal fisherfolk in their lines.

As the ferry hummed along, I wondered how these landscapes had shaped us — and what it means to stay rooted when those very landscapes begin to vanish.

Author Sigrid Marianne Gayangos reflects on what The Philippines’ eroding coastline means for a culture that remains deeply entwined with the sea.

Photo by Art Phaneuf / Alamy

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