
FOLLOWING THE PATH OF THEIR ANCESTORS Battling huge waves, twenty Austronesian men in orange lifejackets set off on a hand-carved longboat into the western Pacific Ocean, destined for the home of their ancestral kin for the first time in 300 years. The indigenous Tao people, native to the tiny Orchid Island 90 kilometres (56 miles) off Taiwan's southeast coast, have close cultural, linguistic and historic ties with the Philippines' Batanes islands and its Ivatan communities. Participants say the odyssey across the Bashi Channel will trace an ancestral sea route to strengthen longstanding traditional ties between the two communities. 📸 AFP/Cheng Yu-Chen Read: philstar.com/headlines/2026…




