left: Cover Slide of Dr. Piemsak Honjamrassilp’s lecture;
right (clockwise from top left): Consul General Michael Lyndon B. Garcia, Dr. Piemsak, and Ambassador Millicent Cruz Paredes

Bangkok, 28 September 2021 – The Philippine Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand joined the worldwide celebration of Philippine Maritime and Archipelagic Nation Awareness Month or MANA Mo 2021, in a webinar entitled “Our Seas, Our Livelihood, Our Heritage: Connecting the Philippines and Thailand” on 28 September 2021.

H.E. Millicent Cruz Paredes, Ambassador of the Philippines to Thailand, welcomed representatives of the Philippine and Thai Governments, members of the diplomatic corps and international organizations in Bangkok, the Filipino community in Thailand, and the academic communities in the Philippines and Thailand to a journey of the Philippine seas that unite both countries.

Dr. Piemsak Hongjamrassilp, Lecturer of Hispanic and Latin American Studies at Thammasat University, led the audience through a maritime journey across the centuries, extending from the pre-colonial Philippine islands and the Kingdoms of Sukhothai and Siam, to the modern nation-states that we know today. Dr. Piemsak guided participants through archeological findings, historical accounts, and stories of battle, as evidence that, indeed, long before formal diplomatic relations were established in 1949, the Philippines and Thailand were already united by nautical highways that beckoned connections between both peoples.

As Ambassador Paredes said in her welcome remarks, “for just as the Philippine seas hide in their depths the rich and biodiverse ecosystems, their tides similarly hold stories of encounters between our peoples from ages past, pursuing livelihoods, exploring and venturing, learning from one another and, in the process, building communities and sharing a heritage.”

In the Filipino language, “Mana Mo” aptly means Your Inheritance. Today, the webinar and all those who embarked on the Embassy’s journey of the Philippine seas, celebrated the shared maritime inheritance and legacy of the Philippines and Thailand. END

Event Poster and Invitation