king TIDE

The success of JAY-R ESQUIVEL on the global surfing stage has the world looking at the story of Filipinos in the sport, and the town where it blossomed.

- NICOLA SEBASTIAN

EVEN THOUGH IT’S JAY-R’S FIRST TIME IN AMERICA, the scene he’s making at Huntington Beach looks more like a homecoming. It’s the first leg of the 2023 WSL World Longboard Tour. At 27 years old, Rogelio “Jay-R” Esquivel from Barangay Urbiztondo, San Juan, La Union, is the first Filipino surfer to qualify for the chance to become a world champion.

Naturally, Filipinos have taken over the California beach. The sea breeze carries the smell of pork barbecue across the water; people have set up tents and are handing heaping plates of food to anyone passing by, or a shot of rum, if you know who to ask. People in the crowd are sporting matching t-shirts printed with Jay-R’s last name and the number 15; borrowing from basketball, his fans have turned his birthday, July 15, into his unofficial jersey number. It looks like a reunion, and for many of these barkadas, it is. One guy has traveled from as far as Chicago, and some people are waving Philippine flags, the yellow, red, white, and blue shining bright against the northern hemisphere sky. After having been accosted with lumpia, one of the competition judges jokes that Jay-R has brought his whole village with him. Afterward, Jay-R posts on IG, thanking #barangayHB for making him feel at home in a foreign land.

At first, the idea of getting in the water alongside his heroes made him nervous. As a kid he watched the top pros travel the world on tours just like this one, poring over their photos in surf magazines, studying their surfing on YouTube. “Iba talaga yung feeling na kalaban mo sila sa isang heat,” he admits. [It’s a special feeling to compete against them in a heat.]