Esqualine — The wonder drug

Catching a shark would take around 12 to 15 hours, if they were lucky to catch one… It was all worth the try for P30,000, which they could not earn from weeks of traditional fishing

Back in the days when I was an active young journalist, I went to Southern Leyte on a tourism research study. And I stumbled on a treasure of stories that perhaps deserved a National

Geographic article. Call it serendipity, the ability to “accidentally” stumble into magical experiences and fantastic people and places. Serendipity is a precious psychic gift which defies logic.

Although this happened about 30 years ago, to respect the privacy of people, I will not reveal names and places. I met this mayor (let us call him

Ricky) who was the object of my serendipity. He served me dried shark fin fried to a crisp with garlic fried rice for breakfast. The shark fin had this supreme taste beyond those I have tasted in my entire life. Mayor Ricky bought the dried shark fin from fishermen. I asked him to introduce me to the fisherman.

The Japanese bought only the liver of the shark, put it on ice, and gave away the entire shark to the fisherman, who was paid handsomely — P30,000, quite a fortune then.

Thus, I met Mang Isko, a lean mean marine veteran in his 50s. He told me that dolphins regularly passed through their fishing grounds, the strait between Southern Leyte and Limasawa, which was notorious for strong currents, squalls and sunken vessels. He told me about two fishermen on a pump boat whose motor conked out, stranded for hours. Dolphins approached and towed them to shore. I said the story was hard to believe. He simply smiled and told me more stories of such rescues, and told me to talk to the fishermen themselves. After talking to fisherfolk along the shore, I got the same story. An old man said the stories were legends from their ancestors from the deep ancient past.

Esqualine — The wonder drug

The Esqualine story started from a visit by a Japanese, who hired Mang Isko to hunt for a rare minishark, whose fin I had for breakfast. Somehow, he knew, from books perhaps, the shark thrived in the strait. After weeks of identifying where to fish, and weeks of trial and error, Mang Isko finally found the fishing spot. He developed a technique of low-tech deep-sea fishing for the elusive mini-shark.

The Japanese bought only the liver of the shark, put it on ice, and gave away the entire shark to the fisherman, who was paid handsomely — P30,000, quite a fortune then. And so, the Japanese came regularly to buy shark liver oil from the fishermen. And so, the Japanese became famous in the town of Mayor Ricky. He came regularly to buy shark liver oil from a handful of seasoned fishermen, whom Mang Isko trained, upon the advice of the Japanese.

Mayor Ricky interviewed the Japanese and found out about the liver oil processed in Tokyo into Esqualine, the wonder drug for the Japanese, a cure-all with a magic healing power. He had a plan to make and export the Esqualine himself. It was a certain rare species of a miniature shark, the adult size of which was about four feet long, from which Esqualine was derived. Mayor Ricky, the adventurous entrepreneur, invested on the expensive shark fishing to obtain the fish oil.

He developed a low-tech liver extraction process using slow heat from the sun and from ovens. He acquired gels from Manila for capsuling the oil. He succeeded to export his Esqualine, but after a while, the Japanese importers stopped buying. They said he had to remove the ‘fish smell’ in the capsule, which consumers did not like when they burped. Finally, Mayor Ricky gave up because extracting the smell out was a highly technical chemical process which involved rare expensive imported reagents. Nice try, Mayor, but no go.

Low-tech deep-sea fishing for shark

The ingenious technique developed by Mang Isko to fish for the mini-shark was a story in itself. He had a long line, which took three hours to reach the bottom of the sea, even with a heavy sinker. The line branched into about five to seven hooks. It would take the shark hours to take the bait. The fishermen would take them more than three hours to bring up the heavy shark. Catching a shark would take around 12 to 15 hours, if they were lucky to catch one. There were days when they caught nothing. It was all worth the try for P30,000, which they could not earn from weeks of traditional fishing.

I never met the Japanese. He, Mayor Ricky, and Mang Isko were three real characters from real life that I stumbled on and never forgot. I wrote this story from memory, with no notes, no photos, that happened about 30 years ago. One never forgets such magical stories drawn from serendipity.

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