INQUIRER Sports

FIVE FORTY was the one of the first stores in the country to sell “hardware” – that’s surfspeak for equipment primarily surfboards. It was put up by California-born Lui Tortuya, whose father was originally from Aklan.

Located in Katipunan in Quezon City, Lui put up the store in 2005 and since then, he has been based in Manila. He also founded the Manila Surfers Association, which heralded the growth of the local surfing community.

“We started doing customized surfboards for people. Back then, there wasn’t a lot of people into it yet and we’ll get like four or five orders in a month and sell them,” he said.

The store has evolved from selling hardware such as surfboards and now likewise sells “software” products, from boardshorts to backpacks to Havaianas.

Tortuya has surfing since he was 13 years old and surfed competitively in his native California as part of the UCLA team. Locally, he also competed in several events and likewise helped organized surfing events.

He further shares his thoughts on the growth of surfing locally and shares his favorite surf spots in the country.

How would you describe the growth of surfing in the country?

When I started surfing here around 2,000, there wasn’t really a lot going on back then. You can go into the water with ten people and that was a lot already.

It really started in 2003, we started seeing 30 to 40 people in different surf spots and it’s been growing eversince. Aloha Board Sports brought its boards here and that made it a lot accessible to the regular surfer and people who would want to surf. With the introduction of like a thousand boards here, the market skyrocketed and there have been a lot of surfers since.

It’s grown a lot. You go to any of the popular surf spots and at any given time you’ll see a hundred people on the beach. Not a lot of them though go into the water; some of them just go there for the weekend.

You got to understand that surfing as an industry – be that in clothing, equipment and tourism – is a ten billion dollar industry in the US. Here in the Philippines, we haven’t even started so there’s a lot more room for growth.

What are your top three surf spots in the Philippines?

There are several factors that go into it. If I want to go for the weekend, relax, be social or hang out and drink the whole night, I would go to either La Union or Siargao.

But if I want to go away where there are not so much people yet the waves are good for surfing, there are some places that you can go to.

Zambales is good for beginners because the waves tend to be small and there’s not a lot of people. If you want to go somewhere that’s beautiful, aesthetic-wise, the trees are green and the water is really clean, Baler is the place to be.

What’s good is that in all those places I mentioned, you can always rent a surfboard.