HERALD OF FORCE MAJEURE

actual closure order of PMI way back in 2011 

For sailors up to now, it is still a big puzzle on how we are going to end up later on our career. I haven't thought of it exactly on how will I end up after this "Sailing" and haven't laid out exact plans on what to do on my retirement, Honestly it's still  30 plus years early for me to think of such a thing but who knows ? Maybe retirement for me might come sooner than expected.

Although I don’t publicly speak about it nor admit it directly to my relatives,  I might plan to take another college course and most likely it will be in the medical field - YES believe it or not it - I will be in the medical field. I'm not setting my eyes to be at least a specialist medical doctor. I'm not exactly sure on how long it will take me to reach that goal but maybe I do have enough life span to reach that kind of objective. At the back of my mind I somehow think that being a sailor is not exactly worth it nor even enough to sacrifice the rest of my life doing that job, it's just that I still wanted to be the same person and enjoying every freedom I have in the Philippines. I wanted to be at least broke free from the cycled of an pinoy OFW seaman and live a normal life the way it should be.

Anyway for the time being I don’t really have that options and will still be stuck being a sailor in years to come.

On the following days that I had been in silence, I had been busy on a couple of non-essential stuff and even juggling on my remaining financial money left. It's not easy having no income in the Philippines but somehow I'm comfortable and relieved that I had my freedom here - at least even for a short amount of time .

A couple of days went by and I was busy just reading and surfing the internet. One of the post in a Face book group caught my attention about the still open debate (and issue) of whether or not my alumni school is still open for business. Well technically they still are, but rumours keep spreading about the government recognition has been withdrawn and people associated with them (including me) are left wondering if they are still legit.

One such Face book group I had visit tells that indeed PMI Manila and PMI Qc are missing on the "Accredited" list and even showed to me a document. Confused I did a few background search and looked on the website of M.A.R.I.N.A. to verify such claims , one document I came out showed that the 2013 recent evaluation never showed anything about PMI Manila and PMI Qc being accredited at all except on the last part of the page that tells "FOR PHASE OUT ORDER" . I was horrified seeing the last page and to clarify what I saw I posted out as an inquiry on the social media in every Filipino sailor themed face book group on my profile about what they think about this document and that’s when all hell broke loose in social media.

A day passed and when I logged back , I saw Engineer Nelson Ramirez having a heated discussion with some PMI zealot. I'm not exactly sure on how Mr Ramirez got drag in all of this on the simple inquiry I made days ago but it was evident that the topic was threading and enough to get the attention of the PMI Management (I visited the official PMI face book page ).

On the PMI's side , posted that there is nothing to worry about and that this is just an "old wives tale" and that the topic has already been settled with on the court.  When I browsed back I saw Mr Ramirez posted the latest list of Accredited list of qualified schools in the Philippines (which directly came from MARINA itself as of February 23 2015) on the face book group and what I saw on the papers was a crushing blow to anyone associated with PMI and perhaps even the PMI management.  MARINA has made it official that only PMI Bohol is accredited , The new document never mentioned anything at all about PMI Manila and PMI Qc but it is implied that if it's not included in the list the school is not legit anymore  (in PMI's case - well not anymore).

PMI Management hasn't made any comment so far in this, on the fact that this material was released near midnight. I bet that PMI Management will not let this issue slid by once word of this reaches them and I assume that it will zero in on Mr. Nelson Ramirez.

After careful thought, I decided to tear down any post i had made to any face books groups i had made, I admit this is very damaging to my alumni school, its enough for me that i had made my point, that's justice enough - and figured that its up to the people and the general public to know this knowledge themselves and let them decided what is best. Filipino sailors will refuse to acknowledge the facts until they saw it on their very own eyes, its up to them to know better. I'd keep my mouth shut and let M.A.R.I.N.A. speak for it and EMSA

I'm not saying people should believe me or even listen to me, Or even tell them to listen to my Alumni school . All i ask is for them is to listen for themselves and let them decided - nobody can tell the best judgement but only themselves.