Memoirs Of A Filipino Sailor: TRAINING DAY

My enrollment kit , basically a polo shirt, a piece of enrollment paper and a book (or manual)

STCW 2010 implementation is really making things worse, for Filipino sailors. Much worse is that for a typical sailor , all of his / her expensive training seminars will be totally nullified by the year 2016 and he / she will start from scratch again . This will be my situation a year after now. In the meantime , things are starting to get dire for me on the money. As predicted my reserve are near depletion and will be borrowing money soon.

Since I'm already low on the money, I went ahead in enrolling a BTOC course in PNTC and used up my remain 10k to enrol on the important short course, when I got there I found out that PNTC now offers package prices for their short course on ship tankers.

Taking GTF (now BTOCT) short course maybe exciting to take for new sailors, and college students , but for veteran sailors such as myself, this is only a waste of time, money and effort. In the first place I shouldn’t be taking this course anymore, In the old days before STCW 2010 Manila conventions - sailors only get to take this seminars once only in his / her lifetime career provided that he / she sails once every 5 years. Now a days new regulations implemented is counterproductive in a sailors career and M.A.R.I.N.A is making it worst each time they make a new rule, such for example on this training seminars. New rules now say that each sailor must take these seminar once in every 5 years ( a big disadvantage financially if a sailor has taken tons of these seminars) , and these seminar certificates are now expendable - having only a validity of 5 years each whether or not it was used for work.

Going back BTOCT seminar is a big joke , and I can't imagine spending again another 5k plus after 5 years taking this seminar nor even taking this now even if I shouldn't. Anyway I was back in the same old class room lecture starting on the 28th of January and was out in Tanza Cavite for the practical test on February 3rd.

There isn't really anything new about the new BTOCT seminar when it comes on the lecture part , basically it's just a carbon copy of the previous course it replaced ( GTF ) . Even the lectures and so called "modules" are still the same. All the way down even on the fire fighting lectures and practical exam.

Anyway Temporarily I'm forced to wake up early and get my ass out in bed for a couple of days and already readied my alarm clock so I won't skip out class. On the first day was pretty much boring . I saw my former instructor there Mr. John B. Harn from STCT and STOT class (way back 2008) , and glad to see that he was still in business. Unfortunately Mr. Harn couldn't recognize me at all probably because it's been a long time since I got back again for tanker ship classes . During break time on the first day I saw one of my former co-workers back in STOLT strength ship. Engine cadet Bonghanoy (now 3rd engineer) . We discussed a few things , apparently from what I learned he also left sea cap shipping company on the very same reason as I had. He was simply dissatisfied on how he was treated by the people there and now he's resides and has been there ever since in STATUS shipping company after his exile .

Me and "Bonghanoy" share the same sentiments against our former employers who mistreated us. We discussed a lot of things mostly on the ill treatment we received.

The following day.

Same old routine that I had to wake up early, good thing I had prepared the alarm clock as a safety measure in waking up. On the second day was a pretty boring seminar as well. The only thing that changed the pace was that I got caught sleeping in class, good thing that Mr. Harn didn’t yell at me.

The next day was basically much the same as it did the last time , Pretty boring. Though we got to go to the PNTC clinic for a so called "medical" which is basically just a big joke in terms of checking people if they're healthy or not,. Inside the class room . Mr. Harn took the time in selling some of his so called "extra" income which is basically selling some sort of Chinese aphrodisiac drug much like Viagra. Anyway nothing wrong with that, in fact I find Mr. Harn's advertisement entertaining like a home shopping network, however I find it doubting if ever this so called Chinese drug called "Toro" will ever be useful on the sexually dysfunctional guys.

On Saturday believe it or not , there is classes in PNTC and Mr. harn was again our instructor and made up an entertainment by letting us identify a diagram of an IGS system of a ship , Unfortunately for us trainees were just a bunch of grunts to even bother to know every part of the IGS system. So obviously we failed on identifying each part - much to Mr. Harns horror. Anyway Mr. Harn told us that there's a possibility that our classes with him will be just half day by Monday since he has a part time job as an assessor in marina - assuming that he will be our instructor on Monday , in the meantime he dismissed our class early on this day . At around 3:00 pm we trainees were already off class.

By Monday , as expected it was only half day class but before we left early. Mr. harn gave us some piece of paper , a memo to be specific about what equipment we should bring for our practical exam on tomorrow.

Coffee break during training

On our last written exam was a big joke as well , Since Mr. Harn was in a hurry he gave a 25 correct answers on the paper and said that we could just randomly select the other 25 remaining on the test paper, he didn’t even bothered to give us the questionnaire's , when asked he said "why bother ? 25 correct answers in the exam assures that the trainee has already passed , guessing the other 25 questions is only for the management to think that were not "exactly" cheating and adds randomness "

On our last day in the seminar training , were basically off to tanza cavite area , where a new PNTC college campus and training centre is currently being constructed. Before we got there in the site , all trainees woke up early and got in the training centre in intramuros at around 4am just to catch the free bus ride to the TANZA campus.

So what can I say in TANZA campus ? , well basically it was already operational but still in construction phase and we could still see a lot of construction materials littering the area, probably PNTC will have the campus completed in this years end. On the training ground , we were just basically rehearsing a fire drill all morning and get to wear a fireman's out. I secretly recorded what we were doing via a digital camera since for some reason , there's a no camera policy around the campus. Id post it here

During the practical , i had a hard time looking directly to the instructor as he's mouth is apparently foaming from all the talking as much as possible i literary keep my head down.

TANZA CAVITE site pictures