Joenar
wasn’t exactly happy to find out that I ended up on another principal instead
of going directly to Vladimir Reyes. The problem here is that the
miscommunication that happened between me and the security guard ended up me
going to the recruitment office rather than directly to the 2nd floor office.
By the time I realize something was going wrong , the CPO principal operations
manager already got his hands on my paper and I could no longer pull it out and
give it to Vladimir Reyes. Anyway I'm partly to blame on that part and had no
excuses on it.
As soon as
I handed over my papers to the CPO Operations Manager , I was immediately put
to the CPO crewing manager and had been given a task to clear the medical exam
A.S.A.P. , On the same day , I spent the time searching for the location of
this so called "CLINICOMED" clinic somewhere in malate area Manila.
The only clue I got was that the rough sketch of the place, that it was near
"aristocrats" restaurant , Malate Church and Malate high school. Took
me sometime to finally locate it and saw that it was on the same building as
"BAHIA" shipping agency is. Unfortunately on my search I had to walk
starting from T.M. Kalaw all the way to Quirino Area to search the clinic.
The
following day , I made the usual preparations like any other medical related
exam I had before like prepare my previous chest x-ray plates, go on fasting
etc. Unfortunately for me I wasn’t able to get a stool sample. I took the LRTA
-2 train in the morning and rode a jeep going to T.M. Kalaw street, after that
I walked all the way to the location of the clinic
I entered
"CLINICOMED" on the third floor , The place was decent and not that
all hectic compared to previous medical clinics I had been before, and the best
part of it was that they had a free Wi-Fi for their patients which made the
waiting time for me to be nonexistent. Going to the registration area was not a
problem and the staff was courteous and friendly, I did have a minor problem on
the "mug shot" part in the registration given that my name was very
long and had to squeeze writing it to the small whiteboard plaque.
Basically
when I looked on the med test that I would go thru , I saw that ECG and
Ultrasound diagnostic was not part of the PEME. Good for me in the sense that
they won't detect any heart problems for me in case I have a minor electrolyte
imbalance (i.e. Dehydration). The test was plainly the basics. On the exam ,
the thing I have to worry about is the X-ray part here. Apparently since the
PEME is based on the MCA-UK kind of exam ,Meaning only x-rays 1 year and up
will be recognized as for comparison and as for me, good thing for me I had
around both my 2012 chest x-ray plate and march 2015 plates, that can be used
for comparison. For the dental , I asked the dentist directly if there was any
problem at all on my teeth , he gave me a direct answer that there is nothing
to worried about.
The
following day , I went back to CLINICOMED to check if there was any problems
during my medical exam - plus I also have to recover the important chest X-Ray
plates and submit my stool sample (poop sample). On the reception, the
receptionist told me to see a doctor for the medical results. Upon entering and
letting the doctor read my medical , she said that I have pending medical
exams, namely Urinalysis needs to be repeated because trace amounts of
"albumin" , I.Q. Test results was low and lastly is submission of
poop sample to the laboratory. The latter was very easy and just submitted my
poop to the lab, The I.Q. test was moderate and just plainly copy the answers
on the master sheet and I'm all set. The
repeat urinalysis took me sometime to clear because I found out that retaking
that exam cost 150 PHP
When the
first I heard that retaking has a cost , Immediately went to the cashier and
asked how much would it cost. She said it will cost me another 150 PHP on my
wallet, being informed I immediately grabbed my wallet and checked my pocket to
check if I had some money left for it. Incidentally I had exactly the money
needed - not a peso less and not a peso more . However if I did paid the retake
of the exam , it would mean for me that I have to walk all the way from malate
church to marikina sta elena, as it will leave me penniless literary. I
immediately sent an SMS to my sister to advise me on the situation and ask help
as well. Her reply on the SMS was this , Proceed to use my money to retake the
urinalysis exam and she will send me 200 PHP via money transfer by noon to
cover my expenses. I took the urinalysis exam and waited until 1pm for the test
results. Passing that means that there are no more pending sections on my PEME
and that I'm already "fit to work" category. According to my sister
passing the urinalysis means I have to piss first then drinks (or more like
drown) lots of water before taking again the urinalysis.
Aside from
that , I also recovered my chest x ray plate from CLINICOMED
At about 11
am , I received an SMS that from my sister that she had wired transfer the reserve money I needed. I had simply had
to find the nearest wire transfer money store (like western union) to collect
the money. After 30 mins I had got the money and had to wait until
Upon
success , I went to CF Sharp office to report for the contract signing and
general info about the allotment forms, From what learned CF Sharp provide
three allottee slots for the sailors relatives and their salary / payroll
system is electronic based and relays heavily on Debit / visa cards. To put it
simply - they rarely hand out money onboard the ships and sailors have to check
their money via nearest ATM once they reach shore (implying that shore leave is
essential to keep the money checked). I asked the crewing manager on why this
is the case, he said that there was an incident involving piracy and to avoid
the crew from getting robe (at least in the physical way) they devised the
money to be in electronic form e.i. in ATM / Debit Cards. Anyway Aside from two
allottement ATM's I have to open, The crewing assistant also said that I'm
required to open a DOLLAR account for this in BDO bank to which my salary will
be put there once I'm inside the ship. According to what I heard the minimum
maintaining balance of the BDO dollar account is 100 U.S. dollars. Obviously I
don’t have a hundred dollars right now and the management said that I could get
a cash advance to lend me the money to open up that account.
On the
Office booth, it was kind of the management to let me have a cash advance of
about 200 U.S.D. and I took the offer because of two reasons. One is of course
to open a U.S. Dollar account for payroll uses , the second reason was that I
need the money to patch up for the expired documents I had which is PSCRB (now
will be patched to be rPSCRB). Aside from the discussion about rPSCRB and BDO
bank forms , another thing that was discussed was that I had to renew my
Schengen visa (European visa and It's imperative to renew this A.S.A.P
according to the crewing assistant) , Get a schedule for their in-house which
is anti-piracy and PDOS and Some minor documents I had to get like NBI
certificate and Phil- health.
For now my
next objective is to get a Netherlands Schengen Visa , on eco plaza makati
city.
BDO ATM /
DEBIT CARD Terms and Conditions pictures I took in CF sharp (FOR PUBLIC
KNOWLEDGE)
