DESPATCH DATE

Earlier it was thought that actual departure for the airport will be sometime next week - but Cf Sharp company informed that it will be by Monday , two days earlier. I guess i have to go to all the way on this one because of unfortunately events, and being paid 30 percent less from my previous employer for the whole 10 months is no smiling factor for me. Anyway I had already said it a thousand times by now that the only reason why i joined Cf Sharp was the fact CPO principal made me join on the promise that my pay rate would be relatively unchanged from NSB , little that did I knew that it was all a ruse to pin me down and strap me on their ugliest paying principal yet.

 

Anyway it's all past  now and that I'm more concerned now in finishing my 9 month long (plus and minus one month)lame contract. - after this , I'd get the fuck out of here as far away as possible. Migration to another company won't be a problem after I get out of here, since my US Visa is still valid up until 2018 - as long as that remains intact , I'd be fine as daisy

 

For now , I had to report back to CF Sharp and get the details . I made a mistake earlier about giving my real mailing address on my medi card and turns out that there's a possibility that the new company I'm hanging out will get discovered because of this. So I had to go back all the way to the third floor for it to change my mailing address. To my dismay,  "MAYA" was very unhelpful and annoying on the simple objective of changing the mailing address for my medical card so it won't land on my real one. What a total idiotic retard !, its either she's making lame excuses to skip work or that idiot is too lazy for a simple task. Now I had to go to "Roxanne" of NCL to change the mailing address for the card. Pathetic ! "i-don’t - have - authorization - my - ASS !!!

 

There's also another news about the oiler who recently backed out before the despatch a couple of days ago. Rumours of course say that he backed out because of diabetes but actually in reality he backed out because he felt it was unfair on his terms especially in the salary given here. Actually I myself would have done the same months ago, if it weren't for that shitty deception on the cash advance part. Just to set the record straight for the Oiler who backed out, he quitted because he felt he was being paid less , not because of his newly discovered sickness

 

Anyway Its typical that sometimes facts get twisted by rumours.

 

Going back earlier…

 

The earlier report on Friday turned out to be nothing more than just a waste of time, at first i thought it was already a despatch date, I was anxious on the fact that they will now give back my papers along with the plane tickets for the trip and it will save me a lot of trouble plus extra time to prepare for the whole two days - worry free. Disappointingly turns out that it was nothing more than just a pointless briefing and gum flapping, nothing solid - only just telling us about northstar is making a gamble in hiring Filipino and that we should "put our best foot" forward for the good of the company , blah blah. Yeah whatever ! Good for them in the sense that more job opening means more of salary cuts profits from their sailors, but if you ask on the perspective of a sailor - the words of encouragement is less or no appeal at all, because of the low salary cap and to add more of the disappointment is the conditions that were told to us. Old obsolete ship going back 1996, the overtime pay is fixed, the ship GRT is large but the pay is low, contracts are very long which last to 9 months. Etc. all the details that would make a sailor frown, plus it was misleading on what the details the recruitment manager told us two months ago. Fuck even the allotment details is sketchy and unspecific, they're not exactly giving straight answers on what specific date of the month will it be released for our relatives here. Those idiots simply told us to make a rough estimate from the last week of the month to all the way to the first week of the month, which Doesn’t exactly help at all on making us guess on which of the 14 days was it exactly released. Thanks a lot for them for being so unhelpful. Dicks !!!

 

Aside from the disgusting details , the despatch date told to us was the same date on the flight, meaning its on Monday both. So to picture it was that the CF Management is so concerned fondling the balls of the principal that they couldn’t care less to the comfort of sailors. So basically from what i heard they wanted us to haul off our ass all the way from our point of address then go to intramurous wait for a couple of there and get our papers , then go again to the airport and wait again for the boarding time. Which from what i understood is that CF Sharp wanted us to wait for the plane on the airport for roughly ten hours. Talk about shitty aggressiveness !!!

 

Anyway we were dismissed on the briefing at around 5pm with nothing significant achieved. So i have to thank CF Sharp for basically wasting my time for nothing, they certainly know how to tick their sailors off. When i was in Career Ship Management, they were always in a hurry but their despatch was brief and straight to the point. Certainly not a time waster.

 

SOURCE OF MY MISERY

So much for the doctor on Manila Doctors Hospital which basically just ripped off 600 PHP on my wallet for a simple paper clearance. Now I just recently learned from the Oiler that Cf Sharp didn’t even get to bother contacting me when some of the crew had already signed up with their contracts which happened just Monday. If it weren't for the info I learned on the Oiler , I wouldn’t have went to the Cf Sharp Office at all and fixed some of the pending issues I have on my paper.

 

Anyway I got there as soon as I can after fixing up the pending issue about the pulmonary clearance in Manila Doctors Hospital and getting the Cholera vaccine from FMT. It’s a good thing I went there and sorted out some info that was placed on my 201 file data in Cf Sharp and catch up on the paper works. Personally I'm not enthusiastic at all on the details of my contract that was offered, as a matter of fact from my understanding the contract offered to me was just basically a revamped version of a CSM contract and frankly I couldn't recommend it at all, anyway as if I had any other choice from the start ?!

 

Thankfully I was able to catch back some objectives and will be able to finish all the objectives in a day or two. 

 

One thing I have noticed from my future to be co-workers is that some of them at this early stage is having doubts about the whole contract at this early stage. In fact the oiler whom I mentioned earlier backed out on the last minute and said an excuse "that he's diabetic" even though I even read his medical report that he's not. For me it's good for him that he backed out when there's still time and there's nothing binding him here on this shitty company, I would have done the same month's earlier if it weren't for that accursed "cash advance" that left me stuck here. Probably I'm surmising that my co-workers too are suspicious about the terms of the contract and find it unfair or least to their liking.

 

Whatever the case on my part, it's only a first and last contract here

 

Aside from that , there's also some form that are given to me that i needed to sign up. Nothing interesting only on the form about the social media thing, which basically tell that posting anything that is negative about the company is prohibited and will have serious consequences on employment. they encourage social media to crew if they post only positive and only publish truthful facts (actually truthful facts based on their narrow minded bias views ) .  In other words no bullshit facts about the company, only asshole liking propaganda for their personal gain. They reasoned that social media is a public site and could damage the company reputation because of it

 

Frankly this doesn't look good for me given that I had a blog and regularly update it, and suppression of freedom to write doesn't suit my ideology - basically for me it violates my civil liberties. Call centre company called TRANSCOM tried to suppress my freedom and blogs way back 2013 , they even tried as far as shutting down my blog via reporting it to Google and yet despite all they techy skill poured into it , my blog is still operational up to now and running. The real picture here is that companies (both seabased and landbased) have the guts to be a real dick and piss off every employee and yet don’t have the balls to face the consequence of people telling to the public that their employment standards are shitty. It’s a good thing that I live in the Philippines and there is no such thing technically that stops people from posting anything they want , either be it a praise or an insult.

 

Anyway in relation to this, I would take steps in carefully publishing my posts on my blog and would creatively abbreviate details. It's a simple step but will greatly reduce and even delay the chance of discovery of my blog, actually even if I post all the details , there is no such thing as "cyber libel" and that kind of lawsuit here. The only harshest thing they could give is fire me from the job and nothing more.





this is the source of my misery from the start on why i got trapped on cf sharp in the first place and my salary was downgraded and given a shitty pay. sailor should be careful on this part

a

 

FIRST MEDICAL TEAM

The only thing good about this repeat of pre-employment medical is the fact that I had to get some answers fully about this so called northstar crew management. For now this is the info I got from talking to some folks on the same situation.
 
1. North star principal here in CF Sharp is unheard of, In fact nobody exactly knows about it - not even the security guards. From what I heard the staff who actually handles this is "Roxanne" from NCL (Norwegian cruise line principal).
2. North Star Principal here is only composed of two ships, the second ship is the one I'm supposedly be joining this May.
3. Crew deployment will be sometime this May , from what I heard on the oiler - there about 12 crew members who will join this ship , including myself
4. Name of the ship is "Eagle Boston"
5. Roughly the ship is rumored to be around 30k to 50k GRT
6. Contracts is as far as 9 months
7. Contract and salary offers is almost the shitty same as CSM , with only a few minor cosmetic changes
8. Ship is rumored to be as old as 1996 , which I think is 20 years old by now.
 
Beyond that anything else I knew about "Northstar" is just blank as unused toilet paper.
 
On news about the medical clinic , Well it looks like FMT ( First Medical Team Multi Specialty Diagnostic Center International Medical Services )is just like any other fucked up D.O.H. / M.A.R.I.N.A. approved money robbing medical clinics - the only difference to them is that they don’t rip-off directly from their patients by making them retake (and pay) the diagnostic med test that they flunked, but instead directly refer them to hospital or unethical doctors. Whether it’s a simple urinalysis issues, or past resolved x-ray thing like Tuberculosis, whatever - as far as I know F.M.T(its) will make it a big shit out of it and will obviously profit from it.
 
In my case , during the PEME. I had declared earlier on the medical form that I had a history of tuberculosis way back in 2008 and was cured, I even have my comparison Chest X-ray plates for them to look at. Eventually all of my PEME exams checked out even on the urinalysis but since F.M.tits loves to find dirt and for the sake of scamming their patients , they decided that my previous medical predicament years back , which I declared on the form was worth every buck to extort. Even if my radiological medical report says that my PTB fibrosis (tuberculosis scar tissue on my left lung) is stable since Sept 7, 2012 (date of the chest x ray film) which meant clear.
 
So here's the overall thing , they said that I had to look for this certain private doctor from Manila Doctors Hospital to get a "clearance" which I knew eventually will charge me for something. Whether it’s a consultation fee or another more annoying diagnostic exam. In the meantime there is nothing much I can do since I don’t have the money on my wallet at the moment.
 
In other news
 
Had received a newsletter from Microsoft , informing its cloud storage Onedrive will be reducing its storage capacity. According to the email my online storage from 30 GB will be drastically reduced to only 5 GB, although this is not a problem for my official accounts - it’s a problem for my other accounts which hold confidential files amounting to almost 10 GB, so I'm left on two options  - its either I reduce the content on my "other" Onedrive storage or store the files elsewhere like "Box" (www.box.com) which shows promising results for online cloud storage.
 
In relation to this another problem I had to resolve in transferring those files is the unstable slow internet connection which apparently has serious problems here in the  Philippines, (as everyone know here that the Philippines is one of the slowest and most expensive in Asia), moving a 10 GB data to an online cloud storage in the Philippines is like NASA planning an expedition to the moon. So moving data using Smart Communications here (one of the largest telco's ) has a shitty internet connection. More shittier on their so called new internet plans called "Maxisurf" and "flexisurf" , One is based on 800Mb Data Bandwidth offer and the other is based on 7 hour Time Data offer. Bottom line here is that it will be difficult fixing my situation on the "other" files I had. 

CHANGE OF WRITING STYLE

 

Finally after a few months of changing and finding a decent barber, somebody got the hairstyle I really wanted, well probably most barbers around the neighborhood don’t have any idea on what shit I'm talking about when it comes to hairstyle and resulted to me being stuck for several months in a retard look. Good thing for me I finally found one who can fix me up and make me look hot again.

 

Aside from getting an appropriate hairdo, I might be also changing my style of writing from now on and will be adding humour and sarcasm (plus language related issues) on my blog , just like what I did during my call center years - probably I figured that life in the maritime community is all too serious - and that I should learn to smile and insult a little. besides If I took it more seriously id have more wrinkles in face than in my testicles before I reach 40. Probably writing is an acquired talent I got during my early years in college, plus combined with my proficiency in English language and there I go Viola !! A foul mouthed anti-hero blogger is born.    

 

Anyway there isn't much news lately on what's going on around CF Sharp , the only thing I knew about those bitches is that they're going to call me at some time around third week of May for any word. Hopefully for my sake they should keep it , otherwise their 75 year history is nothing more than just testicle fondling on their photocopy advertisements meant for idiotic sailors, and I had been really stupid enough to fall for it. Now that national elections is over (which is a holiday), I can pay them a little visit and see on what they're cooking up.

 

I'm taking in my little sisters advice, just for the sake of keep my thoughts in peace and not to freak out a lot from imagining that CF Sharp is ripping me off.

 

The following day , I did visit them - actually I was just submitting the remaining documents that I had finished up so that in case they would call me I could easily drag my ass from home, all the way to their office. Once that I had passed my papers to the recruitment office , it took them only a couple of hours for them  to shake me up on my phone. Well the phone message said to me was both good and bad, Good that they had finally decided to call me and I had been waiting for nearly two months - bad on the part that I have to take another PEME yet again (premedical employment exam) which meant that I had to be poked , zapped and walk butt naked again on a medical clinic. I'm haven't heard clearly on the phone on what's the name of the clinic, and by luck I should think that I won't encounter the shitty medical clinics that were mentioned on various Face book websites like for example super cash errr I meant super care. 

 

Now the part that my brain is figuring out is why the fuck , is north star not recognizing my previous PEME in CPO ??? , I had already went to the crappy trouble of dragging my ass and passing it with the skin of my teeth just to get there and now I'm going to another trouble yet again on the medical , just like a new employee - totally troublesome and such a total dick policy for that principal. Seriously if my balls wasn’t just caught in the binding agreement on returning the money I borrowed from CPO , I would have been ignoring this shitty company by now and giving them a big ugly fuck you sign.

 

I thank my lucky stars that the effects wasn’t permanent and it's only a one contract setback , maximum. Once I've finished with that crappy contract (and company) , I'm done and free again.

 

Lately during the end of the day , while just browsing on my local twitter and face book account using my android phone. My face book account suddenly crashed or so I thought , earlier I thought it the snail pace internet Wi-Fi connection of the mall was the cause since it’s a public Wi-Fi . Then later it hit my skull that somebody might have the balls that backstabbed me and had my account suspended - since I'm trying to repeatedly access my FB account with all of it ending that Facebook demands a sort of security details for identification.

 

For a couple of hours , I wondered and think on who the fuck could have done it ? This is the first time that it has happened on my account ever ! And its highly likely that someone out there wants me to be put out of business in Facebook.

Anyway love it to disappoint them that it takes more than that to bring me down in Facebook and I'm able to clean up the shit that was thrown in my direction.

 

 

CF SHARP PREDICAMENT

 
If I had known sooner that I'd be In this predicament , I wouldn't have applied at all in CF Sharp in the first place, knowing that this company sucks. Now not only am I stuck and cannot pull out my papers and look for a job on another company , now as of the moment they are putting  me on hold with no guarantees of employment at all, they told me to wait for the whole month of May this time. Now where's the sense of justice on that eh ??!
 
Waiting for a whole month ? What the fuck !!! I'm not in the mood to wait for that long, given that they haven't even given me any assurance of employment in the first place - I haven't signed any contracts with them , nor even given me the details of the new bank for the payroll, so basically the only thing I have or their giving me is they're word (which is highly doubtful given on what they put me thru).  It excruciating for me in this situation to be "boxed" and powerless on what ugly offers they throw at me and had me waiting for almost two months now. It only shows here that in the maritime community in the Philippines that even established companies have their way of scheming and conning people, and what's more is that its more organized and legal (and lethal althoughter).
 
On this situation , I have made a few errors on my tactics.
 
1. Shouldn't have left Career Ship Management altogether knowing that this company has stability when it comes to employment and instead have opted to "Plan C" . Which meant to wait things out until the company have sorted itself out, Instead of looking for a job on a different Shipping Company. I should have chosen to look for work on a land based job , specifically in the call center, after all I haven't been in that environment in a while and wouldn't hurt if I paid a little visit on the BPO.
2. Second Work Tactic error I had made is that I shouldn't have left and surrendered my papers in CF Sharp that easily, Unknowingly that they have some sort of scheme. Obviously that I was not aware and took it all in good fate, and this is how I ended up with , stuck and trapped on a job offer that truly sucks
3. Should have think twice when they said something about a perk called "cash advance". As much as possible I should have avoided this perk .
4. Signing up a contract and even doing a medical PEME doesn't guarantee employment, It may lead a person to believe that it will be the case but remember that on the latter part,  the contract can still be changed and swapped to a much more lesser job offer. 
 
On the bright side, It Showed a few good results on this situation.
 
1. A "sponsor" (backer) is no longer needed now when I look for a job as a sailor, in the old days during my deck cadet years or even post deck cadet, a backer is mandatory on my employment tactics. (Two factors that affected this was I already had a working experience and that my U.S. Visa is still functional till April 2018)
2. Having to change companies means me having truly free of "influences" and making me do things I really want. Unfortunately it has a downside , Those "influences" are responsible for protecting me on my previous work, and without it basically , I'm vulnerable to any schemes and plot a shipping company has against me.
 
My younger sister tells me to play it cool and wait for a month before I do any plans or at least given them a month as what they say. After all one month is reasonable enough. Beyond that she says , I'm free to take any action that I see fit.

NEW SITE FOR MARINA COP

 

 

Wasn't exactly in the mood to do anything after the disheartening news. I'm not even on the mood to get an NBI certificate, - but I need to get one today as I already put in on the online appointment ahead. The biggest and most hassle of all was online payment system which you have to pay on some collection company and show them first the printout of the appointment. Have no idea why government agencies opt to this kind of system but this was the most hassle part in getting an NBI clearance. Incidentally on that day the NBI server was down and I had to wait until noon for me to make the payment.

 

Once the payment has been made , everything was straightforward and took me only at least 35 minutes for the long line - after that I got my NBI clearance.

 

A few days later …..

 

Recently there has been a new site to get COP documents in Marina, before it was just only the main building in T.M. Kalaw. The new site as what I saw in the MARINA official website was inside the walled intramuros compound, inside AMOSUP Building. I researched more info on some Facebook groups and said that getting COP documents there would be less hassle that it was in T.M. Kalaw. So I tried it out and set an online appointment, hopeful that a hassle free document process will take place. Thankfully they were right and did not fail my expectation.

 

My schedule which I fed to the MARINA website is on April 26, 2016 at around 4pm in the afternoon. I arrived earlier at around 11am given that I had to get some documents from my employer ,specifically my old BT COP certificate and photocopied it. Location of the building according to the address was the new AMOSUP building which is just across the street, the very same building on which if I recall is WES located (walk in exam schedule i.e. licensure exams ). The third floor is were MARINA COP satellite office is located.

 

Basically the MARINA COP satellite office is less crowded that its Main office counterpart, roughly on my estimate there are only less than 30 people on the floor compared to the main office which has about hundreds if not thousands of people in the waiting line alone and have to wait in line as early as 2am in the morning. Hopefully MARINA COP Satellite office shows the best of what this government agency has to offer. Aircon, wide and spacious floor space, chairs for the people who wait on the long line, and best of all features is the same day processing which I got my rPSCRB COP in exactly just an hour.

 

For the people reading this. MARINA Satellite office has four steps in getting the COP certificate.

 

Step 1 , Basically just approach the counter and show the printout of the online application form. The bloke here just tells me to write my name and sign on the logbook.

 

Step 2. Evaluator, show the appropriate documents needed for the COP . Different types of paper documents for different types of COP. On my case here is the documents I showed for the rPSCRB COP

 

Proficiency in Survival Craft and Rescue Boat (PSCRB)

1. Certified True Copy of Training Completion and Records of Assessment (TCROA) in PSCRB , Original Documents. On my case it was an just an email printout form given to me by PMMA training center.

2. Certified True Copy of Enrollment Report. Translation - original enrollment slip you filled up in the training center which you enrolled for the training . Basically number 1 and 2 are the same and inter-changeable. 

3. rPSCRB Training Certificate, Both original and Photocopy 

4. Certificate of Sea service with company dry seal (in MARINA prescribed form). Can be get from the previous shipping or current company. 

5. Basic Safety Training/Basic Training COP , Both original and photocopy of the certificate

6. Seafarers Identification Record Book (SIRB), Photocopy the first page and all the pages that has a Stamp.

7.Old PSCRB COP Certificate . ORIGINAL ONLY

8.Long Brown envelope. Protip: write your name on the back of the envelope so that MARINA cant resell it to the poor Filipino sailors who are languishing for COP at the main MARINA Office in T.M. Kalaw.

 

If a sailor is REALLY IN A HURRY, Bring these extra documents to convince MARINA. (Thankfully I'm not. )

1. Letter request

2. Certified True Copy of Valid Overseas and Employment Certificate

3. Certified True Copy of Employment Contract

4. Certified True Copy of Air Ticket/Flight Details

 

Step 3. Payment. Self-explanatory just hand out the money , Based on my experience 200 Php is the price for a COP alone but there are miscellaneous like another 25 Php for the stamp and another 25 something or so on the picture (in the Old MARINA building) . Overall just prepared at least 300 Php to cover everything for a single COP.

 

Step 4. Releasing. - In the old days MARINA takes up to at least a week to release the COP certificate, and a sailor has to go thru all the horror in the waiting line again just to get it. Thankfully in MARINA Satellite office , they manage to cut down the waiting time to at least 700 percent and release the COP certificate 30 minutes after you applied for it (same day).  

SOMETHING ABOUT CF SHARP

 

"The rich rule over the poor, the borrower is slave to the lender (proverbs 22:7)"

 

 

While I was busy recently on obtaining the rPSCRB certificate in PMMA training center , I immediately received an SMS message coming from CF Sharp telling me to report A.S.A.P. , the nature of the message didn’t gave a clear reason why and they only said it was urgent. I didn’t report immediately after the said training due to the lateness of the message during that time.

 

On April 18, in the morning I received a call from CF Sharp again and said that I should report immediately in the afternoon , as expected the call did not mention any details why I should report. When I get there in the afternoon , the details were divulge that I was being transferred to another principal called "northstar crew management co. ltd" (which I suspect is a lower paying job) and that all perks that they gave me as being a member to CPO will be rescinded , including the "cash advance" perk worth 200 U.S. Dollars, which I used to open up a BDO dollar account (their requirement) and for personal expenses like updating my rPSCRB.  They reason out that I was being transferred on the fact that the guy whom I'm going to replace extended his contract and it left me being displaced.

 

Frankly I'm not sure if this reason is true or not , but after they said that , I already suspect that something is going on and that they're "trapping" a crew. fortunately for them I fell right in the middle of it. I can’t pull out my papers because I simply owe them money , for short I'm totally in the mercy of those debts and have to bow on their will. On the Tactical side this is good tactic for ship owners and shipping companies that they can "reel in" on the crew they badly wanted by simply using their best principal as a front to attract an unsuspecting applicant , then give him all the perks and freebie's to earn their trust and make them suspect less. Later at the last moment to thicken the plot , the unsuspecting crew gets back stabbed by being transferred into to the lowest paying principal they have on the company on the last minute, saying that there's no vacancy at the moment and to add more insult to injury, tells the unsuspected crew that they have to replace all the perks and freebie he took because the principal he will be transferring doesn’t cover that perk. The crew could run away from the company and pull out his / her papers from the terrible offer but being told to replace all the expenses makes it a stopping factor for the crew to run. 

 

Tagalog translation:

 

(in tagalog, ang sistema ng kumpanya para makakuha ng crew eh gawin front muna nila ang pinakamaganda nilang principal , at pag nakakuha na sila ng crew eh pakukunin nila ito ng maraming benefits katulad ng "cash advance" etc. para di maghinala, sa huli bigla nila sasabihin at idadahilan eh walang vacany at kailangan ka nila ilipat sa pinamababa at panget na principal nila para makasakay kaagad , syempre di nila sasabihin na ganun ang lilipatan na principal at pandaggdag na insulto pa sa isang yamot na applicante eh sasabhin din na kailgan niya palitan lahat ng ginastos sa kanya dahil hindi inoffer ng nilipatan nya yung ganun benepisyo. Pwedeng mag pull out and crew ng papeles nya pero ang mag pipigil sa kanya eh sinabi na papalitan lahat ng ginastos sa kanya kaya pilit sya na tanggapin ang panget na principal. Sa Totoo lang kung hindi lang ako may utang ng cash advance sa kanila eh aalis ako at kukun in ko ang papeles ko , at bahala na sila na humanap ng O.S. na papatol sa ganyan sahod)

 

Going back , I told them I don’t have 200 U.S. Dollars right now , and it may take a while for me to return it and said that they may have some sort of plan that they can recover the cost from me.  They said there is and they will have a sort of underground talk on how they will deduct it on my salary on my new principal, since they don’t have direct influence on other principals.

 

Wasn’t happy on what I was told and got bounced back to the recruitment department , the more that added to my dissatisfaction was that I learned that of this so called  "NorthStar Crew Managementment"  has an office address from Myanmar which I suspect is an Asian company that pays a low salary. On the discussion I hid my dissatisfaction and played along on their game. They say that they will be reassigning me on a brand new ship - yeah right ! I heard that before years back. Even if the ship is as brand new as it got out of the shipyard as what they claim to be - it doesn't mean that I won't do work or BOSUN will not wake me up in the middle of the night to rig a pilot ladder - the question here is how much is the company willing to pay me for work done as an O.S. To add more insult to injury,  When I was an O.S. in Career Ship Management, NSB principal they are paying me 1,268 U.S. Dollars all in all , now here In CF Sharp NorthStar principal - they are only offering 1,000 U.S. Dollars - and I suspect it could be even lower since Recruitment Managers intended to over exaggerate details just to get the attention of an applicant. What a totally insulting offer !!! And to make it over the top is that I have been put again on the waiting list and told me to wait for a month for any announcement !!! I mean what the fuck !!! The reason why I left career ship management in the first place was because I had been put on hold for the list for the past 6 months and now here in CF Sharpe , they are again going to put me on hold for an estimated month yet again !!!!!!! GOD DAMNIT !!!!

 

I left the office on that day in a terrible disgusted manner, thinking what will be my next move to counter this. I can't change company knowing that I can't replace the money I borrowed immediately. Possibly there is no way I could escape and will have to tag along with them for now until I settle my debts.

 

Honestly If I knew this would have happened , I could have gone to Maersk, UPL , TSM , ALSTER , or any other on my list that offers a much better pay and I would have not under in any circumstances availed on the cash advance perk. 

 

Speaking of which this so called "contract changing" scheme is also common on land based OFW's specifically land base work in the middle east (to be more specific Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) where OFW sign up on the contract and to their dismay, to find out later when they arrive in KSA their previous contracts will be cancelled and be switched for a new contract which offers a lower pay.

 

Here in the Sea based job, it’s a different version but still the same , Only done in the Philippines and not on another country. Talk about exploitation !!

PMMA TRAINING CENTER

PDOS is obvious a seminar for any OFW's , both land based and sea based kind. Basically this seminar is not a big deal and if were not a requirement to get past airport security in NAIA , I wouldn't take this at all. In any case , PDOS basically is a seminar which tells the Do's and DON'Ts of travel - yes it's more like a travel guide stating what not to bring and how to act like don’t tell any BOMB jokes that you're a terrorist trying to blow up something , or bring any of the long list of prohibited items like radioactive materials, ammunition , guns , weapons etc. etc. list goes on…. Also the seminar tells OFW's to keep in mind not to act like an imbecile inside the airport (or while travelling) and be on the lookout on our local airports during arrival since lately it has been infested with syndicated crime. (bullet schemes, Open luggage's schemes , etc etc)

 

PDOS seminar in CF sharp is lenient compared to Career Ship Management were crew have to attend it on every contract or so , Here in CF Sharp it's probably just every two years, so probably I won't be attending this seminar again for a while.

 

PDOS seminar room is relatively small and entertaining, and mostly the attendees are composed of crew from passenger ships and not from cargo ships. Probably I surmise that CF Sharp company mostly does business in passenger ships and minors only in Cargo vessels. After PDOS seminar , the Anti-piracy soon followed in the afternoon.

 

Anti-piracy isn't exactly to be taken seriously in passenger ships , since there is a lot of crew there and there is a specific crew on a specific task - plus the passenger ship companies are more generous when it comes to adding armed security personnel compared to cargo ships. For cargo ships however it’s a different story, since companies here are always concerned on budget and are even budget conscious enough not to send armed guards to protect ships . Anyway Anti-piracy seminar basically is mostly composed of tactics and measures to keep any pirates at bay from not getting inside the ship until help arrives (usually from the military navies of different countries in the area). I'm not getting into the details on what the seminar discusses , and will mostly focus on what is the seminar itself. Anyway CF Sharpe Anti-Piracy seminar was just only a video film showing nothing more. Good thing that this seminar is only taken once on the whole stay of an employee to the company.

 

The following day …

 

As scheduled , I went to GMSI office early in the morning and await to be picked up by a mini bus. At about 7:30 am indeed there was a PMMA bus that came and fetched us to the PMMA training center. At about 8am we were already at the PMMA training center in north harbour. There's nothing much to say to the building in the north harbour and basically its old and dilapidated compared to other much more modern ambience on other training facilities, and frankly the old building looked more like cheaply retrofitted facility for PMMA. There's even hardly people going around  the entire building at all. We went to the class room at about 9am and it was basically a simple lecture with a quiz at the end of it, after that we were given a set of instruction for the practical the next day on what to bring and were will be the meeting place. Apparently the building here occupied by PMMA training center is mostly just built for lectures and class but no actual facilities used for the technical skills, so we have to be hauled off from manila all the way to the PMMA main training facility in San Narcisso, Zambales.  Given with the location disadvantage I had from Marikina to T.M. Kalaw at the time of meeting place (4am) , I had to set out early and left the house at about 8pm and wait there in Mcdonald's T.M. Kalaw till 4am. Well I could leave the house at a later time about 10pm which cuts the long waiting time but I'd lost the advantage of having to travel cheaper via LRTA (which closed 9pm) plus the fact that roads in manila from 10pm onwards aren't exactly safe on that time period.   

 

Waiting for 6 hours wasn't exactly that bad at all as long as there is a public wifi service, and good thing in T.M. kalaw area there's two sites that have a public WIFI. One is of course McDonalds and they don’t have any passwords at all to access the wifi there, the second is 7-11 store in U.N. avenue but unfortunately a WIFI user has to have a registered 7-11 card to access it. Best bet in the area is McDonalds. Anyway the only regret I had was that I didn’t brought along my tablet to access the WIFI and had to relay on cellphone alone to access the internet. Anyway being occupied on the internet had the six hours wait gone by in a flash and all before I knew it , most of my co-trainee had already arrived.

 

A small bus came in along with two other Vans and we boarded this vehicles for the 4 hour long ride to zambales. At exactly 8am we arrived in PMMA and had a small breakfast before riding again the vehicle to the lecture building. The lecture was very short just roughly an hour and then we wen t outside for the demonstration for the lifeboat . Weather wasn't cooperative with the excruciating hot weather and I quickly searched for a spot for a shade. After the demonstration we went back to the class room to change clothes since its soaking wet with sweat. At around 10am we had lunch given to us at the PMMA cafeteria and 30 mins later we boarded the service vehicles for the trip home.

 

During the wait , there was a PMMA collectible shop. Though the selection is not as extensive as the one I saw in the Philippine Military Academy Tourist booth in Baguio 10 years ago. It's still a functioning collectible shop. Some of my co-workers bought a few collectibles and I was asked why am I not buying one , I replied simply that I'm not a interested. Actually the real answer to that was that I  hate glorifying a school that produces sadistic sailors and patronizes militaristic culture on a purely civilian job, plus on the fact that they brainwash kids to think that their soldiers and everything to them that is not a soldier is inferior. I just simply hate all that bullshit glorifying militaristic propaganda PMMA feeds on the youth and other civilians alike. Anyway despite all my disdain in the school , I'm here simply on business and let not my personal hatred with the institution affect my agenda here, this is just purely business.     

 

The trip home was a very long one , another 4 hours from zambales to metro manila area. The service Van went close to the Munoz area ,and that’s when I decided that they could drop me off there. To be honest it was a big mistake for me to be in Muñoz area and walk my way towards cubao, and one good reason , it was already 3pm and the temperature is still a scorching 39 to 42 degrees Celsius. Walking during that time and temperature was a bad idea. As I walked my whole shirt was soaking wet with sweat and the same goes to the reserve shirts I had on my back pack. Anyway walking in these area after 16 to 13 years later feels kind of reminisce, of course there have been huge changes on the shops and overall structure of some of the places , but still I recognize the route and direction I'm walking.

 

At afternoon I went home and took a good rest for all that exhaustion from the walk and from the travel.

 

PMMA Training Center  

 

honestly the refresher course is basically a joke I could not see the wisdom behind it, for me this two day seminar is basically just a waste of time and money on Filipino sailors , not to mention profiteering of training centers and MARINA itself that uses STCW 2010 amendment as an excuse to hide their ulterior motive of making money.

 

So, what can I say about PMMA training center. First off is the place is a bit run down and dilapidated but there is a lot of potential on this training center if they have funding to renovate the place and applied the "open" business practice audacity like PNTC does, make it like a more modern feel - if they do that , I'm sure that PMMA Training Center would be very competitive in both providing both Maritime education and training and people from all over the maritime community will be flocking in to their Training center for the cheap, inexpensive training with COP certificate. One thing I noticed as well , and a major drag down is travel time to their technical training facility which is located inside the Philippine Merchant Marine Academy Campus in zambales, Takes roughly at least 4 hours to go there from manila and another 4 hours going back , without traffic. They should have put a large size vehicle like a BUS specifically as a means of transport for the trainee's, I suspect that they only reserve their bus to for their academy students and not trainee's for their training center.

 

To summarized overall, PMMA training center has a lot of unrealized (and untapped) potential if they would take the "training" business more seriously, if they do that government could be pocketing a large profit from this training center and not entirely relay on MARINA for profits coming from the Maritime community here, its safe, legal and totally beneficial to both parties (trainee's and government ). In the meantime PMMA training center is sufficient but not competitive on the facilities compared to private players like PNTC or Far east, or even perhaps AMOSUP.

 

 

PRO'S

*Since its Government Training Facility, training fees are cheap and half price (example rPSRCB in PNTC is 2800 PHP, PMMA training center is only 1,500 PHP)

 

*Provides freebie's like free COP certificates on training seminars, free breakfast and lunch for trainees.

 

*PMMA name is already an established and branded name in the maritime community in the Philippines

 

 

CONS

*Lacks adequate facilities like an Olympic size swimming pool, for trainee's (they should have built two, if they have the funds like in a private training center). Funny that it’s a naval academy and yet I don’t see any swimming pools around the campus ??

 

*travel time is horrible , 4 hours going to the Philippine Merchant Marine Academy Campus and another 4 hours going back to manila. Overall half the day is spent travelling.

 

*should have a full size bus for travel for their trainee's and to lessen the stress of travel like PNTC does. Which acts like a mobile advertising billboard to any would be trainees in the future.

 

*Lacks the audacity in Promoting and Advertising their training center , they should have at least have a booth in T.M. Kalaw area to promote their inexpensive training offers and promos. ZRC training center does that in aggressive advertising , PMMA Training center should copy this business tactic.

*people get intimidated hearing the word "PMMA" which is a notoriously infamous militaristic school with lots of violations on human rights. in the training center its different , totally civilian and just like attending classes in grade school 

  

 

BDO & NBI CLEARANCE

Like any other payroll system (both land based and overseas work), setting up an ATM account on a bank is equally important , as this is where the money will lead and be received by a sailors allotte. It depends of course on what bank will the shipping agency assign the sailor , the shipping company usually give a referral letter for the sailor to carry with so he can open an account to a specific bank.

 

On my case , I was planning to open an account today along with my sister and set up an account. It was easy opening an account on BDO and the receptionist who handled us was very entertaining and friendly , however despite the pleasantries the only one who could open a bank account is my sister and not me due to insufficient I'D's I had on that moment and due to sever hot weather I didn’t manage to get my social security I'd at the post office in the afternoon on the same day and had to set it back for tomorrow morning .

 

I got my SSS ID in the following early morning at Cainta Rizal Post office which is all the way far in the junction area avenue. The post office building of cainta is very much like a makeshift building in the middle of a dirt road and staff there is very much lazy and I had to wait till 10:00am for the Social Security mail. Now the question here is this , how come did my social security I'd ended up in a place like this ? I suspect that it's either the mailman was crapping on his job or that the address got confused when the social security staff was always contradicting me on my address last year when I applied for an SSS ID. In either case , My social security I'd didn’t arrived on my home address and it's been long overdue and ended up in the Post office. Good thing for me that I didn’t waited long to get my mail along with my I'd in the post office and immediately finished the whole deal within less than 15 mins.

 

On my way to the BDO , I was riding a jeepney when CF Sharp called and said something about me reporting back to CLINICOMED. Confused , I had to hurry all the way to MALATE, Manila coming from in the middle of CAINTA RIZAL just to check it out which I found out latter much to my annoyance that I only had to sign a paper to complete the medical paper. Thankfully despite the annoyance I was able to make it in time to the BDO bank to open up an account. Teller just handed out a couple of paper's after showing two valid I'd's (one primary I'D like SSS ID' etc. and another secondary I'D like for example PHIL-HEALTH ) which I had filled up and after submitting, I was told to retrieve the ATM cards by next week. Simple as that and I was off.

 

I went to the last part of my agenda which is to get and NBI clearance, frankly this is a low priority agenda but I had to get this anyway since its required by my company. I went to Robinson's mall to the NBI booth and much to my dismay the   so called "online" system the government has been bragging about for half a decade is still ineffective as ever. Despite the online booking, I still have to go thru the long line and what's worst was that there's a detour stop on the lower floor which I handles the payment - to simply put, its definitely NOT A ONE STOP SHOP like before. I got dismayed and left , since it’s a low priority agenda and had to rebook again.

PATCHING rPSCRB

Officially my PEME has not ended yet and I had to go all the way back to ClinicoMed just to sign a tiny bit of paper that I left behind - the troublesome MCA cert. As much as its annoying , I have to sign in on the paper personally just to "officially" clear me on PEME and have the clinic forward it to CF Sharp. After that I didn’t waste any time in hanging out in the clinic and went directly to CF Sharpe for further orders.

 

Went I got there , I was asked by "sir sherwin" if there is any training seminar I had my eye on . I replied that I don’t have anything yet for the moment and he said "good , if that’s the case - because I had something in mind, Don’t worry its cheap, legal and releases the certificate fast plus its comes with a free C.O.P. certificate" . "Sir Sherwin" got a piece of paper and wrote this ,

 

GREAT SEAS MARINERS TRAINING AND ASSESTMENT CENTER INC.

2nd floor, San Jose BLDG Paquita street corner Espana st. Sampaloc Manila City

Tel# +63 (02) 516 52 49

 

He said  "rPSCRB seminar training cost only 1,500 Php here , you won't have any problems at all here" . Before I left the CPO office , "sir sherwin" said that CPO crew get a free stuff as a perk , be sure to drop by on "Roda's" desk on the third floor to get your free stuff (which was actually a document holder). I got the free stuff before I left CF Sharp , and its kind of cool because it replaces my tattered makeshift document holder I had on my back pack . Enjoyed the look and said to myself "How come I didn’t get this kind of stuff from my previous employers ??".  Now the problem with this document holder is that it’s a bit bulky and heavy, I wonder on how will this turn out on my airport luggage ?

 

At about 1pm , I enrolled on the course  rPSCRB. From what I heard on the GSMTAACI , they don’t exactly offer this course and they referred me to an affiliate training centre called Philippine Merchant Marine Academy Training Centre. Personally I don’t mind the course and lecture part but I have no idea on how training goes for the zambales training site, and asking if we have to travel all the way there on that area. Anyway I guess I'd find out later on how it goes, for now the only reason why I'm interested in this ride along is because the course is cheap and its says on the promo that they have a free COP Certificate that comes along. The registrar said that I had to be in the GSMTAACI Bldg. in the morning of april 14, 2016 at exactly 7:30am.

 

Here is the picture of my enrollment form for the seminar.