GOING DARK

After three flight cancellations and almost a month of waiting., I had finally been deployed on the new ship called "Hunter Saga" . Initially I was assigned with the ship called "Hunter Atla" but later on got changed to "Hunter Saga". Soon after that a series of flight cancellations and Reschedules followed and on the later minute of Sunday October 13, 2019 . I finally received a message coming from 'Annabel Aviso" that then deployment is going to push thru and that I'm required to go back to the office to claim my new plane ticket along with the signing of a new MLC Form again by the tomorrow morning.

This is the first time on my career as a seafarer that I'd be informed on short notice , as in only less than 12 hours. Fortunately for me there the family car that my sister and I bought years back , so travel time will not be an issue and traffic on EDSA is nonexistent as far as I'm concerned., and I couldn't imagine myself traveling on public transportation in the Philippines in this kind of situation especially with the recent fiasco that happened on the Light Rail transit system where they had to shut down the entire facility and let at least a million people stranded on roads and I was one of those folk who got stuck.

Whatever the case, traffic and public transportation problems won't affect me this time as I'm using the family car

The following day, I came to the office and got my tickets . My whole luggage just stayed on the car and parked it in the nearby Robinsons Mall. It didn’t took me long to get the new company forms and my plane tickets, Just 20 minutes and that just about it. Ms. "Aviso" did speed things up. There was no extra chit chat and just right down to business.

When my sister (the driver of the car) and I met at the mall ., It was decided that we should head to the local airport early to avoid traffic and wait there until the "check in" time for the plane. We arrive at the airport at around 4pm .

It was about 8pm when the "Check In" procedure started , and there on the last minute I had already found out who will be my crewmates for this ship. From what I saw there area was about roughly 11 of us all in all catching for the flight. Based on the tickets , we have a two kinds of flights one bound for Incheon , and the other is a local flight to Busan.  The flight to Korea was short and was just roughly under 4 hours , then the local flight was just an hour. Once there we were immediately greeted by the local agent on the arrival area.

To some of my crew mates relief they were thrilled to hear that , we will not be proceeding immediately to the shipyard and instead will stay at the local transit hotel. Joy soon turned to doubt when we heard from the agent upon arriving there that we will start immediately on work in a couple of hours., and that we will be just using the transit hotel as a storage for our luggage and of course to sleep for the night (which sounds more like a bed spacer ,rather than a hotel a person stays). In any case I have no complains about it and usually (being a negative thinker most of the time , or more like pragmatic) , I had already expected this to happen that once we stepped out on the airport - work will soon follow , as in very soon.

The Transit Hotel that were staying at , in this picture is my room, 

We just put our luggage in the respective room and headed out in an hour to the working site. The towering image of the ship when view afar was really mesmerizing to look at ., like some sort of giant. We took the elevator going up to the deck area and immediately went to see the deck area. As expected the deck area was very busy and littered with all sorts of shipyard workers. Even inside the accommodation bloc upon entering was filled with people doing their work.

As soon as we got on B deck , we were given our coveralls immediately and put them on. The rest of the day till later on the afternoon was spent working on hauling stuff and deck materials onboard., and of course familiarizing us over to the ship's deck area , on which equipment is located at on how to operate the machinery.

LOAN SHARK

Reluctantly I made a  Financial loan on my sisters insistence., I was not eager to make a loan given that most lending companies are a legal form of a "loan shark". Only reason I approved to make such a loan is that I made a deal with my sister that out of the 50,000 Php that will be borrowed on the lending company, I will take 7,000 Php as a sort of personal funding to buy essential work  related supplies and equipment.

The first lending company I tried "Balikbayad" lending company ., immediately disapproved my loan and didn’t disclose the reason why. The second lending company "Global Dominion Financial INC" did approved my loan but with such a hassle on their required documents that it took me 3 whole days to process. I did get the 50,000 Php loan anyway.

the 7,000 Php I got out of it was used to buy equipment like wireless computer keyboard and mouse, an Xbox wireless controller, and a few video games along with some equipment for my luggage's like sealed box containers. Unfortunately for me since those equipment was more pricy than my first estimate, the allotted 7,000 Php cost ballooned to 10,000 Php.  Which made me think that I should have borrowed instead about roughly about 70,000 to 80,000 Php instead to the lending company. The remaining 40,000 Php was immediately turned over to my sister for her expenses.

According to the Assistant Crewing manager via SMS message received our dispatch date would be on September 26th and our flight will be on October 1st. ., When I went to OSM Office on the 26th I was handled by Crewing assistant my Documents along with the plane ticket., Ms. Aviso left out the MLC papers and said that the person who would sign this was not yet at the office and at the meantime while I'm waiting , she said I could attend on an "Event" at the OSM waiting area and bar.

I attended the said event on the afternoon and it was all about some sort of mental health lecture to all OSM Crews and employee's . As soon as it was finished, I immediately strolled on OSM 4th floor to see if Ms. Aviso has already finished the MLC papers I need., To my annoyance Ms. Aviso never finished the paper I needed and took off without even leaving a note . Fortunately for me "Francis" was still around and told him of my predicament, He just finished and handed me out the MLC papers I needed in just a few minutes.  I was really lucky that "Francis" was around and if not for him , I would have returned again back to OSM for another day after the dispatch (no thanks to Ms. Aviso's incompetence) .

AWAITING LANDFALL

September 13, 2019 Friday AWAITING LANDFALL

Medical test were not that difficult in this new clinic ,as a matter of fact the whole set of medical test only lasted 2 hours for me . The only exception or pending's I had received in this medical clinic were the dental and ECG. And from what the doctor told me I can choose whatever medical clinic (or hospital) I want to have this pending's cleared up.

Dental , is obviously the easy part for me and was just the usual "Oral prophylaxis" cleaning - one that can be easily resolved by just visiting the local dentist. As for the ECG pending , I had to search far and wide from Marikina all the way up to manila for a medical clinic (or hospital) that has a Treadmill stress test.

I ended up with three clinics who have these . One is "medical city clinic" (branch) located near sta. Lucia mall , unfortunately I didn’t take the tread mill stress test here because its expensive (2500 plus PHP) and the time it take to release the results was up to 5 days. The second clinic I had searched was "PMP diagnostic medical" ., The tread mill stress test was cheap (only 1275 PHP) however the problem was its location which is really far from my home (its near PGH hospital in manila). The third clinic which I choose and took the tread mill was "Marikina Valley Medical Hospital" the price is tolerable and its only takes 5 to 10 minute walk away from my house.

The tread mill stress test on Marikina Valley Hospital was a bit difficult compared to the typical diagnostic clinics around., Difficult in the sense that they keep adding up the speed on the tread mill every few minutes and so until I gave up. I reached as far as "Stage 6" on the test before I quitted from shortness of breath. As soon as I finished the test and got out of the hospital , fatigue quickly set in when I got home and immediately fell asleep and didn’t woke up until around night time.  Perhaps I'm already getting too old in this repeated and regular medical checks in this job. Anyway I did finish 96 percent of the test.

After 3 days i got the medical results and passed it to the Nordic Medical Clinic to have them evaluated. According to the doctor there , he said that my medical has no problems and they just forward the "Fit to work" status to my employer.

Soon after that I went to my employer to inform them that I'm already medically fit and they had me to sign up a contract., The employer told me that they will just inform me when its already time to join the ship and issuing me the plane ticket.

HEADING OUT TO THE VOID (AGAIN)

September 01, 2019 Sunday HEADING OUT TO THE VOID (AGAIN)

For months I had been figuring out, on how my training certificates got lost and how could I replace them in a short time. On my recent report on the shipping office, I found out that my Training certificates were not lost but just misplaced and was just sitting there in my Filofax file record for months. In other words , it was just there all along at the office and I didn’t bother to look harder on were my certificates were. Basically since I discovered it was there , my plans on replacing "LOST" certificates are now irrelevant in a good way and saves me the cost and effort.

On my recent visit to the shipping office, it was obvious that I was again yet to be assigned to another TCC ship., unfortunately I didn’t like the TCC ship assignment because the ship assigned to me was infamous for being a shitty "regime" type of working environment. Even oiler "Gilbert" said to me at the café office that ship was avoided by Crew like the plague. Obviously I'm not going that to let it happen, and I'm still wary about the "Shell" campaigns that happened to me last 2017-2018., As much as possible im trying to avoid being entangled on a repressive regime working type of environment.

After lunch break ., I told my crewing manager that I wish to transfer to another principal. The crewing manager told me that the change of principal would meant that a possibility of reducing of salary because different principal offer different salaries. I agreed on the terms said by the crewing manager thinking that the risk of salary reduction is much better compared to living on repressive regime., I think this was the best choice for me and I would get to work better without having any worries and besides I never liked TCC principal anyway.

So I'm reassigned and works for me

Going forward now., Upon my reassignment , I was put on  a medical screening for the new "principal" . And since this will be a different one , the medical clinic as well will be different. The Medical Clinic assigned to me now is Nordic Medical Clinic ., Located near my employers office , just two blocks away.

SOME SIDE NEWS

September 14, 2019 Saturday SOME SIDE NEWS

While I was awaiting for any call coming from my employer , for the moment to be sent to the assigned ship and for the plane ticket to arrive. I went to take care of some of a  few side agenda's while I was in wait.

One of this is to make a financial loan from a lending company, to make up for some bad debts - not on my side but on my sisters. I was never in agreement with my sisters plans and only accepted it reluctantly to make a loan in the condition that I could ask for some of the funds borrowed , for me to use to purchase videogames. My sisters debts in the first place has nothing to do with at all and I was only asked to help out. Unfortunately my loan request was turned down by the lending company, they did not disclose the reasons why but it was evident that if I wanted some financial help - it will not be on their lending company.

Another side agenda that happened recently is that , an infamously known figure in the maritime community here in the Philippines is making again trouble to a small pro-workers group on Facebook social media. The trouble began when Nelson Ramirez Groups (UFS) claims victory over an issue on which a Government Maritime Agency policy was repealed, They claim it was their efforts that made it possible when in reality it wasn’t. It turns out another group was responsible on that effort and Nelson Ramirez was just riding along , and did nothing but take pictures to make it look like they had something to do with it. Nelson Ramirez made no hesitation in attacking the said group by posting negative statements via Facebook

Although it is none of my business to intervene in their quarrel , I did have a vendetta over Nelson Ramirez (the infamously known figure) over the incident that nearly had me blacklisted from being a seafarer four years ago. Thus in that reason I intervene and sided  with the leftist pro-workers group "SMP" (Samahan ng Marinong Pilipino)., I leaked to that group, mug shot pictures of Nelson Ramirez when he was arrested and put to jail over charges of "Cyber Libel" , so that the group could use it as a counter propaganda in Facebook on their part against Nelson Ramirez. 

Immediately as soon as I gave the pictures, the leftist group issued a statement countering Nelson Ramirez black propaganda against them., and stated that "Nelson Ramirez has been jailed before over this matter and was only released via  posting bailed over charges of cyber libel" . I also posted comments on their Facebook page, Ridiculing and Insulting Nelson Ramirez and also made accusations on Nelson Ramirez Anti-Filipino/ Anti-worker activities . I was one of the harshest critics against Nelson Ramirez on that Facebook page and was determined to let everyone know on how crooked he is , that he puts up an act being a labor union leader when in fact he was a company man. 

On my end aside from having a personal vendetta over Nelson Ramirez , the reasons why I made an intervention was that I figured that he may be a good "buffet" over leftist communist labor groups , and that I wanted to see on what will be the results of the confrontation of if ever Nelson Ramirez and UFS would have a full blown clash to a group that is loosely associated with leftist antigovernment communist groups. I'd like to see (if ever that happens) on how destructive their skirmishes will be (both in social media and actual live confrontation)

RESHEDULED AGENDA

Things are not going well on my plans. It was supposedly that office hours on PNTI (training center that issues some of my certificates) should be open on Saturdays., but apparently it turns out that they had no office hours on weekends and my effort dragging my ass all the way from Marikina to Intramurous Manila was a waste. To make it worst weather was awful and it was raining for the whole day ., and with no effective equipment I have at the moment to use on rainy weather. I ended up being soaked wet even before I arriving in PNTI. To add more on being splashed with rain water , The Public transport overshot the bus stop and I had to walk my way toward PNTI Area. 

Upon arriving , like I said earlier. I found that the PNTI doesn’t have offices in weekends , So I took the time asking information on how much does it cost to have a training certificate reprinted. From what the info I learned on the security guard , each certificate cost about 500 PHP.

Since my Polo shirt was soaking , I tried to use the nearby electric fan to dry it off  but the guard there was an asshole and said I couldn't use it and was rude enough to even switch it off. Anyway it was not surprising that security guards act like a total Rude unhelpful A hole in the Philippines., In fact it's pretty common that you'd be surprised how they even get hired on their rudeness levels

In any case i just stayed the a few more minutes then headed back home. On the way I wasn't that conscious if my clothes were soaking wet or not ., nor even cared. By the time I got home., my clothes was horrible from the rain . I changed my clothes and immediately got myself dried.

For the rest of the day , I went back again in planning my moves and edownloading Anime for my hard drive. Eventually I have to restart things again and do the same thing on Monday. I'm expecting that I won't encounter any more setbacks like what happened today.

Current objective for me as of the moment is to replace (Reprint) these six training certificates., and these are.

"Ratings Performing In Navigational Watch"  issued by PNTI

"Basic Training in OIL and Chemical Tanker" Issued by PNTI

"Ship Security Training and Seafarers with Designated Security Duties" issued by PNTI

"Marpol Consolidated" Issued by ZRC training Center

"Basic Training in Liquefied Gas Tanker" issued by ZRC Training Center

the reprinting of BTOCT certificate is the most urgent, because I'm under time pressure to show this from my Marina MISMO Schedule on Tuesday,.

REAL MEANING AND PURPOSE

Honestly I'm in a dilemma right now , perhaps in doubt on whether I should be continuing this Seafarer campaigns any further. As a matter of fact this job has already dragged itself longer than it was originally intended. And that its already pointless at this point.

Basically for me the whole idea of being a "seafarer" has already lost its meaning for me and now basically I'm having doubts whether I should go back again at sea., In fact the only reason why I'm still doing this is not because of the money but because I have nothing else to do besides seafaring. thus I'm stuck on a loop or a cycle as one might put it, until I find something worth continuing. 

I'm doing something that already has lost its meaning.  

HEALTHCARE BEAUROCRACY

Given that my vacation days will come to an end very soon and I'd be starting to go find work again as early as august. My downloading of anime's have shifted now to full gear, and aim that I'd have as many anime's as I can possibly before I'd be sent off to work overseas.

On my situation right now , I think I'm very much ready and prepared now and the only thing that’s missing is my confirmation from my current employer on which ship I'd be assigned with. Of course I had to report back to my company and see what they have for me.

On the past few days I was badly ill from sore throat ( from drinking too much soda)., It was so bad that I had trouble swallow food every time I eat. The infection was bad that I decided to buy anti-biotic., Amoxicillin 500 mg to be specific. Unfortunately for me , I had trouble getting one on the local drug store and they require buyer's to have prescriptions first before actually buying one.

furious that i could not get antibiotics., I made a tweet that drug stores here in the Philippines are pure Bull Shit and assholes for letting people suffer first on a  simple disease that can be cured by anti-biotic. Not even my inflamed throat nor my high fever from it, can stop me from twitting it on twitter. I was really badly ill and feverish ., practically just laying on my bed for the whole day., to add worse on that feeling was my disappointment that no drug store around in my area would let me buy antibiotics - They were total dicks to sick people. Despite being ill i came on another idea , that if I could not buy antibiotics thru simple means , then I have to resort to other methods in buying one. Besides I'm not buying this for reasons like those junkies , but I'm buying this because I'm badly sick.

Honestly I don’t see the logical reasons why Pharmacies here had to restrict antibiotics. Years back I could buy a whole box of it , and it was only categories as "Over the counter medicines" ., People don’t have to worry about getting badly ill of infection back then. Now it's kind of like world war 2 era were antibiotics are getting rare because of restrictions and people have to worry about infections because they can't get meds without a prescription.

Having a prescriptions before getting medicines would be ideal if the Philippines was an industrialized first world country., However it is not , and like any third world country the healthcare here is set in the medieval ways and doctors here along with medical facilities (both public and private) are more interested in profits rather than curing sick people. And in the case of getting first a prescription in the Philippines , Its going to be more complicated because the cost of healthcare (doctors fee, hospital fee plus medical test) cost more than the actual medicines needed and aside from that, it takes them a while to make  an accurate diagnosis  - And by the time that happens a patients disease have already progress to the point that he's already ridden.

I know so based on experience, health care in the Philippines is too overly beaurocratic and profit driven than actual healthcare. Especially government hospital

Anyway going back on my case , I had to resort to the option to contacting my younger  sister  (who happens to work on a pharmacy) to go get me some anti biotics. It really helps having a relative working in a pharmacy were they have access to medicines , and can buy them without the hassle. I asked my sister to buy me one and brought it to me. By the time she came to the house , I was already laying on my bed sick with fever. I took the medicines immediately and in the span of 3 days my health had improved. 

MESSAGE FROM A FELLOW MIGRANT WORKER

Wasn't feeling well on this past couple of weeks , from my ever recurring allergies.  Somehow this allergies I had been having are being more a bother rather than an annoyance. In  any case I didn’t write on this not to discuss my health problems but talk about a message I got from fellow migrant worker. 

When I opened my face book to read the usual threading post , I was surprise to have a message from someone I don’t even knew. At first I was wary, doubtful that I would be getting such mail. I even had thoughts that this would be a "hate" mail coming from my fellow Filipino sailors in the social media, who were simply either jealous to other peoples efforts (crabby mentality) or too blindly "loyal" to their faction companies (a.k.a. "butt kissers", sipsip ) and I already received hate mails from the past .

After a couple of days ignoring the mail , I finally decided to read it and when the first letters came out on the screen it was not as what I expected. It turns out that this was a message from fellow migrant worker and honestly i don't really know what to say or what to write about his message,. It's really uncommon that people do appreciate my blog and work, even more uncommon is receiving praise from a fellow migrant worker telling me to keep up on my work and appreciate my writing

I haven't thanked him fully on his message., and if I did, I don’t really know where to start since I don’t really know his exact name and there is no words to express that someone out there really does understand the life of not only a seafarer but an OFW as well. It's the least I can do to at least thank him here on this blog entry I make.

Whoever you are, you have my respects not only as a fellow OFW but as a fellow Filipino., We are paying the price working overseas because of the mistakes of our fore fathers, who instead of fixing our country , left it in more broken state than it was before.

Here is his message untranslated from our local national language in Filipino.

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Bro! Una sa lahat, Maraming Salamat sa Inspiration na nabibigay mo sa akin araw araw, binabasa ko from the start of your journey sa work mo from being a call center agent to your life as a seaman. Pinahanga mo ako sa laban mo sa buhay after all the struggles sa life mo, you kept your honor and dignity as a man, maski madami ang di nakakaunawa sa principyo mo. Astig ka brod! Isa kang bayani sa akin kasi ako man ramdam ko tulad mo yung araw araw na struggles in life, sa work, mga ka trabaho na mga kupal haha, at hilig pareho tayo, video games! Magkaiba lng tayo ng lakbay, ako landbased ofw ikaw sa gitna ng dagat mas mahirap yung saiyo wala sa kalingkingan kaya kung ako nahihirapan sa work dito sa abroad (saudi as i.t) mas mahirap naman saiyo. Kaya bilib ako dre sa iyo! Tuwing hapon pag napasok ako at nasaharap ng computer ko, iniisa isa kong basahin ang entries mo, nakaka inspire, similar kasi tayo sa ugali, ma pinsepyo at talagang minsan hindi nag papaawat or hindi nag pipigil ng nasaisipan natin at talagang pagnakita atin ang mali, talagang nag rereact na. Madami talagang butt kisser sa company, crabmental na pinoy at sila talaga ang iingatan mo, kasi pwede ka talikuran anytime at pahirapan pa dahil sa inggit. Anyways mahaba na ito, at napadaan lng ako at hinanap ang fb mo para masabi ko sa iyo na nasa 2015 year na ako sa blog mo at patuloy na nagbabasa ng lakbay mo sa buhay. Ingat ka dyan palagi kapatid. Hangga ako saiyo tol. wag ka magbabago sa principyo mo, ikaw ay ikaw at yan ang respeto ko sa iyo. Totoo kang tao sa mundong puno ng kasinungalingan. God bless sa iyo at family mo. Always bro!

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SMALL STEPS

Only a couple of days left before my vacation should officially end, and somehow I'm not really that optimistic of going back to work and in general be trapped again on a ship full of coconut worshipping people. Frankly I'm really not that eager to go back soon on seafaring, and wish that my vacation would be a little more longer.  In addition , My previous employer TCC is not that comfortable to work with ,to say the least and I'm not looking forward to work with them soon if the need is not that desperate.

To be fair with my current employer , they're no angels but compare to the everyday horror that tormented me on UPL - Shell. I'd definitely rather choose hanging out with TCC than with them.  But in general and given with free will and choice, I would opt for neither of them.

In any case ,I estimate going back again for work wouldn’t take that much effort this time and only left for me to finish are a few simple task like finishing "MISMO" and replacing paper certificates that I lost during my disembarkation on my last ship. In fact I could have already finished the task right about now if I wasn’t hampered with a few mistakes ( like lending people money )and it will serve a lesson for me on my next vacation that I should not lend money to people even if I knew them personally.  People's hearts tend to be fickle especially when it comes to money , and I don’t want to repeat those mistakes that people won't even bother to pay their debts

Anything else besides that is only minor and can be resolve even if I didn’t totally finished it. Speaking of which I haven't finished yet in completing all the anime  downloads that I have to. Starting from the list letter "A" all the way to letter "Z" , I have only made my way in to the letter "G" criteria, so basically there is still a ton for me to work with and download before I get to finish my anime collection. I do hope that before I go back to work , I have already significantly downloaded at least half of the anime catalog on the website.

A lot of people might be wondering on why I'm so much obsessed in collecting media like movies, anime, TV series etc., while I'm still in here in the Philippines. The main primary reason on why I have to do this is because is the fact that since my job requires to be isolated for a majority of time , if not all of the duration of my working contract., I have to have some form of entertainment to reduce the feeling of my work from being in a prison like situation, and at the same time it provides me security to stay inside my cabin all that time and that I don’t have to socialize to toxic people. I'm personally lucky that I became a seafarer in the digital age , and that such huge storage devices for media like hard drives are already common compared to sailors atv least 20 years back.

On my point of view being isolated and shut in is not totally that bad, as what other sailors might perceived, In fact it's totally the opposite in reality and that a Filipino sailor would be better off alone remaining to be Isolated and disconnected from fellow sailors onboard (specifically fellow Filipino sailors). From my personal experience in this work for nearly a decade, socializing with fellow sailors is the worst possible idea a person can think of. There is no assurance that the he or she won't have a toxic obnoxious attitude and will not be a threat latter on., Shunning and practicing isolationism is the right thing to do rather than socialize with toxic people.     

Don’t get me wrong socializing and interacting with people are good , but how can we tell they are trust worthy especially to our own kind (Filipino Sailors). Socializing and trust are two different things , if a person is not confident or trust his surroundings , it would be better off going solo.

During the course of a Filipino sailors career based on my experience. He can only find very few friends on work, only enemies and more obnoxious bosses and co-workers