COSMIC RULE OF ALL SAILORS

After waiting for some time on the news regarding my upcoming disembarkation, It seems that there is now an information about it. The latest news that I heard and was notified on memo was that who will be the guys replacing us and I already saw on paper on who is going to replace me. For now it's just a name drop and there is no specific details yet on the date and flight schedule, but it's good to hear that my return to the Philippines would be very soon.

Upon confirming this information, I immediately prepared to pack my luggage in case there's a possibility that my disembarkation will be on short notice.  The only problem I have for the moment is the "where" and not the when part on disembarkation. Its rumoured that its possible that my batch will disembark in Ecuador which from what I know is not exactly a "convenient" for travellers especially on the joining / departing crew. From what I heard Ecuador , Is very similar to the Philippines when it comes to transacting business. CORRUPT, TOTALLY DISHONEST and EXPLOITING POWER FOR PERSONAL GAIN .

From what I heard on some of the crew , customs or to whom has the authority in charge in disembarkation and embarkation of ship's crew , ask bribes to have crew get past security checks on their luggage and this is not the worst - from what I heard almost everyone in charge in taking the crew to the airport are asking bribes as well , from agent , service boat personnel all the way to the customs in charge. A very big hassle and annoyance over sailors. Anyway this is just rumours I heard from the crew , I still have to witness this first hand to verify if it's true.

At October 17, 2015 in the afternoon , this ship heaved up anchor and went ahead to Ecuador finally after more than a week of being at anchorage, From the latest news, this time it's not Esmeralda and it will be libertad area. I have no information on what is the procedures but , I guess I'd find out sooner or later.

Out of the blue and all of a sudden , I received news early in the morning of October 19, 2015 about our flight details to go home. From what I recall, Me , Pump man Sepulveda , A.B. "Ryan" and oiler teston will be disembarking and catching a flight on American airline flight from Ecuador going to Miami then connecting flight to los Angeles California , then going to Narita, Japan then finally to manila Philippines.

It was totally unexpected that Fitter Lorenzo would be left behind and apparently there's a rumour that the reason why he got left behind was because his replacement backed out when it came to his knowledge that he would earn less. Anyway as a result fitter is very unhappy on the news , expecting that he will disembark along with us. As for oiler teston , he himself isn't happy that he'd be going home early

As for the moment, the four of us aren't happy to learn that our disembarkation will be in south america given that its not exactly travel friendly.

On October 20th it was finally confirmed that our disembarkation and flight will be on the 22nd and that crew who will replace us had already left the airport in manila and is enroute to ecuador

 Few days later.............

After a long and tiring voyage hurling myself back to the Philippine, I'm finally here. However despite my success being away for some time - I am greeting with much horror and despair on what i left behind before I went overseas. My home has been much devastated with internal conflict amongst family members and its sad to say that nothing has changed from where I left off several months ago. My house looked more like a dying planet when I arrived , everything was either dilapidated, broken or non-existent at all.

I guess this is always part of being an OFW , as soon as you depart away from home and to a faraway land, the people and life we left behind will immediately descend to chaos and on my case this is what just exactly happened. Soon as I arrived to the Philippines and went home , all my personal savings are immediately stripped and channeled to the house. Can you imagine my savings worth of 110,000 just immediately went kaput in over less than three weeks ???! Worst part is that I haven't even spent that money on personal luxuries and essential equipment I need for work. Its more like that I’m working for nothing

Apparently based on what my sister has told me , the situation in the house is in total financial chaos and I'm caught in the middle of it. Worst part is that I'm the only one in the house who is financially capable as of the moment.

Sad as it may seemed , but it looks like that my vacation here in the Philippines will be the shortest and most of the time will be spent in replacing and acquiring equipment that I will need on my next contract. I'm already broke and yet I haven't bought yet the equipment I need. It's obvious that as soon as I get then last remaining money left I had on the company , I will be processing my papers immediately for the January 2016 departure

In other news,.

It looks like there are some news going on lately in international airports about some sort of airport security planting evidence on travelers both tourist and overseas Filipino workers. This caused a lot of scare on travelers that most people going in and out on the NAIA international airport had to pack their luggage's in plastic to avoid bullets being slipped in. Travelers and OFW's who are unlucky enough to fall for this bullet scam will get to pay a nasty extortion fine of 80,000 Philippine Pesos to the beloved crooked aviation security group (who are apparently the ones behind who planted the false bullet evidence on helpless unlucky victim)

Lately the incident of "Bullet" scam in NAIA international airport per year had an increase of 750 percent in just within a month. So basically criminals and crooked people in the Philippine airports are getting bold doing their extorting business

I don’t want to believe it either but , recently NAIA international airport in the Philippines has been proclaimed to be one of the worst airports around the world   by travelers  magazine's and from seeing it on my point of view as a traveler OFW. I could say that they're definitely living up to their name as the worst.