JOURNALS OF A FILIPINO SEAMAN

September 16, 2016 Singapore     Given that working schedules in Sembawang Area Ship yard are conflicting / constricting for me to fully roam the place unrestricted. For now most of my free time in exploring the whole island is limited only during night time hours, Here in Sembawang and Yishu area - there are only two malls , ( one which I even hesitate to even call a mall at all ) . Sun plaza Mall and the other Northern Point Mall.   Shops in these malls are very small compared to shops in the Philippines, even the electronic stores and book stores here is lacking of selections. If I were to compare a typical "National bookstore" shop and "CDR-king" shop in the Philippines is at least four times larger than the ones here in Singapore. Even schools here like I saw in the primary school and probably grade school is smaller and compressed.   Anyway Sembawang and Yishu area in Singapore is a province,   but for a province it is well develop and urbanized compared ...

journal entry has been put on hold until further notice due to sensitive topics

BLOG ENTRY: September 06, 2016 Tuesday Location: Singapore anchorage   On the past couple of days without the "repair crew" around , things here have been quieter and peaceful, and more time for me to pitch in and do work unhindered. Somehow I had no worries leaving my equipment behind, and it doesn’t go missing suddenly.   It has been busy and a lot of work is still yet to be made with the lack of man power around, but I think it’s the best rather than had a lot of trouble with the "repair crew" . Before I'm not confident leaving my stuff behind even on the locker room, sooner or later some guy from the repair crew would grab it without my knowledge and by the time I know something is missing, - it all too gone and too late.   In the recent days that they were gone, working on deck has turned to shit lately, and both the Indian chief mate and Myanmar Captain has been increasingly annoying on work that even the DNV - GL surveyors find them mistreating. One ...

Journal Entry: September 04, 2016 Sunday Location: OPL Anchorage area, Singapore     While in the middle of the whole De-mucking ops here on deck, There has been a quick news that the "repair crew" will disembark this ship on September 05. The news was really sudden and big surprise but not totally unexpected - after all their contracts have already been finish a couple of weeks ago and its long overdue that they should return home. While the Repair crew is rejoicing that they will go home soon, most of the people wonder here on what will happen on   the work they will leave vacant. For short there is a huge vacuum on some of the task here and we're wondering who will fill in on those. Actually it's not that big loss that they will disembark, as long as they can solve the problem about the work on pilot ladder and gangway - not to mention the mooring operations issue, I think everything will be fine despite the downsize of the crew.   Personally, Im relieved tha...

Journal Entry: August 31, 2016 Wednesday Location: OPL Anchorage area, Singapore     There's an old saying by psychologist that if you can't talk something about it, then at least write something about it. I live on that saying given that sailors even up to nowadays still don’t have the freedom to talk freely, if one does - he / she will be subjected to an onslaught of retaliation either from the persons, foes, co-workers, organization, affiliation or any other group that was mentioned negatively. Opting also on the Social Media to discuss something is as dangerous as well, Basically there's no more secure place on the planet to talk about something other than inside a person head, On my case of course I cannot depend my safety on the having a journal on my computer and blog on cyber space. If I do wish to write something openly , I have to consider writing within a minimum safe distance from what I'm discussing to avoid the "social fallout" that will com...

Journal Entry: August 29, 2016 Monday Location: OPL Anchorage area, Singapore       The four to four hour working shift now has been implemented and as usual, most of the crew here are wondering why the sudden change. Basically this four to four shift was unnecessary at all in the first place and most people here are just standing around doing nothing on those four hours, including myself.     For me, I never cared about this and the only thing that mattered is that I finished this working contract as soon as possible. It's not my call on that, and probably the reason why the management here decided that a four to four hour shift would be implemented was on the fact that they wanted to retain the number of people working but wanted to pay less on the overtime., Smart but not that clever.   When my work shift started, were now "entering the cargo tank" phase, which mean that chief mate is looking inside the cargo tanks and seeing if the tank cleaning me...