JOURNALS OF A FILIPINO SEAMAN

REPOSTING ON AN ARTICLE I HAD READ ONLINE.... HUMAN RIGHTS DISCRIMINATION ON THE PHILIPPINE MARITIME INDUSTRY Jebsen Gamido, who was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 2009, shook up maritime institutions with his determination to pursue his rightful place on board a ship. His fight to end discrimination continues with allies in the ITF and AMOSUP. Where am I now? I’ve just resigned from a training center where I was training manager. I’m preparing to go back on board, and putting up a non-profit support group for HIV-positive seafarers. Sometimes I receive e-mails from young men whose stories are similar to mine. When they feel discriminated, they e-mail me. I talk to them over the phone. I’m not a trained counselor,and HIV has many faces, and it so happens mine is the Seafarer’s. If I had my way, I would’ve applied for a dance scholarship for college. Maybe cheerdance or dance troupe in University of Santo Tomas. Ang desire ko talaga is broadcast communications. But my father is a seaman, ...

JANUARY 23, 2016 MONDAY LOCATION: UAE , Fujairah - VOPAK TERMINAL BOUY       Now that the jokes regarding O.S. and Me have been cleared and is now official that I am the first batch who will be going home.   The latest updates about this matter is that apparently disembarkation on UAE, Fujairah is inconvenient for norstar - they reasoned out that disembarking crew here in Fujiarah is "expensive" and that this ship (and us) have to wait until this ship get to a more cheaper port for disembarking crew. Norstar even threaten us that if we insist on disembarking even thought our contracts with them are already near finished (as in less than a month left) , they will have to make us liable for the cost of our return home. - Geez what a total bastard company !!! Hope they get bankrupt soon !   To simply put the facts , I am not returning home soon and that disembarkation in UAE is impossible.   Despite the annoying news, it's not entirely bad for me. Given that n...

January 10, 2016 Tuesday Location : United Arab Emirates, Fujairah         New year's day just came and went , and up to now there is still no clear answer on the specific day on which I will disembark on this ship. Norstar hasn't given any details yet on when and how are we going to disembark . The only detail given as of the moment is "last week" of January. Apparently this has been my case, which norstar had made it clear and that if we were going to disembark earlier than a month left on the actual contract , were going to have to pay for our own repatriation fee. In other words, "Early Vacation" was a total lie from the very beginning and that "Finished contract" is still going to be the overall status on how are we going to get out on this ship. Anyway this is not surprising for me given that Norstar from the start was a total bullshit from the very beginning we started this contract.   Aside from the annoying situation , it is rumored t...

December 28, 2016 Wednesday Location : enroute to Fujairah UAE     Lately I had been diverting my attention and loneliness to social activism.   recently the events in the maritime community at the moment have been turbulent, or more like a "social media civil war" amongst Filipino sailors . It all started when a Worker Union leader named "Nelson Ramirez" (the person I mentioned on my journal entry February 2015) made an insulting statement and declared that "people who used a referral / backer system , to get employed are nothing more but a Pathetic class type of people" and that "only people who came from elite maritime schools like PMMA, MAAP, Nyk etc are the only ones worthy of being a sailor"     This caused a huge uproar on maritime college students in the social media, and immediately the topic in nelson Ramirez face book group became trending. He received lots of criticism and from these kids and, as a retaliation he tried to suppre...

December 25, 2016 Sunday Location : Enroute to singapore   Much has happened from my last entry, Christmas day has arrived, this day has to be a day of celebration but I can't exactly feel happy and to be honest its empty , very empty and incomplete. Probably because this is the first Christmas that my parents are gone, and I had a lot of flashbacks every now and then of the life I had with them before I came this ship. Now the feeling is just simply empty knowing that they're dead and its only me and my younger sister around.   Probably id be having a lot of adjusting at the house when I get back, trying to move on with life and see how things work out for me. I just don’t feel like smiling at this moment, but again merry Christmas.

December 05, 2016 Monday Location: From UAE going back to Saudi Arabia   It's now official, after much thinking and analyzing the situation I had passed to the captain myat my "early vacation" leave. I submitted my letter last November 28 and took the opportunity that Captain Myat was around his office. Good thing Captain was kind enough and didn’t ask any further question on why I was submitting the letter.   Originally I was planning to submit it on the 26th , but on that day I wasn't about to make a good timing and by the time I went to captains day room it was already closed - so I planned to go on the next day. On the following day again it was interrupted on the fact that the ship will anchor, so Its simply postponed and finally on the 28th around 7pm I finally got the good timing.   Felt so relieved in submitting my "early vacation" letter , as if like a big rock has been lifted to me - after all this company, principal and ship has been very unp...

Journal entry: November 22, 2016 Tuesday Location: Saudi Arabia     With a snap its already going near to the end of the month of November, and as what I had been long awaiting for is that I will get to finally submit my "early vacation" request to CF Sharp. I think it’s the best that I go ahead and hesitate   no further in submitting this request , and besides the working conditions on this ship are not that comfortable enough for any Filipino seaman.   So far the news on work is that after a brief loading operation in Saudi Arabia, this ship went back again here in Fujairah to await "For Orders" . While in Saudi Arabia , everyone here in this ship was distress to learn on the telex massage coming from the Saudi government that some sort of team will be boarding this ship as soon as it docks and that this "team" will be searching the whole ship for any signs of contraband to the Saudi Government like for example Magazines, DVD , Cd, Hard disk - any s...

Journal entry : November 18, 2016 Location: en route to Saudi Arabia     I Haven't wrote anything on these past couple of days , Probably because I was busy pondering things and received news from my sister that mom has passed away. I was totally devastated to hear the news and wasn't in the mood to do anything even on work - to me everything seems meaningless now, and there's no point in being a sailor anymore. I haven't asked the exact details on how mom died and was in no position to ask, I was simply too grief stricken to know what happened. The only known details I know on mom's death was she died of cardiac congestion, a result from too much creatinine levels in the blood from kidney failure. Before learning of my mom's death , all that I know back home was that the kidney dialysis machines of Amang Rodriguez Hospital broke down and mom was advised to transfer to another hospital for treatment until the machines were fix, the next news that came in af...

Journal entry : November 09, 2016 Location : Karachi Pakistan   Soon after the Saudi Arabia Loading ops was finish, this ship went to its next destination which is Karachi , Pakistan. It took only about roughly three days to reach the area on this ship and from here it will discharge its cargo,   So far the weather in Karachi Pakistan is a bit warm compared to Saudi Arabia right now, but the change of temperature is tolerable - feels just like the early summer days in the Philippines. I haven't clarified yet if the discharge operation here will be done on STS (ship to ship transfer) or be done in a port facility, But if it's an STS kind of operation then it's easy for the mooring and Unmooring part.   As of the moment , My day work was reduced to being just until 2.45 pm in exchange that there will be a anti - piracy watch for me every midnight, just to keep out people from stealing property from the ship. Basically I think Pakistan is a quiet place and not much fuss will...

Journal Entry: November 04, 2016 Friday Location: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia   Ship never stayed long on the Fujairah anchorage in UAE, it only stayed for a day just to do provisioning and bunkering and that’s about it,. Surprisingly the weather in Fujairah now is beautiful and somewhat cooler than my previous visit. Definitely very tolerable weather.   After this ship business is done in Fujairah, it went towards Saudi Arabia for loading of cargo. This ship stayed there for about three to four days before going to a port facility nearby.   The loading operation on Saudi Arabia was real quick , lasted only within at least 12 hours , apparently because only a limited cargo tanks was loaded and not all. During my whole 6 hour long shift , I was very busy being ordered around to check the sounding of the ballast tank. Which meant me having a sounding tape tool all the time.   Immediately after my second shift, The whole process of loading was already completed and we...

Blog Entry: October 22, 2016 Saturday Location : Enroute to Fujairah UAE   It's been a week that this ship is adrift in middle of the Indian Ocean, and three weeks since we left the ship yard on Singapore (to be specific 22 days) . There has been no news yet when this ship will be going aside from rough speculation that it might be headed to the middle east to load some cargo,   For the moment these past 22 days have been peaceful and doing the same old routine work of deck maintenance for me such as painting , in some occasions I would help Pump man on his usual work in the Pump room maintenance. Most of the time I'm just left to do work in housekeeping part.   Lately I had been thinking of forming a face book group, something that is very similar to the successful Wiki Leaks website - only it’s a Philippine Maritime Version.   Exactly like a public disclosure / Intelligence Group for Filipino sailors, I had been long thinking about this because of the suppress...

Blog Entry: October 18, 2016 Tuesday Location : Somewhere Adrift in the Indian Ocean   Its been a few days ( or weeks ) now since the social media scandal I got myself into and I'm starting to think that the crew here already knew what I posted in Facebook. I surmise that it might have already reached here on this ship about the incident, I not sure as well if I'm just being paranoid about it - the only thing I could do for now is kept silent and stay calm even if some of the crew are already joking it lightly and made indirect reference about me and the incident.   So what trigger my paranoia again ?! I was already finished helping pump man obina on his work in the pump room in clearing the oil that leaked there and went back to BOSUN Rodrigo in helping put up the anti-piracy razors wires at the deck - everything was doing fine and normal work for about an hour when we suddenly talked about Chief Cook then slowly shifted to me the discussion of the topic and jokingly tol...

Blog Entry: October 16, 2016 Location : Adrift Somewhere in the Indian Ocean   Been basically depressed for a couple of days now and amid fears and paranoia about reprisals coming from CF Sharp. I was busy thinking of the worst case scenario that they could throw at me when UFS blew my cover, and exposed me. Despite the emotional depression I had been having, I still have to act or at least "pretend" nothing happened and do my usual work routine schedule, at least here on these ship only three people knew what happened and even if they have knowledge , they don’t have the full details on what was the trouble I got myself into.   This may sound ridiculous , but just to rid myself of depression. I took in some pictures and dressed myself on some good clothes like a wannabe fustrated commercial model - normally I would just go outdoors a little to cope up with the stress but since it's not possible, I just decided to dress up and dress on my best clothes.     And h...