JOURNALS OF A FILIPINO SEAMAN

Had to admit that things right now for me are getting difficult, So difficult that I'm starting to live on getting any scraps I could get my hands on. Anyway its no surprise for me on this difficult situation given that I will be spending my 4th month here in the Philippines, and by logical thinking any supplies that I had stored before I arrived here have already been exhausted. Come to think of it my supplies actually would go as far as for this month if I haven't gave more than half of my saving on shouldering expenses at the house, A terrible mistake that I'm learning now   because I should have at least left half of my savings to myself. Some people say that being selfless is not that bad , but apparently in reality it’s a lot more complicated and it was a bad idea for me to contribute as it dragged me down to being helpless,. (the third time for me to happen)   For the moment , there is no news yet on when will I be sent overseas and my phone line for the office ...

Finally got mom out of the hospital, but with a lot of consequences. As a result of the latest skirmish on the hospital , the "Phil Health" medical insurance is used up and can't be used again till next year and still have remaining debt of roughly 8,000 Philippine Peso (the latter being resolved by going to the social service worker). The medical bill overall on the period of hospitalization (14 days) was as high as 50,000 Php, it was reduced to 30,000 Php when an associate of my sister negotiated to cut down some of the expenses, the remaining expenses was resolved by the medical insurance and by the social worker (I mentioned earlier).   Speaking of which , I would like to write down that the social worker on a public hospital is not exactly that friendly and charitable. As a matter of fact they certainly don’t live up to their name (and the publics expectation). Now why the hell do am I writing this ?!   As I mentioned that despite the Phil Health medical insuran...

EVENTS HAPPENED ON JANUARY 25TH Being stuck in the hospital is a dragging situation for a week now and there is no sign yet that it will be over anytime soon. I guess being inside the hospital starting 10 pm till 12 noon the following day babysitting mom is stressful enough, More stressful in the sense is mom is not cooperating at all., As expected amang rodriguez hospital is doing nothing in treating their patients and just gave mom an oxygen tank bottle for her to breathe.   The whole hospital area is littered with patients , even on walking spaces - the patients are line-up outside in hospital beds , and on my perception the whole place looks like a 21st century makeshift bomb shelter hospital bunker like you see in the movies.   Another week came by and it was still the same, It was mentally and physically grueling being there , I only sleep roughly two hours each day and some of the days none at all. It was a blessing that I bring along my tablet PC on the hospital t...

Previously - word from Career Ship management has made work as a sailor to a grinding halt and the worst part is that they gave no definitive date on when will be this "floating status" to be over. From the looks of it , it won't be over for a while. NSB for now doesn’t guarantee that I'd be back there (or be back at all) once their cadetship program is over. With no assurance on when will I be back , it further pushes economic and financial strain on my house and soon I have to think or resort to ways to get some cash. I came up with a couple of plans , nothing solid for now and it will change depending on the situation. Nearest I could think of is to return back to the BPO , given that it only takes a small amount of money to get there compared to being a sailor . If it gets worse then it's possible that I have to look for work on a different shipping company altogether and ditch out Career Ship Management - and it will be easy for me given that my U.S. Visa ...

Never occurred to me that my sister would catch up and get me a new star bucks planner . In fact I thought that getting that darn planner would never materialize at all, hopefully my sister proved me wrong and on the morning of January 03 my sister came to my study tablet and gave me this small star bucks paper bag and inside it was the long waited (and highly desired) collectible star bucks planner 2016. My eyes lit up like wild fire the minute I saw what's inside the paper bag and got my hands on it. Of course I immediately posted on all my social media accounts that I got a new 2016 star bucks planner . Facebook , Twitter and even Instagram. This seems childish but it always brings me a smile on  each year to get this notebook, no matter how shitty or crappy year I had. So what's the difference of the new 2016 SB planner than last year, first off the new planner they issue is a bit of a setback compared to last year , with a much smaller space and a lot less paper inside it....

We have seen this posters numerous times already , so many times that it's no longer making any sense at all. This poster I saw on the internet is really interesting however this barely scratches the surface of the reality on being a Filipino sailor, It does provide a general detail but not the specifics and leaves a broader room for interpretation. Some of these facts reflect positive and others negatively and some doesn’t provide the reality. LOADS OF MONEY - true on a financial basis that if you compare it via Philippine standards , Philippine money is way less than that of a U.S. Dollar (or even a Euro). Believe it or not purchasing power in the Philippines is bigger than western countries , and salaries for sailors are based in foreign pay (in U.S. dollars). In the Philippines a 900 U.S. Dollar for Salary for a sailor is a very big money but if you compare that salary in the united states - it is just only equal to a salary of a local fast food worker. If the Philippine pe...

10 am when my hand phone rang, it was a call from my company. Expecting that this might be the time were they will give notice that my time in the Philippines is up and had to depart, I picked up the phone. Surprised that it was Mr., "Nidoy"  asking something about my appraisal report , I told him that I'm not aware that I had one , and if I do it should have been forward to the company by now. The explanation why he has to ask for my appraisal report (called also evaluation report on other companies) was that the CSM superintendent recently disapproved my transfer. Mr., "Nidoy" gave no further details why I was turned down by CSM,  and asked if there was any past misdeeds I had done, I said I don’t recall anything as far as I know of, and his guess is as good as mine. He added also on our conversation that if it would be ok for me to return back to NSB if things went sour on CSM. I said it won't cause any problems if I would be back in NSB. Before the conve...