Perils at sea
Many Filipinos are attracted to work as seafarers, especially for international ships. Imagine traveling the world while earning at the same time — high earnings in dollars or other foreign currencies! Then, the high social status accorded to seamen or seafarers! Who would not want to see the world, earn much, the esteem of neighbors, and secure own family’s needs?
Many enroll for maritime courses, dreaming of all perks seafaring can bring to the graduates. Schools, universities and training centers — located in many regions, especially in the Visayas —have produced many Filipino seafarers through the years.
Of the dreamers who longed to sail through the seven seas, how many reached their goal and had their dreams fulfilled? From the graduates of maritime schools, how many actually get to work at sea? Even while still on land, the path to getting an apprenticeship is extremely narrow, full of drama and pain, expensive and abusive.
Ask anyone waiting for their blessed moment to be chosen by recruitment companies, agencies or shipping lines especially in Manila. Some swallow their pride and agree to do menial, domestic jobs for the household of a ship officer — encouraged by faint hope that maybe the ship officer may recommend them for recruitment. Countless have been duped by Illegal recruiters who milked them of their scarce valuables. How many went without food for a day or days, as their meager budget before going to Manila already exhausted? Hungry, tired, their hopes to sail dimmed or extinguished— many told and untold narratives of their sorry plight to sail through their dream of a free tour of the world, be among men in uniform, with high income and families assured of a comfortable life.
Among those blessed to be among the chosen, they slowly realize that the truly blessed are the officers up the upper deck, those below the hot engine rooms, while the cleaners and those who do the menial, dirty jobs inside the ship barely get to travel the world. And those who had romantic ideas about their free tour along the seas, after months at sea without any land in sight, realize that the seas no longer hold their charm. Others get seasick when big waves of stormy days and nights come. Others get depressed being holed up within the ships for months.
Then there are the social frictions —quarrels, personal, work, race, class, gender-related — that seafarers must maneuver while inside the ship. With troubles not resolved, others end up losing their jobs, dreams, sanity, health, even their lives.
Despite the waves, troubles, endless perils of the seas — piracy and kidnapping of seafarers — even if only a fraction of the hopefuls fulfill their dreams to sail through the world’s seas, many men throughout the world continue to want to be men of the seas, to be seafarers.
Our men of the sea have connected the world more closely, vital part of world trade, from the past to the present. Remember them when you get to eat imported food items, appreciate their work when they greet you onboard or when they bring you safely to your port of destination. Pray for and celebrate with them on the 23rd National Seafarers’ Day on the Feast of our Lady, the Star of the Sea, this September 30.
The celebration will start at 6 a.m. with a memorial at sea or wreath-laying ceremony for those who lost their lives. This will be followed by a breakfast with maritime stakeholders at the Stella Maris Center or at the docking area of Malacañang Sa Sugbo. Eucharistic Celebration will follow, with Msgr. Dano Sanick, HP, vIcar general at 10 a.m.
Agape ( lunch) will be prepared and the tribute to seafarers will follow, with Fr. John C. Mission to give the opening remarks, Capt. Morales and his inspirational message, a serenade, giving of tokens to the seafarers, and a keynote speech from Engr. Mark Anthony Pascua, MARINA-7 regional director. The tribute will proceed with a raffle of door prizes and end with remarks from Capt. Emerico Gepilano.
- Latest
