TSINELAS CHARITY

I HAVE FOUND OUT that charity can be very contagious but without the mortal gravity of a viral endemic that I have known happening then and then again on the different parts of the globe. What it lacked in lethality though it gave up with more empathy and compassion...and much much love...

It all started as a one-man social action center in the hinterlands of Guadalupe two years ago and it won converts from Boy Toledo and Ernie Salomon, from Dr. Abe Manlawe and the Cebu Mountaineering Society, from O.N.E. Cebu Outdoor Group and the EWIT Mountaineers. The list is long and my apologies for those whom I failed to mention for my memory is short, but, just the same, they all shared love and charity in a very unconventional setting.

To mention, EWIT went on to spread goodwill in all the most remote places they visit and their deeds are very well cherished not just from the recipients themselves but from those whom have known and worked with them like the television crew who made a documentary in the hinterlands of Badian about tsinelas¹ just recently.

Another individual who took this very infectious bug is Marco Albeza, a professor of a local university here and a recent convert of Camp Red. Unknown to many, he mobilized his college class comprising of Math Education students and taught them how to walk the trails of Napo and Kalunasan on August 1, 6 and 8, 2010 and distribute biscuits, chocolates and, yes, tsinelas.

Boy T, Ernie and I were there, along with his girlfriend, Angel, and bosom buddy, Ian Betonio, to lend support to this endeavour. Marco challenged himself physically by acting as trail guide thereby honing his outdoors leadership skill and identified remote upland homesteads that has elementary-aged children with which to be bestowed with the goodies.

Day One (August 1) of the event were attended by eleven students that start at Napo with a stop at the Roble homestead for lunch, a climb at Mount Babag by way of the Babag East Ridge Pass and going down Kalunasan via the No-Santol-Tree Trail. Day Three (August 8) is a reverse route of the former with twelve students. The August 6 (Day Two) activity was undocumented and there was a hard rain that injured Ernie going down to Kalunasan.

Below are the twelve sets of collage depicting the two of the three days of this virtuous activity that is worth duplicating in other places where there are still barefooted populations of schoolchildren:

Plants seen in the images:

Alogbati – Malabar nightshade, spinach vine

Mangagaw – euphorbia hirfa

Bagras – eucalyptus deglupta, southern mahogany

Mirinda – passiflora edulis, passion fruit

Mayanna – painted nettle

Kulitis – amaranthus spinasis L., amaranth

Document done in OpenOffice 2.1 Writer

JPEG converted images from MS Powerpoint 2007

1Slippers, flip-flops, “Spartan”, ismagol, sandals, etc.

MY SINULOG 2011 PILGRIMAGE

FOR THE PAST THREE years I have joined my outdoors club – the Cebu Mountaineering Society or CeMS – participating in the Sinulog Solemn Procession in honor of the Holy Child Jesus of Cebu or the Señor Santo Niño de Cebu. This is the main event of the religious aspect of the Sinulog and is held on a Saturday. The mardi gras follow the following day and it happens every third Sunday of January of each year.

So today, I take a half-day from work and it seems I am on a mission. It is hot and humid but there's a haze in the mountains that forebode the coming of rain. I wear two t-shirts, a pair of jeans, my outdoor floppy hat and resurrected my pair of Coleman hiking boots. I carry a black Ortlieb dry bag and inside this were an extra shirt, my wallet, two USB flash drives, my Sony DSC220 digital camera and a back-up camera – a Kodak C713, Nokia 2700 and Motorola V3 cellphones.

I arrive at 1:00 PM at our assembly area near Sunburst Restaurant in Legaspi Street at the back of the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral. Already there were old CeMS holdovers: Daddy Frank Cabigon, Nonoy Edillor and Dennis Legaspi. Current CeMS President Jon Consunji arrive ten minutes later. After many cellphone calls, we proceed to the starting point of the procession which is the entrance arch of the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu.

Due to the large crowd, we could not come closer and the carriage that carried the statue of the Holy Child evolve from the inner courtyard and out into Osmeña Boulevard taking a right turn to Jakosalem Street. We took a shortcut instead to Magallanes Street and wait for the carriage to pass. It did arrive near the Magellan's Cross kiosk and it is the closest look I have of the Señor Santo Niño de Cebu for this day and I took a hurried shot despite the drops of light rain beginning to dominate the city.

Then we move with the flow of the crowd at 1:45 PM right behind the wake of the carriage. Up ahead the Señor Santo Niño de Cebu is getting farther and farther from my view and now it is being obscured by the number of sprouting umbrellas. The pace slackened and there are countless times that the mass of people remained still. The rain begin to drop in greater intensity for a time and then vanish and return again. We walk shoulder-to-shoulder at the narrowest part, steps limited and forced.

At the intersection of dear old Colon Street, Leon Kilat Street and Borromeo Street the heavens let loose a strong shower. Many people deserted the streets and took shelter in the sidewalks. Now I have elbow room. Meanwhile, my companions evaporated from behind me. I thought they were well-protected by their umbrellas? I remain steadfast in my devotion of the Señor Santo Niño de Cebu and proceed on with my sacrifice.

By the way, I have prepared for this activity by fasting. Just drank red-ginseng tea in the early morning. No meals, no water after that. By the time I pass by Leon Kilat Street, I begin to totter during the walk and during moments of halt. Feeling seems familiar. Closed my eyes and focused on my prayers and then I sense the urgency of my purpose and I know now where I am going. The burning hunger and thirst are just distractions.

I am at a loss now of the true direction of the route. Parasols all around me limit my vision. I am soaked with rain and so do these umbrella-carrying pilgrims. I don't think they have a drier advantage over me. Like me, they are also wet and their dependence on these rain covers doesn't serve a purpose. Umbrellas are a nuisance, don't you think? They poke you in the eye, on the top of the head, the temple, the ears, neck, nose, the mouth and they carry water down to you and among themselves.

The route take a left turn to P. del Rosario Extension by the time it cross the Natalio Bacalso Avenue and the road is flooded on its left lane so people massed on the right lane where it is most shallow. As it approach the USC-Girls High School it is dry land once again, crossing a bridge where the Guadalupe River is raging, then taking a right turn to V. Rama Avenue. This stretch is unbelievably broad and I feel wide spaces now between fellow pilgrims and those umbrellas.

Reaching a distant corner, the path lead to B. Rodriguez Street up to Fuente Osmeña where a lot of devotees stream in coming from Capitol and General Maxilom Avenue and join the main body on Osmeña Boulevard. It is another shoulder-to-shoulder episode and those pesky umbrellas they are all over me again. I take evasive maneuvers and take refuge among an oasis of bare-headed devotees. The rains never stopped, still, there were more people joining. Over a million people are all over the streets, I reckon.

It is dusk as I arrive at the welcome arch of the basilica and the celebration of the Holy Eucharist have already started. It rained harder this time. Twice the power transformers overloaded but the Mass continued. More and more people with umbrellas converge on the entrance and the rain slackened. Once again, the rain unleashed its strongest for the day. People with umbrellas began to move for safer places. I fear that there would be a stampede but it turned out alright. After the Mass had ended, I walk back to my home.

I am so famished and I eat a full dinner prepared by my loving wife after a quick shower. I love the kids talking to themselves and it gives warmth to the home and a good excuse for me to have that third serving. I deserve that extra plate. Meanwhile VIVA SEÑOR SANTO NIÑO DE CEBU! PIT SEÑOR!

Document done in OpenOffice 2.1 Writer

REMEMBERING THE "SCORPION"

I RODE ASTERN ON the motor tugboat, M/T Koala. The double-engined little tug crossed the Mactan Channel from Pier One, Port of Cebu, to the seas off Bagacay Point to rendezvous with another tug, the M/T Scorpion. It is May 23, 1986 and it is near dusk.

Going back, I applied for a slot of apprentice marine engineer with the National Stevedoring and Lighterage Corp.¹ (NSLC) where they own a fleet of tugs and barges. A lot of my neighbors work at NSLC either as office staff, stevedores or bargemen. One of them, Godo Villaro, rode with me that afternoon and assured me that the M/T Scorpion is one of the biggest tugboats that NSLC own and operate.

I brought with me my embarkation paper for M/T Scorpion and I saw two small tugs and a barge in the distance but no large tugboat. I looked at Godo's way for confirmation and he gave a thumbs-up sign. I am quite confused by his story. Anyway, I hoped the bigger of the two tugs might at least be the Scorpion and, as we get closer, I saw that it is not!

Godo has taken me again for a ride and I could not remember how many times I succumbed to his sick jokes. Someday, man, someday I'll turn the tables against you but he was laughing out loud enjoying the late afternoon fun. Some of the tug crews and passengers within earshot of the joke joined the guffaw and I could only shake my head and give a sheepish smile.

My co-passengers were Alex Gultia and Marlon Flores who are destined to be part of the Scorpion's crew like me. Alex will be my second engineer while Marlon will be my second mate. The Koala nudged the Scorpion and we all transferred boats. From Scorpion, one crew went overboard and rode the Koala back to Pier One. I waved Godo goodbye and he waved back with a victorious smile.

The Scorpion's captain, Danny Monte de Ramos, welcomed us aboard and introduced us to the rest of the crew. They were Boy Gildore – the chief engineer, Rene Subingsubing – the chief mate, Roger Paulin and Vecoy Arcenal – quartermasters, cooks and able seamen. I was shown my quarters, a cavern-like cabin with a steep stairway which has six empty bunks.

The M/T Scorpion is a 25-year old motor tugboat that is made in Nagasaki, Japan and was known by its former name as the M/V Keejang. According to legend, it used to be a patrol boat of the South Vietnamese Navy and was used in patrolling the Mekong Delta. It is armed with two caliber .50 machine guns at the fore and aft. Aside that, it also has a toilet, a washing machine, a small refrigerator and a cooking gas range.

During the last days of the Vietnam War, it was abandoned in Cam Ranh Bay and was towed to Hong Kong by a certain Captain Marcial of the Luzon Stevedoring Company² were it underwent repair and conversion into a tug boat. The UNION 6-cylinder main diesel engine and the LISTER-BLACKSTONE 2-cylinder auxiliary diesel engine are what is only left of the original equipment and accessory.

It is 13.5 meters long, 4.5 meters wide and 7 meters deep. It has a single pitch propeller and cruise at a stand-alone speed of 6-7 knots and a towing speed of 2-4 knots. There are two water tanks in the fore and aft with a total capacity of 5,000 liters and two fuel tanks in the port and starboard side with a total volume of 3,000 liters.

The pilot house has a huge old-school steering wheel, a gyro compass, speed sticks, sleeping bunks for two and a VHF and SSB base radios. Behind the captain's quarter is the kitchen and wash sink. Drinking water is pumped by hand which comes from the fore tank and a single gas burner cook our food. Everyone is assigned to cook the rice while Roger alternately cook the viand with Vecoy unless, of course, somebody has a delicious menu in mind.

Behind the smoke stack and above the engine room, someone long ago built a shelter made of light materials that became an extension of the cabin. Everyone loved to stay and sleep here instead of that stale cave below hold and became the official sleeping quarters for four or five people. It is an ugly structure but its necessity is given more importance and it stayed. Adjacent it is our dining table and it is our center of our social activities like eating, drinking, card games and mahjong.

Strictly speaking, there is no bathroom and there is no toilet. You take a bath or wash clothes at the aft from the well in full view of everyone. You can piss all you like anywhere beyond the gunwales or just sit on a hanging wood propped over the ocean fastened by two ropes and drop your “bomb”. Of course, you could not do this while moored in a quay. This is applicable only when nobody is watching like cruising on an open sea.

The main engine is started by pressurized air kept supplied by the auxiliary engine through a high-pressure tank. Although it is 6-cylindered, one cylinder is condemned leaving the 240-horsepower engine hobbling at 190 HP. The auxiliary is started by a hand crank and it takes a lot of persistence and muscle power to start it especially when it begins its vaunted tantrums.

When I alighted for the first time, Boy Gildore was working on the cylinder head of the Lister-Blackstone. Alex joined him, then me, and we work in the half-light when the day gave in to evening and a single 10-watt bulb is the only other illumination and, all the while, we were under the towing line of the M/T Rhodora with the empty barge behind us.

We adhere a gasket to the cylinder head and replace it back to the block. We leave the dark engine room and took dinner under the silvery light of a full quarter moon. After the meal, they give me the honors of starting first the small engine but no fire. Tried again and again and again but, still, the engine conked. Red-faced, I surrendered. Boy tried once and it emit just a whimper. Alex made it cough after a second try and never let go the crank wheel until it accelerated and roared to life.

Everyone on the deck shouted simultaneously after the dark ages is scuttled. The Rhodora towed us late that night to Isabel, Leyte and exchanged barges with M/T Marlin. The Marlin is a huge tug and a beauty. I stepped on its wide deck and awed at its opposed-piston main engine. Perhaps, one day, I said to myself, I will be a crew here. But it was not to be. Please continue reading.

From Isabel and Semirara Island, the Scorpion is left on its own power with its own barge to tend in the vast Visayan Sea. We came and went to Calagnaan Island and Sicogon Island, to the towns of Estancia, San Dionisio and Carles, all in Iloilo, even to faraway South Gigantes Island to occasionally seek food and water and safe anchorage away from bad weather.

Life as a crew of a tug boat has its own special privilege compared to a crew of a bigger passenger or cargo ships. Protocol is not much emphasized here and you could do as you please and live island life to the fullest like fishing, drinking rum and chasing girls. During work, a tug crew is serious and could adapt to all tasks easily – be it above and below deck.

My fellow crew members taught me how to splice ropes, plot a route, throw a mooring rope over a bollard, catch a squid, even becoming an alternate quartermaster when the regular excuse himself to answer the call of nature. Even so, my ears are piqued for the slightest change in the engine's rhythm and instantly my eyes zoom on the individual thermometers and mechanically release steam to achieve equilibrium.

One time, the Scorpion got stuck in the delta of the Himogaan River in Sagay, Negros Occidental after a day of racing to the sea against the low tide from a wharf 12 kilometers inland. The small tug stood on its toes and it looked eerily huge standing on the sand with its exposed sides.

Twenty meters away, tilting to its side, is the barge LC-500 loaded full of sugar. The instant the sun sat on the horizon it reflected a pleasant glow that created a certain effect which forever got etched in my mind as the most beautiful sunset I ever saw. The wide flat sands of of the tidal plain produced a desert-like effect that is strangely awesome.

After that, several ports of call were done in Port Danao, Escalante, Negros Occidental for loading of sugar; in Matlang, Isabel, Leyte for gypsum which we dragged to Tinaan, Naga, Cebu; in Bacong, Negros Oriental for chemicals; in Ayungon, Negros Oriental for lumber before returning to Cebu for minor repairs at the National Slipways in Lapulapu City.

The Scorpion's journey to Northern Mindanao took them to Kiwalan, Iligan City where she was exposed to engine trouble. She was under the mercy of the dreaded habagat³ winds and, fortunately, there was M/T Rhodora, M/T Knothead, M/T Bonehead and M/T Dolphin. These fleet of tugs took care of her and ensure her safety until we pooled our wits together in bringing to life the Lister-Blackstone and made the Scorpion able again.

For almost five months, the Scorpion made home in Kiwalan Cove. The Scorpion have endeared to the locals in Kiwalan so much after it tried to free a beached barge during the aftermath of habagat. The Scorpion's stern bollard flew away from the bulwark, unable to pull the heavy barge, and landed into the sea making us a staple story for months and a butt of jokes owing to that comic episode.

In Kiwalan, I saw my first Chemite battle tank running at full speed in the concrete highway making “clink-clank” sounds. The next week, I saw newly-freed Nur Misuari of the MNLF⁴ parading with a convoy of trucks full of heavily-armed supporters. The inactivity at sea led me to a romantic interlude with a local lass that made up for my yearning of home.

In February 1987, we finally leave Kiwalan for Cebu but a typhoon forced us to hide behind the safe waters of Bais Bay in Negros Oriental for three days. Once we reached Cebu, the Scorpion is dry-docked and that gaping hole left by a missing bollard is patched up and a new one is attached.

By March, the Scorpion were on to another adventure, this time to Calatrava, in Negros Occidental, to supply coal for a fertilizer plant in Toledo City, Cebu. For six months, the Scorpion crossed the Tañon Strait and her seamen displayed skills and charm that awed the local populace and rival ship crews alike. Life to a tug crew, as always, is the epitome of leisure while working.

The Tañon Strait were just as rough as any other sea. The wharf in Toledo is dangerous during amihan⁵ and much more so during typhoons. After the aftermath of a Signal No. 3 tempest, the M/T Dolphin came to retrieve a sunken ship but quite inadequate to do the task. Then the biggest tugboat I have ever seen, the M/T Mt. Samat, came and successfully salvaged the derelict ship.

Then the Scorpion was called to home in the last week of September 1987 and moored at the National Slipways. On October 26, 1987, I received my disembarkation order and pulled out from sea duty. Before I left, I detached the Scorpion's only identity board, which I carved with my own hands and kept this as a souvenir.

A year later, a Notice of Bidding is printed in SunStar Cebu Daily for the sale of M/T Scorpion and two barges beached below the Mactan-Cebu Bridge as scrap material. It saddened me that my ship is decommissioned for the rest of her short life and left to be chopped into pieces.

I reminisced at the many friendship I have forged while working as a crew of the Scorpion. I could not forget the places I have been to, knowing that I can never step on their shores once again. This episode passes only once in my life and I hang on to it and revel at its existence, the aura of its images slowly blurred through passing of time.

The newspaper ad came as a shock to me. I have expected of this cruel interruption and I never thought it would go out this way. I swore, at that time, that I will make a story out of my journey with M/T scorpion, maybe a book or something, but, that would come later. I have a blog. I thought, maybe, this is the right vehicle to let people know of the M/T Scorpion's existence.

Document done in OpenOffice 2.1 Writer

Sketches in ballpoint pen by PinoyApache

1Used to be known as the Cebu Stevedoring Company, it was nationalized during the Marcos regime and became a government-owned and controlled corporation. During the aftermath of the February 1986 Revolution, it was sequestered and placed under the umbrella of the National Development Company.

2Known also by its acronym - LUSTEVECO. A sister-company of CEBUSTEVECO based in Manila Harbor.

3Southwest monsoon.

4Moro National Liberation Front.

5Northeast monsoon.

HOW TO COOK MILLED CORN IN BAMBOO

BAMBOO IS A MEMBER of the grass family and it has more than a thousand species of its genera. Unlike common grass, bamboo exhibits a woody appearance. One common species grows to about 30 to 40 feet high and has a pole divided into several segments which taper off at the topmost.

This kind of bamboo is very common in Asia, Africa, South America and in the islands of the Pacific. The bamboo has many uses from firewood to food ingredient and for this article it will be used as an alternative for a conventional cooking pot. Yes food can be cooked from bamboo.

Native peoples in Southeast Asia have been known to have used the bamboo to cook rice and to boil soup. Each segment is enclosed by its woody composition and it is hollow. From this chamber will be placed the ingredients for cooking. But before we proceed to that, it is very important that you should know how to source your bamboo for your “pot”.

Avoid the lowest portion of a bamboo pole for it is thick and it will take a long time to heat the ingredients inside. Do not choose the the topmost third of the pole for it is too thin and the grains would split if it is kept under the fire for a long time. Select the middle. For an average pole you will have seven or eight segments to choose from. See Figure 1.

Most people cook only rice using bamboo. There are two ways to cook this: Horizontal or vertical. Unknown to almost everyone, milled corn can be cooked in bamboo. Unlike rice, milled corn is easy to cook and in much quicker time. Choose the #16 variety of milled corn. Cooking can be done only horizontally on an even fire.

Prepare first a bed of embers before you work on your bamboo pot. Heat from glowing embers cook evenly better than by naked flame and would not eat away the underside of the bamboo. Along the edge of the fire, place two equally-sized stones to anchor your bamboo over the fire. The flame should not touch the underside and it should be 4 to 6 inches above the ground.

Cut two segments but leaving the two still connected. One segment will be your cooking chamber while the other one will be your heat exchanger. The heat exchanger will act as heat absorbent and will receive the heat imposed by the fire on the cooking chamber to lessen it from splitting due to heat. The heat exchanger will also be your reserve cooking chamber, if in case.

Using a saw, cut two inches away from each end of the one joint. Now make a hole by batoning a knife running down the whole length of the joint from each cut ends and repeating again on the other side (see Figure 2).

Remove the piece of bamboo from the hole and this will be your lid (see Figure 3). Chop a skin of the lid and this will be your lid handle (see Figure 4).

Scrape away the loose grains and strands of your chamber hole with a knife as well as on the lid itself (see Figure 5). With a wooden spoon (or a round-edged piece of wood) scrape away the inside pulps of the chamber (see Figure 6) and wash away with water afterwards. If you're short on water, just blow it away.

You are now ready. Place the bamboo over the fire. Pour two-thirds water in the hole and replace the lid. Stoke the ember until water boils and some steam escape from the hole and remove the lid. Pour three-fourth kilo of milled corn and spread all over evenly with a spoon and replace lid.

Wait for five to six minutes and stir the corn. Repeat process until corn becomes sticky and firm and replace lid (see Figure 7). Wait for another five minutes and open lid. Test the texture of the corn if it is very firm, if not, take a sample taste. Replace lid and simmer by removing some ember. By this time, it should be ready for serving.

Document done in OpenOffice 2.1 Writer