BEBUT’S TRAIL XVII: Who Put the “N” in Nature 6

WE VISIT AGAIN A community in Baksan, Sapangdaku, Cebu City for our annual outreach program done every month of May, a few days before the opening of classes. It is our own way of thanking the communities that host our “dirt times”, a term we describe among ourselves in the Camp Red Bushcraft and Survival Guild who dirty their hands while doing camp chores and learning old bush skills.

Today, May 28, 2017, is our second year there. This event which is called originally as Who Put the “N” in Nature – and still is – started in 2012 at the former Roble Homestead in Kahugan, Sapangdaku. We have not changed our giving hearts and our special time with these children of the mountains who are obligated to walk long distances, cross streams and difficult terrain in order to study and learn in school.

We are equipping each kid – all 230 of them from Kinder 1 to Grade 10 – with notebooks, writing pads, pencils, ballpens, crayons, scissors, erasers, manila paper and a plastic envelope. The parents too will have their day with body pouches, household cleaning kits and sewing kits. But before the giving, there will be a meal for everybody and entertainment.  

This would not have happened were it not for the volunteers and our sponsors, a few of whom opt to remain anonymous. Thank you very much to all of you for your time, and your compassion and generosity. The images shown below told of the story about this heavenly time during the outreach:

 

These are the organizations and the people who have helped made the Who Put the “N” in Nature 6 possible:

PHILIPPINE ADVENTURE CONSULTANTS

DEREK’S CLASSIC BLADE EXCHANGE

SILANGAN OUTDOOR EQUIPMENT

TITAY’S LILOAN ROSQUILLOS

BUKAL OUTDOOR CLUB

ONDO’S ESPRESSO BAR

ELI & ABEGAIL TAMBIGA

PARK N GO BAKESHOP

DONEO HOST MAKING

WARRIOR PILGRIMAGE

ALVIN JOHN OSMEÑA

NERISSA MANLULU

MARKUS IMMER

ZUE FASHION

 

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Photos courtesy of Markus Immer

NAPO TO BABAG TALES LXXVIII: For the Benefit of the Children of the Highlands

      “Whoever welcomes a child such as this in my name, welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me, welcomes not me but the One who sent me.”

                                               Mark 9:37, Catholic Pastoral Edition

      “The one who is found to be the least among you all, is the one who is the greatest.”

                                               Luke 9:48, Catholic Pastoral Edition

PICTURES TELL STORIES. This is all about The Outreach phase of the Who Put the “N” in Nature III, held at the Babag Mountain Range, Cebu City on May 25, 2014. It is a very warm sunny day, made humid by an early morning rain. Volunteers take the loads of school supplies and food and juice cups into their sturdy shoulders to bring smiles to the children of Kahugan, Kamiliano and Napo, who all were already expecting us at the Roble homestead. The number of recipients are a lot more compared to last year but the team worked hard to achieve the goal of feeding the children and their parents and evenly distributing the school supplies.

This is our story:

The following are cited for their collective effort, support, sacrifice and cooperation to make the Who Put the “N” in Nature III, a very successful endeavour:

ENTHUSIASTS OF CEBU OUTDOORS

SIGMA ALPHA EPSILON

USC-COED-SESO

RECON 7-MACE

PASTOR DANIEL WONG

ATTY. JOSE GOCHANGCO

ROBLE FAMILY

SITIO KAHUGAN COMMUNITY

SITIO KAMILIANO COMMUNITY

SITIO NAPO COMMUNITY

TITAY’S ROSQUILLOS & NATIVE DELICACIES

SILANGAN OUTDOOR EQUIPMENT

RAK APPARELS

ZUE FASHION

DONEO HOST MAKING

DEATH VALLEY MAGAZINE

WARRIOR PILGRIMAGE

HANDURAW EVENTS CAFE

THE OUTPOST RESTOBAR

DEANERY

HAPPY DAYS

SUNDAY SUNDAY

TIGER PUSSY

THE SPIRALS

MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS ALLIANCE OF THE PHILIPPINES

CAMP RED BUSHCRAFT & SURVIVAL GUILD

TRANS MONTIS MOUNTAINEERS

SUGBO OUTDOOR CLUB

EWITERS

TADLAS

ORCS

TRIBU WAFU WAFA

TRIBU BATIG NAWNG

KUYAMAW

SOUTHSIDE PROJECT ADVENTURE

REDTREKKERS

...and to those not mentioned, God knows the good things you did in secret. Smile.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

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OPERATION GREENE

AFTER TROPICAL CYCLONE HAIYAN pummelled the Philippine Islands last November 8, 2013, the Death Valley Magazine, through their Death Valley Expeditionary Corps, came to Cebu to engage in a humanitarian mission. Also known as Typhoon Yolanda, Haiyan was the strongest storm that the world had ever experienced in its entire modern climatic history with wind strength at 215 KPH and above. The islands of Samar and Leyte bore the full brunt of the storm as well as Northern Cebu and some parts of the Visayas.

DVM is an online magazine about professional adventurers and interesting people while the DV Expeditionary Corps is its humanitarian arm. It gets its crew from the very places where they go to execute their relief missions and expeditions just like they did at Guintarcan Island on November 23 and 24. Their Philippine contacts were from the Camp Red Bushcraft and Survival Guild, a Cebu-based club of outdoorsmen who are passionate about primitive-living skills and knives.

James Price, founder of DVM, decided to continue with what he started in Guintarcan by pushing for more aid for the island residents and so the DV Expeditionary Corps executed OPERATION GREENE. It is a much bigger relief operation and much more organized with the involvement of two trucks, a good-sized motorboat, a chainsaw, carpentry tools, 20 gallons of gasoline, five kerosene lamps, a stove set and more manpower. Crews coming from Camp Red (with support from the Don Bosco Technical High School Batch ‘94) assisted Operation Greene that targetted the small communities of Pasil and Dapdap in Guintarcan Island.

The DV Expeditionary Corps left Cebu City for Medellin on November 30 in a convoy of four vehicles provided for by DBTHS ‘94 with cargo of locally-sourced goods like old billboard tarpaulins, laminated nylon sheets, mushroom nails, GI wires, roof sealants, biscuits, candies and a ton of bottled water which were transferred from shore to shore over the Bantayan Channel.

Operation Greene is named after American philanthropist, Brett Greene, who gave the bulk of the funds which the people of the United States of America provided for this second segment of the Typhoon Haiyan Humanitarian Mission. Moreover, Operation Greene assisted and donated cash to one household to rebuild a damaged motorboat and on another household to put roof over a battered house.

The crew returned to mainland Cebu on the evening of the following day, December 1, after a very successful aid mission. Camp Red crews who participated were Jing de Egurrola, Ernie Salomon, Glenn Pestaño and Justine Ianne Abella with Jhurds Neo as base support. The succeeding montage of images told of the two days that Operation Greene undertook:

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A HUMANITARIAN MISSION OVER GUINTARCAN ISLAND

DEATH VALLEY MAGAZINE, through their Death Valley Expeditionary Corps, came to Cebu recently to engage in a humanitarian mission to ease the plight of the communities caused by Tropical Cyclone Haiyan. Haiyan, also known as Typhoon Yolanda, was the strongest storm that the world had ever experienced in its entire modern climatic history with wind strength of 215 KPH and above. It struck the Philippines on November 8, 2013 leaving a wide swath of destruction and death. The islands of Samar and Leyte bore the full brunt of the storm as well as Northern Cebu and on the rest of the Visayas.

DVM is an online magazine about professional adventurers and interesting people while the DV Expeditionary Corps is its humanitarian arm. It gets its crew from the very places where they go to execute their relief missions and expeditions just like they did at Guintarcan Island recently. Their Philippine contacts were from the Camp Red Bushcraft and Survival Guild, a Cebu-based club of outdoorsmen who are passionate about primitive-living skills and knives. They were Jing de Egurrola, Glenn Pestaño, Ernie Salomon, Dominic Sepe, Faith Gomez and Justine Ianne Abella with Jhurds Neo as base support.

James Price, founder of DVM, arrived at the Mactan Cebu International Airport in the early morning of November 22, 2013 and brought with him relief goods donated by the people and servicemen of the United States of America. Mr. Price decided to augment his cargo with locally-sourced goods like powdered milk, canned sardines and beans, biscuits, laundry soaps, candies, disposable lighters and bottled water.

On the morning of November 23, the DV Expeditionary Corps proceeded to Medellin in a convoy of two vehicles provided by Gerald Ortiz and the Don Bosco Technical High School Batch ‘94. A small motorboat ferried the crew and cargo over the Bantayan Channel into the small village of Langub in Guintarcan where the relief goods were distributed. A good number of affected households came to avail of the said items that Mr. Price personally distributed.

The DV Expeditionary Corps transferred to a seaside community of Dapdap and used the partly-damaged house of Tita Rosos as its base camp from where it reached out to the needs of the residents like the field treatment of the wound caused by burns on a youth that Mr. Price dressed and ocular assessment of the area. The crew returned to mainland Cebu on the following day, November 24, after that successful aid mission. Below are the collage of photos that document this activity of two days:

First printed over istorya.net on December 17, 2013

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GUNS OF AUGUST

ON SEPTEMBER 28, THE PROHIBITION on firearms will again start. This is necessitated by the coming elections on October 28, 2013 of village officials on the whole of the Philippines. This blogger was contracted to teach a BASIC GUN SAFETY AND FIREARMS PROFICIENCY TRAINING to all security guards assigned with Sky Rise 1 and Sky Rise 2. Both buildings employ a total of 35 male and female guards and are located at the Asiatown IT Park, Cebu City.

I have done this live-fire training exercises before to some guards of Tactical Security Agency, Inc., especially to those assigned at Cebu Grand Hotel, Oro China Jewelry, KIA Motors and Autowelt BMW Cebu; as well as that agency’s security officers and office staff. I will not be doing the teaching anymore though but I have passed this aspect to SPO1 Fredilson Codilla, a very able firing range instructor and a police officer of good refute.

I have the last half of August to schedule this in three batches and I view it as too precarious considering that other people will likely troop to firing ranges at the last hour or, possibly, ongoing tournaments are still on schedule on some of the popular ones. That is where the knowledge of SPO1 Codilla about certain firing ranges come in handy since he is utilized by most tournament organizers as a range officer.

Buoyed up by a vacant schedule for two weeks on a firing range that have been temporarily closed for repairs, we both set the schedule for the first batch at August 17. Eight male and two female security guards try their hands on the different firearms used like revolvers, pistols and a shotgun. Each individual are allocated 25 rounds for caliber .38 and and another set for 9x19mm and two rounds each for 12-gauge. Safety goggles and ear muffs are provided as well as IPSC cardboard targets.

SPO1 Codilla taught the participants the basics of gun safety, stance, balance, holding, sighting, breathing, squeezing and certain techniques to make movement transitions easy and effortless. Firing range sponsor, Aljew Frasco, later came to give important inputs to the participants. After that, a firing demo were performed by Mr. Frasco, SPO1 Codilla, this blogger and the agency’s recruitment and training officer, Joe Patrick Uy.

The second batch is scheduled on August 23 and were participated by seven male and three female security guards. All were exposed to the same lectures that SPO1 Codilla had on the first batch and all had learned and improved their gun know-how. The last batch of twelve male and three female security guards capped off the program on August 26.

On the whole, SG Alfredo Siarot Jr garnered the highest score of 98.80, SG Mark Anthony Malabosa followed second at 84.64 while LG Femaeline Inoc took third and the highest score for the female side at 75.72. The collage of images shows the activities of August 17, 23 and 26 and the whole program itself:

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