2021-008 | RITE OF PASSAGE

WISDOM TRAILS: There was a time when a knife was given as a gift. It was the happiest moment in a boy’s life, for, in his eyes, he is accepted as an adult. It happened because the giver knows the recipient is ripe enough how to use, keep and care of the knife. It is a rite of passage. It is not anymore. We live in a different world with changing values. The old ways are discarded for something politically correct, metrosexual and superficial

You simply cannot earn your first knife if your hands are soft and lazy. A child must be taught how to use the knife as a tool and he practices it on his spare time until such time his confidence would increase his level of skill. In much the same way, a child skilled in making a fire prepares himself or herself to the business of simple life skills of cooking and eating. The child becomes self-reliant and how self-reliance is now a rare commodity, is it not?

First seen in Facebook

January 1, 2018

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POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, MOST of the time, turn a harmless thing, gesture or ritual, into something offensive and harmful. The more people becoming very sophisticated in their lifestyles and in their living environment, the more they distanced themselves from their past or their origins. Comfort almost always discards the archaic models of living a life. Protectiveness is an instinct but, now, it is magnified as opportunities of economic gains, like a lawsuit.

 

In my time, I bruised and bloodied both hands and lower legs for tasks like splitting the firewood. I used many bolos, a cleaver, an axe and wood wedges to accomplish my work when I became nine years old up to the time that I became 25. Wood splinters would be found under my skin; small pieces of wood bounced at me, hitting my shins, knees, face and arms; blades would separate from handles and became missiles that rebound back at you when it hit a concrete wall. 

If some parent today would have their kid do the tasks that I did, that father or mother would surely be summoned to appear in a police station to answer for a complaint of cruelty to children or child labour. Am I right? Yes, Virginia. You can even broadcast it in Facebook Live and tag all the police stations that is in your friends list. Today’s society is an effeminate society. I watch it with contempt and I disdained to walk in its superficial ground.

 

Did you not know that handling edged tools early in my life have developed my earliest appreciation of the blade? It made my upper body strong and calloused the hands that gripped with sureness which helped me to go on a private pilgrimage of adventure and discovery. Most of all, it became the seed of what becomes now as the Knife Carry Rights and Ethics, which I taught in my bushcraft camp seminars and which I talked in speaking engagements. 

I earned my first knife when I was 15. My grandfather allowed me the use of his two OKAPI hunting knives which I carried everyday to school and home. When I was 21, my father gave me his own-made knife which I brought in my island-to-island tramping in a tugboat. Believe this or not, I owned my first Swiss Army Knife when I was already 49. You should be happy you have one while you are still young.

 

I grew up in a community where people used knives in their work and I get to know the many ways how they used it. All were responsible in their demeanors, even while drunk. Sure there were scruples and misunderstandings but, in spite of that edged environment, nobody died.  

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WARRIOR PILGRIMAGE BLOG, personified by this writer, is synonymous with the Outdoors, since Bushcraft and Survival is its niche. Safety and Security are its bedrock when it ventured into organizing outdoor events that involved people as in adventure/pilgrimage guideships and seminars; and explorations and expeditions.

Through tutorship, experience, folk knowledge and good old common sense, this writer was able to collect useful information which he is currently documenting in a book titled, ETHICAL BUSHCRAFT. He shares some of this information and knowledge in his training sessions; in his social-media account; and in this blog.

2021-007 | LIAISON IS ALWAYS A GOOD PRACTICE

OUTDOORS COMMON SENSE TIPS: Never ever fail to make courtesy calls on barangay (village) authorities when you pass by their places. Conditions in the Philippines are different from other countries, even here in Cebu, which has the best peace and order situation in the country. 

Make it a point to register in the barangays during official government daytime hours. Hiking during and after dusk are discouraged unless it is for an emergency. 

Make it a good practice to liaison with local government units and the police or the military IN ADVANCE before embarking in an outdoor activity. Hire a professional guide to do these things for you. 

First seen in Facebook

January 5, 2018 

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YOUR BEING A RESIDENT OF your own place does not guarantee you safety of travel in the hinterlands during darkness. To a certain degree you might be tolerated in the lowlands, near the highways, but in the hilly areas, it is certainly not a good idea. After dusk, locals would be watchful of strangers straying into their places. In the age of mobile phones, it would now be easy to report your presence to the authorities.  

 

Cebu, as was everywhere else in the Philippines, experienced a “red scare” in the 1980s up to the early years of the second millennium. Armed strangers were always sighted and reported in the hinterlands visiting villages and farming communities. There was fear, confusion and oppression during those times and it created bad memories for the villagers long after the government had cleared these remote areas of lawlessness. 

As visitors, or tourists, it is our responsibility to make courtesy calls to every village centers (barangay halls) and military detachments that we pass by and present to them our identification cards and documents that we are not what they suspect us to be. If need be, register your names in their visitor’s record book and place your destination for the day. Never forget to smile and greet everyone along the way.

 

Never set up a campsite without asking first their permission. Stop with plenty of daylight hours left on the last village center before claiming a campsite. Never do it on the last minutes of daytime. Do it on official government hours – between 08:00 and 16:00; not at 17:00, 17:30 or 18:00. Do not scrimp on time. What matters most is your safety. Good practices like these would remove suspicions. 

Before proceeding on your journey, make sure that you visit seats of government to make known your purpose on places where they have less control over tourist travel or on places where peace and order are still suspect. Make a letter, with itinerary, addressed to a governor or a mayor and to the chief of police or a district commander and insist to have a received copy. This is another good practice that would bolster your authenticity.

In this pandemic, travel protocols are allowed only at certain areas and not all local government units have the same or uniform policies pertaining to this. You must spend time to remove these gray areas by visiting each LGU where you would intend to pass. Finally, never ever travel during the election campaign period.   

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WARRIOR PILGRIMAGE BLOG, personified by this writer, is synonymous with the Outdoors, since Bushcraft and Survival is its niche. Safety and Security are its bedrock when it ventured into organizing outdoor events that involved people as in adventure/pilgrimage guideships and seminars; and explorations and expeditions. 

Through tutorship, experience, folk knowledge and good old common sense, this writer was able to collect useful information which he is currently documenting in a book titled, ETHICAL BUSHCRAFT. He shares some of this information and knowledge in his training sessions; in his social-media account; and in this blog.