As of 2020, about 400,000 Filipino sailors were employed worldwide, a staggering 25 percent or one-fourth of the total global seafaring population of about 1.5 million. (Source: Google “Filipino merchant sailors statistics.”) The Pinoy mariner dominated the world workforce of merchant ships, like ferocious army ants invading and overwhelming the Amazon rainforests.
In my countless journeys around the world, especially during a three-year non-stop adventure at 26 years old across Western Europe and North Africa — an adventure I dubbed Eastwind — I was inspired by the dozens of colorful and adventurous global Pinoy sailors I met everywhere on the road. They were my idols, my global co-adventurers. During that period, I covered about 18,000 kilometers hitchhiking, a mind-boggling episode of my life.
Let me briefly summarize my encounters, excerpts from my book Wings and Wanderlust (available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KS7QYWL). Some of these stories have been mentioned in this column (StarGazer in DAILY TRIBUNE) in the past.
The most mind-boggling encounter was with a Filipino second officer who launched the largest-ever birthday party in Athens. He invited every Filipino resident in the city by word of mouth. Dozens of waiters were setting up a roughly 300-meter-long table at Syntagma Square, shaped like the letter “U,” so that diners could be served through the inner open space. A Greek waiter approached me.
WAITER: Hey, are you Filipino?
ME: Yes.
WAITER: See that guy over there? He’s crazy, spending 20 years of savings on a birthday party. He’s only a second officer on a Panamanian ship. Only VIPs and high government officials throw such lavish, gigantic parties at Syntagma Square.
ME: There’s nothing crazy about that. He’s like Zorba the Greek. He loves life. Money isn’t important to him.
WAITER: You’re crazy, too.
ME: Perhaps.
I met another Filipino in Syntagma during Christmas time, a US Navy guy. He was a professional smuggler, having sold a few Harley-Davidsons in Corsica and dozens of Smith & Wessons to many Filipino sailors in Rotterdam, who loved guns.
He was carrying a giant duffel bag weighing about a ton, full of blue-seal cigarettes — Salem and Winston, red and green like Christmas. He split his income with a fellow Filipino supplier at the Navy commissary.
KARDO: Hey, are you a sailor?
ME: No. I just hitchhike around.
KARDO: Wow, really? A true adventurer. How would you like free Scotch and steaks, and a woman to top it all tonight? All you have to do is accompany me.
ME: Sure.
At every bar, as he sold cigarettes like hotcakes, we would get free Scotch on the rocks, and twice, porterhouse steaks on the side. By the time the bag was empty, we were both woozy. He wanted to give me a woman in a dark alley somewhere, but I was too scared, so I left him and went home.
Then there was Mang Pepe, whom I met in Rotterdam. He worked with a fake engineering license for 30 years without being caught. His secret? Simple. He learned from Filipino engineers, whom he treated to night bars at every port as “tuition payment.”
He boasted during our drinking spree that he supported the education of his nine children — five boys and four girls. By the time he was ready to retire, they supported their engineer dad.
If you are a Filipino sailor and have a story to tell, please contact me at eastwindreplyctr@gmail.com so I can tell your stories to the world.
(To be continued)