Warrior Pilgrimage

Featured in WARRIOR PILGRIMAGE on January 9, 2011.

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 ...

Featured in Warrior Pilgrimage on January 1, 2011.

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 ...

Featured in Warrior Pilgrimage on December 19, 2010.

JOHNSON LUYM ARRIVE with his Ford Ranger at eight in the morning in Mango Square and both me and Ernie Salomon immediately get inside together with our backpacks. It's a long way to Tabunan and we have to pick up Wil Davies and Ricky Sevilla. Today is Sunday, July 25, 2010.

We pass by JY Square in going to Banilad and we pick up Ricky first before meeting up with Wil. The truck is wide and it accommodated all of us ...

Featured at Warrior Pilgrimage on December 6, 2010.

MY DISCOVERY OF A new and different route into the Buhisan Watershed Area on May 3, 2010 lead me to come back two more times on May 30 and on June 19 where, on the latter dates, I introduced bushcraft cooking to people who were with me. Those were statement events that made Camp Red a distinct outdoors group having its own identity.

For your info, Camp Red is synonymous with bushcraft and survival and nowhere else ...

Featured in Warrior Pilgrimage on November 22, 2010

IT HAD BEEN raining very hard last night but it had not dampened the spirit of an impending Russian invasion today, June 26, 2010, along the trails of Napo to Mount Babag. As I sit on a concrete plant box in the parking lot of the Our Lady of Guadalupe de Cebu, a big Hyundai Starex arrive with a miniature flag of the Russian Federation attached at the back windshield.

I waited for an emissary and out goes a Welshman ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on November 15, 2010.

CHRISTMAS HERE IN THE Philippines is prepared earlier than usual as compared with other countries. When the “-ber” ending months starts to be displayed in wall calendars, Filipinos start to move about as if Christmas is just around the corner. Trust the shopkeepers and mall owners, they stick to traditions.

Christmas Philippine-style is celebrated by releasing or exploding firecrackers in the air or on a ...

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on November 8, 2010.

IT IS SHOWERING as I waited for the others in the parking lot of the Our Lady of Guadalupe de Cebu Parish on June 20, 2010. It is Father's Day today. It is almost seven and the early morning Mass is about to end and I know Ernie Salomon is there inside praying for the success and safety of today's activity.

A blue Honda City arrive and out came Guille Zialcita in a blue shirt and beige shorts. Hmm...strange? ...