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 ...