Ateneo Grupo 58 Alumni Blue Boats

Yolanda has given us a new mosaic:rehabilitation, but also responsibility

by Carlos A. Arnaldo
Roxas City
February 6, 2015



The morning of January 29, I could see white caps on the  waves just off the shores of Baybay, San Antonio in Roxas City. A stiff wind from the sea told me our blueboats would not be able to navigate through the open sea to this point. The 18 new blueboats would proceed instead to Pawa pier in the municipality of Pan-ay, a protected inland river  stretching from Tagong Dagat where the Butacal blue boats are harbored.

It was a beautiful site, the 18 barotos (smaller river bankas with no outriggers) and pumpboats (larger bangkas with outrigger, for adventuring to the open sea) crimped the cement mooring like so many blue pods of tamarind clinging to a tree branch.

 
Here were real people, not media hyped faces and tsinelas of newspapers and TV. These faces wore the scars of the sea—salt and spray and sun. Their hands were hard and gnarled from grabbing nets and heaving the catch aboard. When their boats were blown to smithereens by Yolanda, can you imagine the helplessness they felt? No boat, no transport, no fish, no livelihood.

This boat blessing was thus a celebration and a time for analysis-- resetting the compass for future action. For Josel V. Beltran, Chaplain of the Black Nazareno mission station in San Antonio, Roxas blessed the boats, and gave a special prayer for the motors.

Vice Mayor Dodoy Bernas said “After so much suffering and destruction last year, we must now look through the mosaic of Yolanda and appreciate our new friends. But being helped also puts on us an obligation to be responsible!”


500 pesos in your hands at any one time, there are so many calls on that sum! Pwede kaming magbayad ng 200 pesos.  All were agreed, 200 pesos!

Blueboat 42 was named Subas, after the late actor-comedian Subas Herrero. If Subas were still with us today, he’d be sailing on one of these boats and catching fish himself. Subas was always a social fellow, outgoing with no pretense or façade. He loved people and he loved to laugh and make people laugh. May Subas be always with us on every boat!

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See related articles:
  OPERATION BLUE BOAT: a consortium of “Ateneo Grupo ‘58” classmates and friends

  Fishermen Helping Fishermen: Blue Boats for Barangay Butacal, part 2