Sat, Oct 11, 2003 page16

• Twenty days adrift

  The `FB Mes 62' left port in General Santos City on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. It was mid-August and the crew of 18 had hoped for a short trip and to return with enough fish to earn them each a few thousand pesos. Three days later, they sank. What happened afterward would test four men's limits of endurance and their will to survive while adrift for three weeks. They would eat their shirts and drink their urine before being pulled from the water by a Taiwanese fishing vessel some 1,300km from where their boat sank. They returned with that boat to Pingtung County on Sept. 23 and finally went home to the Philippines this week, bringing a happy ending to an otherwise tragic story

  • By David Momphard / STAFF REPORTER
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  Bienvenito Pancho doesn't remember much of that night or the storm that swamped their boat. A fisherman for 37 years, he knows how to sleep through rough waters. "The captain yelled for me to come help," he said. "It was maybe 3am. The boat had already taken on a lot of water and was leaning to one side. Most of the crew was on the opposite side trying to balance it. Others were bailing water."

  But the odds were against the crew ever righting the ship. The Mes 62 was originally a tugboat and had been lengthened and outfitted to house a fishing crew. Its flat bottom left it ill suited to ride waves several meters high. After some six hours of relentless storm, the Mes 62 was lost and her crew had retreated to five bangkas, or small skiffs, that were used to lay fishing nets.

  The captain ordered that the bangkas be tied together so that they wouldn't drift apart. His was equipped with a small outboard motor and could be used to catch up to any boat they might see pass in the

  distance.

  After three days, one did, and the captain and two crew sharing his bangka untied from the group and set off to catch it.

  "We waited another two days, praying for them to come back in that boat," Pancho said. "We never saw if they made it because the waves were too high. We'd also drifted far from where we were and were afraid they wouldn't be able to find us."

  After two days, the four skiffs, each with four men in them, divided into two groups. Without a motor to catch passing vessels, the crew decided they would double their chances of survival by splitting up; if one group was spotted, they could go in search of the others. Two days later, Pancho's group divided again, hoping to further increase their chances.

  "We needed a plan. We needed to follow the wind and currents," he said. "We had to try to go somewhere instead of just drifting."

  But after a week without food and only rainwater to drink, the crew of the boat to which they were tethered was more interested in foraging for food than trying to navigate a course. And so at 51-years-old and with the most experience at sea, Pancho took charge of his small bangka. With him was Julio Balaga, age 40, Jaime Canono, 35, and Rene Jacosalem, who at 29 was the youngest in the group. Like Pancho, Balaga and Jacosalem were eager to use whatever advantage they could find, but Canono was ill. When the Mes 62 sank, he' d helped bail out the hull and had swallowed diesel fuel that leaked out of its tank.

  "He wanted to help the captain," Balaga explained. "But he stayed in the hull too long and it made him sick. He wasn't searching for food like the rest of us."

  It was a search that would ultimately prove futile. "For maybe two days there were a few fish and crabs," Balaga said. "They would swim near the boat and we'd grab them with our hands. But after two days there weren't any." Later they would try eating the crab shells, then the barnacles on the bottom of the skiff, and finally the sleeves of their shirts, tearing off small pieces and forcing themselves to swallow it down. When it rained they would wring their shirts for rainwater to drink. When it didn't, they'd drink a small amount of water from the sea, and finally their urine.

  Pancho had been shipwrecked on other occasions, but never for three weeks. He credits his survival in part to a fellow seaman who survived more than 30 days in a bangka with three others. After a month lost at sea, Pancho's friend was the only one left alive.

  "He told me that to survive you must eat anything available and drink anything there is to drink," he said. "And don't think of your family. Never think of anything but surviving."

  Pancho broke this last rule only when he prayed. "Every night and every day I would tell God, `If you want me to die, that's fine. But I have a family who still needs me,'" said the devout Catholic with 10 children.

  Canono missed his family, too. "He would cry himself to sleep at night, afraid he would never see his three children again," Balaga said. "He asked Bienvenito [Pancho], `Don't you miss your children? What if you never see them again?'"

  Pancho answered that he missed his children very much, but that "missing them would not help you survive." For that to happen, they all had to have hope and determination. But Canono was losing hope, and his appetite as well. August passed and their skiff drifted east further into the south Pacific and away from shipping lanes. Their chances of spotting a vessel diminished.

  But nearly a week into September and some 1,300km from where the Mes 62 sank, Pancho spotted a familiar sight -- the buoy of a fishing line.

  "We thanked God for giving us a chance," he said, explaining that such lines are laid out by fishermen who then come back days later to fetch what the line has caught. The lines are equipped with a radio transmitter so that the fishermen can find it after days of drifting. "We started to paddle towards the buoy, but it kept disappearing in the high waves and floating further away," Pancho said. "We had no strength and it took us hours to reach it."

  When finally they did reach it, they thanked God again; the line had several fish on it and Pancho, Balaga and Jacosalem helped themselves. Canono, by now, was too weak to eat. They lashed their bangka to the fishing line and prayed that its owner would come back soon. Their prayers were answered, but not soon enough. Captain Wu Cheng-shan (吳成武山) of the Taiwanese fishing boat Hsin Yu Cheng 68 came in the middle of that night on Sept. 5 to retrieve his line. Canono died hours before he arrived. Pancho, Balaga and Jacosalem were taken onto Wu's boat along with the body of their friend.

  Chinese media later quoted Wu as saying that he didn't think any of the three men would have survived two more days. They'd each lost a lot of weight and their skin was developing open sores from exposure and dehydration.

  Wu pulled them from waters near the island of Palau and intended to fish his way back to Taiwan. Pancho asked that they be taken to the Philippines, but the idea of going there made Wu nervous. There were already Taiwanese fishing boats that had been impounded for fishing in Philippine waters and Wu didn't want to risk the same fate. He would instead ply a route back to Tungkang, in Pingtung County, where his boat was registered.

  The return trip took 18 days, during which time the three men regained their strength and even joined Wu's crew in their fishing duties.

  In Taiwan, they were received by Father Bruno Ciceri of the Stella Maris International Service Center, a worldwide Catholic apostolate dedicated to helping seamen. Father Ciceri gave them clothes, took them for a medical checkup and has provided housing for them since they arrived on Sept. 23.

  They also learned that the captain of their own ship and the two crew with him were rescued several weeks earlier by another Taiwanese fishing vessel, but were unclear as to whether it was the boat they'd set out to catch. There have been no reported sightings of the other three bangkas.

  The Manila Economic and Culture Office, the Philippines' de facto embassy in Taiwan, eventually contacted the three men's families in Mindanao and arranged for their travel documents to Manila. The body of Jaime Canono remains in Taiwan, as authorities have been unable to locate his family. Pancho, Balaga and Jacosalem returned last Wednesday, one day after telling their story to the Taipei Times.

  Would they return to work as fishermen? Balaga resignedly shook his head and said that he has little choice. Pancho, who had sworn he'd never get back in a boat, now says that it's too soon to decide. While he'd like to retire, he still has a family to feed. What's more, his 22-year-old son has already expressed a desire to become a fisherman like his father.

  "I told him I would support his decision, if that's what he wants to do," Pancho said. "But I will teach him everything I know and how to survive." He looks for a moment at Jacosalem, the youngest of them who has remained silent throughout the interview. He doesn't speak Tagalog and has difficulty communicating with the translator, but remains quiet even when asked questions by Pancho or Balaga. He seems reluctant to talk about what he's been through, deeply saddened and almost despondent. Perhaps Pancho sees the same future for his son that Jacosalem sees for himself -- hard work for low pay and the high risk that the same will happen again.

  It happens all the time, Father Ciceri said. "Every year we have a few cases" in Kaohsiung, as does every Stella Maris Center around the world.

  "They all have the same story. They're the lucky ones."
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