The lowest rank on a ship's deck crew is Ordinary Seaman. It is an entry-level role that makes up the majority of the crew on a boat. The Captain and Engineer supervise Ordinary Seamen, and any person rated above him, such as Mates or Able Bodied Seamen, can issue him orders.
During the 18th century, the term "ordinary seaman" was coined in the United Kingdom. An Ordinary Seaman is a person with fewer than two years of sea experience, according to the Royal Navy, which protects the British coastline against assault. Two of America's naval services, the US Coast Guard and the US Merchant Marine, later adopted the phrase. Ordinary Seamen are referred to as Seaman First Class in the United States Navy.
The ocean is very mysterious. It a good place for family outing, hangout with friends, reminiscing alone, and place for self-realization. We often use our ocean for our leisure time, enjoyment time, time for a relaxation and rest. It is very useful on that manner. But other uses our sea in order to live, and survive for everyday life. They use our natural resources in order to catch fish that they can sell or in their lunch and dinner. Fishermen are one of the under-rated members of the society; we sometimes forgot to acknowledge their efforts. They are the one who did their best and risk their lives just to give us fish we need.
The documentary by Karla David entitled “isang banyerang isda” makes me realize the terrible position of small fishermen. Many large businesses don’t have problems in capturing bunches of fish, while small fishermen always suffer. In these society now a days, poor people always suffer. Rich people enjoy they privilege living their life, they worth it because they work hard for it. But fishermen also work hard, they are fishing without a food in their stomach. They woke up so early just to risk their life on sailing in a broad sea without any assurance that they will catch a fish on that day. Some of them are child whose sacrifice themselves just to earn a small amount of money to help their parents. I come to think whether they still able to enjoy their childhood, even though I know that they used to on what they are doing. Still a child is a child. We can see on the video that the number of fish in their area is very low. They are lucky to capture a small number of fish, because I am pretty sure most of the days, they have can’t catch one. That’s the reality in life. I can connect the situation of their ocean’s location to the scarcity that we are experiencing today. Many products are pricy because of the limited stocks. Those who have money, they can enjoy the privilege on buying anything they need and want while some are not.
While watching the documentary I remember my old self. I also do sacrifices when I was young. I sell pandesal, monay, and ice candy. I also do ‘kalakal’ we find metals plastic bottles that can be sell in junk shop. There are days that I do ‘ending’ we use the results of the end of every match in “PBA” to know who won. This is the small things that I have done during my childhood, because my father can’t provide the necessities that we need. I start waking up 4 am to sell pandesal and got home at exactly 6 am to prepare for school, then when I went home after school, I am preparing myself to sell monay and ice candy. When I was on that age I can earn as 200 a day. That’s a lot of money for a kid like me, but just a little help for my family just like what the kid does in the video. My father went abroad just like what the taksay do. I can connect what the taksay and OFW do. They are both moving a very far place just to assure income. They are risking everything they have for the opportunity that has no assurance We all know that taksay travels along Pacific Ocean because they are lacking of fish in their ocean. They must find opportunity from the other place in order to capture fish to survive. They are the same as OFW, because of lack of opportunity here in the Philippines. They must go abroad just to find job. They are risking their money on processing papers, risking their life abroad, and sacrificing every single day for their family. But still, they don’t get lots of recognition from us. Fishermen serve as fresh fishes that we can eat all the time. OFW provides us money from paying taxes.
After watching this video, I realize that the demand of the products always changing, it can change in a bit second. Those changes can have a both good and bad effect on us. Because the supply can be limited, just like in the documentary. The demand of food is very high but the supply is limited. Those who rely in natural resources can’t control the amount of product they can produce, because it changes every time. In the video fishermen use tragic method on catching fish, which results to destruction of the sea. That is why there are low number of fish in the ocean. It was like in economics, if the demand is high, the supply will be getting low. If you wish to match the supply with the demand, the sources of the supply will suffer. It cans results to scarcity of supply. That’s why we must conserve our natural resources, because it is the foundation of our basic needs. If we experience in scarcity in natural resources, it is a big problem for us.
