Kartilya ng Katipunan (Code of Conduct)

The Kartilya ng Katipunan outlines principles for living according to Filipino beliefs and duties, and served as an oath for the Katipunan movement for independence. Similarly, Francis Magalona's song "Man from Manila" encourages Filipinos to have pride in their nationality and defend their homeland. Both pieces emphasize unity, nationalism, and resisting oppression to build a better Philippines.  

I found these inspiring words while chasing down some Filipino-American history. I thought it to be very close to the 10 commandments but written with words more in tune with the present time. These few paragraphs seem to summarize all the teachings of Jesus, the constitution (US & Filipino), and the Declaration of Independence (US & Filipino).

This code of conduct, seems so right and so simple, but in reality is so hard to follow. We let greed, pride and our individuality blind us from what being created ‘in his image’ really means.

Such a great work as this should not be hidden in a folder in a library, guarded as a valuable manuscript from an ancestor. It should be proclaimed throughout the world, shared over and over again so that we remember there is only one ‘I AM’ and that is God.

Emilio Jacinto’s address to the candidates at an initiation (Katipunan) in 1894. This address is known today as the Kartilya ng Katipunan. This is what I feel should be the aspirations of all men in all societies.

Kartilya ng Katipunan

“Doing good for personal profit, and not for the sake of the good itself, is not goodness. Charity is rational, as is the love we owe our neighbors, and so our attitude, deeds and words should ever conform to what is reasonable. Whether the complexion be dark or light, all men are equal. Superiority through knowledge, from riches and by beauty are all possible, but nature gives no other superiority.

The honest man prizes his honor above personal profit; rascals prefer profit to honor. Among men of honor the plighted word is sacred. The prudent man is sparing of his promises, and faithfully guards confidences. Don’t waste your time. Lost riches may be regained but lost time can never be recovered. Defend the abused and make complaint of, or war upon, the aggressor.

Along life’s thorny path the man should be the guide of his wife and children, and if the husband and father takes a route over precipices those whom he guides will also fall over.

Woman should not be regarded as a mere plaything but as the faithful companion that shares with man all the penalties of life. Her weakness should make her a special care when you remember that you were born of a woman and recall the mother that brought you up.

Whatever you would be unwilling to have done to your own wife, your own daughters and your own sisters, that do not you do to wives or daughters or sisters of your neighbors.

A man is of no more worth merely because he is a king, or has an aquiline nose, or is fair-skinned, nor because he is a priest, calling himself the minister of God, nor through enjoying great privileges among the fortunate of the earth. The real man is he who, of tried and trusty valor, does good, keeps his word, and is worthy and self-respecting. Such an one neither abuses others nor associates with those that abuse others. Although he may have been brought up in remote mountains and speaks no other language than his rude mother-tongue, real manhood will know how to love and cherish the native land.

When these rules of conduct shall be known to, and observed by all Filipinos, then the sun of our long longed-for liberty will shine brightly on this favored portion of the earth and its rays diffuse such inconceivable joy among the united brothers of the same race that the lives of those who fall anbd the fatigues and sufferings of those who survive will be well repaid.” – Emilio Jacinto 1894 

For more information about Katipunan: 

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katipunan - Supreme and Venerable Association of the Children of the Nation.
• http://www.efilarchives.org/exhibits/Philippine%20History%20Website%202025/katipunan.html - The Philippine History Site.
• https://www.philippinemasonry.org/the-katipunan-ideology.html - The Katipunan Ideology.
• https://kapampangan.org/the-katipunan-history-philippine-independence/ -
• The Katipunan – History, Significance, and People Leading to Philippine Independence. 

 

 For more information about Kartilya ng Katipunan:

• https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/history-lesson-5-6-kartilya-ng-katipunan-proclamation-of-philippine-independence/266665436  - History Lesson 5 & 6 KARTILYA NG KATIPUNAN & PROCLAMATION OF

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartilya_ng_Katipunan - The Kartilya ng Katipunan
• https://www.philippinemasonry.org/kartilya-ng-katipunan.html - English Translation.

• https://www.scribd.com/document/539009153/The-Kartilya-ng-Katipunan Teachings of the Kartilya ng Katipunan.
  
  
  
  

USS Oriskany CVA34 - The Last Warrior

As a 3rd Class Petty Officer I served aboard the USS Oriskany CVA34 from July 72 to July 76. Working mainly with the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) I was also crypto qualified, HF receivers qualified and Tactical Air navigation System (TACAN) qualified.  

After years of service, the day finally came to say goodbye. Standing on the pier and watching my ship sail away, I reflected on the journey—the long nights, the sacrifices, the friendships, and the memories that will last a lifetime.

I thought I was joining the Navy for the adventure. I never imagined how deeply it would become a part of who I am. Now, with my watch finally over, there is only one thing left to say:

Fair winds and following seas, shipmate. Thank you to everyone who has worn the uniform and served our country. Your service matters, and you will never be forgotten.  

 

Time is cruel to the body and mind, but some memories never fade. I will forever be 20 years old, standing on the flight deck of the USS Oriskany - CVA34, watching the sun set over a calm sea. The smell of salt in the air, its taste in my mouth, the feel of hard steel beneath my feet and an eager anticipation in my heart as I looked out across the sea to my newest adventure. With the coming of the next morning's horizon and the dawn of each passing day I felt like it was a given that I would be there to see it through to each sunset. 

Now I lay my head down each night in anticipation of the next adventure that my dream will create from the memories of that gallant young man. For my body can no longer sail the seas, but my heart, mind and soul will forever be aboard the rolling deck of a ship of war headed for the battle line. There is something about the adventure, camaraderie, danger and personal risk of service aboard a Navy warship that stays with you and gets intertwined with your very being and it never leaves. 

The Oriskany was the last commissioned Essex Class Carrier.  The Essex-class was a highly successful, class of 24 U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, serving as the backbone of the US Navy’s fleet from mid-1943 through the Vietnam War. No Essex Class Carriers were lost to enemy action, though some were heavily damaged, especially by kamikazes late in WWII. Four remain in existence today as museum ships: the Yorktown, the Hornet, the Lexington, and the Intrepid. 

After the WWII, the Essex Class Carriers underwent multiple upgrades to handle the new jet aircraft and helicopters of the jet age, including angled flight decks. They continued to form a significant part of U.S. naval air power into the Korean and Thirteen of the Essex carriers were used in action during the Vietnam War. Several Essex-class carriers also saw use in the NASA space program as recovery platforms for space aircraft returning from lunar missions. 

My road to Oriskany began while I was stationed at Naval Schools Command, Treasure Island. That's a small flat island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.  I was maintaining electronic test equipment for an Electronic Technician "A" school on the island. I had just received my orders. Sea Duty aboard the USS Oriskany CVA 34. I had never heard of Her so, I started asking others on the island if they knew anything about this ship. The "CVA" told me that she was an attack carrier of some kind but no one I talked to had ever heard of this "Oriskany" thing.

The orders also stated that before reporting aboard I would spend a few weeks in a "C" school learning something called NTDS (Naval Tactical Data System) SRC-16 radio transmitter - receiver system (one of the Navy's first all digital data communications networks) at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, somewhere close to San Francisco.

When I got to Mare Island and started the school, I also started asking around if anyone knew anything about this "Oriskany" ship. I found one old instructor that knew about her. He broke out into a huge laugh when I mentioned I was going to the Oriskany. He asked me who I pissed off. He said she was the OLDEST THING AFLOAT! Her SRC-16 system was serial number XN1 #1. That meant it was experimental model number 1 and was nothing like the machine I learned in school. Well, at least I now knew something about this thing called "Oriskany."

 

On the 17th of April 1973, I stood at the head of a pier in Alameda California. On my starboard side stood the USS Enterprise. Pride of the Navy, Queen of all the seas. She was all decked out to start her sea tour tomorrow. Today she stood tall sleek and shinny. A necklace of aircraft around her island, She looked like an Ensign standing inspection, not a scratch or bruise on her skin, wrinkle in her uniform, and not a hair out of place. So beautiful and "sexy" - A sailor's "dream boat". I could almost feel her tugging at me, whispering a sweet beautiful sea chantey in my ear, trying to lure me away from my destination on the opposite side of the pier.

On the port side, stood the Old Bitch of the Sea - Oriskany. Just back from her sea tour yesterday. There she stood, Her uniform of grey: dirty, torn, wrinkled and tattered. Her skin scratched, bruised, covered in soot, salt and seagull crap. As I walked up her after-brow I could smell her sweat. Sweat from hundreds of miles in scorching sun and rough stormy seas, sweat from dozens of weeks at Yankee Station with flight ops sometimes going 24 hours a day. She was old, ugly and decrepit and she smelled of death.

At the head of her brow I stopped, turned and saluted her ensign. As I turned a 180, grabbed my packet of papers to hand to the Brow Watch, I thought: What the hell am I doing here? Did I piss off God? Why couldn't I be ridding that sleek young thing across the pier? The world knew her name and who's girl she was. Why am I, just turning 20 years old, why do I have to ride this lonely Old Bitch of the Sea that no one knew, and from the looks of her, no one cared about?

On 14 June 1976, I stepped out on her flight deck for the last time. Slated for decommissioning instead of being cleaned up primed and painted, she was being stripped of all of her equipment. As I looked around I saw Her uniform of grey, still dirty, torn, wrinkled, tattered and Her skin scratched, bruised, covered in soot, salt and seagull crap from Her last Task Force 77 Westpac. She was older and probably a bit uglier, but she wasn't the old bitch of the sea that I thought she would be. Once you got to know her she became a Fighting Lady. "The Mighty 'O' "is what we called her. A bitch to her enemy, but a Mighty Fighting Lady to her crew. She was the last of her kind, the last Essex Class Carrier, the last of the mighty fighting ships that took back the Pacific from the Japanese. From Alaska in the north to all the little islands that dot her south, the Essex Class Carriers fought and won the Pacific war. No, Oriskany wasn't the old bitch of the sea, She was the proud mother of the modern carrier, the first "SUPER CARRIER." Without the Essex Class Carriers like Oriskany, we would not have the sassy, sleek and sexy carriers of today.

As I walked down her after-brow for the last time, I walked slowly so that I could savor her sweet sweat from missions to Korea and Vietnam, all the flight-ops involved in those wars along with the storms and typhoons we weathered. Along with her sweat is the always welcoming aroma of Subic bay with just a hint of Olongapo bar-maid perfume mixed with the breeze off shit-river. 

...Sorry, I just couldn't help a little Westpac reminiscing. 

 

"I can imagine no more rewarding a career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction, 'I served in the United States Navy'." - John F. Kennedy at the commissioning ceremony of the USS Oriskany in 1950 (my first ship).

ETN3 Harbit - Proud to say "I served on the USS Oriskany CVA 34" - Relatively unknown to most Americans but highly feared by America's enemy's. 

  

 

January 28, 1973 in the South China Sea…The nuclear-powered attack aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) (Center), the attack aircraft carriers USS America CV-66 (left of center) and USS Oriskany (CVA-34) (above & behind Enterprise), the escort ships USS Bronstein (DE-1037) and USS Fanning (DE-1076) and the destroyers USS Corry (DD-817), USS William C. Lawe (DD-763) and USS Cone (DD-866) cruise together in the multiple aircraft carrier force at the end of the hostilities with Vietnam." Photographer: SA Larry Hayes  

 

As I grow older I realize the magic of "belonging" to some place or time. I was on the USS Oriskany CVA-34 for an incredibly short time considering the length of my life at the present moment (75 years) and I remember the day I came aboard and the day I saluted her ensign for the last time. I did not realize it but I was taking a part of her with me and leaving some of myself behind. I now realize that I will never truly leave her, nor will she ever leave me. She is a part of my makeup today. The things she taught me I have used through out my life. Of all my education, the 3 years aboard her was by far my greatest learning experience. 

She was decommissioned on 30 September 1976. The old girl was slowly torn apart but she did not whimper or cry, she realized she had stood her watch and it was her time to be relieved.

 

She did not die because she lives with in the 10's of thousand of sailors that have crossed her deck during her watch and to me she will always be "the Grand Old Lady ...... the Mighty 'O'. The last Essex Class ship made. The last Great Warrior of WWII. 

ETN3 Harbit OE division, July 1973 - July 1976.

 

 

For more information visit:

A Day in WestPac Aboard the Mighty Oriskany 

America's Mighty Essex-Class Aircraft Carriers Were Almost Invincible

 Oriskany (CV-34)

 Wikipedia - USS Oriskany (CV-34)

Angels of the Oriskany - Fire, 26 October 1966

 USS Oriskany CVA34 on YouTube 

 

A SAILOR'S WORST NIGHTMARE - A FIRE AT SEA!

Although we were surrounded by all that water, fire is what we feared the most.

Time Magazine

Posted Friday, Nov. 4, 1966

Agony of the Oriskany

Amid gentle swells off the coast of North Viet Nam, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Oriskany swung north ward into the wind. Four A-4E Skyhawk jet bombers soared gracefully off the flight deck. At 7:38 a.m., four more were being readied in a hangar bay far below, when a shouting sailor burst from a 15-ft.-square locker near by. Be hind him was an ominously hissing stack of 700 Mark-24 magnesium parachute flares. He barely had time to dog down the hatch on the locker and race for a phone when the flares began to explode. Fire bells clanged; klaxons sounded the call to general quarters. Loudspeakers shrilled: "This is no drill! This is no drill!"

Helpless Horror. Superbly trained fire crews dragged hoses toward the burning locker. Other crewmen fought desperately to roll four planes to the far end of the hangar deck: three of them were already laden with bombs; the fourth, a tanker, carried 900 gal. of JP5 jet fuel. The fire fighters watched in helpless horror as the steel bulkheads of the flare locker started ballooning under the 7,000° heat inside. The steel hatch blasted open with a great gout of flame that engulfed the hangar and sent fire balls rocketing down every passageway, igniting two helicopters. Five sailors were burned alive.

The automatic sprinkler system opened up, spraying curtains of water into the lower-deck compartments. But the magnesium-fed fire continued to burn, turning sections of the flight deck above into a sizzling skillet. Choking clouds of dense, dirty-grey smoke poured through seven decks of the Oriskany's forward sections. Two more blasts sent flames belching along the flight deck, where red-shirted ordnance experts worked feverishly to jettison 500-lb., 1,000-lb.and 2,000-lb. bombs they dumped dozens overboard into the sea.

The fire caught hundreds of the Oriskany's 3,400-man crew below deck. Worst hit was "officers' country" in the forecastle, where many men had not yet climbed out of their bunks. As the choking fumes billowed into their compartments, they tried to escape, only to be forced back by the deadly smoke and heat in the passageways. Lieut. Commander Marvin Reynolds opened his porthole and managed to alert some hands on the top deck; they handed down a hose and an oxygen mask. Then Reynolds spent three hours spraying water around his oven-hot compartment. Commander Richard M. Bellinger, a 205-lb. jet pilot who was awarded the Silver Star last month, ripped out an air conditioner, wriggled naked through the tiny opening to a burning catwalk and escape. Others were not so lucky.

Flag-Draped Coffins. Again and again, volunteers donned oxygen equipment to go below into the stupefying heat in search of trapped shipmates. Some had to don scuba gear and swim through inky water that rose over their heads in the darkened passageways. They hauled to safety many men who were horribly injured, unconscious or so broken by shock that they could not comprehend where they were. Not until after 3 p.m., more than seven hours after the flares first began their still unexplained sputtering, was the last small smoldering fire extinguished.

That night, looking as if she had taken a direct hit in battle, the 42,000-ton Oriskany limped across the South China Sea, bound for Subic Bay in the Philippines. Shortly after she docked there, honor guards from her crew carried away a seemingly endless line of flag-draped coffins. Thus, only two weeks before she was due to finish her second tour of duty off Viet Nam, the Oriskany suffered in one day the Navy's worst disaster of the Viet Nam War: 35 officers (24 of them combat-conditioned pilots) and eight enlisted men had died, all but six of suffocation. In two years at war, the carrier had previously lost eleven pilots.

It was more valor than luck that kept the Oriskany from going to the bottom of the Gulf of Tonkin. "There were just too many acts of heroism to count," said Skipper John Iarrobino. "There were literally hundreds. If there hadn't been, God only knows what the toll and the damage might have been." Almost everyone aboard performed with distinction, but the kids, the teen-aged sailors of the Oriskany, got particular acclaim for keeping her afloat. Said one seasoned chief: "Those crazy rock-'n'-roll jitterbuggers, they saved this ship today. Getting into that fire and pushing those bombs over the side and volunteering for rescue parties—those kids were everywhere doing everything."

The following officers and men of ORISKANY died in or as a result of the fires that swept her forward compartments on 26 October 1966:

Their names are listed on panel 11e on the Vietnam memorial in Washington DC.

"They are not gone as long as someone remembers their name"

CDR Jack H. Harris
CDR Richard E. Donahue
CDR Harry W. Juntilla
LCDR William J. Garrity Jr.
LCDR Walter F. Merrick
LCDR Omar R. Ford
LT Frank M. Gardner
LTJG Dewey L. Alexander
LTJG Ramon A. Copple
LTJG James B. Hudis
LTJG James A. Kelly Jr.
LTJG Franklin M. Tunick
BM3 Donald W. Shanks
BM3 Alvin M. Shifflett Jr.
SN Robert L. Dyke
SN James K. Gray
SN James A. Lee
FN William Walling
CDR Rodney B. Carter
AA Greg E. Hart
LT Lloyd P. Hyde
LTJG William R. Clements
CDR George K. Farris
LCDR James A. Smith
LT John F. Francis
CDR John J. Nussbaumer
AZAN David A. Liste
LCDR Clement J. Morisette
LT Clarence D. Miller
LTJG Thomas E. Spitzer
ENS Ronald E. Tardio
CDR Clyde R. Welch
LCDR Daniel L. Strong
LTJG James L. Brewer
LTJG William A. Johnson
LCDR Norman S. Levy
LTJG Cody A. Balisteri
LTJG William G. McWilliams, III
ENS Charles W. Boggs
LT Josslyn F. Blakely, Jr.
LT Julian D. Hammond, Jr.
LTJG Gerald W. Siebe
LTJG James R. Welsh
ENS Daniel O. Kern 

 

 For more on the Oriskany Fire: 

 

How Fire and Fatigue Almost Destroyed an American Carrier

USS Oriskany fire

The USS ORISKANY (CVA-34) fire and munition explosions Hell Afloat 

"Fire, fire, fire in frame 42 This is no drill! This is no drill." 

Fire in Hanger Bay 1 

Flaming Flattops: Deadly Fires Struck U.S. Aircraft Carriers  

 

"I can imagine no more rewarding a career. And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction, 'I served in the United States Navy'." - John F. Kennedy 

 

 

USS Oriskany CVA34

Imagination

 

While I was finishing up my degree at Fresno State University in 1999, I posted my first blog post on a new Google application called Blogger. At the time, I felt it was a good place for me to practice my writing skills, share my writings and hopefully gain some insight and pointers about public writing from people of all walks of life. That one blog post blossomed into what is now almost a dozen blogs on various aspects of my life and the interests those aspects have sparked.

I guess I like to write. I'm always at my keyboard, I like to sit and just imagine. Most of the time, those "imagination" articles make sense only to me. 

Imagination operates both spontaneously while daydreaming or during sparks of creativity and deliberately during planning or design. Imagination relies on memory, attention and associative thinking. I sometimes just sit and daydream at my keyboard (like I am right now). Most of those articles don't even make sense to me; but humanity owes a lot to imagination and dreams. Most of our discoveries and inventions were once a dream in someone's imagination. Much like President Kennedy's dream: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." 

I wonder what the world would be like if every person was an academic nerd? I doubt that we would have landed on the moon. Ask anyone at NASA and they will tell you that not all answers come from math, physics and chemistry because sometimes even the problem has to be imagined with solutions coming from an engineer's dream. ... That is how we achieved President Kennedy's dream.

I also write about places I've been and places that interest me. Somewhere on my hard drive is an story about me landing on Pluto, you know, the planet we threw away.  My imagination kind of "ran away" in that article. Although I have not published any of those imaginative and daydream articles, I often go back to them when I am writing factual articles from my research about technology.  After many years spent in technology, I find that dreams and imagination actually lead discovery, fact and solution. So, the next time you see me daydreaming, we could be on our way to Pluto (I'm an engineer ... Retired!). 

I love to research technology. I used to be a "retro" guy, Writing about the old computers and software on a card. I still do, but lately, I have turned to writing about Artificial Intelligence. If you want to let your imagination and dreams run wild, AI is the place to be. 

Take a moment right now, ask yourself, can you get through a day without using any type of computing hardware or software? Everything in your kitchen except, pots, pans, dishes and maybe a 5 year old toaster, has a CPU in it. Your garage door has a CPU, your television and radio have a CPU, your car has multiple CPUs, traffic lights are controlled by a CPU, almost everything in our world today has a CPU (even toothbrushes?). Now, sit back in your chair and daydream and imagine yourself living in the 1800s. Could you do it? The only problem with THAT daydream is that some idiot is going to come along and dream up a CPU, RAM and build a "computer" and you will be back where you started. Sitting back in your chair surrounded by CPUs. 

The hardest thing for me to write about is myself. We are all different. We have different experiences and even if two people have the same experience, they will both interpret it differently. It seems sometimes I always make someone angry with a post. There are many aspects of being human. There's the hardware, consisting of your skin, organs, muscle, and bones; software, consisting of electrical charges, chemistry, and nerve connections in the brain; and firmware of blood and water. Then there are the "feelings". Where do they come from? how are they made? Probably, they come from that same unknown factor that generates imagination and dreams (remember, attention and associative thinking are part of imagination).

 

 

Some folks say I am a contradiction within myself. My early life was hardened by living in a world of racial chaos, war and drugs. During those times I didn't know who I was or why I was here, I desperately wanted the ideals that John Lennon sang of. I wanted peace, unity of mankind and serenity in my life. They say John Lennon wrote this song for the world, but I think he probably wrote it for himself. We should not have to imagine a world in peace, we should be able live it. 

In the 60s, above the roar of race riots, the shouting in Congress and the cries of our men dying in Vietnam, you could hear the shout of the young "All we are saying is give peace a chance."

We achieved Kennedy's dream by pulling together, helping each other out and forgetting our differences. We can do the same for our dream of peace (we all have it!) by stopping our one-up-man ship and forgetting our differences. If we can do that on an individual basis, we will all be pulling together, pulling in the same direction because it won't be a choice, it will be the only thing we can do.