By Joe SpriteJagna-based Writer
ColumnistBohol Sunday Post
The fisherman was sailing to the fishing grounds to do one time fishing. He was using a sailboat to save on gasoline. On the way he saw something floating and sailed near to investigate. What he saw scared him out of his wits. It was a corpse in an advanced state of decomposition. In his fear, he tacked, that means he reversed his course and sailed for home.
The first thing he did was to report his experience to the Coast Guard but when he was asked about the bearings of his position during the discovery he said that it seems to be in front of Fidel's house if you look there but if there but it also seems to be in front of Gomer's house if you look there.
Those who are not familiar with the local fisherman's jargon would never decode what he is trying to say. Local bearings are not reckoned by degrees and seconds latitude and longitude. Their points of reference are the Tubod headland and Anda point. The distance from the shore is measured as to which promontory of the Bohol topography is visible. Unless one knows those references he would never know where the location is. The Coast Guard merely filed the information away for the record.
Trying to recover something in Bohol Sea when directions are vague is a hopeless task. The currents are erratic, even the seasonal ones. Three Europeans who drifted out from Anda were carried to Limasawa and back then to Limasawa again in the space of twenty-four hours. The combined efforts of the Anda police, government and private helicopters and local boats failed to find them until a Limasawa fishing boat chanced upon them.
Nethertheless the Coast Guard gave out information that there was a report of a man overboard some two weeks ago. A middle aged male passenger was seen boarding the ship seemingly in an inebriated condition. He was staggering. There when the ship sailed for Mindanao , scarcely an hour after leaving Jagna port, the ship stopped sailed around in circles for about an hour and resumed the voyage. The authorities were notified that a man fell overboard but was not recovered.
There were many theories on why the man – we assumed that the person was a man, women do not jump overboard, they prefer a glamorous way of dying. He was either drunk and lost his footing. He was not drunk but lost his footing anyway. He was despondent and he decided to end it all. Or he cannot bear to go home to his wife. Well, he cannot be asked. First he was not identified and even if identified he is already dead.
The chap who found the body got a merciless ribbing from his fellows. He was accused of being a fair weather fisherman who gets flustered when the winds become brisk. Necrophilia runs in the family, after the man over board report they say even a floating plastic is taken to be a cadaver. His brother was so afraid of ghosts that when he died, he cannot come back to haunt anybody because he is afraid of himself as a ghost.
We have a sneaking suspicion that the local fishermen are trying to discredit the fellow.
If a corpse were found drifting in the fishing grounds, fish prices would take a nosedive. Mere presence of a cadaver would taint all fishers vegetarian or carnivorous. Even swimming past the body would contaminate the fish. After the Ormoc tragedy when corpses were washed into Bohol Sea between Jagna and Camiguin, fish prices were so low that blue water fishermen have to limit their operations. At any rate, local fish consumers do not have to worry. If the story were true, the body would have drifted away from Jagna. It could be in either Pamilacan or Limasawa. Or even if in the vicinity, it would have disintegrated and sank. Sharks could not have eaten it. The sharks are now in office.
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