The Filipino Mafia

KPEngnr90

KPEngnr90

Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2022
Messages
149
For all you newly commissioning SWO's, The Filipino Mafia is your friend. Get in good and use their services to your benefit. Your career as a SWO will thank you. Piss them off and your life could be a seagoing hell. PSA.
 
nuensis said:
The what now?

That's not a real thing.
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Trust me, it's as real as it gets. As a former Division Officer I know. What I said was the sage advice given to me by my Filipino uncles before commissioning. All Navy Chiefs. The Filipino Mafia can make or break your career as a SWO. They can run interference and create shortcuts to help you get your job done. Dismiss them at your own peril. If it requires paperwork ie supplies, food, spare parts, fuel, ammo, the Filipino Mafia has a hand in it. Your next duty station can be swayed by the FM. Everyone knows a guy that knows a guy etc. It was the difference between my twilight tour being Pearl Harbor HI not Norfolk VA. Take care of the FM and they will take care of you. It's been an institution since the old whiteship days of the Navy. YW.
 
WT Door said:
Concur. If you have to put a qualifier in front of mafia, like Filipino or Russian or anything else, it ain't the mafia. The mafia really means one thing - Sicilians.
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You obviously didnt serve in the fleet. Otherwise you'd know the deal.
 
KPEngnr90 said:
Trust me, it's as real as it gets. As a former Division Officer I know. What I said was the sage advice given to me by my Filipino uncles before commissioning. All Navy Chiefs. The Filipino Mafia can make or break your career as a SWO. They can run interference and create shortcuts to help you get your job done. Dismiss them at your own peril. If it requires paperwork ie supplies, food, spare parts, fuel, ammo, the Filipino Mafia has a hand in it. Your next duty station can be swayed by the FM. Everyone knows a guy that knows a guy etc. It was the difference between my twilight tour being Pearl Harbor HI not Norfolk VA. Take care of the FM and they will take care of you. It's been an institution since the old whiteship days of the Navy. YW.
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There may be a little bit of truth to this. Although I’m not sure they’re as all-powerful as you’re making them out to be. It’s more like sailors looking out for each other since they have that bond of shared heritage. And those connections can indeed be useful. But no, IT1 Gutierrez isn’t going to help you get stationed in Hawaii or get an EP on your fitrep.
 
Kierkegaard said:
There may be a little bit of truth to this. Although I’m not sure they’re as all-powerful as you’re making them out to be. It’s more like sailors looking out for each other since they have that bond of shared heritage. And those connections can indeed be useful. But no, IT1 Gutierrez isn’t going to help you get stationed in Hawaii or get an EP on your fitrep.
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Nope but LT Quoanco who plays golf with my detailer did. It's all about connections which they use to its fullest.
 
KPEngnr90 said:
You obviously didnt serve in the fleet. Otherwise you'd know the deal.
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I've been around the block. More than a couple of times. Sometimes I'd make them an offer they couldn't refuse. 😁😁 Although it is nice to have connections that can help when warranted. Mafia or not.
 
KPEngnr90 said:
Trust me, it's as real as it gets. As a former Division Officer I know. What I said was the sage advice given to me by my Filipino uncles before commissioning. All Navy Chiefs. The Filipino Mafia can make or break your career as a SWO. They can run interference and create shortcuts to help you get your job done. Dismiss them at your own peril. If it requires paperwork ie supplies, food, spare parts, fuel, ammo, the Filipino Mafia has a hand in it. Your next duty station can be swayed by the FM. Everyone knows a guy that knows a guy etc. It was the difference between my twilight tour being Pearl Harbor HI not Norfolk VA. Take care of the FM and they will take care of you. It's been an institution since the old whiteship days of the Navy. YW.
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I guess it must be because I haven't done my division officer ride yet. I think that comes later on in the career pipeline.

Nothing like that exists. Don't ask about it. Don't talk about it. Just understand the process.
 
WT Door said:
I've been around the block. More than a couple of times. Sometimes I'd make them an offer they couldn't refuse. 😁😁 Although it is nice to have connections that can help when warranted. Mafia or not.
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It's nothing illegal. It's just a nickname for a network of guys who do eachother favors and pay it forward and always remember when they got a favor somewhere along the line. I've seen it's magic. As a Division Officer in the engineering dept of a Destroyer, I remember ungettable spare parts suddenly showing up on the pier the next day. The paperwork involved for getting a spare part is sometimes beyond rediculous but they somehow know how to bypass all the red tape. I never questioned it, but I definitely benefitted from it. Aloha Braddah!!
 
KPEngnr90 said:
For all you newly commissioning SWO's, The Filipino Mafia is your friend. Get in good and use their services to your benefit. Your career as a SWO will thank you. Piss them off and your life could be a seagoing hell. PSA.
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Yeah
Little Sea Story here. . . I'll mostly skip the early part and just say when I was Nav on my 2nd ship, I did a solid for the crew's mess cooks and they were extremely thankful. For the rest of that tour, no matter how late I came down from the bridge or other reason to miss a meal, the Wardroom cooks would somehow know that I'd returned to my stateroom and bring me fresh hot food. The only other officers aboard who had that kind of care were the CO and XO.
 
... so just some anecdotes:

* Tagalog.
- During last summer's 3/C cruise, DS wàs texting me in Tagalog. Ok, what's going on? He informed me that Sailors from USS Daniel Inouye were teaching him Tagalog. He speaks Russian and Chinese.
- I'm 2+/2 in Tagalog. I could never crack those 19th Century poems deep in meaning.
 
OldRetSWO said:
Yeah
Little Sea Story here. . . I'll mostly skip the early part and just say when I was Nav on my 2nd ship, I did a solid for the crew's mess cooks and they were extremely thankful. For the rest of that tour, no matter how late I came down from the bridge or other reason to miss a meal, the Wardroom cooks would somehow know that I'd returned to my stateroom and bring me fresh hot food. The only other officers aboard who had that kind of care were the CO and XO.
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The first part of the sea story is what makes it an epic. So stop holding out brother SWO!
 
KPEngnr90 said:
The first part of the sea story is what makes it an epic. So stop holding out brother SWO!
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Well, OK

As all SWOs know, a ship XO conducts a "Messing and Berthing Inspection" on a daily basis. On my medium sized Amphib, this meant a walkthru of the Crew's berthing compartments and the galleys/mess decks on a daily basis. As Nav, I was a Department Head and reported to the XO who was also a friend/mentor. When the press of other duties crowded the XO's day, he sometimes would grab the first Department Head that he encountered and delegate the Messing and Berthing Inspection to them. One day, this fell to me and due to operational duties, it was a bit later than he would usually do it so the cooks were not expecting me to come in when I did. When I came into the crew's galley, there was a cluster of cooks, many of them from the PI clustered around one of the prep tables. Knowing what lunch had been, what they were eating looked markedly different. For the uninitiated, the cooks are supposed to eat the same food that they serve to the crew. So I asked the chief, what are you guys eating and he replied. Mister ______, we just eating some "gilly gilly", here, try some. I had some and complimented them on it and left. Basically, they had reworked some of the ingredients from the crew's meal, threw in some noodles, etc.

I did not report them to the Supply Officer or XO.

My chief (not from the PI) had already heard about it when I went up to the bridge a half hour or so later and told me that I had made a great impression and my already good standing in the Chief's Mess was even better.
 
nuensis said:
I guess it must be because I haven't done my division officer ride yet. I think that comes later on in the career pipeline.

Nothing like that exists. Don't ask about it. Don't talk about it. Just understand the process.
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First rule of Fight Club.
 
I did my Navy retirement ceremony in the Pentagon for the sake of convenience. Not a lot of great food options, and I didn’t want to book a dining venue in the building and pay for mediocre food. CNO was gong to be on travel. I asked VCNO (had known him a long time) if I could do a little deal with the CNO’s mess staff and use his private dining room. You guessed it. I had The Best Lumpia, pancit and fancy nibbles. I had a fantastic turnout (I give the lumpia intel credit) at my ceremony, and the food was the best memories of every Navy ceremonial reception of my career. I had always stuck my head in to say hi to those guys, ask about family, gave some feedback on a daughter’s USCGA application essay, etc. They took good care of me.
 
sasmc said:
In your opinion what is the biggest mistake new SWO's make?
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Snubbing the FM. Especially 2nd generation Filipino officers who think they're above. Do it at your own peril. They're not only in the enlisted ranks, some are warrants and mustangs. Get in good and your life as a DivO/Dept Head is that much easier.
 
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