The Filipino seaman, who arrived Tuesday night at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport on board a China Southern flight from Xiamen, described his arrest in Zhengen in 1999 and his subsequent conviction as "very unfortunate," saying he was at the "wrong place at the wrong time."
Married to a public school teacher and a father of five children, his eldest boy now 17 years old, Astrolabio had no inkling of the ordeal befalling him when he boarded in September 1999 a Panamanian-registered oil tanker that docked at the Zhengen port.
Astrolabio recalled that he and a fellow crewmember decided to have dinner outside the port while their cargo was being unloaded.
After the dinner, he said they bumped into a group of Chinese outside the restaurant. They had a "misunderstanding" with the locals, which he refused to elaborate on, that resulted in a "free for all."
"They were too many of them hitting and kicking me in all parts of my body. My face was bloodied due to continuous blows and kicks," he said. "They only stopped when I got hold of a knife and stabbed three of them."
One of the three Astrolabio stabbed died. He was arrested and charged with homicide, for which he was later sentenced to a 10-year prison term.
In jail, he asked his family back home to appeal to the Department of Foreign Affairs to seek his release. DFA officials heeded his plea and appealed his case to Chinese officials who agreed for humanitarian reasons to reduce his prison term from 10 to three years.
He was subsequently released to the custody of the Philippine Embassy in Beijing, having served the reduced sentence.