Badjao in Dumaguete City Sad Over Police Frequent Arrests

The Badjao people with some KMO-INTER missionaries in Dumaguete city
Picture by KMO-INTER (http://www.kmointer.webs.com/)

The Badjao people, they need your support!
Picture by KMO-INTER (http://www.kmointer.webs.com/)

These Badjao kids needs your help!
Picture by KMO-INTER (http://www.kmointer.webs.com/)

Badjao in Dumaguete City Sad Over Police Frequent Arrests


By Success Kanayo Uchime
http://www.kmointer.webs.com/

Things are not really going well with lots of the Badjao tribal people settling in Dumaguete City as the Philippines National Police (PNP) will always swoop on them as an owl will always swoop down to grab a mouse.

This is always the occurring case with these neglected and marginalized Badjao people who’re always spotted at the Boulevard area and other parts of the city doing what they know best – either selling pearls or begging for arms.

A cross section of them who were interviewed felt hurt by this incessant harassments by the PNP and other government agencies and are quick to plead to them to give peace a chance by allowing them to move freely in a country they’ve a “common wealth.”

Speaking on this development, the Chief Operations and Plans, Dumaguete City Police Station, Mr.Eduardo Sojor Oira said that the case is not always like that adding that the police only act based on the order of the Department of Social Welfare Development (DSWD).

He said that the City Government through the DSWD put in place a taskforce to monitor the activities of the Badjao people stressing that the police is just a member of that taskforce.

“If the DSWD request for our assistance concerning the Badjao immediately we provide them that. When DSWD operate they ask for our help and the Badjao are always under the custody of the DSDW not the police. They’ve not committed any criminal offence, therefore police has no basis to arrest them,” he stated.

Mr. Oira noted that on no account have they requested the Badjao people to move out of Dumaguete City as the police have no problem with them adding that the police only carry out its legitimate function by giving its assistance to the taskforce that was setup by the City Government.

One of the Badjao, who described himself as Malah Kunog felt bitter about the whole scenario and pleaded on the City Government and the police to assist his people by providing them with a resettlement center and also empowering them economically.

He believed that since his people are great fishermen, the Government can do well by providing them tools like boats and other fishing tools that will enable them engage themselves in a meaningful venture.

The Badjao or Bajau, which means man of the seas, are constantly having a sense of rejection and at present are known as the most marginalized ethnic group and also one of the poorest tribes in the Philippines or rather the poorest of the poor.

They’re a Muslim tribe that is always avoided by almost every Filipino they come across and this has put them in a disadvantaged position to engage in any meaningful venture that will enable them to be self-supporting financially.

The Badjao are often regarded as social outcasts and never-do-wells, whose stock in trade is always and nothing but begging for arms a scenario that’s not always accepted by their fellow Filipinos. In fact the discrimination is so intense that an average Filipino always finds it difficult to patronize the Badjao who hawk pearls, fish or other goods. They’re only left at the mercy of few foreigners who don’t know that they’re “Badjao.”

The plight of the Badjao tribal people was taken to the former Mayor of Dumaguete City, Hon. Augustine Perdices by a group of missionaries working under the Kingdom Missions Outreach International Inc. (KMO-INTER), the only known organization in Dumaguete City helping to rehabilitate the Badjao people, and the Mayor then said that his office is particularly worried over some of them who beg and thereby liter the streets with garbage. The Mayor showed serious concern for them and wished that well-meaning organizations would come up to assist them.

According to him, the government would be ready to work with any such organizations that’ll have an articulate program for them in terms of livelihood projects and others. And his statement collaborates well with that of his successor, Hon. Manuel ‘Chiquiting’ Sagarbarria who also showed willingness to partner with any group ready to work among the Badjao tribal people in Dumaguete City.

Welcoming in his office delegates from KMO-INTER recently who came to pay him a courtesy visit, Hon. Sagarbarria said his Government is ready to deal ones and for all with this social problem of street begging by the Badjao and others and as such mandated the DSWD, to liaise with his office on the progress being made by KMO-INTER in reaching out to the Badjao.

The case of the Badjao in Dumaguete City is similar to that of the Badjao elsewhere in the whole of the Philippines as investigations show that even in Manila their case is even made worst as they kept running away from the Pasay police, officers of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) there.

These government agencies give reason for there action from the October 1999 presidential memorandum which instituted the Rescue-Care Program or better known as “Sagip-Kalinga Program. This program amongst other things empowers the police, MMDA and DSWD to arrest and rescue street dwellers, which include the street children, the mentally-ill drug addicts and all others that pose as a social menace in metro Manila.

Further to that they are also carrying out these constant arrests of these groups of people based on the Presidential Decree 1563 or the Anti-Mendicancy Law which also empowers them to do so.

The Manila police authorities claimed that the Badjao, along with other street dwellers, are collected and brought to a rehabilitation center in Malibay, Pasay, where they’re taken care of by the city’s social workers and other Sagip-Kalinga personnel.

This project it’s believed encourages them to return to their hometown and start a new life. And what they do with them is to try and talk them into realizing the dangers inherent in city life and are also given some stipends that’ll take care of their feeding and transport back home.

But the question is this, what are their counterparts in Dumaguete City doing in order to elevate the suffering of these neglected Badjao people in the city? The case is the opposite in Dumaguete City where they’re being arrested and taken out of the city without any meaningful program on ground to rehabilitate them. And what we usually see is a vicious circle where the Badjao after a while will return back to the city to continue begging on the streets, thereby making a mockery of the whole exercise.

The Government should put in place articulate programs on ground that’ll facilitate their immediate rehabilitation, like a resettlement center, where they’ll be taught livelihood programs that’ll liberate them economically. And even when the government can’t do this alone due to logistics involved, they should encourage other non-governmental agencies like KMO-INTER that are at present making desperate moves to help the Badjao people come out of this life of penury they’ve come to leave with.

As some of them interviewed said that if they can be empowered with fishing boats (baker) and many other economic empowerment projects, they’ll ultimately leave the streets and become productive, thereby contributing to the economic growth and development of the Philippines.

The irony of it all is that these Badjao consistently claim that they’re not lazy contrary to the insinuation of other Filipinos and, they strongly believe that if given a level playing ground, they’ll excel more than any other average Filipino. And one could see this in most of them, as they’re determined to come out of this poverty stricken life. They eagerly and consciously want to be liberated from their present precarious situation and this you see in their long distance trekking everyday in an effort to sell their pearls.

And it needs to be submitted and reiterated also that the earlier the government, both the city, regional and federal governments come to the rescue of these disadvantaged and often time stigmatized group of people the better the society will be for it. We can’t be talking of health, education, and food for all, when there is no adequate plan for the poorest of the poor in the Philippines – the Badjao.

As legitimate citizens of this country, it’s their fundamental rights to enjoy free and compulsory education, adequate healthcare program and what’s more a meaningful and deserving livelihood. The Badjao tribal people should be treated as fellow human beings not outcasts in their own country.

If you wish to send your support to this our Badjao project, please click here: http://kmointer.webs.com/giveyourdonation.htm