AMID an international humanitarian crisis, particularly in Southeast Asia, members of a tribe in the Philippines have been in search for a new home that would welcome them like the seas of southern Mindanao once did. And after years of wandering, one group of Badjaos may have found a place like home in Quezon.
How can we help our country’s own boat people and other indigenous groups? How can people transform their advocacies and passions into helping these ethnic groups?
These are some of the questions that Payatas Orione Foundation Inc. (Paofi) has been trying to address for years.
Paofi is the missionary nongovernmental organization of the Little Work of Divine Providence Congregation, founded by Saint Luigi Orione that aids the Badjao community in Dalahican, Lucena City, where over 200 Badjao families have settled to form a community.
The Badjaos have been displaced from their hometown in Sulu and Zamboanga and resorted to living in stilt houses for years now. With no electricity, no hygienic means of getting food and water, they roam the streets of Manila, Lucena and other areas, begging for alms to make ends meet.
Presently, the Badjao community in Dalahican has 22 scholars at the Dalahican Elementary School, has solar electricity, health and nutrition programs, hygiene lessons, a Day Care Center for Badjao children and a livelihood program for the adults, and Paofi’s volunteers are now helping the Badjaos to acquire birth certificates and eventually to help them register as voters.
But it wasn’t an easy task, recalled Fr. Martin Mroz, Paofi’s executive director. Mroz started adopting the Badjao community in 2011, painstakingly earning their trust.
“The Badjaos are a group that like to keep to themselves, and getting displaced from the place you call home can be difficult for anyone, so naturally it became really hard for them to get used to the new people and environment around them when they settled here in Dalahican,” Mroz said.
“Getting them to talk to us, let alone trust us, was a daunting task. But with enough compassion and persistence, we were able to conduct outreach programs in their community, until eventually they started visiting the parish where the learning center is. Now both the Badjao children and the parents have allowed us to support them in any way we could,” Mroz added.
In Lucena City, many Badjaos are often seen paddling their small boats close to port areas in Dalahican where passenger ships dock. Badjaos usually ask passengers to throw coins, and Badjaos in return show onlookers how skillful they are in diving after the coins.
“For us it is not right to put Badjao lives in danger by allowing them, especially the children, to beg on ports and roads,” Mroz added.
He said Badjaos deserve to live a decent life despite being considered as stateless people with no official documentation of their nationality. In fact, most of them don’t even know their real age because they are unable to obtain official birth certificates.
Many Badjaos are forced out of their coastal settlements by ongoing conflict, natural disasters, and the destruction of fishing sanctuaries. In the Visayas, for example, many Badjaos inhabiting along coastal settlements are forced to seek new sanctuaries as tourism industry continues to grow. And when they find a new place to settle in, they’re often being negatively stereotyped into “moochers” or “untouchables.”
For Mroz, the support of the government, private groups and individuals in recognizing and providing basic social services to Badjaos are needed to help the Badjaos get a better chance at living decently.
Leonard Cariño—a project coordinator for a private company supporting Paofi—said the Badjaos is one of the most misunderstood tribes in the country as people continue to have negative views about them. “In Metro Manila, we continue to see them as street vagrants roaming the streets during the Christmas season,” Cariño said.
He said Badjaos are victims of societal injustice that can be traced from our failure to understand them. He also added that something must be done to keep them away from the dangerous streets.