Badjao : Sama Dilaut of Tawi-Tawi Sea Gypsies

This is another of my term papers. You can thank me for sparing you from having to view my final exam from Archaeology. I thought about it, but am going to let it pass.please excuse the formatting, Word doesnt paste into wordpress as good as one might hope. cd

The Sama Dilaut of Tawi Tawi: Facing Change in a Modern World by Chris Damitio Throughout the world, there is a huge danger that modernization and globalization will destroy irreplaceable resources in the name of progress. The oceans of the world are becoming polluted, the forests of the world are being cut, and the animals of the world are going extinct. But it is not only natural resources that are in danger of disappearing forever. Indigenous cultures of humans are also disappearing from many places on the planet. They are disappearing as a result of changes in environment, changes within the boundaries of their national governments, and from changes resulting from outside of their countries of origin. Unless drastic measures are taken, it is likely that many of these indigenous peoples and the cultures they have developed will disappear. Deep in the southern regions of the Philippines is a province called Tawi-Tawi. Tawi-Tawi is a part of what is called the Muslim Autonomous Region, but not all of the people who live there are Muslims. The two primary groups of people living in Tawi-Tawi are the Tausug and the Sama Dilaut, also called the Badjao. While the Sama Dilaut are among those that consider themselves Muslim, they are not considered to be Muslim by the Tausug or others who live within the Muslim Autonomous Region. In truth, the Sama Dilaut of Tawi-Tawi are more closely related to the people who live on the island of Sulu, called the Sama Dilea, than to other ethnic groups of the Philippines (Nimmo 2001:1-10). The Sama Dilaut are called many things by many people. Most often they are referred to as Badjao by the Tausug people who live near them. Westerners often refer to them as sea gypsies the Sama Dilaut spend most of their lives living on the sea (NCCA. 2002). Historically, they were a highly mobile people that lead a nomadic lifestyle which depended upon the bounty of the ocean and the use of key resources on land in order to survive (Nimmo. 2001: 21-25). The history of the Sama Dilaut is closely tied to the history of similar groups in Borneo . Their original origins are not known with certainty. What is known, is that for as long as they or anyone around them can remember, the Sama Dilaut of Tawi Tawi have lived on boats, married on boats, found their livelihood on boats, and died on boats. This is their way of life. The problem is that the national boundaries they live within has not been willing or able to allow the Sama Dilaut to live their lives in the way they choose. They are threatened by many different circumstances around them that encroach upon their way of life. Some of these threats to their existence are internal to their externally imposed national boundaries and some of them are external. The threats internal to the Philippines that loom over the daily existence of the Sama Dilaut are many. Of primary importance are three: economic hardship, ethnic persecution, and a lack of recognition and representation. The first threat, that of economic hardship, affects their traditional lifestyle. Formerly, they had little need for monetary valuables and were rarely involved in cash exchange. The Sama Dilaut would harvest what they needed from the sea or unoccupied land. This has changed with the advent of fisheries laws, the setting of National boundaries, and over-fishing of waters traditionally used by the Sama Dilaut by large scale commercial fishing operations (Alamaia. 2005). As a result of these changes in resources that were once abundant have become relatively scarce, the Sama Dilaut have become dependent upon wage labor, they are exploited by capitalist fishing operations, and they are forced to compete in a world that they are not adequately prepared to compete in (Arquiza. 2004).

A second internal hardship faced by the Sama Dilaut is ethnic persecution. In a letter to the United Nations, Attorney Laisa M. Alamia recounts the tale of a nine year old boy who was the lone survivor of a massacre of eight non-Muslim Sama Dilaut fisherman by members of the dominant majority of non Sama Dilaut Muslims in the Tawi-Tawi region. The boy survived only by pretending to be dead and clinging to a piece of driftwood for an unspecified period of time (Alamia. 2005). This is not an ancient case of ethnic persecution, it occurred in January of 2005! Not only do the Sama Dilaut have less resources available, but they also risk their lives in the process of gathering them because of ethnic persecution and sectarian violence. The third threat to the continued existence of the Sama Dilaut of Tawi-Tawi is a lack of official recognition and qualified representation. Throughout their history, the Sama Dilaut have been virtually ignored by the government of the Philippines and the governments of the world for a variety of reasons. One of the primary reasons is that because the Sama Dilaut are highly nomadic and not a sedentary people, so they are hard to account for in national censuses (Torres. 2003). A second reason is that because of their limited involvement in land based institutions, the Sama Dilaut are not a demographic that is courted by nor catered to by elected officials. As a result of these historical situations, the Sama Dilaut have been left out of the process of establishing rights, divvying up lands, and receiving recognized protection. Even if the Sama Dilaut were willing to adopt a sedentary lifestyle and leave the sea, there is no homeland waiting for them (Alamia.2005). The external threats facing the Sama Dilaut are no less daunting than those they face from within their own nation. Not only are Sama Dilaut fishermen and families at risk from ethnic persecution, but they are also at risk from pirates in the Sulu Sea . The Sulu Sea is one of the most active zones for maritime piracy in the civilized world (Sakhuja. 2001).Modern day pirates are murderous, violent, and ruthless (Sakhuja.2001). Even though the Sama Dilaut may not have much, pirates rob them of the one thing they have and still value, their lives. Modern pirate attacks rarely leave no survivors (Sakhuja. 2001). As mentioned above, the Sama Dilaut once were able to pull a rich existence from the sea. In addition to the waters having become unsafe for those who want to work and live on the sea, the waters are quickly becoming deadly for the very creatures that live in the sea. During three months in the Philippines in 2003, I learned from dive operators, divers, and personal observation that environmental degradation is not always obvious from the surface. It can also be hard to see amidst the colorful reef systems, exotic wildlife, and large varieties of fish that exist in limited protected areas that can be experienced by vacationing scuba divers. The truth, however, is that the Philippines is undergoing a rapid decay that is killing reefs, destroying fisheries and the fish in them, and polluting the ocean with sewage, heavy metals, and all manner of pollutants. I met representatives of large industry from the United States and other heavily industrialized nations that have moved to the Philippines in an effort to exploit the cheap labor and lax environmental laws. In addition, the government of the Philippines permits open sewers to empty into the ocean, the dumping of waste from watercraft, and dumping massive amounts of garbage in the ocean as a cheap way to dispose of waste. These issues are well known to scuba divers and often discussed in Philippine dive shops. I personally witnessed these things and saw some of the damage. All of this is destroying the nautical environment. This destruction of the resources they depend on, has driven most of the Sama Dilaut from the waters wherein they once prospered. As if polluted environment and violent piracy were not enough to deal with, the Sama Dilaut have also lost significant portions of their way of life through a more insidious sort of externalized threat, missionaries. Christians and Muslims alike have exploited the poverty of the Sama Dilaut to remove them from their traditional animistic beliefs and practices. In some cases, food and education have been used to bribe the Sama Dilaut into becoming Christian of Muslim. In other cases, they have been attacked and coerced into changing from their chosen practices (Arquiza. 2004). A final threat to the Sama Dilaut is tourism. Tourism is a virtual Pandoras Box to the people that are affected by it. While on the one hand, Tourism is a way to preserve environments, safeguard traditions, and create new livelihood; on the other hand the people who utilize tourism for these purposes run risk of having their culture Disneyfied. The Sama Dilaut are in danger of becoming caricatures of themselves as they are forced to entertain rather than lead the way of life of their ancestors. For an example of this, one has only to look at a Hawaiian Luau to see how traditional culture can be comodified and changed to suit the tourists rather than the people of the culture itself.

So, one may ask, with all of these threats upon their existence, how have the Sama Dilaut adapted to the modern world that has been thrust upon them? And how have they dealt with both the national and global threats to their existence? The answer, sadly, is that the Sama Dilaut have not fared well, although, to paraphrase Mark Twain, The rumours of their death have been greatly exaggerated. While many sources on the internet list the Sama Dilaut of Tawi-Tawi as dead and gone, the truth is that they still exist. This is evidenced by the struggle to save them that is currently underway in both the Philippines and the United Nations. (Alamia 2005 and Arquiza 2004.) Adaptation to the modern world however, has not been easy. Attorney Laisa M. Alamia detailed the existence of many of the Sama Dilaut in a letter to the United Nations: From a vibrantly rich sea-nomadic lifestyle, the Sama Dilaut have been reduced to beggars, dragging their babies and children under the sweltering heat of the sun or the merciless pouring of the rain in the streets of cities all over the Philippines . In a country where people scramble to have a share of the remaining crumbs of resources left by a cancer called corruption, the Sama Dilaut have no crumbs left at all to scramble for. (Alamia. 2005) Hopefully, this pitiful picture does not sum up the future for the Sama Dilaut. Through letters such as this, the Sama Dilaut are taking a proactive approach to solving the problems that surround them. They have formed the Lumah Ma Dilaut Center for Living Traditions (Arquiza. 2004) The purpose of this incorporated organization is to reinvigorate, protect, and find representation for the Sama Dilaut people. They are focusing not only on making the government of the Philippines accountable for the protection of endangered people, but are also creating relationships with indigenous organizations world-wide and directing the attention of organizations such as the United Nations upon the problems that beset them. In addition to seeking political solutions to the threats surrounding them, the Sama Dilaut are in the process of seeking economic solutions. This poses special problems as the Sama Dilaut way of life cannot be maintained in a sedentary form. In cases of piracy and ethnic violence, often women and children are left to fend for themselves with little or nothing after their primary breadwinners are killed or crippled (Alamia.2005). This, consequently, leaves them at the mercy of missionaries, labor exploitation, sexual exploitation, and risks associated with extreme poverty. These risks include but are not limited to malnutrition, disease, and exposure. While Sama Dilaut fishermen have attempted to adapt to current economic fishing practices, because of the large overhead involved in modern commercial fishing (Arquiza. 2004), they are usually forced to work as underpaid contractual labor on the very operations which are depleting and destroying the waters they once survived upon. The Sama Dilaut are seeking ways to adapt without compromising their culture or their values but the options available to them in modern Philippine society sometimes force them to work for the same institutions that are making their lives increasingly difficult . How then are the Sama Dilaut to survive in the modern world? Is there any possible way for them to find a way to overcome the many threats that beset them? In essence, there seems to be two choices that can be made immediately by the Philippine government and the nations of the world: the Sama Dilaut can either become an extinct people or they can become a protected people. The simplest thing is to let the Sama Dilaut become an extinct people. In order for this to happen, nothing needs to change. The Sama Dilaut will be murdered on the oceans, they will be converted in the missions, they will be allowed to die of disease while seeking food in garbage dumps, and finally, the last of the Sama Dilaut of Tawi-Tawi will simply claim to be something else. It is simple solution, but it is disgusting. The idea of letting such a thing happen is monstrous, yet it is happening. There is, however, a way to stop it. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that the people of the world must recognize the urgent need to respect and promote the inherent rights and characteristics of indigenous peoples, especially their rights to their lands, territories and resources, which derive from their political, economic and social structures and from their cultures, spiritual traditions, histories and

philosophies(UNESC. 2007). This idea lays the groundwork for what must be done to save the Sama Dilaut of Tawi-Tawi. The declaration goes on to detail the rights that all indigenous peoples must be granted. Most of the document focuses on the rights of land based indigenous peoples, but the Sama Dilaut are not excluded from these universal rights and as such the special case they represent must be considered equivalent. Throughout the world, governments have begun to recognize that excluding indigenous people from protected reserves of land is neither suitable nor the best course of action to preserve rainforest, desert, and other at risk areas. The same is true of the ocean. Organizations such as Lumah Ma Dilaut Center for Living Traditions have suggested that marine preserves be set up that include the traditional territory of the Sama Dilaut. In effect, proposals like this would make the Sama Dilaut a protected people and also entrust them with caretaking of the ocean that they live on. Governments would offer special protection from piracy, capitalism, and ethnic violence. In addition, these areas would be free of exploitive tourism, missionaries, and the kind of environmental neglect which is plaguing not just the Philippines , but the world. It is this sort of action that will ultimately allow these proud people who once managed to pull nearly everything they needed for a healthy, fulfilling, and sustainable existence from the sea to continue doing so. References: Census of Population and Housing. 2002 Tawi-Tawi Population Growth Rose More Than Threefold URL: http://www.census.gov.ph/data/pressrelease/2002/pr02138tx.html Alamia, Laisa M. 2005. The Sea Nomads of the Philippines : On the Verge of Extinction? From United Nations Office of High Commission on Human Rights. URL: http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/minorities/docs/11/Lumah_3a.doc Arquiza, Mucha Shim Q. 2004. Sama DilautFishers of Coins: Case of Sea Nomadism in Sulu Seas , Mindanao Philippines . From United Nations Office of the High Commission on Human Rights. URL: http://www.unhchr.ch/minorities/statements10/AMANP3a.doc NCCA. 2002. Sama and Sama Dilaut. Philippine National Commission on Culture and Arts. URL: http://www.ncca.gov.ph/about_cultarts/ebook_subcont.php?subcont_Id=61 Nimmo, H. Arlo. 2001. Magosaha: An Ethnography of the Tawi-Tawi Sama Dilaut. Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press (Distributed for Ateneo de Manila University Press.) Sakhuja, Vijay. 2001. Indian Ocean and the Safety of Sea Lines Communtcation. Strategic Analysis: A Monthly Journal of the IDSA. August 2001. Volume XXV. No. 5. Unted Nations Economic and Social Council. 2007. UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. URL: http://www.cwis.org/drft9329.html Wilfredo M. Torres III. 2003. A Study of the Sama Dilaut in Sulu Island : A Comparision with the Semporna Bajau Laut in The Sabah Society Newletter #71 URL: http://www.sabahsociety.com/newsletter/71.pdf

A Badjao Earned Societys Trust

Beggars and nomads is how most people in society see Badjaos as a community. Nomads they may be but beggars they all are not because there are those who trying to make a difference in their lives and their children. For those who wants who wants to change societys general paradigm about their culture are clutching a daily prayer that their children would not bear the stigma of bitterness brought about by a few. Meet Arlene Ilahan, 24 years old and a Badjao mother of two children ages 8 and 3. Arlenes husband works as a pearl vendor in the busy downtown streets of Colon and sometimes helps him but every time she does, she could feel a different stare making her uncomfortable and unwelcome and opted to stay at home most of the time and simply attend to household needs. This meek mother was voted as one of the parent-leaders for the Pantawid Pamilya program for her humble yet consistently responsible personality. Though she accepted it with a smile but she was without fear nahadlok gyud ko okay di ko kabalo unsaon pag atubang ug tawo kay dali raba kaayo ko mahi-ubos (I was afraid because I dont know how to deal with people because I easily get offended) said Arlene.

Apan kinahanglan man pud namo ang ihatag na cash kay dako na gyud ni ug matabang, sa akong huna-huna mau na ni ang makahatag ug nindot ug lahi na ka-ugmaon para sa akong mga anak (Thinking of the grant, she knows the amount could help alleviate her familys needs and she believes that it would give her children a chance for a different future) she added.

Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program is a poverty alleviation program of the national government that gives conditional cash grants to poor families with children 0-14 years. A P500/month health grant will be given to households who complied with the set conditions which includes pre-natal and post natal for pregnant mothers, immunization, weighing, de-worming and attendance to family development sessions while P300/child/month but a maximum of three children only is allocated for education as long as the 85% monthly attendance is strictly followed. All these shall be monitored every two months wherein both health workers and teachers signify in a monitoring tool designed by DSWD Compliance Verification System (CVS) that they have indeed meet the monthly expectation. Through several Family Development Sessions (FDS), capability buildings, radio interviews were shes given a chance to testify for the program and her need to make the program work gives her the strength to follow up and keep track on some of her members to comply with the set conditions slowly built a confidence she never had before. Two and a half year has passed since the program started and instead of the her usual ways of staying at the sidelines, she now finds ways for her family and her people whether beneficiary or nonbeneficiary to be included in whatever opportunity and services the community, LGU or national government has in store for them.

This new found determination earned from the Pantawid Pamilya Program landed her a job as a barangay health worker under DOHs Community Health Team (CHT) Program wala gyud ko nagtuo nga usa ra ko ka tagbalay sa una unya gisaligan na ko karon ug usa ka trabaho. Dili lang ni garbo naku kundi namo tanang Badjao. (I did not believe that I simply use to be a plain housewife but now trusted with a job and responsibility. This is not just my pride but for all my Badjao community as well.

The last Tribes of Mindanao, Badjao, the Sea Gypsies.

View Photos (4) Image 2010 Ronald de Jong

Badjao or Bajau means man of the seas, this tribal group is known as the Sea Gypsies because they move with the wind and the tide on their small houseboats called vintas, they can be found in many coastal settlements and inhabit the waters and shores of the Sulu archipelago. A legend tells that these boat dwellers came from the shores of Johore in Indonesia, Princess Ayesha of Johore was betrothed to a Sulu Sultan but she really wanted to marry the Sultan from Brunei. One day, a large fleet of war boats escorted the Princess to Sulu, the fleet was intercepted by the man she really loved, the Sultan from Brunei, who kidnapped her and set sail back to Brunei. The escorting fleet could not return without the Princess and kept on sailing the seas, only mooring at uninhabited islands; some of them turned to piracy and roamed the seas to search for fortune and glory. Others only searched for food and became fishermen, the Sulu Sea had an abundance of fish that helped to sustain their livelihood, most of the daily catch was bartered with other tribes that lived along the shores and beaches. The Badjao still live in houseboats, clustered near the coastline of Southern Mindanao. But they also built stilt houses near fertile fishing grounds; these houses are a temporary refuge during times that these boathouses needed repairs. These wanderers of the Southern seas are born on the water, live on their boats and say they will only set foot on land only to die. Although that their ancestors were once feared by many in the Mindanao region, the Badjao are primitive and friendly, they are believed to be world's most peace-loving people and consider themselves as a non-aggressive tribal community. Conflict with other tribes is often dealt with by fleeing to other places like the sea. Other tribes looked down on these fisher folk and did refer to them as palao or lumaan (God forsaken), the Badjao were influenced by Islam, but the continuous pressure put on by other Muslim tribes forced them to move to the sea, which gave them greater chances of escape in the case of an attack by hostile tribes. Eventually the sea molded the attitude and appearance of the Badjao, this rough environment and way of living shaped their typical physical features, the bronze coloured hair and dark brown skin clearly distinct them from other tribes. The native religion from these water people is a form of ancestor worship, spirits, deceased ancestors and other relatives are asked for favours during frequent cemetery visits. They offer cigarettes and food and sweet smelling tonic is used for sprinkling the corners of the graves. These spirits are still part of

the family; the seafarers of the Philippine South want these sprits to be as happy as the living and will therefore comfort them as much as they can. Some of the traditional pre-Islamic beliefs are offerings made to the God of the Sea, the whenever a large catch of fish is brought in and by setting a "spirit boat" adrift in the open sea, , mediums are also called upon to remove illness causing spirits from this boat-dwellers community in times of epidemics By tradition, the hardworking and proud Badjao people are sea nomads, travelling by boat from one island to the other in search of fishing harvest. This pagan tribe have sailed the seas for more than a thousand years, but because of over fishing by other groups using everything from high-tech fishing trawlers and even dynamite fishing, threatened by soaring costs for fuel and repairs, their life in the open waters is drying up. These Bedouin of the sea no longer live on boats, they live in thatch-roofed houses on bamboo stilts on a small strip of land that nobody else wanted, somewhere along the coastline of Sarangani. With small, family owned bancas they continue to roam the waters, fighting the current to follow schools of fish, hunting for the bounty of the ocean, trying to make a living and find refuge in the vastness of the deep blue sea. Despite the romantic portrayals of the tribe, the Badjao never really had an easy live, when they were still living at sea, they were at least free from the everyday rejection and hardship brought upon by other tribes that live on land. These guardians of the sea have experienced themselves that times are tough on the water, but worse on land. At present the Badjao are the most marginalized ethnic group and one of the poorest tribes in the Philippines, a Muslim tribe that is shunned by almost everyone, still gypsies, but also named tramps and thieves. Their vibrant nomadic lifestyle, the way of life bequeathed to them by their ancestors has vanished in most parts of Mindanao. For centuries the Badjao have been a resilient tribal group, they firmly pushed away modernity with both hands, but tossed by modern winds they will have to find ways to maintain their unique lifestyle and culture, otherwise they will remain Godforsaken.

Omboh Dilaut,