Badjaos get free food, haircut this Maritime week

Badjaos get free food, haircut this Maritime week
October 1, 2019 https://pia.gov.ph/press-releases/releases/1027927

SURIGAO CITY, Surigao del Norte, Oct. 1 -- For this year’s celebration of the Maritime week, a community of Badjaos got themselves a treat when members of the Surigao Port Community led by the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) conducted on Thursday, September 26, 2019 community service at their settlement in Canlanipa, a coastal barangay in this city.

The Badjaos were treated with hot arroz caldo and a team of hairdressers offering free haircuts.

Over a steaming cup of the popular chicken rice porridge, tribe elder Dahilah Ahmad said that her fellow Badjaos were rather surprised and yet grateful for the treat since it is not every day that people make an effort to visit them as a community and recognize them as a group or tribe.

"It's usually only during election campaigns or the holiday season that they actually get to have things or food given to them," Ahmad added.

Commonly found at harbor waters of most major seaports in the country, the Badjao's nautical, itinerant lifestyle has earned them the nickname ‘sea nomads’ or ‘sea gypsies.’ Traditionally, the Badjaos lived on houseboats moving through the sea to fish and dive for pearls, sea urchins and/or coins thrown by passengers on board ships at the ports.

Today, with the crackdown on coin diving at ports and strict implementation of security regulations at harbor waters of port zones, the Badjaos now mostly live at coastal settlements like the one in Barangay Canlanipa.

Around 200 families were given the arroz caldo treat while a hundred individuals availed of the free haircut.

A joint effort of the PPA Port Management Office in Surigao, the Philippine Coast Guard Surigao del Norte Station, Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) 13 and the Philippine Navy 72nd Naval Group Reserved, the feeding program/free haircut initiative is part of the activities held in celebration of the 24th Maritime Week 2019. (SDR/Nole C. Nusog, PPA-Surigao/PIA-Surigao del Norte)