Agreeing to the condition that they send their children to school to be educated, 40 families of Badjaos, the country’s most neglected sea gypsies, received 20 units of motorised fiberglass boats from President Rody Duterte’s FB Pagbabago in Bongao, Tawitawi on Monday.
The boats were the first batch of 250 FB Pagbabago fiberglass fishing boats which is part of President Duterte’s anti-poverty program implemented by the Dept. of Agriculture through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).
Twenty other fiberglass fishing boats were also unloaded in Bongao for 40 more Jama Mapun tribal fishermen living in Taganaka Islands or Turtle Islands very near the border of Malaysia.
The next batches of fishing boats will be distributed to Sa’ma and Tausug fishermen in the province.
In the presence of Tawitawi Gov. Rashidin Matba, Bongao Mayor Jimuel Que, the vice governor and board members and two other mayors, the Badjaos were ecstatic as they joined officials on stage to receive their certificates of ownership.
The fiberglass boats were unloaded later that day in Bongao port because the DA-BFAR Research ship which carried the first 40 boats could not dock due to the huge waves.
They had to be transferred to the smaller DA-BFAR MCS vessels which made several trips before the unloading could be completed by nighttime.
The fiberglass boats under President Duterte’s FB Pagbabago Program come complete with engines, nets and fishing gears.
The DA-BFAR FB Pagbabago Program aims to distribute 200,000 units of the fiberglass fishing boats over the next five years, a project which aims to lift out of poverty a total of 400,000 fishing families.
The ownership of the boats is two families to a boat to encourage teamwork and also prevent the abuse or sale of the boats which has always been the problem of government programs which give out equipment to poor families.
Before the distribution, I asked the Badjao fishermen through an interpreter during the Biyaheng Bukid forum whether they will be agreeable to the condition that they send their children to school.
They all agreed.
In fact, I found out that a group of Catholic nuns were already running a school for Badjao kids and an officer of the Philippine Cultural Communities agency, Abdulaziz Ju, was helping the Badjaos and other tribes.
The Badjaos are among the most neglected tribes of the country.
Many of them uneducated, they live by the bounties of the seas and they consider the water as their home.
Lately, however, several Badjao families have started sending their children to school and many of them have excelled in academics.
In fact, a Badjao kid, Robin Abdellah, graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Mindanao State University in Tawitawi.
President Duterte’s FB Pagbabago could be the Badjao tribes’ vessel to a better life.
(Photos by Engr. Nicyl Barrete, Dept.of Agriculture)
More Stories
Practical Farming: Turn Used Plastic Containers Into Life-Time Laying Nests!
Super Bulb Onion Grown In Alamada, North Cotabato
Kapehan With Pareng Gob