Introduction
This essay attempts to understand some facets of the social exclusionary process experienced by the Badjao, the community of sea gypsies inhabiting the waters of the Philippine Islands, using a gendered social exclusion framework. Employing Patrick Commins (2004) conception, the process of social exclusion has been generally linked to the concept of poverty but goes well beyond it (Kurian, 2008). Whereas poverty as a related notion refers only to material deprivation, social exclusion urges a multidimensional view of well-being which acknowledges the intersecting “poverties” or disadvantages experienced by the socially excluded (Kurian, 2008).
Despite the novelty and contentious character of the term drawn from available literature, this paper still endeavors to illustrate the theoretical appeal of the concept of social exclusion in the analysis of the Badjao and the process by which these people have navigated for inclusion spatially and socially along the margins of the mainstream society. The social exclusion particular to the Badjao is also revealed in the various limits to public benefits that reached them, pushing community members to seek the “harbor of protection” in the urban centers of the country. The essay is premised on social exclusion being intersectional in that it can only be understood by reflecting on the wider context particularly the Badjao’s social, cultural, economic, geographical, and political position.
But while social exclusion may have affected the whole Badjao community, it is also recognized that men and women experience exclusion differently (Kurian, 2008). Hence, other than the various positions an individual Badjao is located, Badjao women are still more at a disadvantaged position in terms of capabilities and rights. The essay attempts to locate the dynamics of the different process of social exclusion from a gender perspective by giving a critical reading of some policies currently implemented to promote an integrated and sustainable strategy for the empowerment of both men and women in this differentiated community.
Social Exclusion: Unpacking Intersecting “Poverties”
Certain groups in society are deprived of advantages and entitlements because of discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, gender, class, or other social position. They are referred to as socially excluded. Social Exclusion, according to Commins, ‘refers to the dynamic processes of being shut out, partially or fully, from any or all of several systems
which influence the economic and social integration of people into their society’ (Kurian, 2008). DFID (2005:iii) recognizes that social exclusion deprives people of choices and opportunities to escape from poverty and denies them a voice to claim their rights.
Social exclusion acknowledges the different forms of “poverties” which include persistent disadvantages and denials of entitlements in the social, cultural, economic, geographical, and political aspect (Kurian, 2008). Kurian and Bedi recognizes that it encompasses not only lack of access to goods and services which underlie poverty and basic needs satisfaction but also, among others, lack of security, lack of justice, lack of participation and representation (Kurian, 2008). Institutions may perpetuate exclusion such as when state institutions deliberately discriminate in their laws, policies or programs (DFID, 2005:3). People may also become excluded not only on the basis of “who they are but also on where they live, and as a result are locked out of the benefits of development” (DFID, 2005:iii). The latter form of exclusion is termed as ‘spatial’ exclusion.
But going beyond the narrow view of social exclusion involves understanding context and intersections. A gender approach to social exclusion takes off from the viewpoint that gender-power relations, reflecting the social norms in society, are integrated in its institutions, relations and activities (Kurian, 2008). These social norms are a reflection of the prevailing ideology particularly those of powerful groups in society which from a gender point of view assigns different roles for men and women in society (Kurian, 2008). Here, I add that given the ascribed roles to women in society, they also have the least access to resources and power. As a consequence, they become the most vulnerable in certain situations.
There is a need for the gender analysis of social exclusion to understand the processes by which people are excluded in society, particularly women. This involves understanding the specific social, cultural, economic and political circumstances under which certain types of social exclusion are promoted or alleviated, and to study these from a gender lens. Using a gendered social exclusion framework therefore means asking whether women and men experience exclusion differently, whether women have different concerns other than the concerns of men, and how these exclusions impact on their life-experience.
Community on Stilts: Damned and Doomed?
The Badjaos are popularly known as the "Sea Gypsies" of the Sulu and Celebes Sea (Toohey, 2005:293). While they refer to themselves as “people of the sea”, they belong to a wider group of Sama peoples that “includes not only boat-dwelling and former boat-dwelling groupings but also shore- and land-based peoples” (Toohey, 2005:293). While there are specific locations where the Badjaos have been living in "communities on stilts", settling for a sedentary lifestyle, in harmony with the land-based communities, many are still heavily reliant on the sea (NCIP, 2008). Torres & Gonzales noted that “Badjao communities have coalesced into larger pole house villages, where their ways are slowly being taken over by those of the surrounding shore population, and where they now live in abject poverty” (UN Philippines, 2002:85). Many of these coastal settlements are dotting the Sulu Archipelago while others are scattered in many urban centers of the Philippines in search of livelihood, which more currently includes begging from pedestrians in the streets.
The Badjao is said to be the most marginalized among all the other indigenous peoples in the Philippines. Understanding this marginalization of the Badjao community initially requires the recognition of the historical context and an examination of the social exclusionary processes that Badjao people experience which stem from their social and spatial location in Philippine society.
The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) reported that even given the “high correlation between ethnicity and poverty among indigenous peoples, compounded by a long history of discrimination and prejudice,” (‘Still Strangers in Their Own Land’, 2007) “regrettably relations between these peoples and more powerful populations ashore (such as the Tausug and Maguindanao in the Southern Philippines) have seldom been founded on mutual respect, and everywhere the Badjao, as a sea people, have tended to be marginalized, excluded from positions of power, despised, and confined to the lowest rungs of the social ladder” (Sather in Bottignolo, 1995:vi).
One important dimension examined here is the identity of the Badjao as sea gypsies. Being differentiated as sea gypsies connotes a way of life that relates to movement and homelessness and in effect results to their spatial exclusion. In a recent study, Professor Aurora Roxas-Lim of the University of the Philippines' Asian Center says that the prejudices against the Badjao often stem from the preconception that all nomadic people are by nature shiftless, rootless, irresponsible and unreliable (UN Philippines, 2002:86). The inferior status accorded to the Badjao has led tribal members now living onshore to identify themselves to census takers as Tausug and Samal and to some extent adopted modern practices to make themselves less distinct from other people (UN Philippines, 2002:86). This prejudice has caused the Badjao to be excluded from welfare and access to public services.
Deprivation of the Badjao from their traditional fishing grounds because of the encroachment by both legal and illegal fishing vessels have forced them to abandon their traditional homes on boats for makeshift stilt houses. They are also vulnerable to looting by some pirates roaming freely in the sea waters. Desperate to feed their families and look for some other secure place to settle, many of the community members have gone to the cities to beg (UN Philippines, 2002:85). A common sight in many ports of Philippine cities are a pack of naked sun-bleached Badjao children who dive deep into waters after charming ship passengers to throw coins at them. Another picture is that of women and children daring to inhabit the streets and beg for their daily consumption. Considered tourism eyesores, horde of beggars, some capitalizing on infants and minors or peddling pears and fashion accessories in designated tourist stops, Badjaos and other ethnic groups have recently stretched taut the tourists and industry players’ tolerance limits (ABS-CBN News, 2008).
Having cited some of the discrimination experienced by the Badjao in general, I move on to exploring the gender relations among Badjao men and women. Drawing on the Structuralist view of Talcott Parsons that looks at gender power relations as integrated in the social institution, the ideal of the male breadwinner exists in the Badjao context where it is “generally only husbands, married sons and sons-in law who work to support the family” (NCIP-BCSC, n.d.). The male Badjao goes out to the sea to fish while the woman stays at home as the caretaker of the family. This persistent ideological pressure of the men as “providers”, although seen as problematic, operates to support and legitimate structures of social inequality, such as the sexual division of labour between men (public/productive) and women (private/domestic) and the primary ideological function of these definitions is that of naturalising unequal power relations” (Leach, 1994).
The gendered social exclusion perspective also recognizes that men and women experience exclusion differently and takes on board the idea that women are at a more disadvantaged position in terms of capabilities and rights. The more disadvantaged position of Badjao women is revealed in 14-year old Hanang, who is forced into an abortion, believing that she would be unable to feed her fatherless baby as her husband had left to join the pirates and never returned (UN Philippines, 2002:85). Her already dismal circumstance is magnified by the shame for her to have a child without a father and having to worry later on a burial place for the baby. The Badjao sometimes had to travel far to “bring their dead beloved to some desolate island in the middle of the ocean for burial” (UN Philippines, 2002:86). A growing number of the women left behind by their husbands who have gone to the cities to look for alternative livelihood are also opting to abort their unborn children rather than see their offspring die later of hunger or disease (UN Philippines, 2002:85). Also, this being disadvantaged in itself, conforming to the stereotypical notion of the woman as poor and victimized, has been capitalized in the more common sight of a Badjao woman rather than a Badjao man begging while carrying a child in the streets.
Interventions: Exacerbating or Reducing Exclusion?
As this essay critically examines some individual and social interventions that can and have promoted an integrated and sustainable strategy for the empowerment of both men and women in the Badjao community, I argue that these interventions by different agents in various forms may work either way --- exacerbate or reduce social exclusion.
I look first and foremost at how government attempts to reduce social exclusion and its impact on poverty by “creating legal, regulatory and policy frameworks that promotes social inclusion” (DFID, 2005:1). In 1997, a key national policy framework was formulated in the effort to uphold national unity prospectively embodied in the Republic Act No. 8371 otherwise known as the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997. The policy was enacted to recognize, protect and promote the rights of indigenous cultural communities/indigenous peoples in the Philippines (NCIP, 2008:1-25). It is an embodiment of the rights and aspirations of indigenous peoples which are as follows: right to ancestral domains, right to self-governance and empowerment, social justice and human rights, and cultural integrity (NCIP, 2008:1-25). The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) was established primarily to process up two million ancestral land claims but, by the end of 1998, operational guidelines for the implementation of IPRA had not been approved and the new government of Joseph Estrada, elected in May 1998, froze the NCIP’s budget in 1999 (Clarke, 2001:429). Many NGOs are wary of government delays in the implementation of IPRA but the legislation is radical and again puts the Philippines in the forefront, in legal terms at least, of the more inclusive approach to ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples (Clarke, 2001:429).
Considering the spatial marginalization of the Badjao, the inclusiveness of the IPRA is however challenged on the basis of land-based territorial concepts being applicable to the "sea gypsies who look at their sea-world as without borders and respect for their inalienable right to freedom of movement as inherent in their privilege” (Neofilipino, 2008). The question posed here is whether those "communities on stilts" qualify to be treated exactly like the "ancestral lands" of land-based indigenous ethnic groups (Neofilipino, 2008). However, there should be no problem as regards specific legislations and programs for governance appropriate for the Badjao if only the Philippine Government will recognize and acknowledge the inalienable human rights of the Badjaos as a distinct sea-based indigenous ethnic group (Neofilipino, 2008).
Other policies for ethnic and indigenous minorities are designed to promote assimilation and integration (Clarke, 2001:433). The policy of sedentarisation where minorities are compelled to live in fixed and permanent settlements has been applied to the Badjao in the form of fixing resettlement areas (Clarke, 2001:433). Like fish out of the water, more Badjao men, women, and children find themselves ironically dislocated in relocation sites. Having been forced to give up fishing as their traditional livelihood, they resort to mendicancy as their source of living. City governments have responded by formulating ordinances that intend to remove the Badjao from the streets, discouraging almsgiving, and directing all necessary social services to the group such as literacy, sanitation, proper child care and maternal health care programs.
Secondly and in addition to government action, many international aid agencies and development organizations also have begun to “acknowledge the distinct identities of ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples” (Clarke, 2001:433) and fund projects to address their needs. Specific to areas where the Badjao are located, community-based coastal resources management projects are implemented such as one in the Davao Gulf area as a way of promoting active and meaningful participation of coastal communities especially women leaders in addressing the core issues of open-access and control over their local resources (SGP-UNDP, 2008). The New Zealand Agency for International Development, for example, is assisting indigenous groups in Zamboanga City through literacy improvement and poverty reduction while seeking to strengthen the cultural identity of the Badjao community (Mendoza-Reyes, 2008).
Thirdly, there have also been individual efforts to reach out to the Badjao which has come to represent the individual agency to recognize and accept their difference. The adult literacy program of Arnel Alcober, a Claretian missionary working with the Badjao in Teheman, has changed since to an operational literacy approach after realizing that the Badjao just want to survive, like knowing if they are getting the right amount every time people buy their fish, and that the need to learn how to read and write sometimes escapes their understanding (UN Philippines, 2002:87).
Through the assistance of the Voices of Triumph Ministry, the Badjao community members in Dauis who were not able to avail of the municipal water system were able to avail of water services for a fee (NCIP-BCSC, n.d.). The Ministry also supported Badjao children in education like school supplies and lunch. Providing lunch for elementary children for example is necessary since the typical reason why they drop out of school is hunger or help their fathers fish, or go begging at the port (NCIP-BCSC, n.d.).
The assortment of individual and social interventions employed at various levels in reaching out to the dispersed Badjao communities are important links in establishing alliances to gain support for more inclusion of the Badjao women and men in public services and social protection. These interventions are not mutually exclusive of one another, rather, are interlocking as well as simultaneously acting at various levels with other agents.
Conclusion: En(gendering) Social Inclusion?
I have described the multi-faceted position of the Badjao as well as the multidimensional and intersecting disadvantages that their women and men have experienced as they go through the social exclusionary process in the Philippine setting. I have also enumerated some interventions afforded to the Badjao by different agents (government, organizations, individual) at various levels (policy, program, project) in order to draw them away from the fringes and be able to enjoy the advantages and entitlements due to a member of society. These interventions are meant to respond to the multiple poverties they have experienced as a result of their manifold and often intersecting locations in society. Nevertheless, I have as well recognized the interplay of power relations in the implementation of these strategies thus acknowledging in due course that interventions by different agents at various levels may either exacerbate or reduce social exclusion.
Situating the individual woman within a wider framework of social exclusion is the essence of a gendered social exclusion framework. At the onset, the individual and social interventions I have previously discussed appear to be wanting of the gender orientation critical and inherent in a gendered social exclusion framework of analysis. A cursory look at these interventions may reveal the lack, or to some extent, invisibility of women, hence, the critical question, “How did the various interventions respond to the different exclusions experienced by women and men?” may not have been addressed.
Though a wider framework of social exclusion entails the inclusion of the gender politics of this social exclusionary process, it also involves linking the aspect of gender to other forms of social exclusion. Without connecting gender to other contexts or intersections and the accompanying power relations within, there cannot be a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of social exclusion. On the other hand, mindful that women and men experience exclusion differently and that women are at a more disadvantaged position, I maintain that the interventions cited here fail to significantly situate the woman in the supposed response to her more disadvantaged position.
Interventions informed only of either an analysis of cultural difference or a narrow feminist perspective that focuses on gender inequality in isolation from other forms of inequality is equally inadequate (Van der Hoogte & Kingma, 2004). But, drawing on their more marginalized position I believe it is but right to prioritize action for and towards women. Engendering social inclusion means committing to find viable options and opportunities for development for Badjao women without de-linking her gender identity to other forms of social exclusion.
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