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Tolerating Badjaos begging in the city has dealt a sore eye for Bohol’
TOURISM EYE-SORE
Published: December 17, 2006 by The Bohol Standard

IF Bohol takes tourism seriously, then it should immediately address first the issue of begging and intrusive peddling to tourists, says a European who also operates a travel agency in Germany and France.

The European (who requested his name withheld) came here for a familiarization trip expressed total delight with the stops and the hospitality he got from local players. However, pointing to his unnerving experience with Badjaos and the pearl peddlers at the stops, he said the government should make ways to control, if not totally ban them from the streets.

“Incidents, especially when tourists are chased into the vans and buses by beggars and intrusive peddlers, easily scare them away,” he shared.

Even the locals and industry stakeholders here have also raised concern over the Badjao begging issue.

Considered tourism eyesores, horde of beggars, some carrying infants and minors or peddling pearls and fashion accessories in designated tourist stops, have pestered tourists and industry players’ tolerance limits.

“You can not find them anywhere in Spain, Europe’s emerging top tourist destination,” confesses a Norwegian who was recently been mobbed by these begging sea-gypsies at the entrance in one of the malls in Tagbilaran.

Badjaos come from Mindanao who migrated here and have settled in the shores of barangay Totolan, Dauis, right in the tourism island of Panglao. Mostly uneducated, and not familiar in the rigors of life in urban centers, these deeply tanned seafarers have gone begging, the easiest way for them to live.

Years ago, the government relocated these minority groups away from the sea, but incapable of surviving on land, the Badjaos have again taken the streets as their own.

City Mayor Dan Lim has taken the issue with tolerance, saying that their only sin is being borne Badjaos. Unschooled, these people have been condemned into begging and eternally mired in poverty. In contrast, however, the city administration implemented a clearing drive of unwanted shanties that do not augur to the envisioned Satellite City development in the Dao-Dampas area.

Fifty-two makeshift houses at the back of the integrated bus terminal were torn down despite pleas of hundreds of displaced families who were driven out, but were not provided relocation sites or temporary refuge.

On the Badjao concern, a move will attempt to pool resources to relocate these people and so that profitable assistance could supposedly be poured upon them. The pooling will allow the government to effectively direct all necessary social services to the group and hopefully gather their young into more productive life through education and poverty alleviation programs.

As this developed, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo highlighted the role for the country of this multi-million dollar earning tourism industry. The President shared her plan for replicating the Spanish success in the filed of tourism.

The President revealed this last week at the Tribuna España-Filipinas Forum, which was held to strengthen bilateral relations between Spain and the Philippines in business, tourism, culture and the arts. (With reports: rachiu)

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