The island that exists

Basilan Island is not easy to find. It is located south of the southernmost large island of the Philippine archipelago. And then, all around there are many other remote islands. Extreme suburbs, off the routes that matter, but very important places for the people who live there. And for us too.
Our friend Don Renato Rosso, a tireless priest who, especially in Asia but not only, has the nomadic peoples of the world as his mission; his people here are the bajau, nomads of the sea.
From his initiative, and from the faithful and tenacious involvement of the local Claretian Fathers, a project was born which, little by little, like a reality so isolated and hidden, has now come a long way.

The collaboration of Sermig has continued since 2002. In this long time, together it has been possible to start the mission and then give continuity to the work of the Claretian fathers, begun in Maluso, the main center of the island, extending it to groups that live in inaccessible coasts, and in the surrounding islets. Today 2,200 people from the Bajau communities of Maluso and 300 from Pangasaan are part of it.
The outcome is not just: a community has been built, in dignity, thanks first of all to access to school from children to adults, and then in the search for ways to a less arduous and more stable life.

Over the years this has allowed to resist in the situation of violence and insecurity caused until recently by guerrillas and banditry. In 2020, strong resilience was necessary to overcome the severe emergency of the pandemic, not so much caused by the infection as by the inability to go fishing, the main resource for survival. The aid from the project, food and more, was essential. The families, of nomadic culture, have all remained: this is definitely their home. And the number of children attending preschool and elementary school has also grown, with great success.

After school - key to access the community, and its evolution - the first income generation projects (IGP - Income Generation Programs) were essential, to start giving families opportunities to obtain from their work better food security and stability. Security on the island and the surrounding sea has finally improved; both project operators who support school access and bring hygiene and human development practices, as well as people for their activities, are now moving easily. This offers conditions for upgrading existing PGIs, and for setting up others, if resources are available to invest for this purpose.

The first steps were a pilot microcredit program to free the fishermen from the stranglehold of the usurers to whom the catch had to be sold under conditions of net disadvantage and fraud. Today it is the project that buys it on fair terms and then uses it or resells it. A good success then had the diffusion in different places - method and simple tools - of the smoking of fish to preserve it and sell it more easily. Initiatives to be further expanded, together with new others, to diversify sources of income. For a long time in Maluso a small shop has been run for the Bajau families which offers them basic necessities at good conditions; while a group of women continues to develop traditional craftsmanship of simple harmonious beauty. But various other perspectives are still to be experimented: animal husbandry, crops, rubber trees…


Mauro Palombo
NP February 2021

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Sermig Re.Te. Association
for Development
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