Bright Badjao kid hired by DA

TAWI-TAWI - The Department of Agriculture has hired a young Badjao who graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Mindanao State University (MSU) in Tawi-Tawi as consultant to handle the government's livelihood and education program for the country's neglected sea gypsies.Roben Abdellah, an openly gay Badjao who is perhaps the first member of the tribe to earn a very high academic scholastic excellence, will be tasked to monitor the FB Pagbabago program of President Rody Duterte which aims to distribute fiberglass fishing boats to the country's poorest fishing families, especially the tribal groups of the Southern Philippines which include the Badjao, Sa'ma, Yakan, Jama Mapun and Tausug.Abdellah will also handle the non-formal education of Badjao children and young adults, including teaching them how to read and write.The Badjaos are considered as the most neglected tribe who spend their lives in the seas, coming to shore only to sell whatever catch they make or to beg in the streets of the city.Uneducated, almost all of them do not even have birth records and their children are not sent to school.Born and raised in the seas, Badjao children are among the best swimmers and deep sea divers in the country, a skill which has not been recognised by the national swimming organisations.In June last year, shortly after then President-elect Rody Duterte named me as his Agriculture Secretary, I read a news item in Rappler about a young Badjao who graduated Magna Cum Laude from MSU Tawi-Tawi.I immediately made efforts to connect with Abdellah and through the help of concerned Tawitawi officials, a link was established.On Monday night, Abdellah, who works as part-time professor of MSU Tawitawi and the Tourism Division of the Provincial Government, was officially taken in as Job Order employee of the Dept. of Agriculture.Abdellah will work under Atty. Ranibai Dilangalen, DA Undersecretary for Special Concerns and the Bangsamoro Area.He was ordered to work closely with a group of Catholic nuns who have been teaching Badjao children and with a government officer who handles the affairs of the Badjaos and other tribes, Abdulaziz Ju.Through Abdellah, we hope to make the country's sea gypsies and other tribes realise that under President Duterte, the government cares for the neglected and the forgotten.