Human Rights and the Periphery: Righting the Deprivation of the Sama Dilaut as Indigenous Maritime Peoples in the Southern Philippines

Kriselle Marie Calica Aquino

doi:10.30641/ham.2024.15.19-34

Human Rights and the Periphery: Righting the Deprivation of the Sama Dilaut as Indigenous Maritime Peoples in the Southern Philippines

Kriselle Marie Calica Aquino

Abstract

The Sama Dilaut identify their source of homeland and identity as peoples of the sea. Despite their procedural rights guaranteed under international and domestic legal instruments, they remain in the periphery within the informal hierarchy of ethnicities, not because they are resource-poor but because they are capability- and freedom-deprived. As opposed to material deprivation, this study focuses on rights deprivation, that is, the alienation of their indigenous context and perspective in human rights interpretation and fulfillment. Using qualitative methods specifically phenomenology and key informant interviews, it first queries their lived experiences of deprivation on land, at sea, and horizontal (community) and vertical (State) levels. Second, it critically examines pathways and solutions to enjoy their rights and freedoms fully. The results focus on their concept of human rights (kapatut manusiya) and their communally-identified four significant lived deprivations vis-à-vis desired freedoms. These are related to knowledge and education (pangalaman or panghati), indigenous culture and spirituality and religious beliefs (pangaddatan and pag-omboh or pag-paybahau), traditional and diversified economic life (pag-usaha or pagkalluman), and socio-political leadership and participation (panglima or nakura). This study contributes to putting the international human rights landscape into perspective through the lens of the Sama Dilaut, who are freedom-deprived yet rich in (maritime) culture and worldview.

Keywords

deprivation; indigenous maritime peoples; Sama Dilaut; sea nomads; Southern Philippines

Full Text:

PDF

References

Alamia, Laisa. “The Sea Nomads of the Philippines: On the Verge of Extinction?” Speech presented at the UN OHCHR Sub-Committee on Human Rights Promotion and Protection, Working Group on Minorities, Geneva, Switzerland, May 30, 2005. https://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/minorities/docs/11/Lumah_3a.doc.

Alexander, Heather. “The Nationality and Statelessness of Nomads Under International Law.” Published Ph.D. Thesis, Tilburg University, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3762178.

Anonymous. Phenomenological Interview with Sama Dilaut, Sitangkai, Tawi-Tawi, June 2, 2023.

Arong, Jose. “The Badjaw of Sulu. Philippine Sociological Review.” Philippine Sociological Society 10, no. 3/4 (1962): 134–47.

Arquiza, Mucha-Shim Quiling. “Sama Dilaut—Fishers of Coins: Case of Sea Nomadism in Sulu Seas, Mindanao, Philippines.” Speech presented at the UN OHCHR, Sub-Committee on Human Rights Promotion and Protection, Working Group on Minorities, Geneva, Switzerland, March 1, 2004. https://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/minorities/docs/AMANP3a.doc.

Bottignolo, Bruno. Celebrations with the Sun: An Overview of Religious Phenomena Among the Badjaos. Revised Edition. Vol. VIII. Quezon City, Metro Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1999.

Cholewinski, Ryszard. “State Duty towards Ethnic Minorities: Positive or Negative?” Human Rights Quarterly 10, no. 3 (August 1988): 344–71. https://doi.org/10.2307/762122.

Eversole. “Overview – Patterns of Indigenous Disadvantage Worldwide.” In Indigenous Peoples and Poverty: An International Perspective, 320. London: Zed Books and Comparative Research Programme on Poverty, 2005. https://www.crop.org/Publications/CROP-Book-Series/Indigenous-Peoples-and-Poverty--An-International-Perspective.aspx.

Gilbert, Jeremie. “Nomadic Territories: A Human Rights Approach to Nomadic Peoples’ Land Rights.” Human Rights Law Review 7, no. 4 (October 23, 2007): 681–716. https://doi.org/10.1093/hrlr/ngm030.

Göcke. “Protection and Realization of Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights at the National and International Level.” Goettingen Journal of International Law 5, no. 1 (November 2013): 87–154. https://doi.org/10.3249/1868-1581-5-1-goecke.

Gutoc-Tomawis, Samira. “The Politics of Labeling Philippine Muslims.” Arellano Law and Policy Review 6, no. 1 (April 2005): 7–19.

Holtgren, J. Marty, and Nancy Auer. “Forging a New Path for Multi-Cultural Fishery Management.” Journal of Great Lakes Research 49, no. 1 (June 2023): S116–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2022.09.001.

Jubilado, Rodney. “On Cultural Fluidity: The Sama-Bajau of the Sulu-Sulawesi Seas.” Kunapipi: Journal of Postcolonial Writing and Culture 32, no. 1 (2010): 89–101.

Majul, Cesar Adib. “Political and Historical Notes on the Old Sulu Sultanate.” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 38, no. 1 (1965): 23–42.

Molintas, Jose. “The Philippine Indigenous Peoples’ Struggle for Land and Life: Challenging Legal Texts.” Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law 21, no. 1 (2004): 269–306.

Nimmo. “Reflections on Bajau History.” Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints 16, no. 1 (1968): 32–59.

Nimmo, Harry. “Social Organization of the Tawi-Tawi Badjaw.” Ethnology 4, no. 4 (October 1965): 421–39. https://doi.org/10.2307/3772791.

Quimby, Barbara, and Arielle Levine. “Participation, Power, and Equity: Examining Three Key Social Dimensions of Fisheries Comanagement.” Sustainability, Power, Emancipation and Justice in Natural Resource Governance—Towards “Critical and Transformative Sustainability Sciences,” 10, no. 9 (September 18, 2018): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10093324.

Rodil, Rudy Buhay. The Minoritization of the Indigenous Communities of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Revised Philippine Edition. Davao City, Mindanao: Alternate Forum for Research in Mindanao, Inc., 2004.

Roxas-Lim, Aurora. “Marine-Oriented Sama-Bajao People and Their Search for Human Rights.” Public Policy Journal 18, no. 1 (2017): 49–66.

Saada, Noor. “KISSAH AND DAWAT: Exclusion of Sama People from BARMM Leadership: A Travesty of Democracy.” Online Newspaper. MindaNews, April 12, 2023. https://www.mindanews.com/mindaviews/2023/04/kissah-and-dawat-exclusion-of-sama-people-from-barmm-leadership-a-travesty-of-democracy/.

Saat, Gusni, Rozaliah Mokhtar, and Kasim Mansur. “Diaspora Impact to Indigenous of Sama Dilaut in Sabah, Malaysia.” Quantum Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 1, no. 3 (August 6, 2020): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.55197/qjssh.v1i3.13.

Sather, Clifford. The Bajau Laut: Adaptation, History, and Fate in A Maritime Fishing Society of South-Eastern Sabah. II. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Shaheed, Ahmed. “A/77/514: Interim Report of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief.” Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, October 10, 2022. https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a77514-interim-report-special-rapporteur-freedom-religion-or-belief.

Sixto, Orosa. The Sulu Archipelago and Its People. Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York: World Book Company, 1923.

Suzuki, Nobutaka. “The Trajectories of Colonial Education and Muslim Filipinos under American Rule.” Islam and Cultural Diversity in Southeast Asia II (2015): 41–70.

Szalai, Anikó. “Article 27 of the ICCPR in Practice, with Special Regard to the Protection of the Roma Minority.” In Hungarian Yearbook of International Law and European Law, 115–38. The Hague, Netherlands: Eleven International Publishing, 2016. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2956845.

Tan, Samuel. “Decolonization and Filipino Muslim Identity.” Philippine Social Sciences Review 48, no. 1–4 (January 19, 2012): 1–80.

United States Bureau of the Census. “Census of the Philippine Islands: Taken Under the Direction of the Philippine Commission in the Year 1903: In Four Volumes, Volume II, Population.” In The United States and Its Territories, 1870 - 1925: The Age of Imperialism, II:1–1048. 1. Washington, United States: United States Bureau of the Census, 1905. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/.

Warren, James Francis. The Sulu Zone, 1768-1898: Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State. Quezon City, Metro Manila: New Day Publishers, 1985.

World Bank and International Organization for Migration Technical Team. “Land: Territory, Domain, and Identity: A Report Submitted by the WB-IOM Technical Team to the Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC).” WB-IOM, March 2016. https://www.tjrc.ph/report.

Yupsanis, Athanasios. “Article 27 of the ICCPR Revisited - The Right to Culture as a Normative Source for Minority / Indigenous Participatory Claims in the Case Law of the Human Rights Committee.” In Hague Yearbook of International Law, 26:345–83. Leiden and Boston: Brill Nijhoff, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004287365_013.