“Are you a goodjau or a Badjau?” my companion asked the pretty young girl standing in the parking lot with an outstretched hand.
To my utter astonishment, she shot us a gamely grin. “I’m a goodjau,” she said. Apparently, she had heard the joke before. And so we gave her all our spare change.
In Northern Mindanao where I live, the Sama-Badjau (also spelled Bajau or Bajo) are ubiquitous. You see them everywhere, but especially in the parking lots of restaurants and malls or strolling along the seaside boulevard where they’re sure to catch a crowd. Easily identified by their distinctive yellow, red, gold, and black native garb, they are almost always young, female, and begging for money.
Sometimes they carry babies or are surrounded by small children pressing fingers to their lips in a universal gesture of hunger. But always they look forlorn, piercing the hearts of passersby with beseeching looks that are hard to deny.