TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Jakarta administration is set to introduce the city-wide ban on ondel-ondel busking. Head of the Public Order Agency (Satpol PP), Arifin, said that this policy arose following numerous complaints from members of the public who felt that the street buskers not only use the Betawi cultural icon for busking but a blatant begging tool.

“It’s as if they don’t present themselves as buskers but as beggars that [exploit] the ondel-ondel icon,” the Satpol PP head, Arifin, confirmed to journalists on March 24. “Nothing is being presented as art that the people could enjoy.”

Arifin said that city authorities understand people’s intention to conserve ondel-ondel as it is one of the most notable Betawi icons today, but he regrets that it is currently downgraded to a tool to beg for certain groups of people.

He even cited the ban on beggars stated in Regional Regulation No.28/2007 that does not allow them to beg in public streets. “What's not allowed is not the busking, but begging on the streets,” said Arifin.

The Satpol PP, he went on, will start to educate people against the use of the ondel-ondel for begging purposes and will keep tabs of the beggars up to where they live.

“Because it (ondel-ondel) is our Betawi cultural heritage. It shall not be degraded to a mere begging tool. Moreover, how they beg seems to compel people to give them money,” said Arifin.

Read: Betawi Cultural Practitioner Deplores Ondel-ondel Busker Ban

ADAM PRIREZA