Jikirum Adjaluddin learned to swim in the waters surrounding the island province of Sulu, in the southern part of the Philippines.
He competed in the 1932 and 1936 Olympics and was considered the only Southeast Asian to ever make it to the semifinals of more than one event of a single Olympics in more than 60 years. He finished 5th in the 200m breastroke event of the 1932 Games in Los Angeles, California where another Filipino, Teofilo Yldefonso, won bronze. The following Olympics in Berlin, Germany in 1936, Adjaluddin made it to the semifinal rounds of the 100m freestyle and 200m breaststroke, eventually finishing 11th and 12th in the respective events.