Eid’l Fitr celebrations peaceful in Central Mindanao
COTABATO CITY — Local executives took turns urging Muslims to vigorously sustain their spiritual solidarity with non-Muslims during the Eid’l Fit’r congregational outdoor prayers on Wednesday in different areas of Central Mindanao.
The obligatory prayer rites marked the end of Ramadhan, a holy month in Islam, where Muslims fast from dawn to dusk for 28-29 days as a religious obligation and to inculcate among them the importance of self-restraint to achieve spiritual perfection.
Major Gen. Alex S. Rillera, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, and Bangsamoro regional police director Brig. Gen. Prexy D. Tanggawohn separately told reporters on Wednesday that the Eid rites in areas under their jurisdiction were peaceful, facilitated with the support of local government units (LGUs).
Muslim leaders and Islamic theologians in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and in Region 12 had called on their constituents, via reporters, after the Eid gatherings to continue supporting the multi-sector cultural and religious-solidarity thrusts of their LGUs in support of the Mindanao peace efforts of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. and the southern Moro communities.
“Islam has very extensive teachings on religious tolerance and about the obligation of every Muslim to be in peace with people with different religions. That should encourage us to be instruments of religious solidarity,” Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal A. Adiong, Jr., said.
Some Christian local executives had set a precedent on Wednesday by reaching out to Muslims in designated Eid’l Fit’r worship sites, providing food and bottled water as offerings.
Mr. Rillera and Cotabato’s provincial police director, Col. Gilbert B. Tuzon, separately told reporters that many Christian LGU officials, among them Mayor Rolly C. Sacdalan and Evangeline P. Guzman of Midsayap and Kabacan towns in Cotabato province, respectively, even helped military and police units plan out security contingencies for Wednesday morning’s Eid events in their municipalities.
Muslim officials in the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region said they also appreciate the distribution in mosques of food and drinks during the Ramadhan for iftar, the first meal after a day-long fast, by the LGU of Lamitan City in Basilan.
The mayor of Lamitan City, Roderick Furigay, a Christian, is the only non-Muslim mayor in BARMM whose office has subsidies for clerics managing mosques in all of the 45 barangays under its jurisdiction.
“We in Basilan are keen on fostering religious unity among the local Muslim and Christian communities. It is for that unity that we have driven out from the Abu Sayyaf that for so long made life so uneasy for our people. We now have peace here, courtesy of our Muslim and Christian communities,” Gov. Hadjiman Salliman, chairperson of the multi-sector Basilan Peace and Order Council, said.
Many erstwhile non-Muslims who have embraced Islam in recent years, among them active members of the Philippine National Police and personnel of units of 6th ID, attended the Eid congregational ceremony at the division’s mosque in the premises of Camp Siongco in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte, organized by Mr. Rillera and their Islamic preacher, the Maranaw Captain Alinair C. Guro.
Mr. Tanggawohn, who assumed as police director of BARMM only last week, said he shall embark on projects, along with the provincial police offices in the autonomous region, that can help maintain cordiality among the local Muslim, Christian and non-Moro indigenous communities. — John Felix M. Unson
