ARMM folks back creation of Muslim cemeteries - proponent

BULUAN, Maguindanao  --- The cross-section communities in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are in favor of the enactment into law of a regional bill seeking the establishment of Muslim cemeteries in the ARMM provinces, officials said.

Maguindanao 2nd District Assemblyman Khadafy Mangudadatu, a member of the ARMM’s 24-seat Regional Assembly, said participants to a series of recent public hearings on the proposal, from the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, did not oppose the bill.

“There were positive, heartening, very supportive comments on the proposal from the people from the island provinces. There was overwhelming outpouring of support for the proposed regional law,” Mangudadatu said.

Mangudadatu, now in his third term as ARMM assemblyman, is the main proponent of the bill, now awaiting final deliberation by members of the Regional Assembly.

The assemblyman’s older sibling, Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, has earlier promised  to donate parcels of  titled land in the towns of Buluan, Pandag and Mangudadatu for Muslim burial sites in support of the proposed law.

The series of public consultations Mangudadatu and his colleagues in the Regional Assembly initiated recently, meant to gather public views and suggestions on the establishment of Muslim cemeteries, started in Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur.

Mangudadatu said the bill is now set for finalization by the Regional Assembly.

Islamic theologian Alzad Sattar, who is an assistant secretary in the ARMM’s Department of Education, said they also support Mangudadatu’s bill.

“That’s something very positive and we are in favor of that,” said Sattar, who hails from Bubuan Island in Sumisip, Basilan.

He said preachers in the DepEd-ARMM want to have decent Muslim burial sites in each of the region's over a hundred towns.

The ARMM covers Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, which are both in mainland Mindanao, and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

There are no known Muslim cemeteries in the autonomous region owing to the long-time tradition of local Moro folks of burying members of their families in their private lands.

Mangudadatu’s proposal enjoins local government units in the region to provide land for burial sites.

Members of the ARMM’s newly-organized Jurisconsult, composed of clerics from different provinces in the region, some of them trained at the Al-Azhar University in the Egyptian capital Cairo, and the World Islamic Call University in Libya, have also endorsed Mangudadatu’s proposal.