2 Muslim doctors join World Health Assembly in Geneva

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Two Muslim doctors from the south are among the country’s representatives to the ongoing 69th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland.

Local executives in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) were elated with the participation to the event of physicians Kadil Sinolinding Jr. and Abdullah Dumama, both ethnic Maguindanaons from central Mindanao.

Sinolinding, an Indian-trained ophthalmologist and eye surgeon, is ARMM’s incumbent regional health secretary. Dumama is regional director of the Department of Health (DOH) for Region 11.

Sinolinding said he and Dumama, both Filipino Sunni Muslims, joined the assembly on order of Health Secretary Janette Garin.

The Philippine delegation to the international five-day health forum in Geneva, which officially started on Monday, is comprised of Sinolinding, Dumama, and two other senior government doctors, Marlyn Concovar and Emmy Minicimpo, and Ambassador Cecilia Rebong.  

The World Health Assembly is the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, which has various programs in the ARMM, which covers Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in mainland Mindanao, and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

“The Moro communities in Mindanao are honored once again with the participation of two doctors from our community in another vaunted international event,” said the newly-reelected ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman.

Functions and powers of the DOH had been devolved to the executive department of ARMM based on the region’s charter, the Republic Act 9054.

The ARMM was amply represented, in the past three years, by Moro professionals to international conferences in Europe, Australia and the United States of America.

“Those activities gave us the chance to show to the world that despite our being a minority, we are not bereft of people actively involved in governance,” Hataman said.

The ARMM’s education secretary, industrial psychologist John Magno, joined last year’s international convention of psychologists in Canada.

Hataman’s alter-ego, Regional Executive Secretary Laisa Masuhud Alamia, and Baintan-Adil Ampatuan, director of the Regional Planning and Development Office, also toured Europe last year for official functions.