TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol (PIA) — Muslims in Bohol, many of them showing more Boholano traits that Boholanos should, have insulated their communities from any criminal elements who can disturb the peace that they have been enjoying here.
According to Malabi Al-hady Taha, president of the Bohol Muslim Community Peace Movement (BMCPEM), they have to do something after news spread out about the Marawi Siege and the Inabanga Incursion, both of which involved Muslim extremists.
“Muslim is Arabic for ‘he who follows the will of Allah’,” said Ustadh Sohayle Guro, another Muslim leader whose community is settled beside Unitop, during the recent Kapihan sa PIA.
Guro, an Islamic scholar, however said that some people often mistake the peaceful ways of Allah, thus, news about radical terrorists come out.
No matter how peaceful the Muslim communities are here, the news about Inabanga incursion placed every Muslim community in Bohol as a threat.
Muslims, owing to their religion, tend to congregate for common services: preparing, cooking, eating halal, and praying in masjids or mosques, that any Muslim coming in must go to a Muslim community, making him easier to track and check on his person.
“It was in 2017 when we started organizing the Muslim communities here through their leaders and the Bohol Provincial Police Office (BPPO), to insulate the communities from just anyone who gets in but with bad intentions,” Taha shared.
Dimakota Alangadi, a Muslim leader and president of the Islamic Community in Tagbilaran City, said he has peacefully lived here for about 50 years, and it was in Bohol where his parents died and are buried.
“We have never had any problems here until 2017, that we have to make sure nothing like that ever happens again,” he said.
About 80 percent of the Muslims who have come to Bohol many generations ago are Maranaos, while the rest is a mixture of Tausugs, Maguindanaos and other tribes.
They have all been into trading, which placed them living in peaceful coexistence with Boholanos who are about 85 percent Christians.
But the term Muslim has also been used to refer to the radical Islamic groups that have been terrorizing the world, leaving an uncomfortable enmity between the Muslims and Boholanos here.
“Bohol is such a good place, and we would like to keep it that way, so we can continue living peacefully,” shared Malabi Al-hady Taha, president of the Bohol Muslim Community Peace Movement (BMCPeM), the unified Muslim communities in Bohol.
BMCPeM is SEC-registered and is an accredited organization of the National Commission of Muslim Filipinos.
It has a local governing body housed at the Governor’s Mansion in the Office of Muslim Affairs.
“We have lived here, started our families and we planned to make it that way,” Alangadi said.
“With that, if anybody comes to Bohol and to Muslim Communities to blend in, we have to inform them that the community does not consent to his coming and that they cannot allow the community to be used for such purposes,” Taha added.
Salaam Peace Advocacy Group
With the BPPO, Muslim communities put up their Salaam Peace Advocacy Groups (SPAG) to put up a system of policing their own ranks and advance the peace agenda, especially when the communities are threatened.
With their intention to live and stay here, the Muslim Communities have asked the government to give them a lot so they can build a new Muslim cemetery for their Islamic members.
Islamic believers practice burial within 24 hours after death.
“And that fact that we are requesting the Provincial Government through Governor Erico Aristotle Aumentado a lot for our cemetery also means we are here for good and that we are here to help everyone make things in order and in peace,” Taha added. (RAHC/PIA Bohol)
