COTABATO CITY, 20 December — The Ulema -Professional Executive Committee (UPEC) yesterday lodged a strong protest against the Mercury Drug Store Company for printing out a calendar for 2002 containing a caption that constituted an attack on Islam. The controversial calendar carries a picture of a mosque with the caption: "Muslim mosque Maguindanao: Muslim church where they worship Muhammad."
"This is a blasphemy against Islam," Professor Abhoud Syed Lingga, chair of UPEC, said in a radio interview.
Lingga explained: "Islam is a monotheist religion, which strictly enjoins believers to worship only one God, Allah Almighty, and never human beings such as Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him."
Lingga said he found it difficult to accept the suggestion that the blasphemous calendar might be a product of ignorance and that there was no intention to malign Islam.
Considering the sensitivity of the issue, he said, Mercury Drug could have consulted Muslim scholars based in Metro Manila before printing the offending material.
"Their fault or negligence certainly does not exempt them from responsibility and liability committed against Muslims in particular and Islam in general," he said.
Lingga said UPEC is now consulting lawyers for possible filing of appropriate charges before the court of law.
He urged the drug company to retrieve the calendars it had distributed around and issue a public apology to the Muslim community, with a promise never to commit such a "grave mistake" again.
Mercury Drug is the leading drugstore in the country.
