SULTAN KUDARAT, Philippines, 14 May — “Anything that would bring meaningful development to the Bangsamoro people is very much welcome!”
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) made this comment yesterday in reaction to a Malacañang statement that the Philippine government was integrating the madrassas into the national education system.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu noted, however, that several attempts had actually been made to integrate the madrassas into the mainstream but there had been no concrete accomplishment.
“Under the present circumstances, and in order for a program to succeed it must have to satisfy the following query, that is the availability of a permanent budget allocation, which mean it must be part of the country’s national appropriation, and that there is an honest-to-goodness intention on the part of the government to uplift the social condition of the Bangsamoro people, otherwise, this will remain a lip service,” Kabalu warned.
Kabalu expressed concern that the government’s real interest in integrating the madrassas, or Islamic schools, is to impose controls on the system for fear that they are being used a breeding ground for terrorism.
“Such an assumption is far from reality,” said Kabalu, who added that “those people who have been engaged in terrorist activities as defined by the government itself have little background or none at all about madrassas.”
He cited the case of the Abu Sayyaf Group, whose members, except for its founding leader Abdulrazzak Janjalani who obtained his formal education abroad, have not undergone formal education from the madrassas.
MILF leaders have denounced the Abu Sayyaf for engaging in kidnap-for-ransom and other “un-Islamic” activities.
“In other words, the move to impose control over the Muslim educational system through integration as part of a measure to fight terrorism is not a solution to the problem,” Kabalu said.
