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By EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 | Facebook: SDN — SciTech and Digital News
COTABATO CITY (SDN) — Teaching and non-teaching personnel of the Bangsamoro Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE) have received around 37,369 food packs the Department of Education (DepEd) provided for Ramadan, Islam’s holy month.
During the month adult Muslims are obliged to perform fasting — abstention from food, drinks, smoking, and sex from dawn to dusk. In this summer month of 2023, the fasts can last every day for just over 13 hours of total abstention.
Not a morsel, a sip of water or any liquid, a puff of smoke, is allowed during daytime, or during the duration of the fast. Indulging in marital sex is also prohibited. Sex between un-married couples is always forbidden in Islam (as well as in Christianity).
Headed by Minister of Parliament (MP) and Education Minister Mohagher M. Iqbal, the MBHTE announced the food packs donation from the Office of the DepEd Secretary and Vice President Sara Duterte.
Gifts for Islam’s Holy Month of Ramadan from the Office of DepEd Secretary and Vice President Sara Duterte for BARMM-MBHTE’s teaching and non-teaching personnel. (Credit: MBHTE)
The education ministry of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) expressed “its deepest gratitude and appreciation to the Office of the DepEd Secretary for the food provision, which came as the followers of Islam starts fast today, March 23.
Iqbal’s office said the donation is “one of their (DepEd) special programs for BARMM during the Holy Month of Ramadan.” BARMM has over 22,000 teaching personnel alone.
“The recipients are the ministry’s teaching and non-teaching personnel in the 11 schools divisions, ISAL teachers, para-teachers, and personnel in the Regional Office, including those who are under the Contract of Service and in the Basic Education subsector,” the MBHTE said in its announcement.
Established in 2018 by the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) to implement the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), the BARMM is made up of the provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao (now split as Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte), Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi, the cities of Cotabato, Lamitan, and Marawi, as well as the 63 barangays or villages dubbed Special Geographic Area (SGA) that voted “yes” in a plebiscite in February 2019 to be under the BARMM jurisdiction.
According to the Philippine Atlas has 4,404,288 people. It has 116 municipalities: Basilan, 11 municipalities; Lanao del Sur, 39; Maguindanao, 36; Sulu, 19; and Tawi-Tawi, 11. Its component cities are Cotabato (the regional center and capital) in Maguindanao; Lamitan in Basilan; and Marawi in Lanao del Sur.
On the other hand, some Muslim national government officials have been saying the number of local Muslims have reached over 10 million nationwide as many have migrated to Luzon and the Visayas because of the Mindanao war. (✓)