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GREEHILLS MALL MUSHALLAH, San Juan City, January 17, 2025 (SDN) — Lawyer Salvador S.B. Panelo surprised hundreds of Juma’ah (Friday) worshipers here as he joined the Islamic weekly prayer.
He was seated three rows from the “mimbar” (where the Imam delivered his Khutbah or sermon), attentively listening. Another worshiper was observed whispering to him, apparently explaining the nuances, the meanings of the khutbah given in Arabic and Maranao dialect.
Datu Sol Sergio Bayam, one of the children of Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) leader the late Hadji Akmad Bayam, told SDN – SciTech & Digital News that he witnessed Panelo inside the Mushallah (Prayer Room), sitting among the devotees.
He said Panelo, the former presidential legal counsel and spokesperson of the then President Rodrigo R. Duterte, was seated in front.
“Yes, I saw him four rows in front of me and three rows to the imam (prayer leader and giver of sermon),” he tells SDN.
Later after the prayer, another worshiper, Datu Hussein S. Baraguir, took a photograph of the former Duterte official being surrounded by other worshipers.
When his presence in the Mushallah during a Friday prayers was posted on social media, some curious netizens asked if Panelo indeed embraced Islam.
A search by SDN on Google did not yield any information whether he converted to the Muslim religion.
However, Sol Bayam, Baraguir, Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) Member of Parliament (MP) Lawyer Rasol Mitmug, and this journalist assumed — rightly or wrongly — that Panelo embraced the religion of the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him), seeing that he performed prayer at the Mushallah.
But unless the former Malacanang official personally confirms it, people’s curiosity will continue to linger. (SDN messaged him last night on Messenger to confirm or deny it, but no reply yet.)
Netizen Jih Sapantun who works at the Libyan Embassy in the Philippines, asks: “Atty. Panelo has embraced Islam?”
Suffice to say that Panelo was warmly welcomed at the Mushallah, as the worshipers crowded around him and took selfies with him as he was talking to them animatedly.
Before he went to pray at the Mushallah he was at “The Agenda”, a weekly media forum hosted by lawyer Sigfred Mison at the nearby Club Filipino.
The forum tackled the International Criminal Court (ICC) case against the former President, the impeachment cases filed at the House of Representatives versus Vice President Inday Sara Duterte, and other issues.
Other panelists were lawyer Kristine Conti, ICC assistant to the counsel, and ACT Teachers Party-list sectoral Rep. France Castro. (/)