“In the Bangsamoro, we do not pursue education for prestige alone. We seek knowledge to strengthen our faith, uplift our people, uphold justice, and promote the values of moral governance. Education, in our context, must be liberating, inclusive, and transformative.”
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- EDD K. USMAN | X (Twitter): @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 |Facebook: SDN – SciTech & Digital News
COTABATO CITY, June 30, 2025 (SDN) — If you have doubts how vital education is for success in life, you need to read the enlightening and direction-setting speech of Bangsamoro Education Minister Mohagher M. Iqbal.
For there are many truths in his speech, life’s lessons that should arm you and prepare you in your pursuit of improvement, of escaping a lifecycle of poverty and mediocrity ever-tested by a gauntlet of challenges that the weak of heart would easily succumb to.
Believe that he opened his heart, poured it all out, education being one of the closest subject matters to him along with the Bangsamoro people’s struggles.
If Iqbal gave up, surrendered to weakness and uncertainties, made his self the priority rather than service to the Bangsamoro cause, he would not have been the speaker in your Commencement Exercises Friday, June 27. It’s your grand day, the period that should open a new door, and beyond that door lies the new journey that awaits you, it’s not the end of your education, of learning, rather the beginning of many possibilities and you’ll undergo more tests in your life.
You can bet on that!
Suffice to say you are now armed, equipped with your degrees, more prepared than when you started the academic chapter of your journey.
Be mindful, though, on what the education chief of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) pointed out in his speech.
And in relation to that, what direction you are going to take, for there are in the past who, after graduation, got lost, waylaid in their tracks by life’s vicissitudes, life’s challenges, life’s temptations, and human beings’ penchant for shortcuts!
If you wish, you can take the cue from your guest speaker on how you should approach your continuing journey’s direction.
Or be left behind, stagnate, eat the dust of failure, and rue the day you did not take heed of Iqbal’s words, his gems of wisdom.
The Bangsamoro education head was the event’s main speaker on Friday, June 27, of the Cotabato State University (CotSU), headed by President Sema Dilna, for the graduates of School Year 2024-2025
Chief negotiator and chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Peace Implementing Panel (PIP), Iqbal delivered his long speech like the BARMM’s “Father of Education” that he truly is: incisive, piercing, fatherly, friendly, and a dispenser of life’s lessons, hurling gems here and there, ever-mindful how a father speaks to his beloved children.
He laid down how should the Bangsamoro youth approach their studies. Simple, and purposeful.
“In the Bangsamoro, we do not pursue education for prestige alone. We seek knowledge to strengthen our faith, uplift our people, uphold justice, and promote the values of moral governance. Education, in our context, must be liberating, inclusive, and transformative,” Iqbal, who wears many hats in the Mindanao peace process, emphasizes.
Read between the lines, separate the chaff from the grain and you will get the unspoken meaning from that quoted paragraph that education and arrogance are like oil and water, they do not mix, nor are they to be mixed.
That humility should come embedded with learning: the higher you climb the totem pole of knowledge, the more humble you should be.
If you still entertain doubts on education’s importance, know that Iqbal mentioned the word education at least eight times in his speech of more than 1,000 words.
He said education may come with a cloak of nobility, at the same time citing how this could be done.
“In a time of rapid change and complexity, where today’s solutions may not address tomorrow’s challenges, the only way forward is to embrace lifelong learning. But what gives lifelong learning its nobility is when it is rooted in purpose — and that purpose must be service and for more lofty objectives,” he addresses the graduates and, apparently, their mentors and their parents, and those who would soon be in this grand day of days for students.
The BARMM education chief also took note of the event’s theme which revolves around “CSU Lights: Excellence Beyond Borders – Transforming the Future through Lifelong Learning.”
Education is Bangsamoro youth’s best tool to achieve their aspirations
He said the Commencement Exercises’ theme is a reminder of an aspect of education, that it’s not “a destination but a lifelong journey”.
Education should not be limited by the four corners of classrooms or degrees.
“True learning knows not of borders — not of geography, not of discipline, and certainly not of self-interest.”
To draw lessons from the past and share them to the present, Iqbal walked back to a very personal experience, the days of his youth in Manila, until the day he finished his studies and returned to his homeland undaunted by the chaos prevailing, in the year his people were living dangerously. A homeland burning of discontent, pent-up and boxed-in, no wonder it exploded in a way that nearly tore down the Filipino nation, a catasthropic chism
“Allow me to share a little story of mine. After I graduated from college, I came back to our beloved province. At that time, there was chaos everywhere. There was firefighting in all corners of our community. Children cannot go to schools, parents cannot till their lands for fear of caught in cross-fire or worst being apprehended for a crime he or she doesn’t commit or even aware of.
“At an early age, with no valuable experience in life, together with other patriotic young blood, we decided to join the revolution. We take part in changing what was then the status quo, the oppression, land grabbing, and all forms of atrocities. If I remember it right, an uncle of mine once told me, not to join the revolution because my life will be in misery, and he said: “sayang lang ang pinag-aralan mo at kakalawangin lang ang utak mo.” (your studies will be useless and your brains will rust.) I listened to him but did the other way.
“Now I can say, I was right and he was wrong. The life and the future of the Bangsamoro is worth dying for.”
Imagine if he and the other Moro youth did not join the revolution for Bangsamoro self-determination, “then maybe we will not be as free as today; maybe there will be no graduates as today; and there will be no development as today.”
And you know what is the best tool that made me reach this far? Education… quality education.
To be where he is now, practically the brains behind the MILF’s surge in the 17 years peace talks with the Philippine Government (GPH), where he signed more than 60 percent of the agreements, he finished two degrees, sat face to face with his many counterparts from the GPH in intractable negotiations, exhibited brinkmanship, braved with enviable demeanor senators and congressmen’s virtually inhuman, highly biased and bigoted manners of questioning, and faced with grace every challenge thrown at him.
Education, engine of Bangsamoro journey toward peace, progress
“I said earlier that joining the revolution as a novice, I lack the experience in life, what I only possessed at that time is the burning passion to free our people from oppression and the quality of learning I acquired from the universities. If I did not acquire my two degrees, the MILF would have somebody else as its chief negotiator — and we did not have signed the FAB and CAB and secured the BOL and BARMM, as consequences,” says Iqbal in hindsight.
(FAB is the Framework Agreement for the Bangsamoro, CAB is Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, BOL is Bangsamoro Organic Law.)
For being a fountain of knowledge for the Bangsamoro youth, Iqbal showered praises to the university, school officials, and professors for their role in the graduates’ academic life.
*Your commitment and sacrifices have not gone unnoticed. You are the backbone of our education system. You inspire minds, nurture hearts, and shape the future of the Bangsamoro. Thank you for standing by our learners and helping them realize their potential. There is nothing more noble than shaping and nurturing the future generation. There is nothing more fulfilling than seeing your former students becoming leaders, professionals, successful in their chosen fields, and exemplar of good behavior. This what makes the teaching profession, a noble profession,” Iqbal, the minister of the Ministry of Basic, Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE).
“Thank you also for upholding the principles of moral governance in your work. Your leadership ensures that our schools remain places of integrity, accountability, and excellence — where no Bangsamoro learner is left behind.”
He cited education’s central role in the Bangsamoro’s journey to a peaceful and progressive homeland. (√)