MANILA — Hundreds of Filipino Muslims on Tuesday commemorated Eid’l Adha or Islam’s Feast of Sacrifice in Manila.
The feast was held at the Quirino Grandstand, where they prayed and listen to the sermon of the Imam.
Eid’l Adha is the second of two Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide annually and is considered to be holier than Eid’l Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.
The occasion honors the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God’s command. It also marks the culmination of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, or the Hajj.
In a related development, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Tuesday assured that measures are in place to ensure that all Muslims that will leave the country to attend the annual celebration in Saudi Arabia are documented.
“According to the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) guidelines, all participants are required personal appearance in their application. We have beefed up our secondary inspection team, and we have Muslim immigration officers who can act as translators,” said BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval in a statement.
“It’s not just BI, but other government agencies have strengthened their measures to ensure that that what happened in 2016 will not happen again,” she added.
Sandoval noted that the Travel Control and Enforcement Unit is the unit conducting secondary inspection.
“Also, on personnel complement, we have recently added immigration officers conducting primary inspection, so we are ready for the increased number of travelers due to the Hajj,” the BI official said.
The Hajj, a five-day pilgrimage undertaken by Muslims to the holy city of Mecca, started on the evening of Aug. 19 and ends on Friday.
In 2016, over 170 Indonesians carrying Philippine passports were intercepted at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) when they were about to board a flight to Saudi Arabia supposedly to attend the Muslim pilgrimage. (Ferdinand Patinio/PNA)
