By John Rey Saavedra/PNA
TAGBILARAN CITY — A leader of the Muslim community in Bohol on Thursday urged leaders of the newly created Bangsamoro Autonomous Region to use the momentum of positive acceptance of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) in solving the “rido” in Mindanao.
Datu Manong Ambor, president of the Bohol Muslim Community Peace Movement (BMCPM), expressed confidence that the new autonomous government created under Republic Act No. 11054 or the BOL could be the best avenue for warring clans to patch up their differences.
“Rido”, or clan war, in Mindanao is a deplorable situation for all Muslims in the country, he said.
“The Muslims in Bohol are happy that our brothers and sisters in Mindanao have a new government through the passage of BOL,” Ambor told the Philippine News Agency (PNA) in an interview on the sidelines of the last state of the province address of Governor Edgar Chatto at the Bohol Cultural Center on Thursday.
Ambor said that clan feuds have proven to be an obstacle to long-lasting peace in the south.
He thanked President Rodrigo Duterte, a Mindanaoan from Davao, in his effort to address issues surrounding the organic law.
“We are in Bohol but we are monitoring each development about the Bangsamoro Organic Law,” Ambor said in his dialect.
Ambor, president of 15,000 Muslims in Bohol, also assured of their community’s support to the national government’s peace effort.
He cited the April 2017 incursion of 11 Abu Sayyaf bandits in Inabanga, Bohol when the Muslims in the province were tapped by the police and the military for information that led to the neutralization of terrorist groups planning to kidnap foreign tourists in the area.
“Bohol is a peaceful place for us Muslims. They (Abu Sayyaf) should not have come,” he said.
Rev. Edwin Golosino, conference minister of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines in Bohol, told the PNA in a separate interview that the Muslim community in the province headed by Ambor is “adherent to ecumenical movement and fellowship.”
Golosino said his church has established constant dialogue with the Muslims in the province.
In Bohol, Muslim communities can be found in the towns of Ubay, Jagna, and in this city.
