BARMM marks IP month

Sama-Bajau youth leader Saliakram Adduh of Tawi- tawi  (seated left) is shown along with other participating IPs from different provinces and areas in the BARMM. 

COTABATO CITY --- The culmination day of the Indigenous Peoples’ Month celebration held at the Shariff Kabunsuan Cultural Complex at the compound of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in Cotabato City last October 29 was highlighted by colorful tribal attire, cultural dance, and tasty home-made delicacies. 

The annual celebration was attended by different indigenous people from different areas of the BARMM, some of them dwelling in mountainous areas and living along the sea-shores in the Moro gulf and Sulu sea. 

Brother Saliakram Mardan Adduh, a youth leader and Jurist doctor from Tandubas island municipality of Tawi-tawi and a full-blood Sama-Bajau, led the Muslim Invocation along with other IP chieftains and  a priest by invoking divine aid and intervention in the pursuit of harmonious co-existence, peace, and development in the BARMM and in the other part of the world. 

In his opening remarks, Minister Melanio Ulama of the Ministry of Indigenous People Affairs (MIPA) expressed his propounded gratitude for the IP’s participation in the BARMM government as he also narrated the classic chronology of IP’s ancestry with their Bangsamoro Muslim brothers.

“The IP and the Moro people should embrace each other as we belong to the same root and were both victims of marginalization for quite a long time,” Ulama said.

“I knew that our brother Muslims did not expropriate our ancestral lands from us, at the same time, the IP did not expropriate the ancestral lands of our Muslim brothers,” Ulama added.  

Some Parliament Members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), BARMM Ministers or their representatives, delegates from BARMM provinces, and IP representatives manifested their unwavering support to  the IP’s undertakings.

Melham Ahang from the island province of Tawi-tawi, who represented the Sama-Bajau tribe, said in his message of support: “The Sama-Bajau of Tawi-tawi have also participated in the Bangsamoro struggle for the right to self-determination and freedom along with other fellow IP in Mindanao.”

The event was also highlighted with different activities such as cultural dance and musical competition participated by the IP tribes that attended the culmination day.

        The MIPA and organizers of the event expressed their gratitude to the participating IP tribes, to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, who have been assisting the MIPA in its in endeavors. (RAFFIE S. PASINGAN, LUWARAN.COM / MINDANAO EXPOSE’)