Mangudadatu bags another foreign community service citation

COTABATO CITY --- A bloc of Filipino-Americans on Sunday gave Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu an award for community service in a symbolic ceremony in Maryland, USA.The awarding rite, organized by the United Federation of Fil-Am Educators, Inc., or UNIFIED, was held in Lanham, Maryland.Ronnie Mataquel, president of UNIFIED, said in a prior letter to Mangudadatu that the decision to grant him the 2018 community service award was based on a screening process initiated by a committee.In a message during the event, Mangudadatu talked about the feats achieved in recent years by his pet project, the Maguindanao Program for Education and Community EmpowermentHe said the program is one of many viable remedies to poverty and internecine conflicts in the province.He also mentioned of his successes in fostering tranquility in Maguindanao, covering 37 towns, through socio-economic programs and peace-building activities involving the local Muslim, Christian and Lumad sectors. I am grateful to the US-based UNIFIED for recognizing my effort to foster peace and cultural solidarity among all people in Maguindanao province, Mangudadatu said.Copies of the message he read during the ceremony in Maryland were distributed by his staff to journalists in central Mindanao on Sunday.He also told guests to the event that he is partly focused now on addressing misguided Islamic militancy spreading through far-flung areas in Maguindanao and in nearby provinces via humanitarian interventions. Only peace can defeat violence. Patience and understanding are antidotes to religious conflicts. Only with light can we walk and not grope in the dark, Mangudadatu said in his brief speech.He said his MagPEACE program already produced thousands of Muslim, Christian and Lumad professionals, among them a lawyer now, a graduate of a medicine course soon to take the physicians’ licensure examination, and several agriculturists and veterinarians.