Maute adventurism robbed Maranaws of Ramadhan and Eid feast

LANAO DEL SUR --- Scholars will start watching on tonightfor the new moon to appear to mark the culmination of the month-long Islamic fasting season.If the new moon is sighted on Saturday night, Muslims in the south and elsewhere in the country will celebrate on Sunday the Eid’l Fit’r, or the end of Ramadhan, a holy month in Islam.Authorities have started securing designated sites for Eid’l Fit’r open-field congregational prayers in the Autonomous Region in Muslim (ARMM), which covers Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in mainland Mindanao, and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.The troubled Marawi City is the capital of Lanao del Sur, which covers 39 towns.Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, director of the Police Regional Office-ARMM, said on Friday that ample number of policemen will be deployed around the venues of the outdoor congregational prayers to prevent saboteurs from getting close. Our security missions in all parts of ARMM shall be facilitated in coordination with the military, Sindac said.The hostilities in Marawi City are sure to dampen the spirit of this year’s Eid’l Fit’r.Imams have been including prayers for peace there in nighttime Ramadhan tarawi worship rites since the start of the Ramadhan fasting season.Muslims fast at daytime during the Ramadhan as an obligation and in keeping with the five pillars of the Islamic faith, which include belief in Allah, praying five times a day facing the direction of Makkah in Saudi Arabia, giving of zakat (alms) to the poor, and, for those who can afford the cost of travel, performing the hajj even at least once in a lifetime.Many clerics in ARMM have openly been vocal against the Dawlah Islamiya, comprised of Maute and Abu Sayyaf gunmen, that laid siege in Marawi City on May 23, sparking a conflict that caused the dislocation of no fewer than 200,000 residents.Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, chairman of the provincial peace and order council in his province, said Eid’l Fit’r celebration in towns under his jurisdiction shall be made simple but solemn in sympathy with the internally-displaced people from Marawi City. What is important is we can perform the open-field prayer rite and include in our prayers the restoration of law and order in Marawi, Mangudadatu told The STAR on Friday.Assemblyman Zia Alonto Adiong of ARMM’s 24-member Regional Assembly said on Friday that the trouble in Marawi City denied its residents the chance to observe the month-long fasting season. This is my home-place and I have been seeing, almost all my life, people here observe the Ramadhan peacefully. The hostilities that started on May 23 took that away from us, said Adiong.The regional lawmaker is spokesman of the Lanao del Sur provincial crisis management committee overseeing relief and rehabilitation services for evacuees from Marawi City.There is no sign yet of an end to the recurring gunfights between government forces and members of the Dawlah Islamiya scattered in villages in Marawi City.Adiong said fasting at daytime in evacuation sites was so difficult, forcing many evacuees to forego with a religious obligation that they have peacefully complied with in years past. The spirit to fast is vibrant, but the condition is not cooperative. This is a big trial for Muslim residents of Marawi City. Ramadhans in previous years were lively. People were busy in their houses at nighttime, Adiong said.ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman has cancelled the Eid’l Fit’r congregational prayer in the parade ground of the 32-hectare regional government center in Cotabato City due to security issues.The ARMM’s inter-agency regional peace and order council is apprehensive of security problems that can disrupt the event, traditionally held yearly in the regional government compound southeast of Cotabato City.The Dawlah Islamiya had earlier threatened to harm ARMM officials for their tough stance against fanatically misguided religious extremism.Hataman and Mangudadatu were among few elected Muslim officials who openly condemned the deadly incursions of Maute and Abu Sayyaf terrorists into Marawi City, which they both branded un-Islamic. As Muslims we believe in the teachings that sometimes we need to get hurt for us to rise and bounce back as better Muslims. The hostilities in Marawi City, instigated by a few whose ideology is a complete turn-around from Islamic teachings, were so hurting for us, Hataman said.