Officials welcome ASEAN awards for 2 promising Moro kids

COTABATO CITY --- Officials were elated with the international honors two Moro adolescents brought home, feats they are sure can boost the southern Mindanao peace process.Hadja Nuriya Jamaldin, assistant superintendent of schools in Basilan, said on Saturday that Amin Hataman and Rasul Alih have also proven that the Moro youth is just as globally-competitive as those in other parts of the country and elsewhere abroad.Hataman and Alih each received special awards last week, during the 22nd Asean Youth Day Meeting and the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Youth in Jakarta, Indonesia for accomplishments in different fields.ASEAN is the acronym for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.The 16-year-old Hataman has invented biodegradable plastics from edible coconut by-product called nata de coco, a Filipino food ingredient.His invention bagged for him an award in an international youth inventors fair in Europe two years ago.Hataman, of mixed Tausug and Yakan descent, is son of Mujiv, incumbent regional governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), and Congresswoman Sitti Djalia of the Anak Mindanao Party-list.Alih, a full-blooded Tausug, was cited by ASEAN for his active involvement in various activities helping preserve Tausug arts and culture.The still adolescent Alih represented the Ingat Kapandayan Artists Center in the Notre Dame of Jolo College in Jolo, capital town of Sulu.The center groups together artists helping keep the cultural heritage of Sulu province and the tribal identity of the southern Tausug community. We, the ethnic communities in ARMM, were honored by their achievements that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations recognized, Jamaldin said.Amir Mawallil, executive director of ARMM’s Office on Bangsamoro Youth Affairs, said the awards they each got belied the notion that the Moro community is so inferior in the fields of science, culture and arts.Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, police director for ARMM, said Hataman and Alih can inspire the Moro youth in other parts of the autonomous region to also strive hard to excel in fields they are good in.Sindac said part of the credit for the sustained introduction of the Moro youth to the international community has to go to the ARMM’s education department and regional offices providing interventions needed to empower the sector.The ARMM covers Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, which are both in mainland Mindanao, and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.Sindac said education, socio-economic and political empowerment of ARMM’s youth sector can help foster lasting peace in the autonomous region.