Maguindanao festival aims to attract `inaul’ buyers abroad

MAGUINDANAO - Traders are optimistic the second Maguindanao provincial Inaul Festival will improve the foreign market value of a fabric the event highlights as a centuries-old icon of the Maguindanaon tribe.The inaul weaving industry, pioneered by ancient Moro sultanates, is being revived now by the provincial government through a yearly festival launched in 2017 and via other technical interventions to provide marginalized peasant families an alternative source of income.The second Inaul Festival started last Monday but its main cultural events, some to be witnessed by national and foreign dignitaries, are slated February 8 to 14, to be held in the provincial capital, the historic Buluan town in the second district of Maguindanao.Businesswoman Sandra Siang, an official of the Kutawato Muslim Business Chamber, said Thursday they are patronizing the Inaul Festival as a showcase of an ethnic Maguindanaon craft that has domestic and foreign market potentials. Just imagine the employment it can generate if orders from abroad will increase as a result of this second Inaul Festival in Maguindanao. More children in poor villages can go to school and there will be more food on the table of low-income families, said Sema, a hardware store owner.The Inaul Festival was first held last year as a cultural and trade program of the office of the now third-termer Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu.The colorful inaul fabric hit the news when it was featured as main apparel material in a Mindanao-themed Miss Universe fashion show in Davao City in January last year.Chief Supt. Graciano Mijares of the Police Regional Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said Thursday generating employment for Maguindanaons via inaul weaving can help improve peace and security in the province. Employed people will not do anything that can disturb their means of livelihood. This inaul endeavor is worthy of our support. We are not in the business industry but we know that this is good for the Mindanao peace process, Mijares said.Malacañang’s Mindanao peace process is partly focused on restoration of normalcy in troubled southern provinces through socio-economic programs.Mangudadatu said besides traditional activities, such as Sagayan war dances, river boat and carabao racing contests, the provincial government shall also host professional airsoft mock combat and motorcross competitions as part of the Inaul Festival.Anwar Malang, ARMM’s regional trade secretary, said what makes the inaul fabric fascinatingly unique is the manner how it is produced. We’re now in what we call cyber age, or laser age, but the weaving of inaul remained very traditional, done through wooden handlooms. That will surely attract buyers abroad, Malang said.Mangudadatu he said he has invited President Duterte and members of his family to grace the governor’s night in the Inaul Festival, to be capped off with a fashion show among models of different garments designers from across the country.The inaul fabric is also known as peace fabric owing to its being common to ARMM’s indigenous Iranun, Maguindanaon and Maranao communities.The three regional groups have different dialects but are bound together by a common religion – Islam.Contemporary Moro historians said the sultans, when presiding over peace dialogues among warring tribes in ancient times, wore clothes fashioned from hand woven inaul and carry the kris as emblems of authority.The inaul fabric is made attractive by its colorful accents that always have shades of green, touted as the color of Islam.