Dimaporo: Lanao del Norte ambush example of ‘failure of basic education’
That RBH 7 seeks to address
HOUSE Committee on Muslim Affairs Chairman and Lanao del Norte 1st District Rep. Mohamad Khalid Dimaporo on Wednesday said the Lanao del Norte ambush by extremists that resulted in the death of six soldiers last month highlights a failure in basic education that he believes amendments to the restrictive economic provisions of the Constitution can address.
Dimaporo, during Wednesday’s press briefing at the House of Representatives, cited reports that the terrorist group Dawlah Islamiyah-Maute involved in the February ambush of soldiers consists of members as young as 15 years of age and can’t even speak Filipino, only Maranao.
“What was worrisome about that ambush, there were pursuit operations, and If I’m not mistaken the leader of that ISIS group surrendered to the provincial government,” Dimaporo said.
“Bata pa sila, mga 15 years old. They can’t even speak Tagalog, they can speak only Maranao and that’s proof that these groups, these extremists are staying in the pinakabukid area, away from everyone. Now that is a symptom of a failure within the BARMM area,” he added.
“This is the failure of basic education, and I hope nobody will take offense to this. It’s an old historical culture or mindset that the Philippines is a Catholic country, therefore Catholic education. So, the very traditional mindset of Muslim Filipinos in the far-out areas might feel that they don’t trust bringing their kids to DepEd schools.”
Dimaporo said this is one of the problems in BARMM that amendments contained in Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No. 7 seek to address, to allow foreign madrasas who would invest in the Bangsamoro region.
“This brings us to the debates for RBH 7 … We’re really limited with funds in the government. If we are going to solve the Madaris issue within the BARMM, ang daming pondo rin ang kailangan ng education, I think they were saying P300 billion last night. This is why we need partners in development,” the Lanao del Norte lawmaker said.
“And when you open up our Constitution to provide more opportunities for foreigners to come and help our far-flung areas, and one specific example is the Muslim world, Saudi Arabia, ang daming pera, Brunei, Malaysia. And in Islam we have one of the religious requirements of Zakat, which is like charity,” he explained.
He believes that the military solution will not fully solve the conflict in BARMM, but an economic solution will have a larger impact.
“It’s an investment for ourselves, for our religion, to come into the Philippines and help establish proper Madaris system so that our children in Muslim areas can read and write Arabic and not be thrown into areas where they will end up being recruited by terrorist organizations,” Dimaporo said.
“What happened in Lanao del Norte, the attack, the surrender of the ISIS leaders, brings to light again the problem that we have and how do we solve that solution,” he added.
