11 scholars of BARMM lawmaker finish college with high honors

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Eleven college scholars of a Bangsamoro regional lawmaker, all from poor Moro families, graduated with high honors in different schools in the autonomous region in separate ceremonies recently.

The schooling of the 11 students, who finished different four-year courses this year, was bankrolled, as a special program, of the office of the lawyer Sha Elijah Dumama-Alba, a member of the 80-seat parliament in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Radio reports on Saturday, July 18, stated that seven of them finished different courses as Cum Laude, Norham Jamaloden, Rohailah Laguindab, Mosaib Lazim, Johara Manirigi and Michael Purong, in the Mindanao State University (MSU) in Marawi City, Alia Abdullah, in the Cotabato State University (CSU), and Shuraim Sali in the Basilan State College in Isabela City in Basilan.

Faisal Samsodin graduated as Summa Cum Laude, also from MSU in Marawi City. Adam Nanding, from CSU, and Bai Banal Ado and Almera Mantil, from the MSU-Maguindanao campus in Datu Odin Sinsuat in Maguindanao del Norte, all graduated as Magna Cum Laude.

Their parents had told reporters that they are thankful to Dumama-Alba’s office for having provided them with scholarship support that resulted in their completion of college courses, for them so difficult to sustain with their meager daily earnings.

Members of the public service team in the office of Dumama-Alba said her Kaalalai Scholarship Program is partly in support of the BARMM government’s effort to provide constituents with quality education and is also meant to foster peace and community-empowerment in all of the five provinces and three cities in the autonomous region.

“The Kaalalai Scholarship Program was, for me, a source of strength during the difficult periods of my life as a student. It inspired me a lot to keep going, despite the financial difficulties I was in then. I shall always be grateful for the opportunity it gave me to finish a college degree,” Nanding, who graduated from the CSU in Cotabato City, said.

Nanding’s father died while he was still a grade school pupil, according to his relatives, who shared with reporters sentimental narratives of how he survived the hardships in pursuing elementary and high school without enough money and his having finished college with the help of the office of Dumama-Alba.