ARMM honors late regional leader

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - The Philippine flag has been flying at half mast at the compound here of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao since Tuesday to give respect to a former regional leader who passed away over the weekend.

Physician Alibasher Lucman, an appointed chairman of the defunct Region 12 Lupong Tagapagpaganap ng Pook (LTP-12) during the early 1980s, was an ethnic Maranaw from Lanao del Sur, now a component province of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The LTP-12 and its counterpart LTP-9, which covered the Zamboanga peninsula, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi that once belonged to Administrative Region 9, were replaced by what is now ARMM through a plebiscite in 1989 that resulted in the ratification of its first ever charter, Republic Act 6734.

Lucman’s cousin, the ARMM incumbent vice-governor Haroun Al-Rashid Lucman,  said Maranaws in Lanao del Sur are honored with the regional government’s expression of sympathy for the demise of an erstwhile regional leader who had served during the time of President Ferdinand Marcos.

Vice Gov. Lucman said the ARMM’s Regional Legislative Assembly, also known as the “Little Congress” of the autonomous region, had passed a resolution approving the hoisting of the Philippine flag at the regional government compound in Cotabato City at half mast for one week.

The older Lucman was known in Lanao del Sur as a simple Maranaw, who was a devout Muslim who never missed Friday congregational prayers at the mosque when he was still healthy.

Lucman, who succumbed to a lingering illness, was a brother of Jamael Lucman, former president of the Mindanao State University in Marawi City.