Moro communities join humanitarian efforts for 'Yolanda' victims

COTABATO CITY - Mindanao’s Moro communities have actively been supporting the efforts of various groups to generate relief and monetary support for the victims of super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), officials said Saturday.

Samira Gutoc, a former member of the 24-seat Regional Assembly of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said residents of Marawi City and Lanao del Sur have promptly responded to the relief collection campaigns by local humanitarian groups.

Gutoc said a group of Meranaw health workers led by physician Allen Minalang of the Lanao del Sur provincial health office, and his Moro subordinates have joined the Humanitarian Emergency Assistance Relief Team (HEART) dispatched Thursday to Leyte by ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman.

Minalang’s team brought with them medicines, food and boxes of bottled water donated by Meranaws in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur.

The Consortium on Bangsamoro Civil Society, a cause-oriented bloc of different peace advocacy and humanitarian organizations in Southern Mindanao, said Moro sectors sympathize with the victims of typhoon Yolanda.

A senior official of the consortium, Bobby Benito, said they are saddened by the controversies besetting the government’s rehabilitation efforts in Leyte and surrounding areas that the super typhoon devastated last week.

“Let us stop finding fault and creating misunderstandings at this point in time. Let us focus on how we can help one another alleviate the typhoon victims from the miserable plight they are in,” Benito said.

Benito said Mindanao’s Bangsamoro folks mourn the deaths of thousands of Visayas residents who perished in the deadly typhoon onslaught.

Physician Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., regional health secretary of ARMM, said the region’s HEART has arrived in Leyte to help attend to the needs of the residents of Tolosa town in the island province.

“We are very grateful to the ARMM’s Muslim and Christian residents for helping the regional government put up this relief mission,” Sinolinding told reporters via text message.

The HEART volunteers the ARMM government sent to Leyte is comprised of medical and relief workers from the provinces of the autonomous region.

The group brought with them medicines, thousands of food packs and non-food provisions to be dispersed to displaced Leyte residents.