Underprivileged Teduray grade school kids get relief support

COTABATO CITY — Non-Moro Teduray schoolchildren from low-income families received essential provisions over the weekend from Bangsamoro government officials during outreach activities commemorating National Indigenous Peoples’ Day in October.

The office of the lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, a member of the parliament of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and the figurehead of the 80-member regional lawmaking body, Chief Minister Abdulrauf Macacua, channeled the relief supplies, comprised of slippers, toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, bath soap, biscuits and fruit juices in disposable packs, for ethnic Teduray grade school pupils via the cause-oriented Women's Organization of Rajah Mamalu Descendants.

The entity, also known by its acronym WORMD, first distributed relief goods from the office of Sinarimbo and Macacua to Teduray pupils from different schools in South Upi, Maguindanao del Norte, at the South Upi Central Elementary School in the center of the municipality. 

Representatives of WORMD, which has peacebuilding projects in Central Mindanao, also reached out, in a subsequent activity, to Teduray pupils at the Cotabato Central Pilot Elementary School in Cotabato City and gave each of them the same essential provisions in the presence of their teachers.

“We are thankful to the regional officials who made the beneficiaries of our joint our activity, the virtually marginalized Teduray school children, feel that that Moro officials in the regional government are focusing attention on their plight too,” Aileen Kesa Marie Hualde, WORMD's executive director, said in a statement released to media outfits in Cotabato City on Monday, November 17.

Sinarimbo is among several members of the BARMM parliament involved in activities promoting interfaith and cultural solidarity among Muslim, Christian and non-Moro indigenous communities in Central Mindanao. 

Two other regional lawmakers, the physician-ophthalmologist Kadil Sinolinding, who is also functioning as BARMM’s health minister in a concurrent capacity, and the lawyer Suharto Ambolodto, also have extensive community-empowerment thrusts benefiting underprivileged Tedurays in Cotabato City and in nearby towns in Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur.