Mentors want copies of book on activation, feats of big BARMM agency

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Some teachers have been using for more than a week now the 65-page Athar, a book that summarizes the pioneering pro-poor activities of the now seven-year Bangsamoro social services ministry, as a supplemental reference for classroom peace education and sociology lessons.

The Athar, authored by the 59-year-old lawyer Raissa Jajurie, who is the current social services minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and her subordinate researchers and planners, has complete details on what their ministry has done since its inception in 2019, right after the creation of the BARMM government via a plebiscite.

The Athar can either mean legacy or good works worth emulating in Arabic.

The BARMM, a product of 22 years of peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, replaced in early 2019 the 27-year-old less empowered Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Jajurie is the figurehead of the Ministry of Social Services and Development-BARMM since 2019. She has also been serving as an appointed member of the interim 80-member Bangsamoro parliament.

The Athar has explicit descriptions on how MSSD-BARMM employees and officials, under Jajurie, had set-up, during the past seven years, its public service framework and facets, tailored-fit to the unique religious, cultural and geographical settings in the region, which has Muslim, Christian and non-Moro communities virtually still struggling to bounce back from decades of secessionist conflicts.

Media radio reports on Tuesday, October 13, stated that teachers in different state colleges and universities in BARMM’s five provinces, Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi, and in its three cities, Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato, had asked for copies of the Athar, even just one for each of the institutions where they work.

Some of the many reporters and representatives of different peace-advocacy entities who attended the symbolic launching of the Athar just last October 2 had lent school officials and teachers, who are close to them, in Cotabato City and in Maguindanao del Norte province its complimentary copies that MSSD-BARMM officials gave them as part of the event.

“The legacy of our seven-year journey through public service is connected with the lives of the people, including women, children and elderly folks, of different tribes and religious identities; we had walked alongside, through our effort to establish a very functional, culture- and religion-sensitive public service networks,” Jajurie pointed out in her message during Athar’s launch at a function facility in Cotabato City, BARMM’s regional capital.

Jajurie was among the 31 nominees, out of 41, elected to represent, as a political bloc, the MILF-led United Bangsamoro Justice Party to the 80-seat BARMM parliament, during the September 14 regional electoral exercise. 

Among the mentors who had asked for copies of the Athar are based in Basilan, whose schools division superintendent is Myrah Mangkabung, and the faculty members in the Mindanao State University in Marawi City and in its extension campus in Datu Odin Sinsuat in Maguindanao del Norte, under chancellors Paisalin  Tago and Bai Hejira Nefertiti Sinsuat-Limbona, respectively.