Cotabato City”•Filipino Muslim pilgrims lost more than half a million pesos to burglars in Mashaer, a suburb of Mecca, according to reports reaching the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos over the weekend.
“While the Hujjajj [pilgrims] were in Mashaer, four rooms occupied by Filipino pilgrims under Sheiks Abdulcarim Imam and Said Asgar in Hotel Manarat in Mecca were forcibly entered by unidentified robbers,” said Jun Alonto Datu Ramos, director of the NCMF Bureau of External Relations in Manila.
Ramos said the victims informed the NCMF Supervisory Team under Abdullah Macarimpas, vice-chairman of the 2018 Philippine Hajj Executive Committee.
NCMF officials said initial investigation showed the intruders used the back window of the hotel rooms to gain entry.
The occupants of the rooms reported losing Saudi riyals, gadgets and pieces of jewelry.
A total cash of 27,720.84 Saudi riyals, equivalent to P394,054.84, was declared missing.
The total value of the lost valuables, including laptops, watches, tablets and smartphones, was pegged at P 154,000, and the pieces of jewelry at P62,000. In all, the total amount of money and valuables lost reached P610,054.84.
The Philippine Mission in Jeddah promptly sent Embassy staff to coordinate with the police and the management of the Hotel Manarat, the NCMF report said.
A settlement was reached with the hotel management to pay the victims for their loss, the report attributed to the NCMF-BEA said.
But under Saudi law the recompense is not legally binding, being only a diplomatic recourse available under the circumstances. It would not stop authorities from investigating and from charging the culprits that may later be identified.
In the Philippines, the Hajj pilgrimage is regulated by the NCMF’s Bureau of Pilgrimage and Endowment. The Philippines’ majority Catholic constituents have wondered how government intervention is made possible on the hajj in a country that upholds traditional separation of the Church and State.
Each pilgrim pays around P200,000to BPE for the hajj journey for travel expenses, primarily covering the cost of the round-trip air ticket and the transient’s accommodation or mutawif in two cities and in Arafa tents.
The Hajj pilgrimage consists of a multi-pronged approach to diplomacy, primarily into what is now known as the “people-to-people engagement” in the fields of socio-cultural dialogue and economic trade.
The Philippines’ Maranao Muslims, for instance, explore he free-trading benefit of the huge convergence of Muslims by bringing along packages of small merchandise like disposable slippers, prayer dresses and rug mats, and even sanitary kits.
The Chinese and the Pakistanis sell tasbih beads and linens. Muslim Australian raisers of halal livestock transport thousands of heads of sheep and tons of blocks of cheese to Jeddah, months before the pilgrimage.
Sadly, however, the BPE has not developed an appropriate concept of endowment for the poor people to perform the Hajj pilgrimage. “‹