MAGUINDANAO del Sur Rep. Esmael Mangudadatu is still in the habit of saving loose coins in a piggy bank, then breaks it after one month to be deposited in a conventional bank for the family’s welfare.
Speaking during the 57th organizational founding anniversary of the Al-Muslimin in Gindolungan, Maguindanao del Sur on Sunday, Mangundadatu confessed that he picked up frugality when he was still a young boy, and did not kick the habit until manhood.
In his address, the lawmaker said with the same culture of thriftiness, their organization can potentially raise funds from monthly dues of its members of about 300 Maguindanaon professionals.
Doing a quick mental calculation, he said with P 10-monthly contribution from each member, they can generate P 30,000.00 a month.
Mangudadatu said organizational funds raised from monthly dues could be used to finance civic projects beneficial to Moro communities, including young people.
But Mangudadatu said the best that anyone could keep for investment “is one that a mortal could reap in Eternal Life.”
According to him, he was not at liberty to decide on whether or not a transfer of congressional fund is allowed to help build a permanent office and a meeting place for Al-Muslimin.
“If there is a way, then the only living founding member of the organization “can decide on where to have it built,” he added.
Mangudadatu was referring to Datu Midpantao Midtimbang, now 83, the only survivor among ten founding members who organized Al-Muslimin in Philippine Law School at Pasay City in 1968.
Curiously in his remarks, the congressman refrained from the word “fraternity” or “brotherhood” to describe Al-Muslimin, apparently to draw a thick line of distinction from an outlawed Iquanun Muslimun which means “Muslim Brotherhood,” organized at the height of political activism in Egypt in the 1950’s.
Among Al-Muslimin members are Maguindanaon individuals distinguished in their own fields of profession in both political and apolitical endeavors: Midtimbang himself; former regional assemblyman and Mayor Abulkarim Langkuno of Paglat, Maguidanao del Sur; the late Vice-Governor Muslimin Ampatuan; Maguindanao; Board Member Hadji Yasser Ampatuan; Esmael and Freddie Mangudadatu, a former mayor of Quirino, Sultan Kudarat; Taha S. Guinomla, a diplomat technocrat, brother of career diplomat and retired Ambassador Bahnarin S. Guinomla; Nasser D. Ulama JD, a retired clerk of court; Education Superintendent Pangi Balubugan; Engineer Akas Basilan, a retired provincial director of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA); retired Bureau of Customs Examiners Pendatun B. Alim and Akmad M. Noor; and Dr. Ronjamin M. Maulana, BARMM provincial agriculture director for Maguindanao and BARMM Special Geographic Area.
Langkuno and Midtimbang said Al-Muslimin was organized in 1968 to help protect the Muslim Filipino students then from toughies in habitual roadside drinking spree, asking money from them, as the students walked their way to and from school and boarding house, along the Harrison Avenue in Pasay City.
Mangudadatu said he has been lucky to have become a member of the Al-Muslimin, because he was born in 1968, the same year that the Muslim fraternity was organized.
