Maguindanao Second District Rep. Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu and former Miss Asia Pacific International Sharifa Akeel met relatives and friends to show their love for each other during their Walima celebration on Aug. 25.
The groom’s brother, Khadafeh Mangudadatu, a member of the Bangsamoro Parliament cracked a joke in his traditional counseling of the couple, saying he hoped this was the final stage of his brother’s long journey along married life in the parable of a long-travelled path with several stopover stations.
“I proposed marriage to her,” recalled Mangudadatu, when he was almost through an uninterrupted three, three-year terms as Maguindanao governor. At the time, Akeel was crowned 2018 Miss Asia Pacific International.
He admitted having been struck by her beauty seeing her in her early teens for the first time in Lebak, Sultan Kudarat. Then it must have been love at first sight when he met her up close and personal when she graced the beauty pageant of Maguindanao’s annual Inaul Festival on February 14, 2019.
Akeel had known then-Governor Toto Mangudadatu only from news reports of his public engagements involving his programs, including scholarship grants for poor and deserving students and entrepreneurship projects for elderly women beneficiaries of gender and development programs.
Modest and unassuming, Akeel needed time to weigh things over—when one is literally “torn between two loves”, romance on one side, and passion on the other.
Love prevailed and she dropped her plans of joining the Miss Universe Philippines pageant.
The wali (guidance), her uncle, Datu Gordon who stood when they previously exchanged vows for the first Islamic rituals sometime in 2019, was also present this time at the Walima ceremonies at the Grand Convention Hall of the Al-Nor Complex in Cotabato City.
Walima, which means “marriage banquet”, is “the second of the two traditional parts of an Islamic wedding”. The occasion itself is a “feast in Arabic for walima to show domestic happiness in the household post-marriage”.
Ustadz Ishak Katambak delivered the khutbah, the Islamic counseling to the couple, in the first ceremony, which the ustadz recapitulated at the Walima celebration of their wedding.
The wedding was not lavish, following Islamic doctrines on celebration of marriage. But rituals aside, the Mangudadatu-Akeel Walima Ceremonies will be long remembered as an occasion regulated by health protocols, including wearing of face masks and maintaining social distancing among guests.
Some 400 guests graced the occasion, mostly from a broad network of relatives, political allies, and select journalists with whom the couple shared the opening chapter of their love story.
This writer was among the invitee-journalists in a note transmitted electronically via Facebook Messenger by Nur-Eeman Aljani, the congressman’s senior legislative assistant, and broadcast journalist Jeffrey Mendez, a friend of the couple.
Thousands of relatives, friends, supporters, and celebrities sent well-wishes for Mangudadatu, 53, and Akeel, 24.
Former Mutya ng Pilipinas president Hemilyn Escudero-Tamayo and Miss Asia Pacific International president Jacqueline Tan-Sainz wished the couple well. Movie actress Ynez Veneracion also sent words, stating she was happy for Mangudadatu.
Mangudadatu disclosed having divorced a nurse whose revelations of their domestic affairs on a TV program drew controversy in his public and private life.
The precedent marriage is now null and void under PD 1083 which legalizes divorce for Muslims in cases specifically defined by Muslim personal laws on marriage and divorce.
He was first married to Genalyn Tiamson-Mangudadatu, who was one of the victims in the gruesome Maguindanao massacre on November 23, 2009.
