Saturday, May 5, 2018

Maguindanao offers 12 PMA cadets support for masteral studies

From the Philippine Star (May 5): Maguindanao offers 12 PMA cadets support for masteral studies

The Maguindanao provincial government adopted 12 Philippine Military Academy cadets, entitled to support for doctorate studies on the socio-cultural intricacies of Southern Muslim, Christian and Lumad communities if admitted to the Armed Forces.
 
The three Mindanao groups, called “tri-people” in technical parlance, are stakeholders to the current peace processes of President Rodrigo Duterte with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front, meant to end the now five-decade southern secessionist conflict.

Maguindanao’s provincial governor, the now third-termer Esmael Mangudadatu, said Saturday that he adopted the 12 third year PMA cadets as “children of the province” during a brief engagement with the class while in Davao City last week as part of their studies.
 
“Even if I am already out of my position by June 30 next year, I guarantee them support from the provincial government if they wish to pursue graduate studies on southern Mindanao cultures, on the history of Mindanao and its Moro people and on how Maguindanao’s tri-people are thriving together,” Mangudadatu said.

Mangudadatu said communities in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao need military officers who are well-versed with the socio-economic, political and religious ramifications of all the security woes besetting ARMM’s five provinces.

Maguindanao is a component-area of ARMM, which also covers Lanao del Sur and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

The governor declined to identify meantime the 12 cadets citing documentary protocols and procedural coordination with the PMA administration that his office is still initiating.

He hinted, however, that one of the cadets the provincial government adopted is son of Gen. Nolly Samarita, former commander of the Army’s 602nd Brigade in Carmen town in North Cotabato.

Samarita supported extensively the domestic peace-building initiatives of Mangugdadatu and the governor of North Cotabato, Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, while a brigade commander.

Mangudadatu said the Maguindanao Program for Education and Community Empowerment, or MagPEACE, is ready to bankroll the masteral studies of the 12 cadets in any school in the country once admitted to the Armed Forces.
 
“They are to become scholars of our very unique MagPEACE if they intend to pursue masteral degrees on peace education and community-building in the context of religious and cultural solidarity among Mindanao’s tri-people,” Mangudadatu said.

Mangudadatu and the PMA’s current third year class dined together while aboard a naval vessel that brought them to Davao City last week for an educational tour.

No fewer than 2,000 Muslim, Christian and Lumad beneficiaries finished college courses since the inception of MagPEACE more than six years ago.
A scholar, Faizah Gladys Kadon-Tejero, 28, passed the latest Bar examination, the first lawyer produced by MagPEACE.

Kadon-Tejero, who is of Maguindanaon descent, is employed in the office of the Commission on Elections in Davao City.

“Some of the MagPEACE scholars who are now professionals are working in Maguindanao as teachers. Some are working in non-government organizations involved in various programs complementing the Mindanao peace process,” Mangudadatu said.

Among government officials who had availed of MagPEACE funding for graduate studies was retired Army Col. Prudencio Asto, former spokesman of the Army's 6th Infantry Division, whose units are scattered across central Mindanao and in parts of the second district of Lanao del Sur.
 
Asto, who earned a doctorate degree on peace and development at the Cotabato State Polytechnic University in Cotabato City, is now a professor in the Benguet State University.

Asto said Saturday he now teaches conflict resolution via community-supported diplomatic procedures and traditional approaches.

"I'm grateful to Gov. Mangudadatu. My stint as spokesman of 6th ID gave me chance to pursue a doctorate degree with the help of MagPEACE," Asto told The STAR on Saturday via mobile pho ne.
 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.