Mindanao should stay intact

ARMM gubernatorial candidate Sakur Tan

DUMAGUETE CITY - Sulu Vice Governor Sakur Tan – who is running for governor in the Muslim autonomous region in southern Philippines – has strongly opposed any proposal to dismember Mindanao, saying, there should be unity instead among all Filipinos in there.

“There should be unity because we are all Filipinos,” Tan was quoted as saying by the Visayan Daily Star. It said Tan did not agree with proposals by some groups to divide Mindanao. “He doesn't like the idea that certain groups and communities in Mindanao will be placed on one side and the others on another side,” the newspaper report said, referring to Tan, who recently visited Dumaguete City and other parts of Negros Oriental province.

Tan said he would have wished that the image of Mindanao be like that of Dumaguete, Cebu and the rest of the Visayan region where peace and tranquillity dominate. “Our image in Mindanao is not that good compared to yours in the Visayas,” he said, adding he wanted to change the misconception about the Muslims in Mindanao.

He also reiterated his vehement objection to the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law that the rebel group Moro Islamic Liberation Front – which signed an interim peace deal with Manila – is pushing in Congress. Tan also thanked the Dumagueteños and Negrenses for being “good to the Tausug” as he reminisced his high school days in Silliman University where he studied in 1963.

He said whether there is an election or not, he will always come back to visit here because Dumagueteños are peace-loving citizens. Tan also took the opportunity to campaign in here and in Negros Oriental for the Kusog-Tausug party-list, whose first nominee is Shernee Tan, a civic leader.

He said the party-list group is not only for the Tausug in Mindanao, but for all Filipinos, including those in Dumaguete and Negros Oriental. Tan, who was with his philanthropic wife, Nurunisah – a registered nurse by profession – also paid their courtesy to Governor Roel Degamo and visited Bacong town mayoralty candidate Joeny Cahilog, who hails from Mindanao. (With reports from Visayan Daily Star, Cebu Examiner.)