Pens, not guns, key to way out of poverty – Mangudadatu
BULUAN, Maguindanao – “The pen of a scholar is mightier than the sword of a martyr.”
These were the wise words imparted by Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu for more than 2,000 students and out-of-school youth in a gathering Thursday which was attended by visitingUnited Nations Children Frund (Unicef) field office chief Rebecca Pankurst.
“Let us ensure that our children go to school and earn education to understand the essence of life in this complex world and hereafter” Mangudadatu told the audience, which also had in attendance local educators, a majority of the province’s 36 mayors and barangay officials.
He said he quoted national hero Dr. Jose P. Rizal and Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) in extolling the value of education after he saw “sad local realities due to illiteracy and obsession for firearms, contrary to Islamic mandates.”
Mangudadatu said there are currently more than 300,000 Maguindanaons “who could not read and write” and that the “unlettered youth proved to be most vulnerable to recruitment in rebel movements or banditry”
Citing government statistics, Mangudadatu said Maguindanao has an estimated population of million and is among the poorest of the poor provinces with high illiteracy rate.
“One way to counter the trend (of poverty) is to gain education that would make us knowledgeable of the essence and purpose of life,” the governor said in the vernacular.
He admitted that during his early days in politics in late 1990s, he had wielded a gun until a mishandling accident injured one of his siblings.
“Since then, I have hated wielding a gun. So when I became a mayor in Buluan in 2000, we imposed a total gun ban for civilians,” he said.
He said he has sustained such practice despite several attempts on his life, which included at least five bombing attacks that left some relatives and political allies slain, and others maimed.
The worse came in Nov. 23, 2009 when Mangudadatu, then a vice mayor aspiring for governor, lost his wife, Ginalyn, two sisters and other female kin and friends among 58 people slain, 32 of them media workers. All the victims were unarmed, he said.
“We’ve not resorted to revenge. We just seek justice through the court…I still remain opposed to wielding gun because I believe that gun means nothing but to take one’s or somebody’s life,” the governor said.
At Thursday’s event here, the governor acknowledged the attendance of the elected leaders of Shariff Aguak and Datu Unsay towns – acting Mayors Maroup Ampatuan and Munawara Ampatuan, whom he introduced as “good members” of the erstwhile influential Ampatuan political clan.
Mangudadatu announced the launching last month of a special kindergarten project, which will cater to an initial group of 105 children with ages ranging from four to five years.
He said the provincial government allocated R10-million subsidy for the project, which employs extensive interventions to ensure that enrollees, mostly belonging to poor families, would develop “good foundation to take up kindergarten proper, elementary, secondary and up to collegiate or post-graduate levels.”
In the upper schooling stages, residentchildren are also assisted by the provincial government through its Maguindanao Program on Education for Community Empowerment (MagPEACE), which was launched in 2010.