NEWS




19September

USM Bangsamoro Students Conduct Team Building

Cotabato City - The USM Muslim Students Association together with Muslim Youth Religious Organizations (USM-Chapter), and Muslim Women Organizations (MWO) headed by their respective presidents namely, Abdulwahid M. Ebrahim, Badrudin G. Usman, and Noraida Salagia, respectively, held the 1st Team Building with the theme: “Teamwork Makes Dream Works”.

The event was held last September 22-23 at the USM Convention Hall at the University of Southern Mindanao Campus in Kabacan, North Cotabato.

The activity aimed to make their fellow students equipped and inculcated with Islamic knowledge and values, strengthen their camaraderie, foster their skills in communication and collaboration, and become an advocates of Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) which they see as a very relevant issue that they must engage with. 

Mr. Mohammad Sampiano presented the rationale of the program. 

Some of the program objectives were to develop good working relationships between Bangsamoro Muslim Groups in the school campus, to improve the quality of their performances in classrooms, enhance capacity of member-students, thus making them prepared for a larger involvement in community activities.

The students also wanted to strengthen advocacy on the BOL in support to the upcoming plebiscite slated on 21st of January, next year. 

One of their focused topics is about Understanding Bangsamoro Organic Law which was presented by their invited Speaker, 

Ms. Faydiyah Samanodi Akmad, a young Peace Advocate, USM alumnus, and former Supreme Student Government officer during her college days was the resource speaker. 

Akmad shared inputs on the salient features of BOL. She quoted MILF Peace Implementing Panel Chairman Mohagher Iqbal who once said, “The BOL is not a perfect law but it is good to start to nurture by the Bangsamoro. 

“The 85% gains of the MILF from the peace process is something that the Moro people should nurture, meaning, what we (MILF) have started must be continued by the next generations. There is still 15% remaining that the youth must achieve in the future through peaceful means because war is not an option in attaining our Right to Self Determination,”, Akmad quoting Chairman Iqbal to have said. 

Akmad also touched on important provision on Bangsamoro Identity that one must be proud of, which is equivalent to a nationhood. 

She also tackled Parliamentary Form of Government, the reserved seat for the youth in the Bangsamoro Parliament, the Block Grant amounting to 70 Billion Annually, the Special Development Fund that can usher the Bangsamoro Region towards progress and prosperity.