Muslims pray for PH protection from calamities, killings offer food

COTABATO
CITY — Amid sad news of killings and disasters, residents joined here
today hundreds of government workers in charity food offering called
kanduli,” imploring for national peace and to ward-off calamities, after the Friday nooon Muslim congregational prayer.Governor
Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) said
he has invited the public to join him and his officials and employees in
prayers for people’s peace and safety, during religious ceremonies and
partaking of kanduli foods at the Maguindanao Village inside the
regional capitol ground here.Kanduli,
which is of Malay Muslim origin, is a traditional way of imploring for
God’s intervention amid crisis, as well as for thanksgiving in times of
reap from successes. Normally it is held in collective reading of Qur’an
verses by elderly persons, and with food preparations anywhere from the
simplest to the most sumptuous.Lawyer
Anwar Malang, secretary of the ARMM Department of Interior and Local
Government (DILG-ARMM), said the employees thought of holding the
kanduli, amid incidents of violence which include last Tuesday’s bombing
of a commuter bus in Bukidnon that left 10 people dead and scores
wounded, and the reported killings of students inside the Mindanao State
University (MSU) Campus in Marawi City.ARMM
Cabinet Secretary Khal Mabuay also called on her fellow MSU alumni to
offer a minute of prayers for slain MSU students Samuel Go and
Chrishlanne Masancay, and to wear black in protest of the killings.Malang
said aside from ongoing police investigations, the Regional Peace and
Order Council (RPOC), which Hataman chairs, would be slated to convene
anytime soon.