Muslim Community in Baguio

On the sixth level of our hotel lobby, the people from the Baguio City Muslims Associations shared with us, the students from Monash Malaysia their experiences living in Baguio City. They shared their experiences as Muslims and also as the minorities here. The interactive and informative talk started at about 8 p.m. It was the last presentation for the day. The venue was changed due to the power circuit failure at the mosque. The talk was different in comparison to the two talks held earlier as they had used power point slides shows. It was more like a discussion with a two way communication; the organization gave their views and experiences and in turn, we did ours too.

The Muslims who shared their experiences was Abdul Muhaimin Manumbilao, the Chairman of that organization; Merwan Elnaur Yousif, a foreign student from Sudan studying in Baguio; Fahed Adib Hamdan, a businessman from Lebanon who has been living in the Philippines for 4 years but only a year in Baguio. The next two were Hadji Imran Baniaga, the Vice President and lastly Hadji Abdul Raffy Hassan, the Secretary.

There is said to be more than 10,000 Muslims in Baguio, who migrated from places such as Mindanao and Sudan. Approximately 1000 of the total number of Muslims are student migrants. Most of the students originate from Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Iran and Malaysia as well.

They explained that there were a few reasons as to why they migrated to Baguio City. The conditions of the place where they originated from, played a vital role in the migrating process. The misunderstanding between communities also made them to migrate to Baguio. The war torn areas and the search for greener pastures urged them to move as well.

When asked if they felt inferior by being the minority, Abdul Muhaimin gave a firm yes. There were numerous discriminations towards the Muslims communities living in Baguio, especially job discrimination. He re-called a story about a Muslim brother who could not get his barangay certificate immediately, like the normal procedure just because he's a Muslim.

Fahed, being a Lebanese faced obstacles along the way as well. One of his experiences was that while he was waiting at the boat jetty to get to somewhere within the Philippines, he realized he was being closely watched by the military intelligence. He was also observed when he was walking around to past the time while waiting for his boat to arrive. Coincidently as he was standing at a corner, there were also two other strangers standing at the same spot. The military intelligence then appeared and arrested him and the two men. The authorities accused him of collaborating with the intention of carrying out terrorist attacks. They were then interrogated for a few hours before he was released.

Other past experiences haunted him too. He continued saying that “I feel discriminated for keeping a beard because when I have a beard they call me a terrorist but when I shave, they call me an American”. He felt discriminated both ways. When asked about the issues pertaining to how Muslims are portrayed as terrorists, Fahed said that he does not agree with the term terrorist, as nobody in this world is born a 'terrorist'. He further explained that there was no such thing as being a good human or a bad one, for a person who carries out terrorist acts are provoked and given reasons to act as such.

In my (Alia) experience, I understood the situation as I recalled a much similar encounter myself after 9/11. (I’m sure you all know how much I'm afraid of dogs). Once as I was crossing the road and I stood next to a a man who was walking his dog. I squeaked upon seeing the dog and took a U-turn. He got furious and started swearing at me. All I heard in his reply was that he called me a killer, that I was afraid of dogs, but was still able to kill thousands during the 9/11 attack. I was very terrified after that incident but am always on the lookout for people who associate Muslims to murderers.

On the other hand, the community here is treated with respect and with good manners too. The examples given were that girls are allowed to wear the hijab to school and during the festive seasons they are allowed to celebrate openly and share with other religions.

At one point I (Feeza) thought that the Muslims in Baguio were really facing terrible problems by being the minorities but when they mentioned that the Muslim students were allowed to wear the hijab to school I felt happy. Even though the Philippines is not as well developed as some countries, yet they cherish the value of humanity (something I’ve learned in one of my units in Monash. That some minorities especially the Muslims are not allowed to celebrate their festivals in open spaces, in some countries)

Overall, we considered it a unique experience as it was not held in offices, halls etc like how the previous sessions were but at the hotel lobby where most of us had to sit on the cold floor.

On top of that, it was coordinated in such a way that the Muslims in Baguio session had no slides presentations but still the session was well developed and the Q and A session started from the beginning itself. And instead of having us the students ask them about the Muslims in Baguio they also asked us about the Muslims in Singapore from Alia, Muslims in Indonesia from Linda and Muslims in Malaysia fron Zeck and Feeza.

by Alia and Feeza

For more photos on Day 2, head over here.