Press Release
April 25, 2007

P150 M alloted this year
Strengthen Madrasah education to promote peace - Recto

Senator Ralph Recto has called on government to institutionalize madrasah education as a way of promoting peace and development in Mindanao and weaning away young Muslims away from the lure of extremism.

"One way of dealing a death blow to religious fundamentalism is by removing its romance, by promoting the ideology of peace espoused by the Prophet Muhammad and promoting proper religious practices that make it haram to engage in mindless violence," Recto said.

He noted the government started the implementation of the educational curriculum for madaris (plural of madrasah) only last year and allotted P150 million for the program, which was designed to foster mutual understanding among Christians and Muslims.

"I urge government to study the feasibility of promoting madrasah education as part of the formal educational system and make it as a transparent institution of learning that would shun the ideology of hate and nurture cultural and religious understanding," Recto added.

"Madaris should be an institution that would promote the solid foundation of Islamic values and cultural traditions and foster better understanding among Christians and Muslims. They would serve as a beacon for the enlightenment of our people, illuminating our way towards religious harmony," Recto said.

Thus far, only 92,000 students are enrolled in 1,100 madaris, all of them learning the Qur'an, related Islamic subjects and Arabic. They serve remote communities, with students taking 12 years to finish secondary level.

Recto said the September 2, 1996 agreement between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) backed the establishment of the private madrasah system, which was institutionalized in 2004 through Executive Order No. 13 of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and Memorandum Order 51 of the Department of Education (DepEd), which incorporated regular education subjects like English, mathematics, science, Filipino and civics into the traditional madrasah curriculum.

The madrasah program is also being implemented in Grades 1 and 2 in 52 classes that have 1,814 students in Manila, Taguig, Pasay City, Paranaque City and Quezon City and are handled by 51 Muslim asatidz or teachers.

Recto said the traditional or weekend madrasah is a non-graded informal system, the development of formal madrasah system that offers courses up to the secondary level and the integrated madrasah system that incorporates the formal system of national education and is supervised by the DepEd.

"By integrating the madrasah system with the formal educational system, we can finally merge the advantages of the two systems and promote harmonious relationships among Christians and Muslims," Recto explained.

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