Tawi-Tawi’s oldest mosque ready for grand annual visit

• Source:http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/tawi-tawis-oldest-mosque-ready-for-grand-annual-visit/
• Sunday, November 6, 2016

By Manuel Cayon

DAVAO CITY—The serene and scenic Tawi-Tawi, the country’s most southwestern island province and next to the contested island of Sabah, is set to receive the bulk of tourist visits this week, in time for the commemoration of the 14th-century arrival of the first Islamic missionary.

The Bureau of Public Information of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) said the central focus among tourists is the Sheikh Karimul Makhdum Mosque, the oldest in the Philippines, in Tubig (Bohe) Indangan in Simunul town.

The main activity would be held on November 7 to commemorate the arrival of Sheikh Karimul Makhdum in the country, who introduced Islam in 1380, and has been historically recognized as the beginning of Islam in the Philippines.

Tourists would be expected to flock to the mosque, already declared a national religious and historical landmark.

The ARMM’s regional legislative assembly created a management board “to manage, preserve and promote the Makhdum mosque, as one of Bangsamoro’s historical landmarks,” the ARMM information office said.

Ayesha Mangudadatu-Dilangalen, secretary of the ARMM’s Department of Tourism (DOT), said numerous religious and cultural activities would educate and entertain visitors in Simunul this month, when the ARMM also commemorates its anniversary.

The ARMM’s DOT said the festivities for the twin activity include parades, a food festival, sports and cultural performances depicting the lives and culture of some of the region’s ethnic tribes.

The festivities would culminate in a fluvial procession on December 19 as part of the Shariff Kabunsuan Festival.

“This annual celebration is a significant event for the Moro people,” Dilangalen said. “So with this, we the people of ARMM will be able to take pride in our rich history.”

\Tawi-Tawi is the most visited among the scattered provinces of the ARMM. Last year, 55,085 foreign and domestic tourists visited Tawi-Tawi and spent P965 million.

The ARMM said the figures indicated a significant increase of 14.35 percent in tourist arrivals and 14.34 percent in gross receipts in the province compared with the previous year’s figure.

The tourist arrival was a quarter of the total visitors’ arrival in all the ARMM that year, which attracted 192,307 visitors. Tawi-Tawi’s tourism receipts were close to a third of the ARMM’s total tourism receipts.

The total ARMM tourism figures were also an upswing. In 2014, there were 168,178 tourist arrivals with gross receipts of P2.9 billion.

The DOT-ARMM annual report said the bulk of the increase came during the last quarter of the year, with the Agal-Agal Festival held to celebrate bountiful harvest of the seaweed carageenan, and the commemoration of Sheikh Karimul Makhdum’s birthday.

The ARMM is composed of the mainland provinces of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur in Central Mindanao and the southwestern island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.