Yesterday, August 31, 2007, AMIN (Anak Mindanao) Party List NCR Chapter in coordination with the Bangsamoro Peoples Solidarity (BANGSA), a newly formed mass movement campaign center of the Bangsamoro, held a prayer rally at the Blue Mosque ground in Maharlika Village, Taguig City.

According to  rally organizers the rally crowd peaked to an estimated number of a thousand. Muslims gather to perform their congregational prayers in a Mosque during Fridays. In this special event, Muslims coming from different Jama'ahs (Islamic religious communities) around Metro Manila congregated at the Blue Mosque of Maharlika Village to pray and attend the rally.

The prayer rally demanded a stop to government's on-going military campaign in Basilan and Sulu. The rallyists bannered the call "Save the Bangsamoro from H.E.L.P." BANGSA's spokesperson and AMIN NCR officer, Kashim Candido explained that the actual effects of the on-going military offensive can be summed up in the word HELP, spelled out as, H-uman rights violations, E-conomic displacement, L-ives lost, and P-overty. Their group's HELP is a parody to President GMA's directive of HELP which stands for Health, Education, Livelihood Progress for Basilan and Sulu Program. Kashim Candido chided GMA's orders that the military operations in Basilan and Sulu shall be balanced with fullscale development offensive, which she coined as a "Humanitarian Invasion". AMIN Partylist and the BANGSA were united in saying that GMA's notion of HELP is actually meant to HELP Destroy lives and properties of innocent civilians and her Humanitarian Invasion simply means an Invasion ensuring Humanitarian disaster.

AMIN Partylist Representative Mujiv Hataman spoke at the rally calling for a campaign for an all-out peace in Mindanao instead of an all out-war. He pointed out that while we are all against terrorism but the means of rooting out terrorists must not be in the forms that will only fertilize the grounds for terrorism to grow. Rep. Hataman added, rather than waging war, the government should focus instead in addressing issues of injustice, underdevelopment and poverty. Both local and international media covered the said prayer rally.

Heeding the call for a nationally coordinated peace rallies, AMIN Chapters in Cotabato City and Zamboanga City also conducted similar peace rallies in their respective city centers yesterday.

 Click here for more AMIN NCR Peace Rally photos  

Click here for AMIN Cotabato Peace Rally photos

Click here for AMIN Zamboanga City Peace Rally photos