The King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) selected SOP 2010 alumnus and current Philippines National Coordinator Tirmizy Abdullah to participate in the KAICIID Southeast Asia Fellows Programme for Religious Leaders as Practitioners of Interreligious Dialogue 2016. Tirmizy is one of a couple of dozen applicants from important religious education…
Tag: Philippines

Justice for the Victims of the Kidapawan Carnage in the Philippines
Statement against the Open Firing by the Military and Police on Protesting Farmers and Indigenous Peoples in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato, 1 April 2016 The starving and unarmed farmers of Kidapawan cried for rice. They were given bullets. The Hong Kong Campaign for the Advancement of Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines (HKCAHRPP), a network of individuals…

Sharing about Justpeace in Mindanao
By Rachel Bergen A-esha Afdal Ampatuan spent her early childhood on the run with her family. She grew up in a Muslim camp called Abubakar in Southern Philippines. Although a stronghold for the extremist group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), for many years the camp enjoyed relative peace and independence from the Christian government….

“Call Me Manobo”
By Rachel Bergen Rene Bundozan’s identification paperwork shows he is a Filipino Christian. That’s because there is no option to declare himself by his Indigenous spirituality. The 25-year-old hails from North Cotabato in Mindanao and comes from the Ilianen Manobo Indigenous community in southern Philippines. At an early age Rene became a Christian and lost…

Nursing the Grassroots
By Sara Klassen Kathleen Martin grew up in the Philippines and worked as a nurse for many years. But she always felt something was missing. “I felt like I needed something more than to be confined in the routine life of the hospital. I felt like I needed something in the community,” she said. So,…

Peace Heroes
By Rachel Bergen Superheroes can fly, they have super strength, they can shoot webs from their hands, and they fight bad guys. These characters are out of this world. Hollywood superhero movies can raise a lot of money at the box office, but these characters aren’t real. In real life heroes are somewhat less awe-inspiring, and…

Peace Radio Program started in Marawi City, Philippines
By Tirmizy Abdullah, SOP 2010 alumni One of the current projects of the Office of the Presidential Advisor on the Peace Process (OPAPP) in the Philippine Government is a radio program on peace in the cities of Marawi, Cotabato and Zamboanga. I formally started the radio program called “Suwara Kalilintad” (Voice of Peace) at 96.9 FM Radyo Natin…