Mangudadatu gets 50k greetings

COTABATO CITY – More than 50,000 people sent greetings and wellwishes to Maguindanao Governor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu on Father’s Day, thanking him for his “goodness” not only for his province but also for Muslim, Christian and Lumad individuals elsewhere in the country and abroad. “He found difficulty replying to the heavy magnitude of greetings expressed through text messages, social media posts and calls. In fact, we assisted and are still helping him reply to the well-wishers,” her executive assistant, Nur Eman Aljani told the Manila Bulletin. The earliest wellwishers were the governor’s siblings and seven children – Jazzer King, 26; Michellen, 24; Princess Grace, 23; Ysmael Powa, 21; Margaret,18; Noor Janna, 15; Fawzia, 13; and Datupowa, 8 – via separate text messages and calls, Aljani said. Subsequent greetings came from the more than 6,000 student-scholars of the Maguindanao Program on Education and Community Empowerment (MadPEACE) and their parents as well as hundreds of alumni who completed collegiate and postgraduate studies under the scholarship program. “They (scholars and graduates) addressed the governor as ‘Maguindanao’s father of education,’ a title floated once in a public gathering by House Deputy Speaker Bai Sandra Sema,” Aljani said. Maranao and Waray-waray people also joined the thread, thanking Maguindanao and the governor for sending a medical and relief mission that brought truckloads of fresh fish, relief goods and medicines in the early days of the current strife in Marawi City and the onslaught of typhoon “Yolanda” in Samar and Leyte in 2013. (Ali G. Macabalang)