My initial instinct was to join the chorus of voices crucifying the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos or NCMF. The just-concluded pilgrimage by Filipino Muslims was a nightmare for many.
They complained of being stranded due to the lack of transportation, poor accommodations in jampacked rooms with ill-functioning air-conditioners, and meager food — the reasons they spewed vile and vicious words against the officials of the government agency tasked with administering the annual pilgrimage to Holy Mecca. They had a mouthful to say, slandering the officials of the agency. Their anger was through the roof. They went on social media to vent their rage. Many became instant bloggers critical of the NCMF. It was toxic.
In an atmosphere where “Maritess” or rumor mongers thrive, there is a tendency to be pulled along by the lynch mob. Social media, in fact, went on overdrive with everyone posting comments on the ordeal of the Filipino pilgrims, with many basing their comments on what was posted in chatrooms and not on verified facts. Having experienced similar circumstances, this writer appealed for sobriety. The lawyer in me said judgment should be rules and fact-based, hence, a need to investigate the matter.
The IBP-Lanao del Sur chatroom went haywire with diverse posts betraying the dichotomy of opinions. Amid the verbal conflagration, this column suggested an independent investigation, be it by either the House of Congress or a special panel that may be created by the Office of the President. There, we can separate the chaff from the grain, the lies from the truth. This is the best action to ferret out the truth. If the investigation finds that the NCMF was remiss in protecting the interests of the Filipino pilgrims, or worse, that money changed hands in the awarding of contracts to the service providers, then the officials responsible should be given the boot and the corresponding administrative and/or criminal cases filed against them.
In the meantime, people with an axe to grind should hold their horses and wait for the result of the investigation. After all, this is a government of laws and not of “Maritess.”
The government does everything to make the annual pilgrimage satisfactory to the pilgrims. We are told that at every onset of the pilgrimage season, the NCMF selects firms in Saudi Arabia to contract with to provide services to the pilgrims — food catering, housing, and transportation from one Holy Site to another for the arcane rituals.
This year, however, problems arose after the Filipino pilgrims arrived in Mecca to find that the accommodations were short of what was promised, like the quality of the hotel they had paid for and its proximity to the Holy Haram where most of the rituals were to be performed.
Also, they had to wait for hours for the bus that would take them to the Holy Sites, which was a problem because the performance of rituals should be, as far as practicable, on the same date and time of day that the Prophet Muhammad, PBUH, performed them during his lifetime.
Can you imagine 2.5 million pilgrims (the media estimate for the 2023 pilgrimage) converging in the same area to perform the ritual on the same date and time? It was a nightmare and problems like delays in transporting pilgrims could not be avoided. These and many other problems should be delved into by the investigators so that a repeat of the same which had been recurring annually for years could be avoided.
The NCMF should be proactive and anticipatory — it should identify the probable problems and address them before they could even happen.
If the cause of the problems were the service providers the NCMF contracted then by all means legal action should be taken against them to give justice to the pilgrims who suffered so much humiliation, pain, and untold worries.
Will the next batch of pilgrims be spared from the ordeal that the current pilgrims underwent?