LANAO DEL SUR , Philippines – Scholars will start watching today for the new moon to appear to mark the end of the month-long Islamic fasting season.
If the new moon is sighted tonight, Muslims in the south and elsewhere in the country will celebrate on Sunday Eid’l Fitr, or the end of Ramadan, a holy month in Islam.
Authorities have started securing designated sites for Eid’l Fitr open-field congregational prayers in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which covers Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.
The troubled Marawi City is the capital of Lanao del Sur, which covers 39 towns.
Chief Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, director of the Police Regional Office-ARMM, said yesterday that ample number of policemen will be deployed around the venues of the outdoor congregational prayers to prevent saboteurs from getting close.
The hostilities in Marawi City are expected to dampen the spirit of this year’s Eid’l Fitr. Imams have been including prayers for peace in nighttime tarawi worship rites since the start of the Ramadan fasting season.
Many clerics in ARMM have been openly vocal against the Dawlah Islamiya, comprised of Maute and Abu Sayyaf gunmen that laid siege in Marawi City on May 23, sparking a conflict that caused the dislocation of hundreds of thousands of residents.
Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, chairman of the provincial peace and order council in his province, said Eid’l Fitr celebrations in towns under his jurisdiction shall be simple but solemn in sympathy with the internally displaced people from Marawi City.