Capping the commemoration was a parade in the Rio Grande de Mindanao of three replicas, adorned with colorful flags, of the guinakit, the traditional vessel which Kabungsuwan, a Malay prince from Johore (in what is now part of Malaysia), used in his voyage to the Kalanganan district here in the 14th century.
Although celebrated yearly since the 1970s, this year’s Shariff Kabungsuwan Festival could be the most dramatic and the most colorful.
Dozens of Kabungsuwan’s descendants from the Sema, Sinsuat, Mastura, Baraguir and Ampatuan clans, whose members are now active in politics, business and other fields, took part in the celebration.
The event turned emotional when Bai Sandra Sema, who chairs the city’s tourism council, recited before thousands of spectators the genealogy of the Moro royalty, starting from Kabungsuwan to his present-day descendants in Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte, North Cotabato and Bukidnon.
The program, held in the wharf where Kabungsuwan was said to have established the seat of the first Islamic government in mainland Mindanao, was capped with the sagayan or the traditional Moro war dance.
According to historians, Kabungsuwan, who was of Malay-Arab descent, did not just introduce Islam but also built strong trade linkages between the Mindanao natives and communities in Sabah and what are now Indonesia and Brunei.
Although there have been seemingly unending debates on where exactly Kabunguwan landed at the boundary of Cotabato City and Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, religious leaders all agree that it was his bagi, or "destiny charted by Allah," that brought him to mainland Mindanao to sow the seeds of Islam.
"What is important for us is to thank Allah always for delivering Shariff Kabungsuwan right to our doorsteps," said Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Datu Zaldy Ampatuan.
Ampatuan declared today a non-working holiday in the ARMM in recognition of the life and missionary work of Kabungsuwan.
Ampatuan, himself a descendant of an Arab preacher, Shariff Saidona Mustapha, an older sibling of Kabungsuwan’s father, said one of the main concerns of his administration is to establish a database on the history of Islam in the ARMM.
The autonomous region covers Marawi City, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in Central Mindanao, and Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.
Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, also a descendant of Kabungsuwan, said he is keen on "consecrating" the new 9,000-square meter City Hall, expected to be fully built by the first quarter of 2006, in honor of Shariff Kabungsuwan and his great grandson, Sultan Kudarat, a 16-century Moro hero who led the decades-old revolt against the Spaniards.
"Kabungsuwan established a strong Sharia justice system that became the bulwark of the Moro sultanates in Mindanao before the Spaniards came to the islands of Mindanao. This legacy of Muslim governance was carried on by Sultan Kudarat," Sema said.
Kabungsuwan, according to contemporary Moro historians, sired several children with Maranaw and Maguindanaon women, thus spreading his bloodline to as far as Bukidnon and the Dadiangas area, now General Santos City.