P84-M ‘solidarity center’ to rise in Cotabato City

COTABATO CITY — A 9,000-square-meter Muslim-Christian-Lumad Solidarity Center is nearing completion here, with local folk hoping it could serve as a venue for inter-faith dialogues among the culturally diverse people of Central Mindanao.

The center, costing P84 million and designed with a combination of Malay, Turkish and Roman architectures, is 80 percent complete.

The city government intends to use the facility as the main operations center of all its offices.

Architects spent more than six months combining Malay, Turkish and Roman architectures in one design, for the building to have a blend of Muslim and Christian influences to project religious solidarity.

City Mayor Muslimin Sema said the center will have a 700-seat auditorium so feuding clans can have a solemn area where they can hold traditional reconciliation rites over the Holy Qur’an.

According to contemporary historians, there were more than a dozen sites for dialogues of Moro settlers near the ancient Kuta Wato (stone fort), now Cotabato City.

But these sites, some of them known as torogan, or sleeping quarters of the datus, disappeared over the centuries.

Sema said the solidarity center will also have prayer rooms for both Christian and Muslim city employees.

"We will reserve big spaces inside the building as special function areas where we can hold small peace dialogues simultaneously," Sema said.

The solidarity center is being built on land southeast of the city, which Moro warriors in the 17th century used as a bivouac area and launch site for their attacks on Spanish garrisons along the Rio Grande de Mindanao.

Followers of the legendary Sultan Kudarat, who was of mixed Maranaw and Maguindanao descent, were said to have regularly held kanduli, or thanksgiving prayers, right in the open space in front of the solidarity center.

Sema said the center’s design will also project the continuing mutual co-existence among Central Mindanao’s Muslim, Christian and lumad (upland) communities.

"With the construction of the building, we are also seeing a revival of the traditional style of governance premised on inter-faith dialogues, religious and cultural norms all aimed at protecting all sectors and promoting respect for life," he said.