COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Flags inside the capitol building of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are at half-mast in honor of a renowned Moro leader who died Tuesday night after serving local communities for almost six decades.
Maguindanao Rep. Simeon Datumanong, a scion of a noble ethnic Maguindanaon clan, died at the Philippine Heart Center in Quezon City after a week-long confinement due to hypertension and complications.
The 81-year-old Datumanong, a lawyer, had served as director of the now defunct Office of Muslim Affairs and Cultural Communities and as Justice and, subsequently, Public Works secretary of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Datumanong was a member of the government panel that crafted, along with the Moro National Liberation Front, the vaunted 1976 Tripoli Agreement, the main reference in all of Malacañang’s separate compacts with the MNLF and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
“We mourn the demise of an elder who had stood for Moro cause and had served the Moro community for a long period of time. We sympathize with the family of former Congressman Datumanong,” ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman said Wednesday.
Hataman’s older sibling, Jim, the incumbent governor of the island province of Basilan, is married to Datumanong’s daughter, Annie.
Datumanong's remains were flown from Manila to the Maguindanao provincial airport in Datu Odin Sinsuat town on Wednesday by a chartered plane and immediately brought by relatives to his hometown of Shariff Aguak, escorted by a convoy of hundreds of vehicles.
Hataman said the officials and personnel of line agencies in the autonomous region will keep remembering Datumanong as the man behind the setting up of what is now the ARMM’s 32-hectare regional capitol southeast of Cotabato City.
The present seat of the ARMM government started as the operations center of the Office of the Regional Commissioner, forerunner then of the first ever autonomous government created by President Ferdinand Marcos.
The ORC was established by Malacañang in the 1970s as an answer to the quest of Mindanao’s Moro communities for self-governance under the international right-to-self-determination doctrine.
It eventually became the administrative and political center of the expanded, more empowered autonomous government, the defunct Lupong Tagapagpaganap ng Pook in Region 12, which Datumanong managed as chairman during the 1980s.
The political outfit eventually evolved into what is now ARMM after a plebiscite during the time of President Corazon Aquino.
“We are grateful to all who condoled with the family of former Congressman Datumanong,” said clan spokesman Anwar Emblawa.
Emblawa, former municipal councilor of Datu Abdullah Sangki town, on Wednesday said they are thankful to the Hataman administration for flying all flags inside the ARMM compound at half-mast.
“The ARMM government's gesture helped lift our sad souls,” Emblawa said.
Datumanong, a member of the Free and Accepted Masons, also had a brief stint as first governor of Maguindanao after its creation in 1975.
He was deputy speaker for Mindanao while a congressman for three consecutive terms that lasted until 2013. He also was an elected member of the now defunct Batasang Pambansa.
Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, a fellow freemason, said the Mangudadatu clan also mourns his demise.
Mangudadatu said his father, the late Datu Powa, and Datumanong were close friends.
“Former Congressman Datumanong is an admirable Moro leader. He left a good legacy — that of having served the Moro people in various capacities wholeheartedly,” Mangudadatu said.
Datumanong is survived by his wife, Sigrid, who hails from Pangasinan, and four children, the eldest of them Datu Tasmi, former member of the Maguindanao provincial board.