December 29, 2024 | 2:26pm
COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Residents of the 39 towns in Lanao del Sur and in its capital, Marawi City, are mourning the death on Friday, December 27, of an 82-year-old former governor in the province who was active in socio-economic and peace-building activities while at the helm of the provincial government.
The erstwhile Lanao del Sur Gov. Bedjoria Soraya Alonto-Adiong, mother of the incumbent governor in the province, Mamintal Adiong Jr., was immediately buried in a Muslim cemetery at the border of Marawi City and Ditsaan Ramain town in keeping with Islamic tradition of burying the dead within 24 hours after death.
Local executives in provinces in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and in nearby administrative regions, among them the Christian governor of Cotabato province in Region 12, Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, expressed sympathy on Sunday, December 29, for the Adiong and Alonto families. Her statement was aired by radio stations in Central Mindanao cities on Sunday.
“We share with the grief of the Adiong and Alonto clans in Lanao del Sur,” Talino-Mendoza, presiding chairperson of the inter-agency, multi-sector Regional Development Council 12, said.
BARMM officials, among them Chief Minister Ahod Ebrahim and his subordinate regional executives, Health Minister Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., Transportation and Communications Minister Paisalin Tago and Labor and Employment Minister Muslimin Sema, separately told reporters that they are mourning the death of Alonto-Adiong, a scion of a noble Maranao clan.
Many of the Adiongs and the Alontos are openly supporting the national government’s separate peace overtures with the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, whose leaders are together overseeing the operation of the now five-year BARMM government.
Alonto-Adiong’s patriarch, Ahmad D. Alonto, was a senator from the late 1960s until the country was placed under martial rule on Sept. 23, 1972 by then President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
Her husband, Mamintal Adiong Sr., who had served as governor of Lanao del Sur for three consecutive terms, died of an illness in 2004.
Two senior Army officials, Lt. Gen. Roy Galido, commander of the Philippine Army, and the acting chief of the military’s Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City, Major Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, had also separately expressed condolences to the Adiongs and the Alontos.
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