Demonstrating students in Marawi show a tarp with a message to Sen. Vicente Sotto III and fellow TV host Joey de Leon.
By BONITA ERMAC, Correspondent
MARAWI City––Hundreds of Muslim leaders and students staged a demonstration here in protest of Sen. Vicente Sotto III and fellow TV host-comedian Joey de Leon’s Arab constumes during Eat Bulaga’s Halloween show on Saturday.
Demonstrators gathered at the Marawi plaza following Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Mujiv Hataman issued a public statement, denouncing the popular noontime TV show and the two hosts, and demanding a public apology.
Sotto and de Leon wore thawb or thobe, Arab clothing for men, during Eat Bulaga’s Halloween Special on Saturday, angering Hataman and other Muslim Filipinos who saw it as an insult.
Some 600 Imams and students burned a tarpaulin on which Sotto’s and de Leon’s photos were printed at the Khadijah Mohammad Islamic Academy Inc. (KMIA). The demonstration was organized by Agakhan Benladin Sharief, the Shariah school’s owner.
Like Hataman, they demanded a public apology from Eat Bulaga, Sotto and de Leon.
Mohammad Ali Khanaphia Sharief, a student leader here, said Sotto and de Leon wore “Kimon,” garbs he considers sacred.
He said Muslim men wear it during their prayer time.
“We are not really against the thought that Tito Sotto wore a ‘kimon’ as a costume. But why wear it during Halloween monster party? Having said that, Sotto should instead wear it in the Senate or during his birthday––and then we will be happy,” Sharief said.
He said many Filipino Muslims were insulted because the TV hosts wore it at a time when most Filipinos were observing All Saints’ and All Souls’ days in cemeteries across the country.
“Were they trying to portray Arab Muslims as demons?” he asked rhetorically.
Earlier, Gov. Hataman demanded that Eat Bulaga apologize to the Muslim community, saying that Armm government “takes offense at and is appalled by the stunt pulled on national TV by noontime show Eat Bulaga…”
Mindanews quoted some of the comments posted by netizens over the wearing a thobe and a keffiyeh or kufiya around their head: “Disgusting. Disrespectful. Shameful. Racist. Insenstive.”
Mindanews also quoted Hataman as saying, “This display betrays an insensitivity by these hosts, as they equated the Muslim garb as a costume to be feared, in the way that zombies and ghouls are to be feared.
“We remind the hosts and the producers of the show of how Muslims are quite often discriminated against in our society, often stereotyped as troublemakers and terrorists.
What Eat Bulaga did in its Halloween Special was a mockery of and an affront to the image of the Muslim, apparently in the name of entertainment.”
Disclaimer
Mindanao Gold Star Daily holds the copyrights of all articles and photos in perpetuity. Any unauthorized reproduction in any platform, electronic and hardcopy, shall be liable for copyright infringement under the Intellectual Property Rights Law of the Philippines.
