Bangsamoro museum opens

MUSEUM OPENING. Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Governor Mujiv Hataman (in white shirt with scissor) cuts the ribbon for the opening of the Bangsamoro Museum. Together with the governor is independent curator Marian Pastor Roces (center) and Mohagher Iqbal, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front peace panel head (right). (Photo courtesy of BPI-ARMM via PNA)

COTABATO CITY — The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on Wednesday opened to the public the first-ever Bangsamoro Museum at the Shariff Kabunsuan Cultural Complex, the provisional seat of the ARMM.

ARMM Governor Mujiv Hataman, who led the opening of the museum, said they have sought the assistance of a national curator, and the competence of the ARMM workforce, for the project.

“This motivated me to push for the project, with the relics serving as basis regarding the true history of the Bangsamoro people,” Hataman said.

The museum functions as a repository of artifacts, works of art, as well as textual and iconographic records relevant to the cultural memory of the Bangsamoro people.

Hataman said the museum, together with the recently-inaugurated Regional Library, is the ARMM’s gift to the incoming Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

“Let these two projects serve as the ARMM’s legacy for the Bangsamoro youth and the generations to come,” he said.

The museum was organized under independent curator and institutional critic Marian Pastor Roces, who said that its establishment is to collect significant stories of the Bangsamoro people through the exhibition of different artifacts from the region.

“Every exhibit in this museum has its story to tell,” Roces told reporters in an interview.

She said the gallery presents artifacts from the different parts of the ARMM that have existed for centuries, with the collected objects conveying stories of courage and survival.

The artifacts include textiles produced by Maranao women during the Marawi siege as a means of survival; recordings of the Tausug Kissa-chanting of the Bud Dajo massacre; the personal library of Moro Islamic Liberation Front founder Hashim Salamat; and the 2,000-year-old archeological artifacts of the Kulaman plateau, specifically burial urns.

The museum also exhibits current documents related to the peace process, including the Bangsamoro Organic Law, the measure that would pave the way for the establishment of the BARMM.