The Care for the Environment will host the Sultan of Magindanao at a Summit in United Arab Emirates in June this year, it was learned
Maguindanao Princess Febraida Lauban Mastura-Matalam disclosed the post-Ramadan event on March 4, as part of the Maguindanao Sultanate’s tribute to women on Women’s Month.
Mastura-Matalam said the Magindanao Sultanate will be headed by Sultan Salem Abdulaziz Mastura Kudarat V, the 26th Sultan of Magindanao.
She said Magindanao’s Royal Mission to the UAE Summit will be largely represented by the Sultanate’s Royal Princesses, including herself and Princess Jasna Mastura Karon, and Princess H. Mastura Karon. Their families count them as among Maguindanao’s “women in power.”
The princesses’ entourage in UAE will be led by Queen Mariam Amor Torres of Royal Maharlika, the great philanthropist of the World, the Magindanao princess said.
Princess Febraida said Sultan Salem Abdul Aziz Mastura Kudarat V, being the only legitimate Sultan of Magindanao, has been slated to speak to a UN Assembly at Vienna in May 2023 on the rights of the first-nations or the Indigenous nationhood.
Earlier, the Sultanate of Magindanao has released the list of Sultans who had occupied the throne from Spanish time to the post-colonial periods on Philippine Islands.
Muda Makuta Prince Datu Mama Mastura said the Magindanao Sultanate has released the genealogical order’s list, after some of their relatives had signified to occupy the sultan’s throne.
Social media posts gave rise to grapevine speculations that “a Maranao has been crowned as a Sultan of Magindanao” which is traditionally and politically unlikely.
Princess Mastura-Matalam Sultan Mastura’s hold of the ancient throne remains fortified with legitimacy of traditional consensus as well as genealogical and historical bases.
In the genealogical list released by the Magindanao Sultanate which is now based here, Sultan Salem Mastura is the 26th Sultan of Magindanao
from Rajah Laut Buisan, the father of Philippine Muslim hero Sultan Muhammad Dipatuan Kudarat (1581 – 1671).
Sultan Salem Mastura and Prince Datu Mama are both grandsons of Sultan Hijaban Mastura who held the throne in 1926 until he died in late 1930s.
The prince said thousands of signatures back the nationwide royal network of the Magindanao Sultanate to get Datu Benito’s proclamation as Sultan of Maguindanao in Calanogas.
Most of those Sultans in the list are traceable on Google via Wikipedia which cites as one of its sources the history book authored by the late Dr. Casar Adib Majul titled, “The Muslims in the Philippines” (1973). Majul was an eminent Muslim scholar and the first dean of the University of the Philippines Institute of Islamic Studies.
Curiously, however, neither in the Wikipedia list nor of the Magindanao prince’s list, are Sultan Muhammad Tato Esmael who succeeded Sultan Hijaban Mastura Kudarat III when he died in the 1930’s, and three others, including Datu Pangadapun Benito.
Ostensibly, “at the instance” of some Mastura elders, Benito was recognized Sultan of Maguindanao in the 1981 Malacanang Ceremonies when then President Marcos Sr. honored Muslim traditional leaders in 1981.
But Annabelle Valencia Sultan Esmael, a Muslim law counsel, said her family’s patriarch “was never replaced until he died in 1991.” A Malacanang employee recalled that President Marcos (Sr.) then “was looking for ‘the old Sultan of Maguindanao’ whom he apparently knew personally, during the 1981 meeting.”
Also during the 1981 Malacanang ceremonies, members of Sulu’s Kiram clan were split by hereditary claims over the Sultanate of Sulu and of the Sabah Claim Issue. One of the parties had purportedly settled for the crowning of Sultan Amil Bangsa for the Palace ceremonies. However, the rest of the Kirams have hardly recognized Amil Bangsa’s ascension to the throne.
