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MANILA: Recognizing the growing significance of the global halal travel market, the Philippines is adapting its tourist infrastructure and introducing new standards to receive more visitors from Muslim countries.

Although the Philippines is predominantly Catholic, it is home to a sizable Muslim minority. Islam, the oldest monotheistic religion in the region, has more than 600 years of history that is reflected in the country’s cultural heritage.

The government has been working to combine this rich history with the Philippines’ famous white sandy beaches, diving spots and warm hospitality to expand its tourism markets, particularly targeting visitors from the Middle East.

“It has only been recently that Muslim-friendly initiatives and efforts have gone full throttle. However, the DOT already has a number of programs in place to attract Muslim travelers, to include the Middle East market,” Department of Tourism Undersecretary Myra Paz Abubakar told Arab News.

“Most of our efforts focus on developing and institutionalizing standards that will protect the interests of Muslim travelers, ensuring that their travels to the Philippines will be enjoyable without compromising their faith.”

One of the key steps taken by the DOT is the introduction of the Muslim-friendly accommodation establishments program, which encourages hotels and resorts to meet specific standards that cater to Muslim travelers.

“From the reception areas to the guest rooms, to the availability of prayer rooms . . . we want our Muslim visitors to feel at home,” Abubakar said.

“The Department of Tourism has a training module on understanding Muslim travelers, as well as on halal and Muslim-friendly tourism. Beyond this, the DOT also developed standards for Muslim-friendly accommodation establishments ... currently, there are 17 accommodation establishments officially recognized as DOT Muslim-friendly.”

Thirteen of the properties are operated by the Megaworld Group, the largest hospitality chain in the Philippines, which last year also opened Marhaba Boracay, a cove area dedicated to Muslim women travelers in Boracay, the country’s top resort island.

“Beyond this, we are also exploring the creation of tailored halal tourism packages for Muslim travelers, including Saudi Arabians. This is in coordination with the different tour operators and travel agencies in the Philippines,” Abubakar said.

“Since the Philippines has a rich history in Islam, there are a number of destinations, activities, and offerings that align with the cultural and religious values of Arab visitors, and Muslims in general.”

One of the most iconic sites is the Sheikh Karimul Makdum Mosque in Tawi-Tawi province. Sitting on the island of Simunul, the mosque is surrounded by coastal waters. Constructed in 1380 by the Arab trader and missionary Makhdum Karimul, it is the oldest mosque in the Philippines.

Besides the mosque, there are also numerous sites throughout Tawi-Tawi related to the Sulu Sultanate, whose rulers played a key role in the spread of Islam in the southern Philippines. Established in the 15th century, the sultanate played an important role in regional trade networks and was a center of resistance to Spanish and later American colonial powers.

While DOT records show steady growth in tourist arrivals from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain, one of the major challenges in expanding the Philippines’ appeal in the region is increasing air connectivity to key cities such as Dubai and Riyadh.

Warren Palacio, chief of the DOT’s Routes Department, said that negotiations with airlines from the Gulf states were underway to address these issues.

“There is a pending request from the UAE to hold air service agreement negotiation talks,” he told Arab News.

“Maybe within the next two or three months, I think we will have the air negotiation, the air service agreement to be scheduled. Then that’s where we’ll move forward when the flights will be increased and more seat capacity will be in place.”

DHAKA: Bangladeshi high schooler Laiba is being educated for the future, but what she learns has been determined by the latest chapter in her country’s battle over its past.
Last year, a student-led revolution overthrew the government of iron-fisted premier Sheikh Hasina when public anger over her increasingly autocratic rule boiled over.
Her ouster has prompted Bangladesh to do something that has followed every sudden change in national leadership: rewrite its history books to suit new orthodoxies.
“The tradition of altering history must stop at some point — the sooner, the better,” Laiba’s mother Suraiya Akhtar Jahan told AFP.
“Textbooks should not change every time a new government takes office.”
Radical changes to the school curriculum are routine in Bangladesh, where febrile political divisions dating back to its ruinous 1971 independence war against Pakistan have persisted.
Until this year, textbooks gave special exaltation to the country’s first president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for spearheading that liberation struggle.
But Mujib, assassinated in 1975 in a military coup, is also Hasina’s father, and his daughter’s disgrace and exile has dented the late leader’s stature.
“The books had turned into one side’s political manifesto,” AKM Riazul Hassan, head of the national agency tasked with reforming the curriculum, told AFP.
“That does not conform to the purpose of textbooks. We tried to get them back on track.”
New history books have expunged dozens of poems, speeches and articles penned by Mujib, alongside images of his daughter.
They instead now valorize the hundreds of people killed in the protests that ultimately toppled Hasina last summer, while bringing back from exile other previously erased heroes of Bangladesh’s early history.
Among them is former army chief Ziaur Rahman — no relation to Mujib — credited with issuing the first public proclamation of Bangladesh’s independence during the 1971 war.
Zia had been left out of the curriculum during Hasina’s time because he founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), her chief opposition.
His return to the page augurs the resurgence of the political force he created, which is strongly favored to win elections expected by next year.
While the overhaul of Bangladesh’s official history gives clues as to the country’s future direction, critics say the new curriculum has its own litany of omissions.
Of particular contention is one of the country’s darkest chapters — the murderous purge of its intellectual elite in the opening days of the 1971 war.
Bangladesh’s main Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, which at the time opposed the country’s independence, helped orchestrate these killings in concert with Pakistani forces.
Revised textbooks mention that militia groups were responsible for the murders, without mentioning that the militias were run by Jamaat.
The omission is significant because Jamaat — another party suppressed by Hasina’s government — is likely to be a major force in Bangladesh’s next parliament, and has governed in the past in coalition with the BNP.
Dhaka University professor Mujibur Rahman — no relation to the independence leader — told AFP that the apparently deliberate attempt to obscure details around the purge raised questions about the reasons behind the changes.
“The real question is whether this interim government wants students to learn the actual history,” he added.
Asked about the changes, Hassan said that the textbook commission he helms did not want to trap the nation’s youth “in an endless cycle of hatred.”
“At some point, we need to start reconciliation,” he added. “Should we make our textbooks flooded with hatred? How rational would it be?“
Other signs suggest the new textbooks have conceded several changes to hard-line religious sentiment in the Muslim-majority nation.
Hasina’s government, for all its other shortcomings on rights issues, was lauded for championing the rights of Bangladesh’s transgender community.
The new textbooks excise references to transgender Bangladeshis, a demand long held by Islamist groups.
Hassan acknowledged that the decision had been taken following objections from a Muslim group campaigning against representations of transgender issues in the curriculum.
“We took their concerns into account,” he said, “and made adjustments accordingly to minimize their anxiety.”