INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON AQIDAH, DAKWAH AND SYARIAH 2016 (IRSYAD 2016)

SEMINAR ANTARABANGSA AKIDAH, DAKWAH DAN SYARIAH 2016 (IRSYAD 2016)

2002 CONTEMPORARY ISSUES ON EDUCATIONAL ASPECT: AN ANALYSIS OF

ISLAMIZATION IN THE PHILIPPINES

Marlon Pontino Guleng, Razaleigh Muhamat@Kawangit & Zulkefli Aini

yusufmarlon@kuis.edu.my
Jabatan Dakwah & Pengurusan, Akademi Islam
Kolej Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Selangor
019-3043907

ABSTRACT
Mainstreaming the issue of Islamic education in the Philippines will be a major avenue in providing the overall
educational requirements for every Filipino Muslims. A qualitative method is applied in this study which mainly
involved analyzing contents. Findings of the study show that Islamic education plays a vital role in peace and
development for Muslims-Christians relationship. The research find out that due to the achievement of peace
and development for the country the government implement Arabic Language and Islamic Values Program
(ALIVE) that lead to National Public Holiday, provide equal education, provide opportunity for Muslims
scholars and give some advantage for Muslim society in the Philippines. Focus on the issue of Islamic education
in the country will create a garden of peace that may lead to respect and harmony.

Key Words: ALIVE Program, Islamic Education, National Public Holidays, Philippines,

1. Introduction

In the context of Islamization in the Philippines, the madrasah plays a vital instrument.
Madrasah is a Muslim school that teaches Arabic and Islamic studies, especially Qur’anic
reading and Arabic language. It is looked up to not only as an institution of learning but also
a symbol of Islam. It is regarded as a proper place to acquire knowledge in Arabic language
and Islamic religious teachings (Rodriguez 1993).
Islamic education arrived in the southern Philippines with Islam itself sometime in the
late 13 or early 14th century. Over the next two hundred years, it spread throughout the
th

southern islands of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago (Majul 1999). Responses to Muslim
Filipinos' long struggle for educational equity remain, for the moment, at the level of policy
statements. Their effective implementation faces challenges beyond the usual poverty,
inadequate funding and bureaucratic lethargy that hinder most efforts to reform Philippine
education. For instance, a key motive behind the century-long policy of integration via
education was the threat to national unity inherent in the diversity of Philippine society. This
became a national security concern as a result of the Muslim secessionist movement in

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Mindanao. The majority's insensitivity and outright bias toward Muslim Filipinos caused the
policy of integration to be experienced as the attempted de-Islamization, assimilation and
subordination of the Muslim minority to the Christian majority. Efforts to Islamize public
schools serving Muslim students represents a profound shift from ignoring or actively
denigrating Islam to giving it a place of honor in the curriculum comparable to the place it
holds in the larger Filipino Muslim community. This is likely to enhance the sense of self-
worth and dignity of Muslim children as Muslims. Perhaps more importantly, Islamization
policies do not address the curricular silence and bias regarding Muslim Filipinos in the
education of the Christian majority. This raises the possibility that, to the extent the policy is
effective in strengthen Islamic identity among Filipino Muslim schoolchildren, it may leave
untouched, if not exacerbate, the gulf between Filipino Christians and Filipino Muslims that
the integration policy was meant to eradicate (Jeffrey Ayala Milligan 2004).
The Islamization of public education in the Philippines represents, in effect, a bet that
lowering the wall of separation between mosque and state in the Philippines will create a
space in which more moderate Muslim voices can articulate viable educational alternatives to
the assimilative, alienating educational practices of the past that have contributed to the
conflict in the country. This makes it an experiment worth watching for the insight it may
offer into the challenge of providing education to minority Muslim communities in other
diverse societies.

2. Is Implementing of Arabic Language and Islamic Values (ALIVE) Program Can

Benefits The Muslim Society?

Language policies attempted to replace local dialects with a single lingua franca. In effect,
American schooling replaced militant Spanish Catholicism as the weapon of choice in
integrating Muslim Filipinos into an emerging Philippine state as a marginalized and
subordinated minority stripped of all but a nominal Muslim identity (Milligan 2004). These
policies, as well as the underlying conception of Muslim Filipinos as uncivilized, backward,
and dangerous passed largely unchanged into subsequent independent governments. They
were encoded in textbooks and curricula that virtually erased the history, experiences,
customs and religion of Muslim Filipinos. Such policies presented Muslim Filipinos with a
stark choice, a choice put rather bluntly in a history of the Commission on National

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SEMINAR ANTARABANGSA AKIDAH, DAKWAH DAN SYARIAH 2016 (IRSYAD 2016)

Integration: “In the process of helping them attain a higher degree of civilization, they have to
discard some of their traditional values and customs” (Clavel 1969: 71).
Tragically, through a combination of unchanging attitudes and bureaucratic inertia,
this educational dispensation continued more or less intact into at least the 1980s (Milligan
2004). Unsurprisingly, these policies were met with various forms of resistance. The most
obvious form of this resistance has been an armed movement to establish an independent
Islamic state in Mindanao. The ensuing conflict has claimed more than 100,000 lives since
the early 1970s and earned Mindanao the dubious distinction of being a “front” in the war on
terrorism (Vitug & Gloria, 2000; Abuza, 2003). But resistance has taken educational forms as
well. The parallel system of formal and informal Islamic education that had existed in
Muslim Mindanao for centuries continued right through the 20th century. By the 1950s,
however, larger and better-organized schools patterned on Arab models had begun to emerge
in several cities in Muslim Mindanao. As the secessionist movement gained momentum in
the early 1970s the numbers of madaris grew rapidly to well over 1,000 in the western
provinces of Mindanao (Boransing et. al. 1987).
Some of these schools received international support from the Middle East, most were
supported by the tuition of Muslim families, one of the poorest populations of an already poor
nation. Finding no support for their distinct cultural and religious identities in the public
schools, many Muslim families sent their children to the madaris (exclusively or at least on
weekends) in order to sustain their Islamic identity. These religious schools, however, offered
little in the way of social and economic mobility within the larger Philippine society. Muslim
Filipino children thus attended school seven days a week and tried to negotiate as many as
five separate languages in an often futile attempt to secure a future as both Filipino citizens
and Muslims. By the mid-1990s private madaris that attempted to integrate government
authorized curricula and Islamic curricula emerged to fill the need that public schools had
long neglected. Thus the parallel system of Islamic education strengthened from the 1980s
forward. This history of conflict and forced integration into a social mainstream shaped by
centuries of anti-Muslim bias and a clearly western, Christian-oriented conception of
modernity is the backdrop against which current efforts to Islamize education in Mindanao
must be understood. From the beginning of the 20 th century, the cornerstone of Philippine
educational policy for its Muslim minority was integration. The underlying assumption of
this policy was that the dichotomization of Philippine society between Muslims and
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SEMINAR ANTARABANGSA AKIDAH, DAKWAH DAN SYARIAH 2016 (IRSYAD 2016)

Christians was an unfortunate legacy of Spanish colonization. This mistrust was no longer
justified in a postcolonial state in which everyone was an equal citizen. It was largely
perpetuated, however, by the backwardness and ignorance of the Muslims. The integration
policy assumed that a unified curriculum, common textbooks and unified policies, combined
with efforts to increase Muslim Filipinos' access to secular public education, would gradually
resolve Muslim-Christian tensions. From the early 1950s on this resulted in efforts to expand
secular public schools and establish a government university in the Muslim regions (Isidro
1979). At about the same time, the government created the Commission on National
Integration, an agency intended to provide a broad range of development assistance but which
put most of its efforts into the provision of college scholarships for Muslim youth (Clavel
1969).
A highly centralized national department of education administered these policies.
These efforts failed, however, to head off the eruption of the armed secessionist movement in
the early 1970s. Many of the CNI scholarship recipients never finished their education
(Clavel, 1969). Some of those who did, such as Moro National Liberation Front chairman
Nur Misuari, turned up as leaders in the secessionist movement (Majul 1999; Vitug & Gloria
2000). The overthrow of the Marcos dictatorship and reinstitution of elite democracy in 1986
created a political rupture within which new possibilities for Muslim Filipinos began to take
shape. The new administration of Corazon Aquino, which saw lingering communist and
Islamist insurgencies as artifacts of the Marcos dictatorship, was sympathetic to Muslims'
claims of oppression and relatively willing to acknowledge the historical legacy of Christian
Filipinos' biases in furthering that oppression. While this new openness did not go so far as to
interrogate the extent to which new policies perpetuated those biases, it did create a climate in
which decentralization and local autonomy could be seriously entertained as viable political
responses to the conflict (Brilliantes 1987; Tanggol 1990; Ocampo 1991).
This new climate led to the creation of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
in 1990. The act creating the ARMM charged its regional government with the creation and
maintenance of a public educational system that would teach “the rights and duties of
citizenship and the cultures of the Muslims, Christians and tribal peoples in the region to
develop, promote and enhance unity in diversity”. It also went on to require Arabic language
instruction for Muslim children, to require schools to “develop consciousness and
appreciation of one's ethnic identity,” and to give the autonomous government the power to
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regulate the madaris. Responsibility for the educational measures delineated in the Act was
devolved to a Regional Department of Education, Culture and Sports in 1991. Thus, by the
mid-1990s the legal and policy frameworks were in place to, theoretically, allow Muslim
Filipinos to determine the content and direction of their education for the first time since
losing their independence to the U.S. at the beginning of the century. Muslim Filipino
educators quickly seized upon this new freedom to Islamize education in the ARMM
(Tamano 1996).
Their efforts led to two new initiatives in ARMM educational policy, initiatives that
are also supported by the national Department of Education for Muslim children residing
outside the region (Mutilan 2003). The first of these initiatives involves the Islamization of
public education in the region. Though the geographic concentration of Muslims in western
Mindanao and the growth in the numbers of Muslim schoolteachers since the 1970s has
meant that many Muslim children attend majority Muslim schools taught by Muslims and
located in Muslim communities, the centralization of policy making in Manila ensured that
curricula did not reflect, and at times conflicted with, local values (Bula 1989; Pascual-
Lambert 1997; Rodil 2000).
Ever since the introduction of government education under the American colonial
regime, Islamic education, though respected and supported within the Filipino Muslim
community, represented a social and economic dead end for Muslims as citizens of the
Philippine state. The vast majority of madaris focused almost exclusively on religious
instruction, thus students who attended them did not receive instruction in those subjects that
would enable them to attend universities or compete for positions in the larger society. Even
those madaris that did offer such instruction were often not recognized by the government or
were of such poor quality that their graduates were equally handicapped. Thus graduates of
the madaris, some of whom do go on to receive an advanced Islamic education in the Middle
East, are employable only as poorly paid teachers in Islamic schools. This contributes to a
sense of exclusion, frustration and discrimination that has radicalized many. The aim of
madrasah integration, therefore, is to encourage and support madaris to expand their curricula
to include subject matter taught in the public schools. This would enable those integrated
madaris to seek government recognition and thus be eligible for limited public support under
the Fund for Assistance to Private Education. It would also, theoretically, afford those
students who choose a madrasah education a measure of social mobility through the
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acquisition of knowledge and skills necessary to transfer to public schools, attend

government universities, or to seek employment in the national economy. In effect, these
reforms aim to integrate what for centuries have been two separate systems of education:
government education and Islamic education. Thus the century-long search for an approach
to education that would enhance the prospects of peace between Muslims and Christians has
shifted from the long-held faith in secularization to Islamization (Saligoin 1997; Abdullah
2003; Ghazi 2003; Boransing 2003). This shift reflects and is reflected by a corresponding
intensification of Islamic identity in the broader Filipino Muslim community (Milligan,
2003).
In order to mainstream Islamic education in the Philippine educational sector, the
Philippine government through the Department of Education, issued Department Order 51 in
2004 to purposely integrate Arabic language and Islamic Values (ALIVE) in many public
schools within the country. Since 2004, many public schools are offering Arabic language
and Islamic values after conducting a comprehensive mapping of public schools with
substantial number of Muslim students. As the Department Order is implemented since 2004,
many public school teachers are trained and equipped to be able to teach Arabic language
education in their classrooms. Many Arabic teachers who passed the Licensure Examinations
for Teachers have begun working with the Department of Education and the formal
educational sector. However, there are policy gaps that have to be fully addressed to make
positive impact on both the desire of the state to integrate Islamic education and the
expectations of many Muslim students (Wendell Glenn Cagape 2007).
Paving another way for building peace and friendship relation between Muslim and
Christian in Cordillera Administrative Region specifically in the Department of Education
(DepEd) project which is the implementation of Arabic Language and Islamic Values
Education (ALIVE) program, an avenue to communicate with Muslim brothers. It is a
mechanism of providing education to the unreached children that is meaningful, relevant and
culture sensitive for Muslim societies (Nene Astudilla C. Godoy, et. al. 2008).
ALIVE program is one of the avenues for peace-building between Muslims and
Christians ethnic. National unity people in the Philippines and inter-cultural solidarity are the
main objectives to keep country have peaceful life. The inclusion of ALIVE program in the
public system started in 2005 (Juliet Sannad 2015). Indeed, like other Filipino citizen,

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Muslims have the intellectual and educational right and capacity to participate actively in the
social, economic and political endeavours in the Republic of the Philippines.
Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has announced that the integration of the
madrasah system into the mainstream education curriculum will be a major avenue in
providing the overall educational requirements of Filipino Muslims, particularly in the armed
conflict affected areas in Mindanao with special focus in the Special Zone of Peace and
Development areas (Macapagal-Arroyo 2002). Below are some of the impacts of
implementation of ALIVE Program in the government schools in the Philippines.

3. ALIVE Program Activities Brought Changes to National Public Holidays

Integration of ALIVE program results from a gradual advocacy of the ALIVE program to the
level of appreciation, understanding and acceptance by the whole community excluding
ethnics, religion and culture. The following activities brought to National Public Holiday
such as ‘Amun Jadid (New Year for the Islamic calendar which refer to 1st Muharram),
Maulid al-Rasul (birthday of Prophet Muhammad pbuh), Ramadan (month of fasting season),
c
eid al-Adha, ceid al-Fitri and Isra’ wa al-Micraj (Amil S. Flamiano 2015).
ALIVE program reflect the school year calendar that may led to the satisfaction of
Muslim society. As it is stated in DepEd Order No. 11, s. 2006 regarding Muslim Holidays
as follows:

1. Pursuant to Articles 169-172 of Presidential Decree No. 1083, “A Decree to Ordain

and Promulgate a Code Recognizing the System of Filipino Muslim Laws, Codifying
Muslim Personal Laws, and Providing for its Administration and for Other Purposes”.
The Department shall observe the following provision:
1.1 Article 169 on official Muslim Holidays states that the following dates are
hereby recognized as Legal Muslim Holidays:
a. “Amun Jadid (New Year, which falls on the first day of the first lunar
month of Muharram);
b. Maulid-un-Nabi (birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, which falls on
the twelfth day of the third lunar month of Rabi-ul-Awwal);
c. Lailatul Isra Wal Mi’raj (Nocturnal Journey and Ascencion of the
Prophet Muhammad), which fall on the twenty-seventh day of the
seventh lunar month of Rajab);
d. Id-ul-Fitr (Hari Raya Puasa, which falls on the first day of the tenth
lunar month of Shawwal, commemorating the end of the fasting
season); and
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e. Id-ul-Adha (Hari Raya Haji, which falls on the tenth day of the twelfth
lunar month of Dhul-Hijja).

All DepEd offices are directed to comply with the above mentioned law, to allow
Muslim officials and employees of DepEd to observe the Muslim Holidays without reduction
in their usual compensation.

4. ALIVE Program Provide Equal Basic Islamic Education

Applicable to the government educational policy of the Philippines, right of every child to
education. All children as right holders must be given quality education opportunity
irrespective of their race, color, religion or culture (Nene Astudilla C. Godoy, et. al. 2008: 5).
In this reason, DepEd implemented ALIVE program to make the Muslim children
knowledgeable of their religion (especially Islamic values) and the language of the Holy
Qur’an which is Arabic language (Juliet Sannad 2015).
The teaching of Arabic as a second language in the Muslim areas of the Philippines is
not only impliedly recognized by the provision of the new Constitution of the Philippines
(Article 15 Sec 3), but it is also premised on the following statement of the late President
Ferdinand E. Marcos, as follows (Ahmad Mohammad Hassoubah 1981):
…and so long as the Filipino people have faith and trust in me, so
long as I am President of this Republic, I shall see to it that our Muslim
brothers are offered all the opportunities to serve the nation so that they
truly become part of the national community; that this government shall
serve them with the same enthusiasm, vigor and zeal as it has in serving
the rest of the Filipino Citizenry; that their culture, their heritage and
their religion which is Islam, shall forever be part of the Filipino
contribution toward culture and civilization.

Philippine education is defined in the 1987 Constitution, the Education Act of 1982 or
Batas Pambansa Blg. 232, the Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001 and Basic
Education Curriculum. The 1987 Constitution details the basis state policies on education.
Article XIV, Section 1. The State shall protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality
education at all levels and shall take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to
all. Article XIV, Section 2 (1). The State shall establish, maintain and support a complete,
adequate and integrated system of education relevant to the needs of people and society.
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Article XIV, Section 2 (4). The State shall encourage nonformal, informal, and indigenous
learning systems, as well as self-learning, independent and out of school study programs
particularly those that respond to community needs. Article XIV, Section 3 (2). The school
shall inculcate patriotism and nationalism, foster love of humanity, respect for human rights,
appreciation of the role of national heroes in the historical development of the country, teach
the rights and duties of citizenship, strengthen ethical and spiritual values, develop moral
character and personal discipline, encourage critical and creative thinking, broaden scientific
and technological knowledge, and promote vocational efficiency.
However, The Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001 main objective are (i) to
develop the Filipino learners by providing them basic competencies in literacy and numeracy,
critical and learning skills, and desirable values to become caring, self-reliant, productive,
socially aware, patriotic and responsible citizens; (ii) Curriculum Vision: Promote the holistic
growth of the Filipino learners and enable them to acquire the core competencies and develop
the proper values. This curriculum shall be flexible to meet the learning needs of a diverse
studentry, and is relevant to their immediate environment and social and cultural realities.
2002 Basic Education Curriculum for formal basic education (i) provide basic quality
education that is equitably accessible to all, and to lay the foundation for lifelong learning and
service to the common good (ii) to empower learners to attain functional literacy and life
skills so that they become self-developed persons who are makabayan (patriotic), makatao
(mindful or humanity), makakalikasan (respectful of nature) and maka-Diyos (godly); also
(iii) to develop in learners a reflective understanding and internalization of principles and
values and their multiple intelligences.
Late United States President William Mckinley mentioned into the American
Congress in 1899 about the basic policy of the United States towards the Philippines
(Gowing, Peter G. 1968; Harrison, Francis B. 1922):

The Philippines are not ours to exploit, but to develop, to civilize, to

educate, to train in the science of self-government. This is the path we
must follow or be recreant to a mighty trust committed to us.

In relation with the above statement, ALIVE program rationale for Muslim Basic
Education is an interest of the country to support quality education for Muslims because poor
Muslims will be a problem to the government. The Muslims have become a problem because
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of failure of education which in turn has caused them to lag behind other Filipinos in terms of
access to and equality in development (Boransing 2006). In addition to that, Arsad (2007)
believed that attainment of peace for the whole country in the Philippines is a crucial basis for
Madrasah mainstreaming. However, the knowledge, skills and attitudes framework of the
DepEd-Madrasah curriculum is influenced by both Philippine and Islamic educational
standards, though the level of influence of each may vary.

Abdulhamid Abu Sulayman (1981) presents the fundamental principles of Islam that
shape the framework of Islamic thought, methodology and way of life, namely:
i. Unity of Allah SWT. It is the foremost principle of Islam which espouses God’s
absoluteness in all aspects. From god descend all truth. He possesses all
encompassing knowledge, power to create and command everything in the heavens
and the earth, and to make manifest His will at all times.
ii. Unity of creation. Creation is one comprehensive whole in an order that is both
complex and complete. Everything is created in exact measure, each with a specific
nature and design and created for a specific purpose. The entire creation is interrelated
and interdependent.
iii. Unity of truth and unity of knowledge. Revelation, which is believed as infallible
truth, serves as a beacon and guide-the ultimate tool with which to quality or confirm
all forms of knowledge encountered.
iv. Unity of life. God created man to worship Him alone and serve His good pleasure.
The advantages of conforming to this reason for existence are realized in the process.
The same may be said of the disadvantage attending to the non fulfillment of this
purpose. God has also entrusted man with vicegerency (khalifah) in this world,
creating him in the best of natures and endowing him with the faculties to exercise his
personal will and responsibility over other creations. Unity also means that there is no
separation between the spiritual and secular aspects of human life. Revelation in fact
relates to all facets of living and is explicit in the manner it regulates human affairs.
v. Unity of humanity. Human beings are all created equal from the same mould.
Circumstances of birth, race, culture, society and ability do not in any way affect this
equality. Islam is universal, embracing all of humanity in this regard.

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vi. The complementary nature of revelation and reason. With the gift of reason, man is
enabled to learn about the world around him. His faculties likewise enable him to act
on his needs as well as responsibilities as a vicegerent. On the other hand, Divine
revelation guides man to know Allah as well as appreciate his ordained purpose. From
revelation, man likewise learns how he may best fulfill his purpose. The relationship
of reason and revelation is such that reason supports revelation as it inadvertently
does time and again, in relation to the Quran. Meanwhile, revelation tempers reason.
Both revelation and reason are sources of Islamic thought and there are no perceived
contradictions between them.

To achieve the goal and ensure the interaction between Philippine and Islamic
education will be enabled in a way that will cure educational dichotomy, empowering
learners to be participative in the bigger society. Four core values underpin the philosophical
framework of the multicultural curriculum model developed by Bennett (2003). These are:
i. Acceptance and appreciation of cultural diversity. This principle advocates that
coexistence among all people and beings is important. Learners will welcome
diversity and seek commonalities among themselves. They will learn the value of
understanding different perspectives in the process of working together towards the
common good. The culture of open-minded inquiry and mutual respect will be
propagated in the school setting. Contexts and situations of all learners will be taken
into account to inform the scheme of education that best suits them contextual
learning will be the norm.
ii. Respect for human dignity and universal human rights. This principle advocates the
absence of prejudice or discrimination. Learners will appreciate that all human beings
should be able to enjoy rights, privileges and opportunities as equals. They will be
trained to live and propagate this principle among themselves.
iii. Responsibility to the world community. People should be equally enabled to act on
their situations and circumstances to improve their lives and the world they live in.
Learners will be trained in positive social action to achieve gains not just for
themselves but more importantly, for the community.
iv. Reverence for the earth. This principle stems from the belief in the interdependence of
everything in the universe. It views the world and its inhabitants as one big
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community, connected and interdependent despite differing contexts, cultures and

persuasions. Learners will be trained in this perspective. They will learn that each and
every being has a place in the universal web, contributing to and affected by the
continual ebb and flow of life on earth. A collective consciousness will thus be
developed in learners.

5. ALIVE Program Provide Job Opportunity for Muslims Scholars

The selection and recruitment of teachers in the ALIVE program must be in consonance with
the guidelines set by the DepEd, re DepEd Order No. 54, s. 2006 on Revised Hiring
Guidelines for Teacher I position in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools. The ALIVE
program however is new and with special features thus additional criteria for the recruitment
and selection of ALIVE teachers have been set to insure quality implementation of the
program. The recruitment of ALIVE teachers should have educational qualification as well as
the potential of applicants vying to teach in the ALIVE Program (Nene Astudilla C. Godoy,
et. al. 2008: 22-24).
Assigning of ALIVE selected teachers to organize and manage ALIVE classes in
specific public schools, after undergoing the training processes. It determining the number of
asatidz to be deployed, the results of the school mapping and needs analysis and a number of
issues have to be considered; number of Muslim students enrolled, student-teacher ratio
should be 15:1 in non-Muslim areas and availability of alternative funding sources.
Deployment does not end with the placement of the ALIVE teachers in the public schools but
it follows by sustained teacher instructional support and monitoring and evaluation system.
However, monthly allowance and other fringe benefits for the deployed ALIVE teachers had
started paying the allowance in 2007 pursuant to DepEd Memorandum 250, s. 2007, entitled
“Guidelines in the payment of Allowance of Muslim Teachers (Asatidz) in ALIVE in the
Public Elementary School”. To ensure the timely release of the Asatidz monthly allowance,
DepEd Memorandum No. 304, s. 2008 dated June 26, 2008 on the Mechanics for the
Payment of Monthly Allowance for Muslim Teachers/Asatidz in Arabic Language and
Islamic Values Education Through ATM of Land Bank was disseminated to the field. DepEd

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Central Office is benchmarking P5,000/month (RM500) as a just honorarium for every

ALIVE teacher (Nene Astudilla C. Godoy, et. al. 2008: 34-37).
When an asatidz will be a Licensure Examination for Teachers passer after the 2-
Year Accelerated Teacher Education Program, can be employed as regular teacher to handle
Arabic Language and Islamic Values Education and some additional subjects and will be
receiving the salary of a Teacher I position.
Hence, ALIVE Program was already implemented here are some benefits for the
Muslims learners. First, integration of Islamic subjects into the secular curriculum is a good
concept which opens a knowledgeable discussion. Second, the integrated Islamic knowledge
has the potential to address Muslim children’s educational needs. Third, the integrated school
has activities like foundation week and saqada (charity) giving. Fourth, teachers are
professionally qualified, thus mode of teaching is better. Fifth, it will be able to educate basic
Islamic knowledge for every Muslim child. Lastly, Arabic and Islamic studies are
incorporated into the curriculum so at least it could address the needs of Muslim students
who could not attend the weekend madrasah (Arsad 2007). Not only for that, non-Muslim
pupils are allowed to attend ALIVE classes but have a written consent from their parents
(Nene Astudilla C. Godoy, et. al. 2008).

6. Advantage of ALIVE Program to the Muslim Society in the Philippines

One of the advantages of ALIVE Program to the Muslim society in the Philippines will
brought to a much closer between Arab-Filipinos relationship. The demand of the Arab
countries for Filipino laborers as well as professionals has steadily expanded and will
doubtless pave the way for continuous socio-economic and cultural linkages between the
Philippines and the Arab nation to the mutual benefit of all concerned (Hassoubah 1981:41).
Putting first the needs of others above individual interest, sincere desire to do what is
right, and people will put great trust without any doubt. Thus, implementation of ALIVE
program in the public schools may create a garden of peace, each gardeners plant the seeds of
faith, respect and harmony, and they also cut the weeds of ignorance, intolerance and
violence.

7. Summary
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Impact of this Islamization can be proved through the existence of madrasah (Islamic school),
implementation of Arabic Language and Islamic Values program in every public school
throughout the country. Also, changing of national public holiday which involve Islamic
holidays. Next, provide equal basic education to the Muslim society which is stated in Article
XIV, Section 1. Also, provide job opportunity for Muslims scholars and so on.

8. References

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SEMINAR ANTARABANGSA AKIDAH, DAKWAH DAN SYARIAH 2016 (IRSYAD 2016)

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