With its Command Center in Quezon City, the NCMF reached out to provide food packs, burial assistance, and the like to constituents stranded in Metro Manila, nearby towns and cities, parts of Luzon, and in the Visayas and Mindanao through its Task Force on Covid-19.

“They responded to all calls for help from Muslim and non-Muslim communities nationwide, giving food packs [and] burial assistance for locally stranded individuals (LSIs),” recalled NCMF Secretary Saidamen B. Pangarungan.

Like other government agencies, the NCMF has limited funds and resources but donations from different public and private organizations poured in.

“That is the reason I called for assistance. With the help of God, we were able to raise donations from our NCMF employees, from the private sector (businesses), many of them from our brothers and, lately, from the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development),” said Pangarungan.

He emphasized that donations come not only from fellow Muslims but also from non-Muslims.

“So, in that way, we were able to provide relief operations, food assistance to our compatriots nationwide, from Tuguegarao to Tawi-Tawi,” he added.

The relief operations, which started as early as March, assisted not only the Moro communities but students from foreign countries like Saudi Arabia who came home after their Islamic studies, those who took the recent Bar examination, and others who wanted to return to their hometowns in Mindanao.

“The Commission will continue to assist our countrymen in accordance with our mandate until the pandemic is gone. This is the order of the President,” Secretary Pangarungan said.

He also expressed his gratitude to Senator Christopher “Bong” Go for his assistance to the foundation of the Commission. (MCG/PIA-IDPD/EKS/DDADR/NCMF)