Muslim Academician Inspires Youths with a 48-Year old Awards

Program

An awards program started 48 years ago to honor the outstanding

leadership and academic achievements of graduating high school
Muslim students continues today to inspire contemporary achievers to
excel in further studies and consequent professional careers.

Retired professor Ali Yacub, Al Haj was only a 37-year old

classroom teacher in a local private college when he single-handedly
started what he named as the Golden Crescent Achievement Awards.
The school in which he was teaching was dominated by many Muslim
students, who at the time fretted the absence of an awards system to
recognize them. Yacub started the Golden Crescent honors not only in
then Zamboanga A.E. Colleges and now Universidad de Zamboanga,
but also in his high school alma mater Zamboanga City High School.

“I launched the personal project to inspire those high-achieving

students to continue with their college studies so they can one day be
productive citizens who will contribute to the peace and well-being of
our communities, and also inspire their peers to do likewise”, Yacub
said.

“Today, I can proudly say that many of the past awardees are
successful professionals in Zamboanga City or wherever they work”,
Yacub says.

From the original two school recipients, the number of institutions

incrementally expanded to now many more. Since 2000, Christian
students also became eligible, so much so that by this year there over
500 awardees, Yacub estimates.

“A main reason why Christian students were included was the shift
of the program from not only recognizing leadership and academic

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excellence but to also promote peace advocacy among the city’s
youths”, says Yacub. At around that period, Western Mindanao suffered
from extreme violence waged by the newly formed Abu Sayyaf Group
and terrorists. It was a time, too, when local civil society groups were
formed or beefed up to address the growing and alarming peace and
order threats.

Because there were no high school graduates in 2016 due to the

Y2K curriculum, the same awards were also bestowed on elementary
completers upon the clamor of some schools, but only for that year, he
said.

For many years, Yacub – a Sama born in Basilan when it was then
a component of Zamboanga City – paid out of pocket for the cost of the
awards’ medallions. This was despite the money came merely from his
salary, he recalls. His father was jobless due to being deaf and his
mother was selling home-cooked goodies to feed her family.
Nevertheless, he was able to graduate from a Bachelor of Science in
Education, and later enjoyed a government scholarship for his masters
degree in English followed by a Fulbright grant to study the University
of the Philippines. He later taught English inWestern Mindanao State
University, from where he retired as director of its public affairs office.

In the past years, some local organizations and individuals have

contributed funds to pay for the cost of the medallions and related
special events. In 2010, Yacub organized the non-stock non-profit
Golden Crescent Consortium of Peace Builders and Affiliates to run the
awards and other activities related to interfaith promotions.

Last 2016, the consortium inaugurated the “Amazing Leaders in

Islam Awards”- or ALI awards. In a ceremony that year, 10 outstanding
local luminaries were honored, some of them posthumously. The
honorees included a successful businessman, deceased tribal leaders and
city councilor, and a congresswoman of Basilan.

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 Despite his age, Yacub soldiers on. He was recently voted to serve
as chairman of the city’s Indigenous People’s Council of Leaders under
the mandate of the National Commission of Indigenous Peoples. For
many years now, he chairs a committee formed by Zamboanga-Basilan
Integrated Development Alliance to publish annually an Islam (or
Hijrah)-Christian calendar widely distributed in the Philippines and
abroad and acknowledged for its accuracy in the shifting Muslim holy
days. He is frequently invited to give talks, act as resource person or
guest speaker in ceremonial events.

He now hopes to establish a trust fund from donations that will

finance Golden Crescent Awards in years to come. It is the only existing
honor project of its kind in this troubled region, and Yacub’s visions
should never die. (Rey-Luis Banagudos)

This article was featured in Salam TV PTV IV.

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