Celebrating All Saints Day in commemorating and paying respect to the dead is always coupled with Halloween costumes by wearing a scary outfit similar to those in the horror movies.
According to the superstitious belief, the spirits of the dead roamed around during this time looking for bodies to inhabit. To avoid being possessed by spirits, the people dressed up in costumes and paraded around the streets creating loud noises and causing confusion to scare the spirits away.
‘Eat Bulaga’ hosts, Sen Tito Sotto and Joey De Leon associated this superstitious belief to Muslims by wearing a Muslim garb as a costume and the ARMM Governor, Mujiv Hataman was furious!
Hataman said in his statement: “[Eat Bulaga] equated the Muslim garb as a costume to be feared, in the way that zombies and ghouls are to be feared.”
The governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Mujiv Hataman was disgusted in the way Sotto and De Leon portrayed the Muslim outfit during the Halloween special episode of Eat Bulaga on October 31.
Sotto and De Leon, the veteran noontime show hosts of Eat Bulaga, were shown on TV, wearing the male Muslim attire, it’s an Arab outfit that is commonly worn in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring Arab countries.
The ARMM Governor expressed his disappointment in his statement which was published in the Minda News on November 1, urging an apology from the management of Eat Bulaga with the manner that Sotto and De Leon portrayed the Muslim outfits.
Governor Hataman said: “On behalf of the Filipino Moro people, we demand that producers and hosts of the noontime show to issue a public apology.”
In the Philippines, the thobe is commonly being worn by a male Muslim, during the day of worship particularly the Eid’l Fitr.
In his statement, Gov. Hataman remarked: “This display betrays insensitivity by these hosts, as they equated the Muslim garb as a costume to be feared, in the way that zombies and ghouls are to be feared.
We remind the hosts and the producers of the show of how Muslims are quite often discriminated against in our society, often stereotyped as troublemakers and terrorists.
What Eat Bulaga did in its Halloween Special was a mockery of and an affront to the image of the Muslim, apparently in the name of entertainment.”
We have yet to receive an official statement from Eat Bulaga in relation to this issue.
