The first group of 46 Filipino pilgrims will arrive in Jeddah on Wednesday, the Philippine Consulate General in Jeddah announced on Monday.
“A 17-member advance team for Haj assistance, headed by Malo Manonggiring, regional director of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) for Visayas, has also arrived,” Consul General Leo Tito L. Ausan Jr. told Arab News.
Ausan, who took over from former Consul General Norman Garibay, who has been cross-posted to Ottawa in Canada, said the team includes supervisory and medical staff.
He expressed his thanks to the Saudi leadership for the hospitality accorded to Filipino pilgrims in the past, as well as the intensive efforts exerted at making the pilgrimage successful.
“The annual religious ritual, as far as Filipino pilgrims are concerned, has been orderly and convenient,” he said.
Vice Consul Rodney “Jonas” Sumague, supervising officer of the pilgrimage according to the consulate, said that the second group of 240 pilgrims will also arrive in Madinah on Wednesday.
They will be followed by another group of 165 pilgrims on Thursday and another group of 117 pilgrims on Friday.
“The Filipino pilgrims’ delegation, totaling 6,700 people, will be headed by NCMF Secretary Yasmin Busran Lao,” said Sumague, who received his Master’s of Arts in public administration from the premier University of the Philippines in Diliman (UP-Diliman) in Quezon City.