Sultanate of Sulu & North Borneo (Sabah)
Office of the Royal Information Minister
Darul Jambangan, Maimbung, Sulu
JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL, AL HAJ-LL.B
Provincial Address: 605 Zone 4, Camp Asturias, Jolo, Sulu, ARMM, Philippines
Metro Manila Address: Pandacan, Manila, Philippines 1100
Cellphones: +639167957154; +639394914000; +639232721025
A BRIEF RESUME OF
JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL, AL HAJ-Ll.B.
JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL is a Special Assignment Reporter assigned in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) by the National Broadcasting Network (NBN)-4.
At the same time, he is also a News Correspondent of The Manila Times with the beat on Muslim Affairs based in Cotabato City.
He was also a Special Assistant to the Office of the Regional Vice Governor of the ARMM in 1993. He was among the pioneer members in 1975 of the famed Tambuli Cutural Troupe of the Mindanao State University- Tawi-Tawi under its director, Prof. Ligaya Fernando- Amilbangsa.
At present, he holds the designation as Special Assistant for Muslim Mindanao Affairs to the President & Chairman of the National Broadcasting Network. He is also the Royal Information Minister of the Sultanate of Sulu & North Borneo (Sabah) and was installed and proclaimed as a Maharajah equivalent to the rank of a Baron by His Majesty Sultan Fuad Abdulla Kiram 1st , the 35th de jure reigning Sultan on December 17, 2008.
A simple reception was held at around 5:00 P.M. on the same day at Trattoria Gourmets 1990 in EDSA Shangri-la Mall in Mandaluyong City. Among those in attendance were Grand Prince Omar Kiram, Count Habib Adz Nikabulin, and Dr. Jaime B. Ramirez, author of Handbook on Journalism, and several others.
He obtained his degree in Bachelor of Science in Fisheries, major in Marine Fisheries (1977) from the Mindanao State University in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi. He also took up Master of Science in Fisheries Biology from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.
At the same time he is a graduate of Bachelor of Laws (2007) from the Philippine Law School (PLS) and was awarded with a Gold Medal for Loyalty and a Testimonial Award for Outstanding Student Leader while serving as the President of the Supreme Law Student Council (2006). He is also a graduate of Shari’ah (Islamic Law) from the Philippine Shari’ah Institute.
He was elected as the Regional Auditor for National Capital Region of the Association of Law Students of the Philippines (ALSP) in 2006.
During his college days, he became an academic scholar; while on his post graduate studies, he was a scholarship grantee of the Philippine Council of Agriculture and Resources Research & Development (PCARRD) based in Los Banos, Laguna in 1980.
Prior to joining the Reportorial Team of the NBN-4, he was also among the pioneers of the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 1986 where he became News Correspondent of the Batanes To Tawi-Tawi Section.
Then he joined as a Congressional Staff in the House of Representatives where he was appointed as a Legislative Staff Officer II in 1988.
In 1989, he became the Chief of Correspondents of the Philippine Muslim Times, a weekly newspaper published in Manila, Philippines. While in the year 2000, he became News Correspondent of the Gulf Times, a daily published in Doha, Qatar until he left in October 31, 2007.
He was also a member of the Technical Working Group (TWG) of the Oversight Committee to the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) at the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) in Malacanang, Manila from 1990-1991.
The TWG was tasked to oversee the devolution of the different line agencies or departments to the Muslim Autonomous Region.
He was also the Team Leader of the Area-based Child & Survival Development Program (ABCSDP) of the UNICEF thru the College of Public Administration of the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City in 1991.
Likewise, he was also one of the members of the Media Bureau assigned in Mindanao when former President Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) ran for the presidency. Later, he was part of Malacanang’s Special Operations Group (SOG) headed by Secretary Gabriel Claudio.
When the then National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Epimaco Velasco ran for governor in the Province of Cavite, he was assigned as a close-in writer by Malacanang’s SOG to the tandem of Velasco and now Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr. who ran for vice governor, where both of them successfully won the said election.
He used to be an active member of the non-government organization (NGO) where he was appointed as the first Muslim Secretary General of Pugad Lawin Philippines, Inc. (PLPI), a nationwide organization with hundreds of thousands of members throughout the country.
He also served as Secretary General of a political party that is duly accredited by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), which is the Philippine Green Republican Party (PGRP).
In the field of fraternal and academic organizations, he is a Lifetime Member of the Alpha Sigma Phi (Phil.) Inc. and has been a National Vice President and was a National Herald too.
In 2006, he was also a Chancellor of the Advocati Legis Society, a law fraternity established at the Philippine Law School in Pasay City, Metro Manila.
Hadji Munir as what friends and colleagues call him was born on January 10, 1955 in Indanan, Sulu with a twin brother Julganih to the late Hadjaratun Jannaral and Maharajah Jannaral Nassaie.
Maharajah Jannaral served also as a "Maharajah" with the Sultanate of Sulu & North Borneo (Sabah) under His Majesty Sultan Muhammad Esmail E. Kiram 1st, the 33rd Sultan of Sulu & Sabah from 1947 to 1973, and the father of the present ruler, His Majesty Sultan Fuad A. Kiram, the 1st.
At present he holds the distinction as the only Tausug member of the national media especially on television and print media. He is a Regular Member of the National Press Club.
In 1989 he was tapped by the National Historical Institute (NHI) as one of the foreign and local translators of Dr. Jose P. Rizal's "Mi Ultimo Adios" (My Last Farewell).
His Tausug translation titled "Pama'id Ku Hinapusan" is the official translation in Tausug dialect of "Mi Ultimo Adios" that can be found at the book "Jose P. Rizal's Mi Ultimo Adios- in Foreign and Local Translations Volume I, Page 282.
Life History in Retrospect
JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL, Al Haj was born on the 10th of January 1955 along with his twin brother Julganih, who unfortunately passed away during infancy. Their parents were the late Maharajah Jannaral Nassaie and Hadjaratun
Iran of Jatih Tunggal, Indanan, Sulu, Philippines.
Hadji Munir is a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Marine Fisheries from the Mindanao Sate University in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi. Then he took up his Masters of Science in Fisheries Biology from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.
He is also a licensed Fishery Technologist which is now under the administrative supervision of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) in Manila.
At the same time he is also a licensed Fishery Officer after having successfully passed its written examination that was also held in Manila. He used to be a Research Associate of the Mindanao State University and was also a part-time lecturer at the College of Fisheries of the Mindanao State University.
However, after the EDSA Revolution in 1986, he joined the media where he worked as the first Muslim News Correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 1986. It was his entry at the PDI which prompted the Inquirer Sub-Editor Llita Logarta to change the Section of "Appari to Jolo" to "Batanes To Tawi-Tawi."
He was also a Deputy Member of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), which was then chaired by Manuel “Manoling” Morato in 1986. He was among those who pre-screened the "Rizal Alih, The Movie" that was portrayed by former Senator Ramon Revilla, Sr.
After writing for the Philippine Daily Inquirer for more than three years that started in1986, Hadji Munir transferred to Daily Globe. Then when the Daily Globe closed shop, he was taken in by The Manila Times under the stewardship of the Gokongwie, the owner of Robinsons Mall.
He stayed with The Manila Times even when ownership was changed after business tycoon and former 6th District Congressman Mark Jimenez bought The Manila Times. Then after a lull of one year he rejoined The Manila Times under the new management of Dante Francis “Klink” Ang II.
Although he hails from the non-Tagalog speaking region of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), still he was able to write for Kabayan, which then a broadsheet written in Pilipino formerly owned by Dante Ang, Sr.
Aside from being with the print media, Hadji Munir is also a broadcast journalist, where he is a News Reporter of the National Broadcasting Network (NBN), which is actually Channel 4. NBN-4 is the brand name of People’s Television Network, Inc. (PTNI).
He has covered the arrival in Manila of the singing group Bread, as well as the late pop singer Michael Jackson; and golf international champion, Tiger Woods in the former U.S. Clark Air Base in San Fernando, Pampanga .
He became also a Foreign Correspondent for the Gulf Times of Qatar, where the controversial Al Jazeera Arabic TV Network is also based in Doha, Qatar. The Gulf Times management under its Editor-in-Chief Paul Cowan who is a British national assigned him a daily column which was known as “Dateline Manila.”
Hadji Munir is a Regular Member of the National Press Club. Aside from being a working media man, he went to College of Law as working student attending night classes at the Philippine Law School (PLS) in Pasay City.
In School Year 2006, he became the second Muslim law student elected as the President of the Supreme Law Student Council of the PLS. And on the same year, he was accorded with a Testimonial Award in recognition for his outstanding leadership while serving with distinction as President of the Supreme Law Student Council.
And in the following year in 2007, he received his diploma in Bachelor of Laws from the Philippine Law School in a graduation ceremony held at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines on March 24, 2007.
As a journalist, he has visited several countries in Asia and the Middle East. He first travelled to Malaysia where he was based in Kuala Lumpur and visited several States like Selangor, Penang, Malacca, Kedah, Perlis and Johor Bahru.
Then he went to Thailand by land trip and entered through the State of Perlis in Malaysia and passed by Bangkok. He had the chance to visit the island resort of Phuket, Province of Phrae, and the tourist spot of Chiang Mai; and also the City State of Singapore.
A few years after, he went to China as a member of the entourage of Rajah Mudah Esmail Kiram of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo upon the official invitation of the Foreign Affairs Department of the People's Republic of China.
The members of the official delegation passed by Xiamen before finally having a touched down at Beijing and toured the famous Great Wall of China.
Then he proceeded to Shandong Province to pay homage to the tomb of Sultan Paduka Pahala, the Sultan of Sulu who died in China and was buried in Shandong with his wife and two sons.
The tomb of the Sultan, who is known as the East King to the Chinese, is one of the historical shrines of China. On the way home, the entourage dropped by Hong Kong, a few years before the handover of the former British Crown Colony to the Chinese Government.
Likewise in compliance with one of the Five Pillars of Islam, Hadji Munir went on Haj or pilgrimage twice at the Holy City of Mecca in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The first one was in 1997 and the second one was in the year 2000, where he was one of the pilgrims invited by the Saudi monarch, His Majesty King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud through the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Manila formerly headed by His Excellency Ambassador Saleh Al-Ghamdi.
Thus, he visited Masjidil Haram or Grand Mosque twice, of course the port city of Jeddah and most of all visited the historical city of Medina and prayed at Prophet Mohammad's mosque (S.A.W.) and also visited his tomb inside the mosque.
His latest foreign travel was during the time when he covered the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Summit in Doha, Qatar in 2000. He was among the few foreign journalists interviewed by the Al Jazeera Network. The other countries that he dropped by are Sri Lanka and Maldives.
Lately, he was designated as the Chairman of the Committee on Information of the Add Tribal Partylist Group.
Hadji Munir can be contacted at his Mobile Phones under the Globe, which has a Cell No. of +639167957154; Smart Cell No. +639394914000; and Sun Cellular No. +639232721025
Wassalam!
All Rights Reserved
Maharajah Jannaral Law Library
2010
