Representatives of government agencies and private sectors recently participated in UP Halal Forum: Harmonizing Roles, Addressing Challenges, and Moving Toward a Common Direction (Halal Forum) at the UP Diliman (UPD) Institute for Small-Scale Industries.

According to Section 3.6 of Republic Act 10817 or the Philippine Halal Export Development and Promotion Act of 2016, halal means “lawful or permissible under Sharia’h (Islamic Law).”

Darwin J. Absari, an assistant professor at the UPD Institute of Islamic Studies (IIS), in a correspondence with UPDate Online said, the forum “aims to provide a platform for various stakeholders in the halal industry to showcase their roles and programs as they share their efforts related to halal as well as the challenges encountered in their implementation and management.”

In addition, the one-day forum was a venue for the stakeholders to collaborate and identify strategies to improve the country’s halal industries.

UPD Chancellor Edgardo Carlo L. Vistan II said “we need to have a sustainable plan and strategic goals so that we can effectively chart our endeavors in halal development.”

Vistan explained that “UP is positioning itself under the current administration to play a crucial role in this development through comprehensive engagement particularly in facilitating informed discussions on halal and its development by strengthening halal research and development in constituent universities in the UP System.”

He also said that he looks forward to more halal-related engagements in the future.

Meanwhile, IIS Dean Julkipli M. Wadi said the growing interest and advancements in the halal industry in the country “necessitates that we continue to collaborate, engage in more discussions, and identify milestones in our engagements with halal so we can identify problems and challenges, and how to address them [so that] we could move toward a common direction.”

Apart from presentations, the forum also had a roundtable where participants talked about the challenges faced by halal industries in the country and discussed possible ways to address these.

Halal Forum was organized by the IIS and the UP Center for Integrative Development Studies-Islamic Studies Program. It was held on June 25.