Column traces Manila-based Halal certifier's ties to Turkish counterparts

Writing in Mindanao Times, Brian U. Doce, Ph.D., argues that Turkey's prominent role in global Halal certification debates is tied to a lesser-known story that starts in Manila, through the Islamic Da'wah Council of the Philippines (IDCP).

Doce traces the link to October 2001, when then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued Executive Order No. 46, giving the Office on Muslim Affairs exclusive authority over Halal certification. According to the column, this disrupted private certifiers such as the IDCP, which challenged the order before the Supreme Court. In July 2003, the Court declared the order null and void, holding that classifying food as Halal is a religious function and citing the constitutional separation of Church and State and the guarantee of religious freedom.

Doce writes that the ruling raised the IDCP's standing internationally, particularly within the World Halal Council (WHC), a federation of certifying bodies founded in Jakarta in 1999. Abdul Rahman T. Linzag of the IDCP served as the council's secretary-general from 2007 to 2010, according to the column. Meanwhile, Turkey's Foundation for the Protection and Promotion of Halal and Healthy Products (GIMDES) gained influence, with its chairman, Dr. Huseyin Kami Buyukozer, elected WHC honorary president in 2011.

The two groups met at a June 2015 WHC gathering in Istanbul opposing a European standardization initiative on Halal food, which the council said sidelined Islamic authorities. Linzag was among the speakers, Doce notes.

The column says the ties resurfaced after Republic Act No. 10817, the Philippine Halal Export Development and Promotion Act of 2016, which gave the Philippine Accreditation Bureau under the Department of Trade and Industry the power to accredit Halal certification bodies. Doce writes that the IDCP questioned whether a body without a religious mandate should assess groups performing a religious function. In February 2022, the WHC issued a statement supporting the IDCP and disclosed that the group had filed another Supreme Court petition, according to the column.

Doce argues that the episode shows the global Halal industry is shaped not only by governments in Muslim-majority countries, but also by how religious authority, commerce and regulation cross borders.