05/04/2026
There is a Latin phrase that Atty. Paisalin P.D. Tago chose as the governing motto of his presidency at the Mindanao State University: Acta non verba — Actions, not words.
For anyone who has followed his career across three decades of public service in Muslim Mindanao, the choice is entirely consistent with the man.
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📖 Read the full article: https://tinyurl.com/yc3a4pf4
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Tago did not arrive at the MSU presidency as a political appointment disconnected from the institution's mission. He arrived as someone who had spent his professional life building — brick by legislative brick, budget line by budget line — the institutional foundations of Bangsamoro self-governance. He helped write the block grant provision of the Bangsamoro Organic Law that has since delivered PHP 337.53 billion in automatic transfers to the BARMM between 2020 and 2024. He chaired the Committee on Ways and Means that produced the Bangsamoro Revenue Code — the region's first systematic framework for taxation and fiscal self-sufficiency. He served as Minister of Transportation and Communications, bringing government services to communities that had never had a BLTO extension office within reasonable distance of their homes.
And then, on June 27, 2025, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. appointed him the 9th Regular President of the Mindanao State University System.
Born on October 25, 1967, in the Islamic City of Marawi — the cultural heartland of the Maranao people — Tago is, in his own words, a "blue-blooded native" of the city where MSU's main campus stands. That is not a casual biographical detail. In the Maranao tradition, leadership is not a position one holds; it is an obligation one carries toward the community that formed you. His entire career can be read through that lens.
He holds a Bachelor of Laws from Far Eastern University, a Master of Laws from San Beda College, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and dual professional licensure as both a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the Philippine Bar. He was a fellow of the East-West Center's New Generation Seminar in Honolulu — an experience that broadened his governance perspective to include comparative models from across Asia and the Pacific. These are not credentials accumulated for a résumé. They are the tools he has used, consistently and deliberately, in every public role he has occupied.
At his investiture on August 13, 2025, at the Dimaporo Gymnasium in Marawi — attended by OPAPRU Secretary Carlito G. Galvez Jr., BARMM Interim Chief Minister Abdulraof A. Macacua, and former Senator Koko Pimentel III — Tago unveiled a Nine-Point Agenda built around a single institutional aspiration: to make MSU the country's National Peace University.
The agenda is comprehensive. It addresses governance alignment across all MSU campuses, international quality accreditation, the institutionalization of Peace Education as a core academic program, the introduction of Halal 101 courses responsive to Southeast Asia's growing halal economy, the rehabilitation of the King Faisal Mosque and the Aga Khan Museum — both damaged in the 2017 Marawi Siege — and the development of smart, green, digitally transformed campuses. At its center is a philosophy he has named Inklusibong Pamantasan — the Inclusive University — and a rallying call as simple as it is direct: "Volt In. Dapat magsama-sama tayo."
This journal article, authored by Ashary S. Tamano, CESO IV, traces Tago's full formation: his Maranao roots, his early years in government accounting, his twelve years in the ARMM Regional Legislative Assembly, his authorship of foundational Bangsamoro legislation, his executive tenure at the MOTC, and his first hundred days at MSU. It draws on verified primary sources — official MSU publications, Bangsamoro Parliament records, and Philippine government documents — and presents the life of a public servant whose career has been, at every stage, an argument that governance properly done can close the distance between the Philippine state and its Muslim citizens.
The Mindanao Problem, as it has long been called, may finally — under this administration — begin to look like a Mindanao Possibility.
Acta non verba.
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📖 Read the full article: https://tinyurl.com/yc3a4pf4
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