Marawi A Year After: Media Spotlight People’s Plight and Rehab Woes

Screengrab from the PCIJ website.

CHEERS TO the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) and MindaNews for a joint, two-part report that called attention to the Maranao people’s plight and the delayed rehabilitation of the city of Marawi. President Rodrigo Duterte promised that Marawi will be rebuilt after the military regained control from the ISIS-affiliated Maute Group. The report is so far the only in-depth account in the media on the problems of rebuilding Marawi.

On May 23, 2017, Lanao del Sur’s iconic capital, Marawi City, became a battleground between government forces and the Maute Group, reducing that city to rubble. It took five months before Marawi was declared free of terrorists on October 17 by President Duterte. Locals who fled the city were hopeful that they could soon return to their homes and rebuild their shattered lives.

“The Ruins of Marawi,” a two-part series published in the websites of PCIJ and MindaNews, detailed the difficulties faced by the people of Marawi due to government incompetence.

The first part, “A year after ‘liberation,’ Meranaws await rehabilitation” recalled how the conflict unfolded, highlighting the government response to the event, as well as the efforts of the Maranao community and its leaders to prevent or minimize harm to the city and its people in the midst of the chaos of war. The report said that the siege cost 1,100 lives and displaced some 350,000 people.

The report also recalled sentiments that Duterte’s declaration of martial law was a “disproportionate” response to the crisis, citing the 2007 incident with Moro Islamic Liberation Front forces during which a full-blown conflict was averted through peace talks.  It noted how the Maranao leaders attempted to replicate this approach, but local government officials said their hands were tied by martial law’s being in effect.

PCIJ and Mindanews noted that the groundbreaking rite for the rehabilitation has been delayed at least ten times. The groundbreaking was being reported as early as May this year. The latest reschedule was on October 17, but was reset yet again to the last week of the month because, according to Malacañang, Presdient Duterte could not make it due to conflicts in his schedule. It would have been only the beginning of the long road to recovery for the Maranaos.

Part two, “Exceedingly slow rehab work leaves Meranaws restless and ‘people of the tents,’”  zeroed in on the causes of the delays and the challenges in monitoring the rehab plan’s progress, among them the lack of multi-sectoral consultations in the rehab’s planning stage, as well as disagreements on and lack of access to the rehabilitation plan itself – problems generated by the failure of Task Force Bangon Marawi(TFBM) to craft a concrete rehabilitation strategy.

PCIJ and MindaNews noted that while TFBM has been giving updates on the rehab plan, these “have not really strayed far from promises about building a ‘new’ and ‘better’ Marawi,” along with their perpetually postponing the groundbreaking ceremony and their ever-changing budget estimates.

Both accounts go into the timeline of both the siege and the process of rehabilitation. But the report also listened to and recorded the sentiments of the Marawi people, who, despite being victims of war and their ongoing homelessness, remain resilient.

Media should call attention to the shortcomings or failures of those tasked to rebuild war-ravaged Marawi in the hope that these accounts will prompt the relevant authorities to attend to the issues, and to review and correct their shortcomings.

True, the public may not want to recall the travails of the displaced and homeless of Marawi, what with all the hardship caused by inflation, inclement weather and other pressures.  But these are the experiences of fellow Filipinos and the nation cannot shirk the responsibility of facing up to the difficulties of other communities.

PCIJ and MindaNews did the right thing by calling out the government failure to deliver on the promise of a homecoming to Maranaos and other residents of Marawi within twelve months.

It seems that the work is far from done, and in fact, has hardly even begun.