With COVID-19 Pandemic, Displaced Marawi Residents Want To Go Home Even More

Three years after the Maute group besieged and brought ruin to Marawi City, displaced residents continued to call for their return to their homes and the rehabilitation of the central district – even as the Duterte administration said it had done its job by moving all internally displaced persons (IDPs) out of evacuation centers to “transitory shelters.”

 For non-government organizations Moro Consensus Group, Al-Mujadilah Development Foundation, Inc., and Ranaw Rescue Team, the temporary shelters, although sturdier than the tent cities that sprouted when conflict erupted, are “still not home.”

 “Ever since Marawi was liberated, all we have been asking for is for our immediate, safe, and dignified return to our own homes. A lot of promises have been made, and yet, here we are. Marawi’s ground zero remains a ghost town,” read the statement posted on the Balik Marawi Facebook page.

 As the government begins its “Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa” program to disperse economic development, the groups said there should be “Balik Marawi” too and their communities should be rebuilt.

 “Task Force Bangon Marawi has repeatedly failed us. Where is the money earmarked for the rehabilitation and recovery of Marawi? What makes the process so very slow? Why is there so much bureaucratic red tape? Why is government prioritizing the building of a military garrison in Marawi over the development of our communities? Our lives and our children’s future are at stake here,” the statement read.

 “Our call – do not forget us. We simply want to stand on our own feet and rebuild our lives in the comfort of our homes. Is this too much to ask?” it added.

 The statement noted that the onslaught of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) made matters worse for the 17,000 staying in temporary shelters and the 80,000 forced to stay with relatives and host families elsewhere in the country.

 Marawi residents in Metro Manila and other urban centers lost their jobs due to the community quarantine imposed since March 17. The quarantine measures – particularly making people stay at home – are supposed to contain COVID-19 transmission.

 In the shelter sites, water supply is reported to be erratic and the queues are long, while water trucks have supposedly stopped their rations – preventing residents from doing the basic preventive step of washing their hands. The statement also noted that residents cannot practice physical distancing in the crowded shelter sites or in the houses of the families who adopted them.

 Jasliah Abas is a leader of internally displaced persons in Rorogagus Phase 2 and originally a resident of Moncado Colony. In a video shared by Balik Marawi on Facebook, she said in the local tongue that the government was not giving enough assistance; for one, she said there was no cash subsidy.

 “Some have children who are getting sick, but they do not even have money to buy medicines or diapers, or their needs especially now for Ramadan,” Abas said.

 Even worse, she bared that only the local government was now helping the displaced residents as assistance from other government agencies had stopped coming.

 “I ask of Allah for this COVID to end, and for the government to not forget the IDP, so that we can return. If not, at least compensation for the lost belongings to give us livelihood so the people will not have to rely on government assistance,” Abas appealed.

 Meanwhile, One Bangsamoro Movement, Inc. (1BANGSA) said there were Bangsamoro people outside the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao who were excluded from the distribution of COVID-19 emergency assistance by local government officials.

 It called on the displaced people to return to Lanao del Sur instead of suffering from discrimination and hunger in the National Capital Region.

 1BANGSA national president Maulana Balangi-Amer said agri-fishery industries should be set up in the area as part of preparations for the “new normal” while the COVID-19 pandemic rages on.

 The displaced residents were forced to air their grievances online, instead of the usual mass action, as COVID-19 kept most people at home. Balik Marawi started a campaign for Facebook users to put up as their profile picture an image of ground zero viewed from a keyhole.

 Oxfam Philippines said the government should heed the call of the Maranao “for a safe and dignified return to Marawi, and for the opportunity to rebuild their lives and livelihoods, even as the pandemic rages on.”

On Twitter, the International Center for Innovation, Transformation and Excellence in Governance said it “condemn(s) the government’s failure to return them safely and with dignity to their homes (and) the inhumane inaction of Task Force Bangon Marawi that has pushed the displaced of Marawi to deepening poverty and vulnerability.”

 Some officials also joined the call for action by the government.

 House Deputy Speaker and Basilan Rep. Mujiv Hataman said it might be time for a reshuffle in the leadership of Task Force Bangon Marawi because of the failure to bring the residents home during the past three years.

 “A destroyed Marawi should not be the new normal. COVID-19 or not, the rehabilitation must go on,” Hataman said.

 Zia Alonto Adiong, Bangsamoro Transition Authority parliament member for Lanao del Sur and former spokesperson for the crisis task force, said “the threat of COVID-19 makes the rebuilding and rehabilitation of Marawi City all the more urgent and necessary.”

 “Respond to the needs of those who remain displaced without adequate shelter and access to basic infrastructure needed to mitigate the spread of the virus,” Adiong said.

 Vice President Leni Robredo, in a statement on Saturday, May 23, called on government agencies to expedite their rehabilitation efforts and lamented that the Islamic city still “lies in ruins, and its people’s lives are frozen in time.”

 She also stressed the danger posed by the COVID-19 to the temporary shelter communities.

 “Marawi is not merely a tragedy to be remembered; it is an ongoing problem that needs to be solved,” she said. “Three years of inaction and neglect in Marawi is a thousand days too long.”

 However, Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM) chairperson and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council chairman Eduardo del Rosario promised that the projects will be on “full blast” only in July.

 This was after the Office of the President approved P3.56 billion in special allotment release orders during the past two months.

 “Kahit naabala tayo ng COVID-19, ang target completion na December 2021 ay ang ating pagsisikapan (Even if COVID-19 disrupted us, we will strive to meet the target completion of December 2021),” Del Rosario said in an interview with the state-run Philippine News Agency. The goal is four and a half years away from the onset of the Maute siege.

 Del Rosario issued a separate statement complaining about Robredo’s call for action, saying it was very inaccurate and unfair and accusing the political opposition of taking the third anniversary of the siege as “an opportunity to criticize the government’s efforts in Marawi.”

 Although Robredo was aware that “many of its residents remain in temporary shelter communities,” Del Rosario pointed out a field office report that “all IDPs are now housed in mostly government-built transitory shelters.”

 “With due respect to the Vice President and other members of the political opposition, the national government, particularly the TFBM, has not ceased from pursuing the massive rehabilitation of Marawi City,” Del Rosario noted. “To say that there is government inaction in Marawi City is very unfair to all who have not stopped working to continuously assist our Maranao sisters and brothers since the liberation of Marawi in October 2017 to date.”

 Del Rosario also said he “recently” ordered the release of P10.5 million to the Marawi City government to provide financial and livelihood assistance in response to COVID-19.