DAVAO CITY – More than the rehabilitation of Marawi City, a group of civil society organizations (CSO) is now demanding compensation from government for properties damaged and lives lost in the 2017 siege to retake the city from the control of ISIS-supported Maute group.
The CSOs were disappointed that President Duterte’s State of the Nation Address (Sona) last Monday did not mention anything about the compensation they are seeking from the government.
The newly established CSO Marawi Compensation Advocates (CSO-MCA) said its clamor for the government to compensate internally displaced people (IDP) of Marawi would “overshadow” the Sona of President Duterte, whom they said “oversaw the conduct of the war” in Marawi City.
“The imagery of death and destruction coupled with the poverty of action to provide compensation has dwarfed other critical issues in Mindanao, including the political demand for NO-EL or no election in the Bangsamoro,” said Ding Cali, director of the Kalimudan sa Ranao Foundation Inc.
The Marawi Reconstruction Conflict Watch, for its part, said the President and Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM) should fast-track their efforts to bring thousands of families home.
However, they lamented that the Marawi compensation bill has not been certified as an urgent piece of legislation. The bill, the group said, was filed to rebuild their lives and re-establish trust in government.
“This is a rebuke to the hundreds of thousands of Maranaos who continue to suffer just because they were caught in the middle of a war not of their own making,” the group, composed of local experts that monitor the rehabilitation process, said.
International Alert Philippines agreed and said the national government should not forget the IDP in Marawi because they too are Filipinos and should be part of government’s vision for the country.
“The Marawi people have time and again said: Don’t forget Marawi, we are Filipinos too. Make the compensation bill a priority,” International Alert Philippines said.
CSO-MCA claimed that the demand for compensation for the damages and lives lost in the May to October 2017 siege was aired by the evacuees during consultation with them by their member organizations.
In the first week of July, Cali said, the newly established coalition of 15 CSOs and alliances in Marawi City asked Congress to expedite the passage of the Marawi compensation bill and urged the President to state unequivocally his support for compensation in his Sona speech.
“This is our plea to our President and lawmakers, to certify the passing of the compensation bill as urgent, so that we might have some justice for what happened in Marawi,” he said.
Del Rosario’s pledge
TFBM Chairman Secretary Eduardo Del Rosario, for his part, assured President Duterte that the rehabilitation of public infrastructure in Marawi City would be completed within his term.
This after President Duterte’s call for the task force to hasten efforts in rebuilding the country’s lone Islamic city during his Sona.
Del Rosario said TFBM is already 70 percent to 75 percent complete in the overall rehabilitation works. He expects that by December, a substantial number of projects will be completed as embodied in the master development plan.
“On behalf of Task Force Bangon Marawi and our 56 implementing agencies, I would like to assure . . . President Duterte and our Maranao brothers and sisters that we will complete the rehabilitation of all major infrastructures in Marawi City within his administration,” Del Rosario said.
Last week, the TFBM chief visited Marawi, and spearheaded the awarding of 170 more permanent shelters to families of IDP.