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Friday, March 29, 2024

A war without the rubble: Marawi a year after

Rohaina Magarang walks down a few steps from Tent No. 2136 in Sarimanok II Tent Shelter to check on her father. The elderly man, paralyzed from the waist down, has just been transferred to the shelter in Marawi from a hospital in Cagayan de Oro. Camp authorities refuse to give aid to ailing evacuees unless they’re brought to the shelter, so Rohaina saved all the money she could to afford transportation expenses.  The old man tries to tell something to his daughter but has difficulty in doing so. He breaks down in tears. Rohaina elicits the same response.

Rohaina inside her father’s tent in Sarimanok II Tent Shelter. Photo screengrabbed from Tudla Productions’ video.

Like thousands of displaced Moros following the war between elements of Daulah Islamiyah and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Rohaina is hopeful that her family could set foot in war-torn Marawi once again. Life inside the tents can be dreary.

The entrance to Sarimanok II in Marawi City.
A child approaches her family’s tent in Sarimanok II.

“Food rations will run low again, now that Ramadan is over” Rohaina says.

Eid’l Fitr has just passed, and while the three-day tradition is marked by lavish meals, gift-giving, and grand festivities, the families inside the tent shelter shared a modest iftar at sundown.

Rohaina recalls that last year, it was days before the start of the Holy Month of Ramadan that the fighting in Marawi began. Displaced Muslims spent Ramadan and Eid’l Fitr in evacuation centers, many of them separate from their families. One year on, they have not yet returned to their homes.

Rohaina preparing her family’s lunch outside their tent. She supplements their needs by planting vegetables.

The government says many of the internally displaced persons have returned to the 24 barangays in Marawi most affected by the siege. Task Force Bangon Marawi pegs the number of displaced families at 42,252, with 45 evacuation centers still in operation. More are staying with relatives in home-based centers across the Lanao provinces.

The Sarimanok II tent shelter houses around 200 families.

A woman passes by the row of tents in Sarimanok II. Tents are placed side by side, giving little privacy for familes.
Children peek out from inside their tents. Most parents have not yet been able to send their children to school this June.
A young man takes care of his 10-month-old niece. Infants who were born during or after the Marawi siege are nicknamed “baby bakwits” by their relatives.
A woman inside a tent she shares with another family. They furnish their tents with household items they managed to salvage from Ground Zero. Some items like pots and chairs are riddled with bullets.

From professional and middle class workers, they are relegated to receiving food aid from the government and from non-government donors. Some tents are shared by two or more families. The evacuees have resorted to generating different kinds of livelihood to buy soap, matches, and other essentials.

“How do we cope with lack of livelihood in the tent shelter?” Rohaina returns our question. She tells us that she buys malong (traditional wrap-around tubular garments), cuts them to small pieces, and sews them into wallets to sell in the city.

Her husband, Olawan, wants sustainable livelihood for those living in tent cities. “If only the government would provide farming inputs, then we would put our bodies to work. I don’t mind if I’m 60 years old. We are very hungry for any kind of work just so we could send our children to school,” he says.

Some families supplement food rations by planting tomatoes, chili peppers, and onion.
Other residents have saved enough money as capital for a ‘sari-sari’ store.
Some were able to salvage their tricycles amid clashes in the city last year.
Others collect plastic bottles to sell at junk shops.

They are lucky if nearby relatives give them rice, chickens, or vegetables. “If not for their help, we would be eating canned sardines for breakfast, canned sardines for lunch, and some more canned sardines for dinner. I could do that for a week, maybe, but for my family to eat canned food and noodles everyday for a month, no, I couldn’t bear that thought,” one man shares.

A young father cooks a native chicken given by relatives residing in a nearby town.

Water doesn’t come in abundantly, either. Delivery trucks refill their tanks once every day, not quite enough for the several thousand individuals who cook, bathe, and wash at the shelter.

According to Sarimanok II residents, moves are underway to transfer them to relatively stronger housing units like the ones in Sagonsongan, but they want more transparency as to when and how they could relocate.

“We can’t get any sleep when it rains around here. We’re afraid the winds would blow our tents away,” says an elderly man.

An elderly resident outside the tent he shares with his grandchild. He was separated from his children during the Marawi siege.
Displaced residents expect to be transferred in temporary housing units like the one in Sagonsongan.

Task Force Bangon Marawi has recently presented slides of the master plan for Marawi’s most affected areas, with officials estimating the total rehabilitation cost to be P51.6 billion. President Duterte gave his government a four-year period to complete all rehabilitation efforts in Marawi.

Members of the Maute Group or Daulah Islamiyah burned buildings and houses, but it was the heavy airstrikes by the Philippine armed forces that left the Islamic City in rubble.

Ambitious as they may be, Olawan fears that the government’s “undemocratic” process of rebuilding Marawi will leave the residents behind. They are wary of donations coming in from the U.S. and Chinese governments as these would entail awarding business contracts to them. For so long, Marawi has supported local merchants and their businesses. Foreign establishments could eat up residents’ small and medium enterprises.

Plans for the construction of a military camp are also underway, apart from the existing 103rd Brigade headquarters.

“With most Meranaws not having titles for our properties, how can the government assure us that we would reclaim our land?” Olawan asks, angered at the thought of businesses or the government taking over their ancestral land.

“The Philippine media should hear the stories of the ordinary residents, not just the authorities and the experts,” Olawan adds. “Not everything is well in here.”

Rohaima, Olawan, and the hundreds of thousands of displaced residents of Marawi may have come out of the crossfire alive, but their everyday struggle for food, livelihood, and adequate shelter for their fundamental rights and dignity  is a battle they continue to wage.

The post A war without the rubble: Marawi a year after appeared first on Manila Today.

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