You remember that the Marawi siege in 2017 was the whole reason martial was imposed upon Mindanao right? Of course. How could you forget. Maranaos, people from Marawi, who were forced to flee, and of whom many are still living in refugee camps, would opine that the government has forgotten which is why it has taken so long to being rebuilding the City of Marawi. However it appears after several false starts last year that rebuilding is about to get underway in earnest.
A 117-kilogram bomb exploded around 10:42 a.m. on Wednesday underneath the Abdullah Mosque in lakeside Barangay Sabala Manaw. It had been one of the few unexploded bombs left from the five-month battle for Marawi City in 2017 that the military was disposing of.
The bomb was the ninth of 49 that the National Housing Authority (NHA), through a private contractor, had been searching for beneath the rubble of the war-ravaged city since March.
The 10th bomb, of similar size, was discovered a few meters away on Tuesday, and was set to be detonated on Saturday.
According to Roderick Ibañez, NHA Marawi project manager, the search for unexploded bombs, dropped by Air Force planes on targets in Marawi at the height of the battle, was now down to 12.
“The possible location of these are already identified although there is no conclusive determination yet if there are indeed bombs,” Ibañez said.
Apart from leading housing-related initiatives, the NHA also oversees debris clearing, said Marcelino Escalada Jr., the agency’s general manager.
The presence of unexploded bombs has bedeviled the clearing of debris in what used to be the city’s main urban and commercial district—encompassing 250 hectares with 24 barangays—where fierce fighting between government forces and Islamic State-inspired local terrorists took place in 2017.
With the debris clearing stalled, rehabilitation and reconstruction work has to wait.
For debris clearing, the main battle zone in the city was divided into nine sectors.
As of Wednesday, seven sectors had been cleared of bombs, leaving the search for the 12 unexploded bombs in only Sectors 8 and 9, both lakeside areas, Ibañez said.
The rebuilding of destroyed public infrastructure is expected to start by December.
Isn't it amazing what a lot of hard work can do? Now there are only 12 bombs left to be found. That is a considerable drop from the number given by the AFP just a few weeks ago on September 28th.
The military said that about 40 unexploded bombs still needed to be recovered from underneath the rubble of this war-ravaged city, which was still being cleared of debris almost two years after it was freed from the hands of Islamic State (IS)-linked militants.
Oamil revealed that based on information provided by the Air Force, some 70 bombs were recorded to be unexploded. Some 28 of these were already recovered since debris clearing started last March under a private contractor.
Apart from bombs, the once urban war zone is also littered with unexploded grenades, mortar and artillery shells, and improvised explosive devices.
Oamil said many of the remaining large bombs have already been located but it would take time to dig pits to expose parts of these for purposes of detonation.
And don't forget about all the unexploded grenades, mortars and artillery shells, and IED's littering the area. So an average of 4 bombs a month were discovered between March and September. Now that there are only 12 left that means they found 30 bombs in a mere 3 weeks! 10 bombs a week! Wow! How did they up their productivity? You know I don't think they did.
Sectors 1 to 7 in Marawi’s Ground Zero have been cleared of unexploded bombs, while 17 to 18 more bombs have yet to be recovered in Sectors 8 and 9, Housing Secretary and Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM) chair Eduardo del Rosario said on Thursday, October 17, the second anniversary of President Rodrigo Duterte’s declaration of Marawi as having been ”liberated from the terrorist influence.”
“If we do not see any bombs anymore, then we can declare that all sectors where bombs were delivered and did not explode were cleared already. That extends 50 meters from the intended location of the bombs,” he said, adding they have asked the contractor to “conduct one general sweep of the area to ensure we are not missing any portion of the MAA (Main Affected Area)” or Ground Zero.
At the consultation/dialogue with Marawi’s internally displaced persons (IDPs or bakwits) in mid-March this year, Del Rosario said the MAA was already 90% cleared as “more than 4,500 explosives were already recovered” but the biggest concern” is the recovery of 49 ammunitions “as big as 500-pounder” general purpose (GP) bombs.
He said the 49 GP bombs – 110, 260 and 500 pounds — are “scattered all over the MAA and that is the reason why we do not like you to go back there for your safety.”
On Thursday, Del Rosario said that during the recent assessment by the AFP and Eddmari Construction and Trading, the TFBM’s contractor for UXO and debris clearing, “we were down to 20 last month and two 260 pounders were found just last week and weeks ago. So we are down to about 17 or 18 bombs that we are looking for.”
After the press conference, MindaNews asked Del Rosario why he said the remaining bombs were “17 or 18” when Eddmari recovered only eight GP bombs.
The National Housing Authority (NHA) and Eddmari matrix on “GP bomb monitoring” as of October 10 shows 21 of the bombs were recovered by the AFP while eight were recovered by Eddmari for a total of 29 out of 70 unexploded bombs. This leaves 41 more to be recovered.
He explained the contractor, with the use of technology, scanned the area for bombs, guided by the grid coordinates from the Philippine Air Force on where they dropped the bombs that were reported not to have exploded.
He said the search was extended 50 to 100 meters from the supposed site of explosion but could not find any within 100 meters. “Sinabi nila cleared na ito” (They said this area is cleared).
(It could be that the Air force said it did not explode but there was actually a detonation. And there are incidents when they tried to retrieve it but it was found out that they could no longer penetrate 12 meters because at three meters deep, it’s already water. You cannot retrieve them anymore. So they will just neutralize that even if they didn’t get that physically), he said.
“You cannot get it anymore, like a depth of 15 meters,” he said, adding, “di ka naman magtatayo ng building doon dahil tubig na yung ilalim non” (you are not going to construct a building there because it’s water underneath).
He explained that even if they can no longer retrieve the bomb because of its depth, they would tell the lot or building owner “meron dito at depth of 15 meters in this location” (there’s one here in this location, 15 meters deep).
“Ganon na ang gagawin. Pero hindi na (kukunin). Iwasan mo na lang pagka nagpagawa sila ng kung anumang structure” (That is what we will do. Not retrieve it anymore because of the depth. Just find a way to avoid it when you have a structure built,” he told MindaNews.
The number counts are off because some of these bombs were not retrieved at all but left in place because they are buried too deep and in water. The TFBM's solution is to tell the lot or building owner the location of the bomb so that they can "just find a way to avoid it when you have a structure built."
That is absolutely crazy and not safe at all. Imagine if structures are built over unretrieved bombs and they suddenly go off? This is not an impossible scenario.
He warned that as bombs age and decay, they become more dangerous. This applies to both chemical detonator bombs like the one found in Limburg and conventional bombs, which tend to experience long-term corrosion.
Over time "this corrosion process leads to the weakening of the safety mechanisms within the bombs," Spyra explained.
A spokesman for the arms and munitions disposal service for the cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf echoed Spyra's assessment, telling DW that unexploded bombs in the ground "will not become less dangerous over time."
Unexploded bombs will not become less dangerous over time. Someone please tell that to the contractor tasked with recovering the UXO in Marawi.
“There are 40 more GP bombs pinpointed by EDDMARI Trading and Construction apparatus,” Oamil said. EDDMARI won the contract for UXO and debris clearing in Ground Zero.
Oamil added that if the GP bomb is more than 15 meters beneath the ground, “it will no longer be detonated for it is considered safe enough.”
Why bother looking for more bombs anyway? It appears that a deadline has been set and it will be met no matter what.
"On October 30, the Army will declare that MAA is safe of bombs, and on November 30, all other projects aligned in the rehabilitation will begin," he said.
On Wednesday, October 16, TFBM member-agencies led the final disposal of recovered ordnance inside the MAA.
Col. Irineo Sebastian, Task Force Builder commander, said that although clearing may not be at 100% yet, he was confident that the MAA is now safe for residents to return.
How can this be the "final disposal of recovered ordnance inside the MAA" when there are more bombs waiting to be discovered?
There are other problems besides removing bombs and clearing the area. A big issue is finding out who owns what so that buildings can be properly demolished and owners compensated. Many residents are against demolishing their homes but the Mayor of Marawi has completely disregarded their wishes.
Marawi City Majul Candamra has admitted permitting the demotion of bomb-ruined structures in three sectors of his city’s most affected area (MAA), saying the permit issuance was necessary in “a judgment call” to jumpstart the much-delayed reconstruction and rehabilitation works in the area.
The mayor clarified that the permit was meant for “public structures” such as market buildings and the like, not the private buildings of residents opposed to demolition or clearing.
Gandamra also explained that if there were private buildings included in the demolition, such case could also be a “judgment call” on the part of the National Housing Authority (NHA), a lead member-agency of task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM), which contracted demolition workers.
The mayor said the permit was issued “about three or four months ago” on the recommendation of authorities “from the ground,” particularly the NHA and the EDDMARI firm contracted to undertake the clearing operation. He said he was “surprised” that protesting residents complained “only now.”
But residents belonging to the Moro Consensus Group (MCG) argued that their delayed reaction was due to the “absence of transparency and public consultation” in the activities of the TFBM and the city government in the implementation of reconstruction and rehabilitation works in the war-torn city.
MCG leader Drieza Abaton-Lininding posted on Facebook on Monday a copy of the undated city permit signed by Mayor Gandamra and Engineers Almera M. Campong and Sirad M. Dalidig, heads of the office of building officials and city engineering departments, respectively.
Lininding in his post urged higher authorities, including the Bangsamoro autonomous government, to “stop the illegal” demolition of private buildings, especially those owned by displaced residents who have not given consent on the clearing drive. He warned about his group’s stance to hold city and TFBM officials accountable for the alleged arbitrary acts.
He also posted aerial photos showing Sectors 6, 8, and 9 of Marawi’s MAA completely cleared of both public and private structures.
The Mayor says the permits were only to demolish public buildings and if any private buildings were demolished it was a "judgement call" made by the NHA and the TFBM. Residents counter that there has been no transparency or pubic consultation in the rehabilitation of the city. This is not the first time the NHA has been accused of illegal practices. Charges were filed agin both them and Eddmari Construction, the company tasked with bomb removal, back in May.
A complaint has been filed before the Office of the Ombudsman against officials of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and National Housing Authority (NHA) due to the rehabilitation mess in Marawi City.
Datu Meno Manabilang, representative of the Voice of Marawi Internally Displaced Persons Association (IDPs), filed the complaint against NHA General Manager Marcelino Escalada Jr., NHA SBAC Chair Victor Balba, and HUDCC Chair Eduardo Del Rosario.
He likewise included CJI General Services Inc. directors Jimmy Francis Hinch, Barry Jim Hinch, Julius Joseph Beredo, Noel Mendoza, and Harry Cuevas as well as Eddmari Construction and Trading representative Engr. Edgardo Sagum in the complaint.
Manabilang said in the complaint that the NHA had “bungled the full rehabilitation of Marawi City” since it has not yet awarded a proper and valid contract for demolition nearly two years after the war has ended.
“To make matters worse, NHA and the persons impleaded in this complaint have colluded and conspired to cover up their crimes by committing more violations of the procurement law by giving undue advantage to favored contractors,” the complaint read.
Eddmari is most certainly a favoured contractor which has been awarded many jobs by the government.
An eighth company, Eddmari Construction, had apparently also secured contracts to build transitional shelter units in Marawi, according to a PCIJ source. But no records covering these transactions have been disclosed by the NHA, and none could be found on PhilGEPS either.
Eddmari is a top NHA contractor. In 2017 alone, it implemented at least P962 million worth of projects covered by just three contracts. It is No. 9 out of 325 companies that won contracts in NHA, PCIJ analysis of PhilGEPS data show.
A triple-A contractor, Eddmari is based in San Luis, Pampanga and is owned by an Edgardo A. Sagum.
Officials of Task Force Bangon Marawi, as well as a report of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) on Nov. 16, 2017, named Eddmari Construction as one of the contractors of the project in Barangay Sagonsongan.
PIA, the government's official news agency, wrote that in the area, "there are three contractors building transitional houses, namely Excelsius, Golden State (sic) Construction, and Eddmari Construction."
PIA also named other contractors who had been "granted to work on land development of the site” as “MMA/Achiever, Fiat Construction, City Government of Marawi, Al-Hussein Construction, and Kouzbary Builders."
Yet again, no documents on the notices and award of bids for these other company names could be found on the much-touted "transparency" websites of the NHA, DPWH, PhilGEPS, and the local governments of Marawi City and Lanao del Sur.
Eddmari was also sued back in 2016 for irregular contracts issued by the DPWH.
Former Mayor Jerry Pelayo and a certain Daniel Gallardo filed a joint complaint-affidavit before the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) against Representative Juan Pablo “Rimpy” Bondoc (Pampanga, 4th district) and other individuals for alleged plunder involving “irregular, sub-standard construction projects” in Candaba town.
Pelayo and Gallardo also included in the criminal and administrative complaint former Mayor Rene Maglanque and Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Regional Director Antonio Molano. The complaint also included DPWH department heads and officers of private contractors EddMari Construction, Ferdstar and Northern Builders.
“There were several irregular, substandard construction projects in Candaba, all with the full knowledge and consent of Congressman Bondoc and former Mayor Maglanque,” the two alleged. Some of the projects, according to Pelayo, have shown signs of substandard construction while others remain not fully constructed.
The two said that from 2013 to 2016, there were several projects amounting to billions of pesos, which were bidded out even after the election ban and were allegedly utilized to fund the campaign of the Liberal Party.
The said projects include the P100-million Malisic River Project, the Maasim Dam/River Project Candaba-San Miguel Road Widening Project, Arayat-Apalit Setback Levee, Pulong Plazan Barit Road, Bomba Bridge, Mandasig Revetment and Candaba-Baliuag Road.
“These are all useless, worthless projects, whose only objective in its construction is to milk money out of public funds,” the two complainants alleged.
The two added that the said projects were all awarded by the DPWH regional office to a single construction firm under EddMari allegedly owned by one Edgardo Sagum a few days before the election ban.
“The projects in the area were all awarded to the same construction firm by DPWH but to date, no project has been completed by the firm,” said Pelayo.
It's not as if anyone expected the rebuilding of Marawi to be corruption free but at least they could extract all the bombs and not leave them buried just because they are too deep.
