Martial Law: Groundbreaking

Last year just after the Marawi siege ended DND Sec. Lorenzana predicted a return to normalcy within two months. 

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/10/27/1753057/lorenzana-normalcy-marawi-2-months

This, of course, did not happen. The city first had to be cleared of bombs and only very slowly were refugees allowed to return to the rubble of their homes. It is already August 2018 and rebuilding has not even started yet. 

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/661591/marawi-rehab-to-start-in-august-or-september-task-force-chief/story/

Negotiations with the Chinese-led Bangon Marawi Consortium, which the task force initially selected, failed early in June. 

“Unfortunately, ‘yung na-select namin initially was not able to comply sa requirements natin on financial and technical,” Del Rosario noted. 

Bangon Marawi Consortium consists of five Chinese and four Filipino companies, including China State Construction Engineering Corp. Ltd., Anhui Huali Construction Group Co. Ltd., China Geo Engineering Corp., TBEA Co. Ltd., Shandong Jinyuan Homes Industry Development Co. Ltd., Future Homes PH Inc., A. Brown Co. Inc., HS Pow Construction Inc., and SD Realty & Development Inc.  

China State Construction Engineering Corp. and China Geo Engineering Corp. were blacklisted in 2009 by the World Bank for supposedly colluding with local companies in rigging the bidding of road projects partly financed by the multilateral lender in 2004. 

The Palace has said that the blacklisted firms deserve a “second chance.”  

Now that Bangon Marawi is out of the picture, Del Rosario said the TFBM is in talks with the Power Construction Corp. of China or PowerChina, the second company that expressed its intent to participate in the Marawi rehabilitation. 

“Definitely, the end result of the negotiation is the conferment of the original proponent status. And then once it is conferred, the following day it is published and the Swiss Challenge starts,” Del Rosario said.

Del Rosario said the rehabilitation will be completed by the last quarter of 2021. 

“We are very confident that even with the ground breaking in August, September, or October ... we can complete the rehabilitation of Marawi by December of 2021,” he said.

The government was really negotiating with a blacklisted Chinese firm to rebuild Marawi. Why would they even pick them in the first place? It is already the last week of August and there is no word if anyone has been chosen yet and since foreign companies are still expressing interest in this venture it is likely that no firm has been chosen and the start and completion dates will be pushed back farther and farther.

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/169271/indonesian-south-korean-firms-show-interest-marawi-rehab

“We are receiving some information and in fact some big developers, actually mga from Indonesia and South Korea, they have signified their intention to participate in the rehabilitation,” Task Force Bangon Marawi chairperson Eduardo del Rosario said in a briefing. 

“We have immediate back up just in case there will be a failure of negotiation again,” Del Rosario told reporters in Marawi City. 

The government is currently in talks with Chinese-owned developer PowerChina (Power Construction Corporation of China) for rebuilding the war-torn city. 

Negotiations with the first developer, Chinese-led Bagong Marawi Consortium, failed last June because it did not meet the “legal, financial and technical requirements.” 

“I was told by the selection committee this week that today they will know the exact time table; and if ever the negotiation will be successful or not,” del Rosario said. 

He said it would be known by next week if the negotiations with PowerChina will be successful or not. 

“If reached, we can give you our definite time table of groundbreaking and eventual rehabilitation of the most affected area,” he added. 

Despite the delay in choosing the developer, Del Rosario believes that the rehabilitation remains on track with its schedule — the groundbreaking ceremony is set on Sept. 19 and will be completed by Dec. 2021.

How can there be a groundbreaking ceremony if there is no company to develop the city? A ceremony will be empty and meaningless if there is no one to rebuild the city.  This is not the first time groundbreaking has been moved.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/654200/palace-satisfied-with-pace-of-marawi-city-rehabilitation/story/

"We are even ahead of schedule pagdating po doon sa mga rebuilding of the communities...ang importante po 70 percent of the residents have gone back to Marawi are occupying homes that we built for them and life goes on for a greater majority of the residents of Marawi."

Groundbreaking is expected to be held in June. 

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/656164/groundbreaking-of-marawi-city-rehab-moved-to-july/story/

However, Task Force Bangon Marawi chairperson Eduardo del Rosario said Friday the government is still finalizing its negotiation with the Bangon Marawi Consortium, which proposed to rebuild the most affected area for P16 billion.

“And if there will be a successful negotiation that would be declared by Monday [June 11], then on Tuesday [June 12] the Swiss challenge will start,” Del Rosario told reporters in Malacañang.

It's deja vu! If there is a successful negotiation then the Swiss challenge can start the next day. Will Del Rosario be quoted saying that for a third or forth time as the search for a developer continues? What a mess. All because the government is seeking help from foreign firms, one of which was BLACKLISTED BY THE WORLD BANK!! Is it any wonder the first choice did not meet legal and financial requirements? 

With all the difficulty of the government in finding a firm to rebuild the city it might be best to leave it in the hands of the people of Marawi. After all it is their city and they definitely do not want outsiders coming in and dictating to them how their city will be rebuilt. They want the old one back.

http://usa.inquirer.net/14964/visiting-bangsamoro-leaders-seek-safe-dignified-return-maranaws-homes

Transitional justice under the newly signed Bangsamoro Organic Law should tackle first and foremost the bombing of Marawi and its aftermath—not only the plight of some 80,000 people still unable to return to their homes and about 1,000 missing persons, but also the cultural loss to the Maranaws from a war that was so unexpected and many feel uncalled for. 

“They bombed our mosques, they bombed our madrasas, they bombed our schools. How can we go back to normalcy if these things are not restored? Marawi is not an ordinary land for us. These are also serving as the grave of our forefathers,” said Tirmizy Abdullah, associate professor at Mindanao State University, at a forum held here August 3. 

Titled “Understanding violent extremism in the midst of peace prospects in Mindanao,” the forum was organized by the New York chapter of Nonviolence International, a group that is engaged in capacity-building efforts among the Bangsamoro people through its Southeast Asia chapter. 

Abdullah said he was speaking at the forum as one of the thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) who feel left out in the cold by the Philippine government, which is negotiating with investors on the rehabilitation of the most affected area of Marawi. 

“It is very clear that what the Philippine government is doing when it comes to rehabilitation is not community-led,” he said. 

“People [are] coming from outside of Marawi, coming to us and telling us this is what is good for you—we’ll build condominiums in the city, we will get Chinese money. So the entire framework of rehabilitation is very problematic, it is not community-led and the people of Marawi are one in opposing that one,” Abdullah added, saying that Maranaws found the current approach “very insulting and very unfortunate.” 

Samira Gutoc, resigned Bangsamoro transition commissioner, told the forum that Maranaws want the government to finish clearing Marawi’s most affected area of bombs so that they can start rebuilding their lives. 

“Our challenge to the security sector is now to remove the bombs that you put in our community—600 days later, 70 bombs are still to be found and is preventing us from returning home. After 600 days, and you bombed our community in three days—why would it take that long, sir? Please tell me. It was easy for you to bomb our community, but it’s hard for you to pull out what you bombed us with?” Gutoc said. 

Describing the hardship of IDPs living in evacuation centers or with relatives, she narrated how babies did not survive the heat in Iligan City because they were accustomed to much cooler climate in Marawi City, which is about 600 meters above sea level. 

It was also a culture shock for many women. “Can you imagine living your whole life in a house that’s your own built from every peso, and then you have to live where comfort rooms are shared with everybody? So it was the first time for many women to be able to share a comfort room with other women that they didn’t know. In the culture that kind of is very conservative—you’ve never seen other people, you’ve never met other people because you’re just stuck in your house with your cousins who are your only exposure in your life, it was disconcerting. It was really a different experience altogether,” Gutoc said. 

She revealed that many walked 39 kilometers to reach safety in Iligan City because public transportation simply froze during the Marawi siege, with public utility drivers also busy trying to get their own families out of danger. 

“There was no siren, there was no public announcement, there was no advisory, there was no megaphone saying to go from here to where, no direction. So from zero persons walking to half a million people, more than the population of Marawi, which meant the nearby provinces of the nearby municipalities of Marawi had to also leave the city because some of the air strikes were also affecting already them. 

“So this is not Afghanistan, this is not Syria, this is the democratic capital of Asia. [The] Philippines is your small America, we were your colony for 40 years, you introduced James Bond to us and all. But then, what happened, what happened?” Gutoc told the audience in New York. 

“All the tactics—naval force, air force, water force, every force that was existing in the Philippines was brought to a small community, a small village-like community that had no malls, no access to wifi, couldn’t call out for help as much, didn’t have newspapers—no, that wasn’t our privilege. We couldn’t tell our story but every day was the story of how our houses were bombed and you could read it, guys, because you have strong wifi. We didn’t know what was happening with our kin,” she added. 

Flashing a slide showing how much the Philippine government has spent for wars in Mindanao, which have led to more than 100,000 dead during each regime since Marcos’ time, Gutoc warned of dire consequences of what she referred to as “war games.” 

“Historically, we’ve spent for war, but we’ve spent less for schools. We live in Marawi, Lanao where there’s no wifi. How can we download information? How can we learn without books and libraries? After 600 years of our existence as a people, 600 years of Bangsamoro, you spent PHP200 billion every president for war,” she said. 

Drieza Lininding, chairman of the Moro Consensus Group (MCG) and the third speaker at the forum, described himself as a DDS, “dating Duterte supporter” (former Duterte supporter), and teared up when a video of Marawi was shown, saying, “We miss our home.” 

Formed four months before the Marawi siege, the MCG had documented incidents involving the Maute terrorist group a year before the siege. MCG is seeking a congressional inquiry because it believes the widespread destruction could have been prevented had the Philippine government taken the threats more seriously. 

“While we took all the beatings, we sacrificed a lot, we also are the ones being blamed—that we coddled this [Maute] group, that we welcomed this group. It’s on record—we can prove this, that’s why it is very important to have an inquiry—[that] during the siege and the day after that, May 24, our local leaders, our barangay leaders, went to the military camp and t proposed that the military, the government to allow us Maranaws, the barangay and their volunteers, to take up arms and they will be the one to engage this terrorist group who occupied some barangays in Marawi City. And also some of our mayors including the governors went to the military that we should be allowed to take up arms. But the military, the government rejected that offer,” he said. 

He added that religious leaders and civil society leaders had initiated talks with the Maute group, which seemed open at first to leaving Marawi City. “In fact, in the earlier days, they [were] more open to abandon Marawi City because for them, it’s just more of a propaganda. They just want to hoist the flag of ISIS there and to show to the world that they occupied this place, but some of them are not really that serious. Some of them also didn’t expect the kind of response that they [got] from the government,” Lininding said.

This is a very interesting article since it is not often the public hears from the side of citizens of Marawi. One almost feels sympathetic for them but then you remember that these people did indeed coddle the Maute group if not outright welcome them. Presidential peace advisor Dureza is on record admitting that is what Marawi citizens told him.

"When martial law ... Marawi because many people were shocked, people from Marawi, even the Moro people. They never thought that they themselves wold become victims of violent extremists. They knew that many are members of their own clan.  They know them. They knew that they were moving firearms for a long time, they had been stockpiling up firearms. But when I asked the evacuees "Bakit di nyo sinabi yan?" (Why didn't you tell us?) "Sir, akala namin, kapwa Muslim hindi kami bibiktimahin" (We thought they would spare us because we are also Muslims).” 

https://philippinefails.blogspot.com/2018/05/intelligence-failures-and-prior.html

When this lady Gutoc tells her sob stories of hardship it is impossible to feel anything but disdain as this is a situation the citizens of Marawi created for themselves by knowing about the activities of the Maute group and telling no one. Did they really think city leaders would be able to talk this group into leaving? They stockpiled a massive amount of weapons and were able to hold the city for 5 months! They had no intent on leaving. The fact that city leaders tried to talk Maute into leaving only implicates them in having prior knowledge of this attack. What incidents involving Maute did the MCG document? What did they know? What did they do with that knowledge? Just more pieces of information which need to be investigated if an investigation is ever initiated by the Senate.

Are the people of Marawi really surprised that their city was blown to rubble? It was a war. It IS a war. For decades now there has been war and it has not been instigated by the government. Why do they blame the government but not the terrorists who held the city hostage? The Philippine government is not the one going around kidnapping people and blowing up people and waging a campaign of terror on Filipinos. It's their fellow Muslims who continue to do so.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1023610/7-biff-slain-in-new-offensives-in-maguindanao-military

Abubakar reportedly headed one of the three BIFF factions that had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. 

The group had been moving around the marshland, using wooden motorized boats, and relying on farmers and fishermen’s forced taxation in the guise of “zakat,” an annual obligatory contribution of Muslims under Islamic laws, to be used for charitable and religious purposes.

http://dwdd.com.ph/2018/08/24/encounter-troops-engages-local-terror-group-in-sulu/

Marawi may still be a pile of rubble and people might still be displaced and living in tents or fabricated homes but at least elections are about to get underway.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1024521/filing-of-candidacy-for-village-sk-polls-in-marawi-starts

That's a start.