Marawi residents delay city’s rehab

Marawi City residents complaining about the delay in the rehabilitation of their city  have only themselves to blame.

They say that government workers have been slow in rebuilding their houses which were destroyed after Isis-inspired terrorists occupied it in May 2017.

The military retook the city after a fierce battle lasting nearly five months.

But how can government reconstruction workers go about their jobs when they are being harassed from all sides by residents demanding that their houses be attended to first?

Soldiers have to provide security to workers surveying properties in the former commercial center.

They have been threatened with bodily harm if they didn’t heed residents who demanded that their houses be given priority over others.

The nerve of these Maranaws!

In the first place, Marawi City residents didn’t inform the police and military about the presence of strangers who entered the city in droves, bringing with them arms.

Many Maranaws knew beforehand the strangers were out to create trouble for the government but they chose to remain silent because they sympathized with the terrorists.

They made their bed, they should lie in it.

If memory serves me right, during the Battle of Marawi in the early 1970s, Maranaw soldiers defected to the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) en masse.

The soldiers belonged to the now defunct Philippine Constabulary, forerunner of the Philippine National Police. They were trained in Camp Crame for assignment to Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte.

The Marcos government thought the Maranaw soldiers, who were recruited in Marawi City, would fight with government troops in case MNLF rebels attacked the city.

What’s taking the Department of Transportation so  long to start work on the New Cebu Port Project?

The project with a cost of $200 million would be funded by a loan from the Economic Development Fund and the Export-Import Bank of Korea.

Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez signed the agreement for the project with his counterpart in Seoul during President Digong’s state visit to South Korea in June.

Transportation Secretary Art Tugade was supposed to conduct a public bidding for the project last month but he did not for some reason.

Tugade should be kicked out.

He’s incompetent beyond belief.

Former Special Assistant to the President Bong Go, although trailing in the surveys for “senatoriables,” will eventually land in the top three after the ballots are counted in May 2019.

Sen. Grace Poe was at the tail end in preelection surveys when she first ran for the Senate but she ended up in the top spot after the last ballot was in.

Go, who resigned several days ago after filing his certificate of candidacy for senator, has been making his presence felt in places he goes to.

In Iba, Zambales, and Legaspi City, Albay, where he inaugurated the one-stop shop “malasakit center” in government hospitals, he was mobbed by people.