MARAWI OPS A team of soldiers from the Philippine Marines makes sure that a section of the city center of Marawi has been cleared of gunmen in this photo taken in September 2017. —JEOFFREY MAITEM
MANILA, Philippines — The budget allotted for the Marawi rehabilitation from 2018 to 2020 is just 28 percent of the P60.506 billion needed to fully restore the war-torn Islamic city.
This emerged during the interpellation of Lanao del Norte 1st District Rep. Mohamad Khalid Dimaporo to Department of Budget and Management Acting Secretary Wendel Avisado during the House appropriations committee budget briefing, Thursday.
Avisado said the funding given for Marawi rehabilitation in 2018 and 2019 were P10 billion and P3.5 billion, respectively. Another P3.5 billion was earmarked for the rehabilitation under the P4.1 trillion proposed National Expenditure Plan of the DBM.
In total, a measly P17 billion was allocated for the restoration of the city destroyed by fighting between the government forces and the ISIS-inspired Maute group in May 2017. This is far behind the P60.5 billion needed to fully revamp the area.
“So we’ve established that we’re not even halfway in terms of funding the rehabilitation of Marawi,” Dimaporo lamented.
Dimaporo also called “pitiful” Avisado’s confirmation that the utilization rate of the Task Force Bangon Marawi was “less than 10 percent.”
Meanwhile, the total budget allotted for the Duterte administration’s ambitious “Build, Build, Build” program was P972.5 billion for 2020 alone.
READ: Marawi still a ghost town 2 years after siege ended
In April, President Rodrigo Duterte said he would let rich businessmen spend for the full restoration of Marawi, admitting that his government could not do it, as promised.
“I don’t think that I should be spending for their buildings,” Duterte said in a speech in Pampanga.
“The people there have a lot of money,” he added in Filipino. “Every Maranao, there is a businessman. Those who are into shabu are included. They have money. The debate there is whether I would be also building the same kind that they lost. I don’t think I am ready for that.”