Marawi residents can make proposals on city rehabilitation — Palace

A resident collects salvageable belongings from her destroyed house during a visit to the main battle area in Marawi City, in southern island of Mindanao on April 1, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / TED ALJIBE

Marawi residents would be given chance to submit their own plans on how to rebuild their shattered city, Malacañang assured on Monday.

Senior Deputy Exec. Sec. Menardo Guevarra said that there was a “sort of misunderstanding” in the plan to rebuild the war-torn city, which the Ranaw Multi-Sectoral Movement called as an “invasion of different kind.”

“I’m sure that residents themselves will be given an opportunity to make their own proposals on how to rehabilitate their own city. Baka naman mayroon lang kaunting (There may be)… you know, sort of misunderstanding or hindi naman ganoon talaga ang ibig sabihin ‘no (or it’s not what it means),” Guevarra said in a press briefing.

In a statement on Friday, the Ranaw Multi-Sectoral Movement urged President Rodrigo Duterte to stop the plan of establishing an ecozone and 10-hectare military camp in Marawi, after being flattened by five months of fighting between government forces and Islamic State-inspired fighters.

The group claimed that the blueprint presented to residents on March 21 to 22 by Task Force Bangon Marawi was made without people’s participation, leaving out cultural and historical considerations.

“Those who came to present the plan dismissed our comments, recommendations, and protestations as though we knew nothing and have no business getting involved in rebuilding our very own city,” the group said in a statement.

READ: Stop ecozone, military camp plan in Marawi, group asks Duterte

Guevarra said it would be “too early to say” if Duterte would act on the group’s request, noting that the Palace would leave it up to the Task Force to consider the request.

He said that the government would respect cultural and historical aspects in the rebuilding of Marawi, and at the same time, improve the city’s condition.

“But I doubt it very much whether you know the residents themselves of the city will not even be consulted on a manner by which their city will have to be rehabilitated,” he said.

“So when you are restoring something, you are bringing it back to its condition before ‘no, of course with much improvement but essentially iyong pagiging essence of Marawi City as a Muslim City will have to be taken into account in the restoration process,” he added. /je