ILIGAN CITY -- Village officials of the besieged Marawi City are expectant that their constituents could go back to their respective homes in time for the 119th celebration of the Philippine Independence Day on Monday, June 12, or if not, soon after.
Thousands of Marawi residents fled their homes following the fighting that broke out between the Maute group and troops, which began on May 23.
In the wake of the skirmishes, homes and properties were destroyed as dozens were killed due to the intense fighting.
Farhina (not her real name), a resident of Barangay Bacolod Chico Proper, said she and her family are planning to go back to Marawi once the fighting stops.
“Life here in Iligan is so hard. Our house and livelihood are there in Marawi. We long to go back home. It is so expensive living here in Iligan,” she said.
Farhina said she and her family members of about 30 boarded a neighbor’s truck to flee the fighting on May 23. They have been renting an apartment in Iligan, while some of their kin are staying with relatives.
Wahab Dia, chairman of Barangay Lumbac Marinaut, said he is hopeful that Marawi can finally be cleared by Monday so the people of the city could return and begin to restart their lives.
Most of the people living in Lumbac Marinaut, a village of more than a thousand souls, are Muslim Maranaos, although there are a handful Christians who took up residence there.
Dia said he wants to have his village cleared from the armed extremists so he and the members of his council could assess the damage.
The government allocated P10 billion to rehabilitate Marawi, with the Department of National Defense leading the initiative in the rebuilding of the city ravaged by the more than two weeks of ground battle and airstrikes.
Dia said he hopes Lumbac Marinaut could avail of the rehabilitation package so the residents whose properties were devastated could be compensated and infrastructure could be rebuilt.
As the country commemorates its 119th independence, the village leaders of Marawi will join the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) officials, government executives and the state security forces in raising the Philippine flag at the Lanao del Sur Provincial Capitol, said Norhanie Marohombsar, the city director of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) in Marawi.
The military said it hoped to “liberate” Marawi from the Islamic State-linked Maute Group by June 12.
Marohombsar said the agency gathered almost all the city’s barangay chairs on Sunday, June 11, in a hotel in Iligan to brief them of Monday’s activity.
She said they have gotten in touch with all of the barangay officials of Marawi through calls and text messages, but not all of them attended the meeting since some of them have relocated to other areas such as Cagayan de Oro and Lanao del Norte.
“All of the Marawi barangay officials are accounted for,” Marohombsar said, adding that none of them were killed in the conflict.
Identification cards were also issued by the DILG to the village chiefs and several of their volunteers.
She said they are still waiting from instruction from the military if the residents can go back to their communities in Marawi.
