By FROILAN GALLARDO
Special Correspondent .
MARAWI City – After a year of living with their relatives and evacuation camps, Marawi residents displaced by the fighting last year say they have enough of government promises.
Restive residents and students marched toward the “Main Affected Area” demanding for the government to allow them to return and rebuild their destroyed home.
“Please, let us go home!” the residents and students cried as they marched toward the bridge in Pumping station.
“If the government cannot afford to rebuild our homes, then they should allow us to return and rebuild our homes by ourselves,” said Marawi leader Agakhan Sharief.
Sharief said residents are deeply frustrated especially that the government has yet to demolish a single building at the Main Affected Area and start the promised rehabilitation.
“We do not believe that the unexploded ordnance is the reason. Why won’t the government be candid enough to admit they have no money,” Sharief said.
The rehabilitation of the city has become a thorny issue among the residents who have spent a year living with their relatives or in the squalid conditions of the evacuation camps.
The scheduled ground breaking has been postponed several times in the past much to the chagrin of residents who were hoping that earthen works has started.
In a statement, Task Force Bangon Secretariat head Falconi Millar announced the postponement of the ground breaking ceremony scheduled on Tuesday.
President Duterte, Milla said, would have lead the ceremony but suddenly became unavailable.
Millar said the ground breaking ceremony will be moved on Oct. 28 when President Duterte “became available.”
TFBM field office manager Felix Castro Jr. apologized for the delay.
“We ask the residents to be patient with us,” he said.
Castro assured the residents that the rehabilitation program is backed by funds from the Department of Finance contrary to fears.
“We will not start unless there is no money backing it,” Castro said.
International Committee of Red Cross Iligan field manager Meher Khatcherian said there is an apparent lack of information exchange between affected residents and government agencies.
“It is this lack of information that cause tension between the two,” he said.
Khatcherian said based on the ICRC figures, there are still over 65,000 Marawi residents who cannot go back to their homes in the 24 barangays in the Main Affected Area.
He said over 20,000 residents live in tents in various evacuation centers and the rest lives with the houses of relatives not affected by the war.
“Both groups however suffer the same problems. They are tired of the situation. They have been displaced for a year with no certainty of going back to their lives,” Khatcherian said.
Faykha Khayriyyah ALonto Ala, 18, a freshman at Mindanao State University, aired her sentiments.
“We were glad and grateful that we were housed in tents when we fled our homes in the city. Temporary shelters to rest our weary mind and souls, we thought. But it has been almost a year and a half since then. A long, long one and a half years,” Ala said.
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