By Carolyn O. Arguillas
MindaNews
MARAWI City — The three-floor building on the left side of the Lanao del Sur Provincial Capitol in Marawi City, is referred to by locals as “Titanic” because when it was completed, its size reminded them of Titanic the ship. Unlike the Titanic which passengers abandoned to save their lives, this “Titanic” has been a refuge of residents who fled their homes to escape death from the now 39-day clashes between government forces and the Maute Group.
“Titanic” is also where the Joint Coordinating, Monitoring and Assistance Center (JCMAC) of the Government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (GPH-MILF) Peace Corridor joined families of evacuees: it collapsed its tent under the trees in front of the capitol as the danger of getting hit by stray bullets was increasing by the day.
Around 20 slugs from .50 caliber guns were recovered near and around the tent. A branch of the nearest tree providing them shade was hit by a stray bullet.
The JCMAC moved to the ground floor of the “Titanic” on June 20, in a storeroom that Vice Governor Mamintal Adiong, Jr. had ordered cleared for the Peace Corridor’s use.
The erstwhile storeroom has become a “story room.”
Every day since the JCMAC moved to “Titanic,” the office has been receiving visitors whose loved ones remain trapped or missing, inquiring about the next rescue operations.
Last Sunday morning, immediately after attending the Eid’l Fitr congregational prayer in the mosque beside the “Titanic,” Camalia Baunto, 42, begged Dickson Hermoso, a retired Army Colonel who is now Assistant Secretary at the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, to allow her to join the rescue teams.
The mother of six had not seen her husband Nixon since May 24 when he returned to their house in Barangay West Marinaut to get some important things. Although they kept communicating by phone and by text message, she had lost contact with him since June 14.
Camalia hopes it is only because her husband’s phone battery is dead.
“Sir, please,” she asked Hermoso, the focal person of the government in the GPH-MILF Peace Corridor.
Missing husbands
On Saturday night, government declared an eight-hour “humanitarian pause” from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday, and reciprocated by the Maute Group, in deference to Eid’l Fitr, the end of the month-long Ramadan.
Camalia narrated their ordeal since the Marawi Crisis began on May 23, breaking into tears almost every time she mentioned her husband. (mindanews)
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