Partial return

Samira Ali Gutoc

ILIGAN City — Assalam. For lack of time, here are my open forum inputs during the Department of Health’s Task Force on Return to Marawi Planning on Friday.

After that fateful day, May 23, when government had no forced evacuation plan, thank you for this return plan (to nine barangays in the safe areas involving at least 5,000 families). Thank you for the preparations and readiness. A belated thank you to all your work and efforts. We thank the soldiers who have departed Marawi, saw their fellows perish.

We urge this process to be civilian-led without discounting the Armed Forces of the Philippines leadership on the ground as Joint Task Force Ranaw continues to manage martial law. Let civilians work this time, on all governance needs so we go back to normalcy and our lives while noting the need for bayanihan for the rest of the war zone evacuees.

We urge coordination by all, especially stakeholders, and thank you for the plan to have two barangay consultations.

Right now in our civil society organizations chatroom, some are offering assistance to accompany concerned barangays. The Prelature of Marawi will even support and provide the logistics of some evacuees returning.

We thank the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for the cash assistance coming. We ask that a fastlane be set up to release the amount for personnel, rescuers, imams and crisis service workers.

We recommend the following:

• one stop shop as Mahogany Hills action center is distant — one date for evacuees to converge and fill out requirements to enter Marawi in an accessible location;
• information systems – activate Wifi signals in Marawi, hotlines, advisories through social media, text, etc.; and
• calendar of return be posted, announced (on planned one barangay per day).

We remind the seats needed for bakwit and CSO to be part of decision-making for the whole rehabilitation reconstruction recovery process.

We thank you again, Wassalam, thank you Almighty. We are in support of these efforts.

On a side note, I agree with Atty. Aleem Hamid Barra that the “liberation” of Marawi is not a time of celebration. So this return is not really celebratory for how can we be happy when majority of Marawi homes, the market and the plaza are gone.

(Samira Ali Gutoc-Tomawis, Ll.B., co-founder of the Young Moro Professionals resigned as commissioner of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission in late May, days after the Marawi crisis started, citing personal reasons and policy questions. She is one of the organizers of the Ranao Rescue Team, a group set up to respond to the crisis.)