Religion and Marawi

Batas Mauricio

IF the Duterte government will not take into consideration the issue of religion or spirituality in the forthcoming rehabilitation of Marawi City, the invasion and occupation of the city by terrorist groups will surely happen again, even in the very near future.

This was the startling assessment given by Professor Jayeel Cornelio, the director of the Development Studies Program of the Ateneo De Manila University, during an interview by broadcaster Ricky Rosales in the daily program “Kabayan” over DzMM on Thursday.

According to Cornelio, any attempt to make Marawi City rise again will not succeed if it involves only the putting up of new structures, buildings, homes, lucrative livelihood programs, or even the pumping in of billions of government funds into the city. The professor said there is an equally urgent need to include in the government’s rehabilitation efforts the strengthening of spirituality among city residents.

What Cornelio said in gist was that, efforts must be directed first and foremost by the Duterte government towards resolving the question, “How can violent extremism be rendered irrelevant in rebuilding Marawi City?” to make sure that the mayhem perpetrated by terrorist groups in the city would never again be repeated in Marawi, or anywhere in Mindanao, or in the other parts of the country.

Cornelio stressed that the violent extremism employed by the Maute-Isis group in its five-month occupancy of Marawi City can be made irrelevant to a large extent if the Duterte government will focus its energies on upholding the dignity of a human being, avoiding the pitfalls of measuring the success of rehabilitation efforts on the number of new buildings that have been put up, or new roads and bridges that have been built.

“We should also seriously look into the religious angle in Marawi, which is something that is not heard at all today,” Cornelio lamented. It is quite clear that religious leaders and other well-meaning citizens coming from the different sectors of society in Marawi, who should also have a say in how the city is going to be revived, have not been consulted in any way on the plans for its rehabilitation.

To a large degree, what Cornelio was saying on Thursday gave me the creeps, literally and figuratively, because this is a theme that we have harped on incessantly for quite some time in this column. We have been very outspoken that any effort to give our people and our country a better deal would always be dependent on the Filipinos’ having the requisite fear and love of God.

Regardless of how we perceive God, whatever name we may have ascribed to Him, we should understand fully that, at all times, victory, success, prosperity and peace will always be a gift or a grace that only God can give. It is God who gives us the power and the capability to live full and satisfactory lives and that, if we will not recognize Him as our God, nothing good is ever going to come to us.

The challenge, then, to the Duterte government based on what Professor Cornelio is espousing on the matter of rebuilding Marawi City is simple enough: we should all prepare plans and programs for the city based on a strengthened faith in God, under a healthy fear and love for Him at all times, whether one is a Christian or a Muslim.

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com