By FROILAN GALLARDO
Special Correspondent .
MARAWI City – It was not easy to hear that your house did not withstand the war in Marawi but when 62-year-old Rasamala Magondaraya and her children entered the ruins of what used to be a four-story building, she was appalled.
There were holes in the wall and a huge pit dug on what used to be the living room where she and her children gathered in happier times.
Entire sections of the building have collapsed under heavy bombardment and “Isis” graffiti were spray-painted on what remain of the walls.
“This is what I found. The only thing that was left,” Magondaraya said, holding up an identification card of hers.
“At least, I have some identity left,” she said as she viewed the damage.
Her children fared no better, rummaging only a few clothes that they were able to salvage from the rubble.
Two blocks away, Samia Macondara, 35, held back her tears when she saw that what remained of her bakery and grocery store was a pile of concrete and twisted steel.
Macondara said when she left her store on May 24, 2017, she hid P37,000 inside a small vault.
On Thursday, Macondara and her brother, Abdul, looked everywhere but the vault was gone, including her dreams of getting back on her feet.
Since they fled Marawi, Macondara said she lived as a refugee and have depended on food aid given by government agencies and non-government oganizations.
She has since left the evacuation camp in Baloi and transferred to a farm of a relative in a nearby village.
“We have been subsisting on root crops since then. At least we have that but I want to have my business back again,” Macondara, a mother of two, said.
Task Force Bangon Marawi has allowed some 1,200 residents to visit their homes inside the “main affected area” or what used to be called as “main battle area,” the main battleground.
The residents were told they can retrieve whatever possessions they can find from their homes have to leave before sunset on the same day.
Magondaraya and Macondara were among those in the second batch to enter. The first batch entered last April 1 up to April 3.
The visits are fraught with danger.
Down the road, a sign hangs on a tree warning residents to be careful of unexploded bombs.
Col. Romeo Brawner Jr., deputy commander of the Joint Task Force Ranao, said a still undetermined number of unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive device remain unaccounted.
The deadliest are the 500-pound general purpose bombs dropped by the Air Force FA50 jet planes.
Brawner said that according to the Air Force, 17 of these bombs did not go off during the bombardment of Marawi last year.
“Army ordnance disposal team found only nine of the bombs. There are still eight bombs out there,” Brawner said.
He said during the first visit of the Marawi residents, the teams were able to recover an unexploded 60-mm mortar round and two 40-mm grenades in the ruins of the buildings.
The military is asking residents to report any suspicious objects or unexploded ordnance they found in their houses.
Brawner said the military so far recovered 1,178 unexploded bombs and 323 improvised explosives since the fighting ended last October.
He said the bomb disposal teams are using K9 dogs and manually defusing the bombs instead of cutting edge technology, which the Army does not have.
“Ordnance clearing teams are slowly combing the rubble and hoped to finish it by the end of June. Although it does not mean 100-percent clear,” said Maj. Gen. Roseller Murillo, chief of the Army’s 1st Division.
The visits are closely monitored by the military. The families are instructed to stay inside their barangays or sectors.
The families were packed into private vehicles that snaked through two checkpoints in the “main affected areas.”
No one is allowed to stray. Food and water bottles were provided to the families.
Task Force Bangon Marawi Assistant Secretary Felix Castro said the visits in the 24 barangays of the main affected areas would continue until May.
Castro said the residents would not be allowed to rebuild their houses until the area is cleared of debris and ruined building.
He said a business consortium of Chinese and Filipino firms will lead the construction of the 250-hectare main affected area.
Castro said a technical team are currently evaluating the project proposal, costs and other details of the consortium led by the China State Construction Engineering Corp. LTD.
Castro said a major issue to be resolved is the “colonial settlement” title of military reservation of Marawi City.
The late President Elpidio Quirino signed Presidential Proclamation 453 on Dec. 23, 1953, classifying 6,667 hectares in much of the present Marawi City as a military reservation.
Quirino based the proclamation on an earlier proclamation by US President William Mckinley in 1902.
Past Philippine presidents had partitioned some 8,644 hectares for different purposes. According to the Land Management Bureau, Marawi has only 8,396 hectares.
“This issue has to be resolved before the consortium can start the reconstruction of Marawi,” Castro said.
Castro said the residents can rebuild the houses once the debris and ruined buildings are cleared.
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