MDM

P2 SATURday | MARCH 7, 2020

By CAROLYN O. ARGUILLAS

Duterte to oversee Marawi rehab;vows to make monthly visits

DEMOLITION JOB. A demolition team uses backhoes to fully tear down destroyed buildings on October 16, 2019. The clearing operation is part of the city’s rehabilitation program after the Marawi siege on May 2017. ARJOY M. CENIZA

SOLUTIONS. President Rodrigo Duterte meets with officials and displaced residents of Marawi City, Task Force Bangon Marawi, and the Senate’s Special Committee on Marawi City Rehabilitation in Malacañang on March 4, 2020 to discuss and find solutions to the problems plaguing the rehabilitation efforts in Marawi. The President is flanked by (from left) Task Force Bangon Marawi chair Eduardo del Rosario, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, Senators Christopher Lawrence Go and Ronald dela Rosa, vice chair and chair respectively of the Senate Committee. ALFRED FRIAS/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews) – President Rodrigo Duterte will now oversee the rehabilitation of Marawi and prom-ised representatives of displaced Marawi residents in a four-hour meeting in Malacanang Wednesday night that he would visit the city once a month to check on its progress.

“The President assured us na he will be on top of this rehab, tatapusin nya ito, hindi tayo papabayaan’ (he will fin-ish this, he will not abandon us), Aslani Montilla, President of Siyap Ko Pagtaw Operations For People Empowerment Inc. in Marawi City, told Mind-aNews.

Drieza Lininding of the Moro Consensus Group said the President repeatedly asked “ano ang problema” (what is the problem) that the rehabili-tation has taken so long.

Duterte declared Marawi “liberated from the terrorist influence” on October 17, 2017 and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana terminated com-bat operations on October 23, exactly five months to the day the Marawi siege began.

Lininding said the Presi-dent wants the rehabilitation completed in less than two years.

The Duterte administra-tion has only two years and three months left of its six-year term.

Secretary Eduardo del Ro-sario, chair of the Task Force Bangon Marawi, an inter-agency task force created for the recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation of Marawi, has repeatedly said the reha-bilitation will be completed by yearend 2021 or 21 months from now.

Lininding said the meet-ing lasted some four hours be-cause the President wanted all the problems about Marawi rehab discussed.

He told MindaNews in a telephone interview that he and other representatives of internally displaced persons (IDPs) were able to air their sentiments. “Medyo mainit ang usapan” (heated discussions), he said.

Cabinet secretaries of agencies involved in rehabili-tation were also present, he said.

He said there were about 20 IDP representatives who attended the meeting from Marawi and those temporarily based in Metro Manila.

Montilla said Duterte ordered the Department of Budget and Management to hasten the release of funds.

On the demand for un-conditional return to Ground Zero, the President asked that they be given time to finish installing the basic facilities – water and electricity, he said.

The Malacañang meet-ing was proposed by Sena-tor Christopher Lawrence Go during the public hearing by the Senate’s Special Commit-tee on Marawi City Rehabili-tation at the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology in Iligan City on

February 21.The two-hour and four-

minute public hearing ended with Senator Ronald dela Rosa, Committee chair saying the “final solution,” “the ulti-mate solution” was to have a meeting with President Du-terte.

“Wala tayong solusyon kun-di yung imprimatur galing sa President para matapos na ito” (We don’t have solution but the imprimatur from Presi-dent so the rehabilitation can be finished), dela Rosa said.

According to Montilla, dela Rosa at the meeting an-nounced that they had filed Senate Bill 1395 or the Mara-wi compensation bill, pro-posing P30 billion from the General Appropriations Act at P10 billion a year for three years.

Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri had prom-ised during the February 21 public hearing of the Com-mittee in Iligan City that they would file the compensation bill on February 24 and would “prioritize the measure for ap-proval.”

MindaNews checked the website of the Senate and as of 1 p.m. on March 4, found 20 bills filed between February 21 and March 4 – Senate Bills 1372 to 1391 — none of them on Marawi.

MindaNews checked the website of the Senate at 1:05 a.m. on March 5 and found more bills had been filed– 1392, 1392, 1393 and 1396 but no files on SB 1394 and 1395.

When MindaNews checked at 5 p.m. on March 5, the ear-lier missing SBN 1395 or the Marawi Siege Victims Com-pensation Act of 2020, had been uploaded, the time stamp at 4:07 p.m. on March 4.

Montilla said Duterte also vowed to have the Islamic Center repaired.

He narrated he was able to tell the President during the meeting that the problem in the delays of the rehabilita-tion is because some agencies are not sincere and “parang gusto pa nilang hindi maayos ang Marawi” (act as if they do not want Marawi rehabili-tated).

“Sinagot niya din ito na may mga tamad talaga na tao (He replied that there are re-ally lazy people but pero he assured us na aayusin nila ito), Montilla recalled.

“Alhamdulillah. Napaka positibo po ng meeting,” Mon-tilla said.

Lininding said the Presi-dent is still pushing for the establishment of a second military camp in Marawi but where it will be set up is still under discussion. Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews