It has been 1096 days since Marawi was declared liberated from the hands of those who held it and its people hostage. However, the effects of the crisis brought by the siege are far from over. For three (3) years, more than a hundred thousand Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are still without homes. They are displaced and forced to stay in different temporary shelters and home-based communities.
The battle may have been won, but the war is not yet over. The struggle of IDPs against poverty, discrimination, and exploitation started with the end of the Marawi siege, with seemingly no end in sight. The call for social justice remains strong even if other forces would seek to extinguish it.
The scars left by the Marawi siege are still fresh in the hearts and minds of the families of the missing and dead. They are akin to open wounds constantly reminding the ones left behind of their pain and loss, especially when it seems to them that they have no one to turn to and that their pleas for help continue to go unheard. Meanwhile, the center of Marawi, also known as the Most Affected Area (MAA) is still a no-man’s land controlled by soldiers. This raises the question which still remains unanswered: Is Marawi really liberated?
Liberation means freedom, to set free, or a process of freeing something that is in control. Marawi may have been liberated, but its inhabitants have not been set free, even until now. One can see proof of this form of imprisonment in the restriction given to them by not allowing them to have unconditional access to their property in MAA.
It is our hope that the Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM) will respond to the clamor of the IDPs. The efforts of the TFBM in uplifting the status of the IDPs through their different interventions and assistance are appreciated, as well as the full swing rehabilitation now in the MAA. However, the call of the IDPs has remained the same as the first time they were forced away from their homes. They want to rebuild whatever remains from their wrecked lives and go back to normal.
The true essence of liberation cannot be felt only in remembering what happened to Marawi or “kapananadem”, but requires listening with pure hearts and giving immediate action to what the IDPs want: let us, the people of Marawi, come home.
Let them rebuild their homes and their lives. Giving consideration to the emotional and psychological well-being of the IDPs should be the root and strong foundation of the Marawi Rehabilitation.
The IDPs are still bleeding. The nightmares that plague their waking and sleeping hours cannot be healed through the mere construction of grand buildings, but needs social healing. What the people need is understanding and consideration. Their human rights are mandated under the Constitution and International Law. They crave for justice and peace, the chance to finally sleep quietly at night.
What keeps them holding on is their hope and strong faith in Allah (SWT), and their prayers that one day the Government represented by the TFBM will finally listen to their plea, that soon, by the mercy of Allah, the silence of the dead and missing during the siege will be given justice. As Paulo Freire mentioned in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people–they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.”
Let us be liberators in the truest sense of the word – liberating not only buildings, or a location on the map, but people.
