Three Years After the Marawi Siege, Residents Cannot Return to Their Ancestral Lands

Marawi, Philippines — Bae Anisah Guro stands on a small woven carpet. She pulls her emerald green headscarf across her face, and as the sun sets, she kneels on the carpet to pray and seek guidance for the next day.

Guro’s community title, “bae” (for a woman of respect or distinction), stems from her family lineage, inherited from her maternal grandmother. A “bae” helps resolve domestic conflicts faced by Filipino-Muslim women. She is a role model and valued confidant to women in need of guidance and mentoring in her locality.

Guro, 58, is Maranao, “people of the lake,” an indigenous people whose ancestral homeland surrounds Lake Lanao, an ancient lake in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao — and with it, the Islamic City of Marawi. The region is predominantly Muslim, dating from the 13th century when Muslim traders from the Persian Gulf, India, and Malaysia reached the archipelago.

On May 23, 2017, jihadists loyal to the Islamic State (IS) took Marawi by force. The five-month battle between IS-affiliated extremists and Philippine security forces, known as the Marawi Siege, ended on October 23, 2017. By its end, the siege killed more than 1,000 people and internally displaced 98 percent of the population of Marawi, or close to 350,000 people. Today, 70,000 people remain displaced and continue to live in transition sites — including Guro and her family.

Guro’s ancestral land, which she inherited from her father, included a three-story residential house, a madrasa, a primary school, a boarding house, a pharmacy, and an array of stalls that sold traditional Maranao handicrafts. Guro’s land helped provide education and work to people in her community. But her property is within Ground Zero, the section of the city that suffered the brunt of the war. It remains a restricted area to this day.

In the early morning of May 24, 2017, she and her family packed up what they could and left their home as the bombings and gunfire grew louder along their street. “We did not have time to take anything. We left with just the clothes on our backs,” said Guro. She feared for her three young sons, who might have been forced to fight for IS.

Thousands of families filled the roads with their vehicles; the less fortunate evacuated by foot. It took the family close to 10 hours to reach the nearby city of Iligan. On a normal day, it would have taken less than an hour.

Guro now lives with 15 members of her family in a small rented space behind a laundry shop in Raya Saduc, a ten-minute drive from Ground Zero. They have lived in these cramped quarters since they were displaced by the conflict three years ago.

Officials claim that the country’s pro-IS groups — the Maute, Abu Sayyaf, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, and Ansar Khalifah — were sent to fight in the battle to establish Marawi as a Southeast Asian “wilayat,” or governorate, for the Islamic State.

Mindanao has held radical Islamic groups since the late 1960s, who have carried out terrorist activities like bombings and kidnappings throughout the archipelago.

Today, the province prevails as a breeding ground for IS recruits, as the lack of opportunities and scarce social services make the option for violent extremism an attractive choice.

Religion, however, was not the only driving force for the siege; a combination of pre-existing clan feuds, politics, and collusion with those involved in illegal drugs, arms, and trade also provoked the conflict.

Since a peace agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front — the largest rebel group in the region — was reached in 2019, threats of violent extremism have dwindled, but many still fear that a rising recruitment pool of jihadi groups could jeopardize the peace process.

Marawi residents are also distressed over the absence of a clear and comprehensive rehabilitation plan for internally displaced persons (IDPs), as well as the government’s failure to ensure compensation for the lives lost and properties damaged — including mosques and schools.

What’s more, human rights groups and lawmakers claim that the rehabilitation process has been plagued by mismanagement and corruption. Thousands of Marawi residents still live in makeshift evacuation centers and have not been allowed to return to their own land.

A new plan for Marawi

Nearly a year ago, the government had demolished all the buildings on Guro’s street without any of the owners’ consent. The contractors left no specific markings to distinguish one lot from another. Out of the close to 7,000 buildings across the 250-hectare area (about 618 acres) inside Ground Zero, less than nine percent of owners provided consent for demolition.

The people of Marawi — who are predominantly Maranao — face the government’s backhoes contracted to flatten the remnants of their ancestral property to set up military camps and commercialize the city, marketing it as the next tourist spot of the south.

The task force assigned by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration plans to construct public facilities, such as a hospital and market, on private property. His government has proposed various infrastructural projects over the years, promising access to electricity, water, and roads to the most affected region, but none have come to fruition.

In February, a Senate hearing was held to find solutions to the delayed funds to the local government, corruption, and drawn-out bureaucratic process in spearheading the Marawi rehabilitation program. But the lengthy introductions led by each official left little time for the locals to have their concerns heard. Nothing was resolved after the Senate session. Indigenous groups have filed complaints against the delay and the rehabilitation process of the current administration.

Women Under Siege spoke with Field Officer Apollo Likaros of Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM) for an update on the status inside Ground Zero. Only the first two of nine sectors in the most affected areas have electricity in place; the lack of water remains an issue. “We are confident we will meet the December 2021 deadline,” said Likaros. The proposed time frame set by TFBM is meant to be a reminder of President Duterte’s legacy.

Under a special program called kathagombalay, displaced residents register at TFBM, where their homeownership is verified by the National Housing Authority, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and the Local Government Unit of Marawi.

“Over 400 houses were repaired by their owners through [the] program,” said Likaros. However, they would still need to prove their ownership and apply for a new permit to return to the property, he said. Not all families can produce a proper land title that meets the government’s criteria — which, many residents feel, is a loophole the government is using to bypass the ancestral land feuds that stand in the way of its plans for a new Marawi. Consequently, the return of the Maranao to their own land could take years.

The lengthy process and the need for paperwork and consultation fees add to the despair of the victims of the siege. No financial assistance is provided, and locals are expected to shoulder all the expenses to rebuild their homes. Guro applied to the kathagombalay program nearly a year ago and has yet to receive news from the TFBM on the status of her application.

Her property is along a prime area overlooking Lake Lanao in Sector 8 and was demolished without her permission; she still doesn't know why.

In a meeting with government officials in Manila shortly after the siege, Guro was told her land would only be affected by a road-widening project. It has not been communicated to her what will happen to her property despite her registering a complaint at the local administrative office. But construction plans show the government’s plans for a heritage museum that would take up Guro's land.

In December 2019, Guro met with Scout Ranger Carding Policarpio, who was assigned to the region during the onset of the Marawi Siege. He took a bullet to his leg fighting insurgents. He remains tasked to secure Ground Zero as the demolitions take place.

“The demolitions are coordinated with the contractor, the local government, and the landowner,” he told Women Under Siege. But no one notified Guro and her family.

The vestiges of colonialism

The region hangs onto the last fragments of pre-colonial Philippines. Islam is the oldest-documented monotheistic religion in the country, predating Christianity by roughly 300 years when the Spanish colonized the islands and converted native people to Christianity.

In 1639, the Spaniards failed to conquer the surrounding area of Lake Lanao, after thousands of Maranao warriors fought to defend their property. Guro is a seventh-generation Pacasum, a prominent Maranao clan. Her forefathers held their ground against the Spaniards and were one of the first Maranao families to perform Hajj.

The authorities in charge of rebuilding the city are mostly Catholic Christians sent from Manila, the country’s capital, who are not mindful of the local Islamic laws and culture. Removing the people of Marawi from their homeland, residents feel, is like stripping them of their identity.

A race against time

With Duterte's term ending in 2022, there is pressure to show how the donations and billions of pesos allotted for Marawi’s reconstruction have been used.

In October 2018, TFBM had a groundbreaking ceremony to begin the rehabilitation of Marawi with the construction of 101 permanent homes; but that effort only went as far as demolishing structures and clearing debris. Only recently has it been made known that there are 50 permanent shelters, a project funded by UN-Habitat and the Japanese government. The land for the project is provided by the National Housing Authority, which decides who can return via raffle.

And on July 16, a groundbreaking ceremony was held inside the most affected area in the city for the construction of a four-story integrated school building, a fire station, and the Dansalan Bato Ali Mosque. During the Marawi Siege, the community mosque held hostages for IS militants.

The Bato Ali Mosque is the first of 31 mosques to be rebuilt by TFBM inside the most affected area, a gesture by the government believed to pacify the community.

Guro, who works as a district supervisor for several temporary learning spaces that provide interim education for the displaced children, was invited to attend along with other school officials and members of the rehabilitation task force.

“None of us were consulted,” said Guro.

Surviving long after the siege

Meanwhile, for the IDPs, access to food, water, and basic sanitation are persistent issues. Locals living in tents inside evacuation centers have no access to running water, much less clean drinking water. Some live in open spaces like gymnasiums where there is no privacy or proper access to bathrooms. They rely on donated and rationed supplies from NGOs and the local government, where food each day is never guaranteed.

As a result, women and children deal with higher rates of malnutrition, an increase in child marriages, and gender-based abuse. In highly-populated evacuation centers, where one’s privacy is compromised, young girls are forced to share one toilet with multiple families, and communal bathing facilities are not segregated. The lack of security heightens women’s and girls’ vulnerability to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). Guro has seen many cases of women and children who have come under threat since the war ended.

The future of Marawi remains uncertain. In a recent State of the Nation address, Duterte did not mention the Marawi issue once in his 100-minute speech, instead focusing on the current pandemic.

Still, Guro tries to muster hope for the long road ahead. “I still pray that this may be the beginning of great changes for the city.”

Guro spends the rest of the evening with her grandchildren after her prayers in the small room behind the laundry shop. They are surrounded by a cluster of wooden heirloom furniture — all that’s left of her ancestral home.

“My mother used to tell me, ‘Do not contemplate on yesterday, which has passed. Do not think about tomorrow because you don’t know what will happen.’” said Guro. “What you should think about is today, and how you will survive.”