Marawi City rehabilitation 40% complete – TFBM

The rehabilitation of Marawi City, which was devastated during the 2017 siege, was 40 percent complete and would likely be finished well within the December 2021 timeline, Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM) said on Saturday.

“Based on my recent visit in the last two days, we are now 40% (complete) in the vertical and horizontal infrastructure. That’s why I told them that if we will be completing 10% per month, we are within our timeline of completing the rehabilitation by December 2021,” TFBM chief Chairman Secretary Eduardo Del Rosario said in a statement.

“So we are now 40% in terms of accomplishment. Based on our Master Development Plan, we are on track with the target that we have set,” Del Rosario added.

The TFBM is spearheading the war-torn city's rehabilitation, together with its 56 implementing agencies and partner organizations, by providing emergency financial, livelihood, food, medicine, and shelter assistance.

The TFBM rehabilitation's second phase - debris management - focused on removing millions of tons of debris following the five-month-long battle between government forces and the ISIS-influenced Maute terror group.

Also during the phase, unexploded bombs were recovered and detonated.

The phase took one year and four months to complete.

The next phase of the rehabilitation is the construction of vertical and horizontal infrastructure, which started in July last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Permanent housing units were constructed by UN-HABITAT with a $10-million grant from the Japanese government on a 1.8-hectare property provided and developed by the Social Housing Finance Corporation.

On May 23, 2017, pro-ISIS terrorists belonging to the Maute group led by brothers Omar and Abdullah, with the help of the Abu Sayyaf faction under Isnilon Hapilon, occupied Marawi City, triggering a five-month armed conflict that resulted in over a thousand deaths and leaving the city in ruins.

The occupation also stunned a Philippine military inexperienced in urban combat and stoked wider concerns that Islamic State loyalists had gained influence among terror groups in Mindanao. — DVM, GMA News