Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said if government forces are found guilty of looting residents in Marawi City, homeowners should receive reparations.
Evacuees who are returning to Marawi City are urging officials to allow them participate directly in the planning stage and even in the actual rehabilitation.
A high-ranking official of the Department of Social Welfare and Development said language barrier could be a problem of the department once they start conducting psychosocial intervention among hundreds of thousands of evacuees.
Civilians displaced by the siege in Marawi City have expressed their opposition to the plan of the government to implement an identification (ID) system to the evacuees calling it a discrimination and a violation of their human rights.
What happened in Marawi City should be a wake-up call not just for its residents, but also for everyone living in Mindanao, a government official said over the weekend.
“I would like to say it’s already done! It’s a complete and total victory for the troops!”
After almost 5 months inside the battle area, the 1st Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army has left the city Friday morning, October 20, following a send-off ceremony held inside the military’s Camp Ranao.
When President Rodrigo Duterte declared Marawi City liberated from terrorists’ influence last Tuesday, October 17, reporters covering the crisis in the country’s only Islamic city got a glimpse of the face of the destruction inside the battle zone.
Displaced residents in the cleared areas of this city have already returned to their homes, said the deputy commander of Joint Task Force Ranao on Thursday, October 19.
A group of Marawi residents are planning to file a class suit against the government for the destruction of the city’s properties and the deaths of civilians due to the conflict between state forces and local terrorists.
