DAVAO CITY, Philippines –Nine years after the Marawi siege, many Maranao families continue to languish in rapidly deteriorating temporary shelters and evacuation sites — a displacement crisis that echoes the suffering of families uprooted by the war in Gaza and the recent US-Israel attack on Iran.
“We do not want to be forever bakwit,” said Samera Datuiman Mangurisong, a leader from Bakwit Village Phase 2, during a forum held in Cagayan de Oro City on May 25 linking the situations in Marawi, Gaza, and Iran.
The hybrid forum, titled Reflections on Parallelism Between Marawi, Gaza, and Iran, was held on May 25, with participants joining both in person and online. It gathered internally displaced persons (IDPs), religious leaders, educators, lawyers, and solidarity groups from different parts of the Philippines and abroad.
Speakers said the discussion was not about comparing suffering, but about examining recurring patterns of displacement, militarization, and prolonged humanitarian crises.
For many of the participants, the parallel lies in what happens after war headlines fade.
Professor Tirmizi Ismael Abdullah of Mindanao State University said many families remain displaced despite the government’s rehabilitation narrative.
“Thousands of internally displaced persons remain displaced up until today,” Abdullah said.
According to him, more than 80,000 individuals and over 17,000 families continue to live in temporary shelters and scattered evacuation communities.
“What used to be our bustling Padian, our old market, our vibrant busy street of Bangulo, and our ancestral homes have been reduced to a lifeless ground zero,” he said.
Mangurisong disputed claims that conditions inside the shelters have normalized.
“The government says the IDPs are okay already, but that is not true,” she said. “Some families eat only once a day because there is no work and basic needs remain unmet.”
For many displaced residents, the issue is no longer simply housing assistance, but return.
“Kasi doon lang kami makaka-all-side kung makabalik kami kung saan kami nanggaling sa ground zero,” Mangurisong said, explaining that many residents believe they can only fully rebuild their lives if they return to their original communities.
The long life of displacement
For Filipino-Palestinian educator Mahadia Soya Abdelalai, the testimonies from Marawi reflected realities long familiar to Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza.
“Like Marawi, Gaza is not merely a place under attack. It is a society struggling to preserve its humanity under conditions designed to exhaust it,” Abdelalai said.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to worsen amid a fragile ceasefire announced in October 2025 and continued displacement, with intermittent military exchanges and mounting civilian casualties since the conflict began.
According to recent UNRWA and OCHA data, more than 72,619 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, while over 172,484 have been injured, per UNRWA Situation Report #221 (as of May 6, 2026).
The United Nations earlier warned that more than two million Palestinians are now crowded into shrinking areas of Gaza as repeated evacuations and bombardments continue.
Abdelalai said war reshapes societies long after bombardment ends.
“One loses not only home, but continuity, familiarity, ritual, and belonging,” she said.
For speakers in the forum, displacement itself has become a recurring condition shared across different conflicts — where communities remain trapped between rehabilitation programs, militarized policies, and prolonged uncertainty.
Counterterrorism and militarized narratives
Throughout the discussions, speakers repeatedly referred to how governments frame wars through the language of counterterrorism and security.
The 2017 siege began on May 23, when fighters from the Maute Group and the Abu Sayyaf Group — both Philippine militant organizations that had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) — seized large parts of Marawi City in Lanao del Sur. The attack prompted then-President Rodrigo Duterte to declare Martial Law across the entire island of Mindanao that same day, a declaration that was extended multiple times by Congress and remained in effect until December 2019. The five-month battle between government forces and the militants, which ended in October 2017, left much of the city’s center in ruins and displaced an estimated 353,921 individuals, according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Abdullah described the 2017 Marawi siege as a “textbook violation of international humanitarian law” carried out under the justification of counterterrorism.
“In Gaza, an entire population is carpet bombed and ethnically cleansed under the exact same pretext,” he said.
Filipino-Iranian lawyer Atty. Faj Tahar argued that conflicts involving Muslim communities are often reduced to religious or security narratives while deeper geopolitical and economic interests remain less discussed.
The forum took place amid renewed tensions involving Iran, Israel, and the United States.
This week, international news agencies reported fresh military exchanges near the Strait of Hormuz, including new U.S. strikes inside Iran and retaliatory Iranian attacks targeting regional military assets.
Reuters also reported renewed concerns over global oil supply disruptions as tensions around the Strait of Hormuz escalated.
Tahar linked these developments to broader geopolitical struggles over territory, military influence, and natural resources.
Iran’s oil reserves and strategic location in West Asia, she said, have long made it central to global power struggles. Gaza also contains offshore natural gas reserves that Palestinians have largely been unable to access because of blockade and occupation.
Mindanao, meanwhile, has historically been viewed as resource-rich territory within the Philippines.
“So when we revisit the roots of history, we can see that conflicts have always been economic,” Tahar said.
Beyond infrastructure
Throughout the forum, speakers repeatedly questioned how governments define recovery after war.
For Abdullah, rehabilitation cannot be measured solely through infrastructure projects while thousands remain displaced.
Abdullah called for an independent inquiry into the Marawi siege, rehabilitation spending, and martial law implementation during the conflict.
Reconstruction without return
In recent years, the government has highlighted rehabilitation projects inside Marawi’s most affected areas.
The National Housing Authority reported completing at least 1,310 permanent housing units for displaced families between 2020 and 2024. Earlier this month, the agency also turned over 392 additional housing units in Marawi City.
Road networks, sports facilities, commercial centers, and new government infrastructure now stand across parts of Ground Zero.
But displacement remains widespread.
A report by the Bangsamoro Parliament’s Special Committee on Marawi estimated that 17,841 displaced families were still living in temporary shelters or home-based evacuation arrangements as of its August 2020 report.
Abdelalai, meanwhile, said humanitarian responses often focus on survival while failing to address accountability and structural causes of displacement.
“To remember Marawi is to resist erasure. To speak about Gaza is to challenge imposed silence,” she said.
As the forum ended, speakers repeatedly returned to the same issue raised by displaced residents throughout the discussion: that recovery cannot simply mean rebuilt roads, housing projects, or declarations of normalcy while families remain unable to return home.
For many of Marawi’s displaced residents, the siege did not end when the fighting stopped.
It continues in the shelters, in unfinished returns, and in the uncertainty of whether rehabilitation will ever mean going home again. (davaotoday.com)
