It’s been over a year since the Marawi Siege, the longest urban battle in the modern history of the Philippines. No doubt, you’ve seen the images online of the capital of Lanao del Sur in the Southern Island of Mindanao during and after the conflict.
The five-month armed conflict in Marawi in 2017 between government forces and militants affiliated with ISIL left the city devastated.
Source: ABS-CBN News
A brief look at Marawi by the numbers: 154 days of heavy firefighting, 1,131 people killed, 350,000 people displaced, 250 hectares of homes, buildings and mosques set ablaze by airstrikes. Today, the scars of battle are still evident in the bullet-ridden mosques, schools and houses as residents begin the long road to recovery especially in Ground Zero, the Most Affected Area.
There’s a lot that still needs to be done in terms of rehabilitation. It will take years for the city and its residents to get back on their feet. Other residents have chosen not to return. Marawi will never be the same after this. But beyond the images of terrorism and devastation, there are inspiring stories on the ground of how local communities are rebuilding their lives with the help of various organizations. One of those helping is the #ForMindanao initiative.
#ForMindanao is a program of NAAWAN Helps, Inc. and the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines that provides funding and technical support to locally-led projects that mobilize communities in Mindanao. These projects aim to improve peace and stability, improve access to quality education, promote inclusive and broad-based economic growth, and provide psycho-social services to conflict-affected communities.
Last August 2018, I applied and was chosen to be one of the participants in the first-ever #ForMindanao Media and Bloggers Tour which aimed to amplify the stories of the post-conflict rebuilding efforts in the provinces of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur. This is not your typical travel assignment. Marawi is not a place you go to on a solo backpacking trip just on a whim. Covering areas of conflict is a sensitive matter and gaining access to communities and getting around can be a bit challenging, so I took this rare opportunity.
The image of Mindanao as a whole to the outside world and to many Filipinos who have never been there is overwhelmingly negative. Especially after the Marawi Siege. A lot of people have been wondering what the current situation is like there now. Like I said, there’s a lot to be done. But there’s hope.
One of the communities we visited was Butig, a town in Lanao del Sur that has long been associated with negative news headlines. Even other locals of Lanao we spoke to seemed fearful of the place and discouraged us from going there. It’s known as the birthplace of the Maute and the conflict left the town in ruins.
When we arrived at one school, students from different districts were in the middle of poster-making design activities. Except for the battered classrooms and bullet-ridden roof of the gym, it looked like a typical small town school. Teachers gave us a warm welcome with lunch in one classroom. In the next room, a group of parents and teachers gathered in their best traditional attire for a ceremony to formalize the completion of a peace education training course.
The SPELL Peace (Strengthen, Promote and Encourage Love and Loyalty for PEACE) in Butig Project hopes to address the decades-old conflict by training the PTA to help shape the mindset of students for a brighter future. Through seminars and educational activities on peace, they hope to encourage community participation so locals become active agents of peace.
Another program, Project Malaya, aims to empower young Muslim IDPs who were directly and indirectly affected by the Siege, in peace-building through a faith-based approach. We witnessed how youth of different faiths were trying to brainstorm solutions to the problems their community faced while living in a Tent City, one of the many evacuation centers where displaced families are currently living.
Aside from using education in empowering communities, other projects harness culture as a tool for rehabilitation. One of the most inspiring stories I came across was how Maranao Collectibles, a group of Maranao weavers displaced by the armed conflict, is using their weaving skills to uplift their lives.
They produce the langkit, a traditional Maranao weave featuring okir patterns handwoven into strips of varying width and other traditional woven fabrics. They redesign them for modern day-use for medals, bags, or clothing accessories. In partnership with the group KulturAKO, they aim to train younger community members on the art of weaving while reaching out to a wider market through social media.
Food is not something you usually hear about in relation to stories of Marawi. I did not know much about the traditional cuisine of the Lanao provinces, and found it surprisingly good. Throughout our trip, we got to sample some interesting local delicacies, some of which are now being developed as livelihood products of community partners.
We visited a few farming communities in rural towns, where women were involved in backyard gardening and agricultural activities. Livelihood projects like Fleet Farming for a Resilient Mindanao (FFfARM) in Maigo and the Out-of-School Youth Farms for Mindanao (OSY-FM) in the municipality of Lala are helping women become micro-entrepreneurs through farm products.
My favorite food discovery was palapa, a condiment in Maranao cuisine, commonly found in Muslim areas of Mindanao. This spicy mixture of sakurab, ginger, chili and other spices can be eaten as an appetizer or side dish. We had it with pater (rice and viands wrapped in banana leaves) for most of our breakfasts in Iligan and around Lanao. It adds a different kick to dishes, kind of like an earthy chili oil and makes you want to reach for the extra rice.
The group Super Lumba comprises mothers and out-of-school youth who engage in backyard farming for spices to build their livelihood around palapa-making. Through a project grant under #ForMindanao, they’ve been able to invest in better kitchen equipment and are scaling up production and marketing. It was inspiring to see how a staple condiment that most locals take for granted is now reaching a wider market while providing livelihood for locals in a conflict-stricken area.
We didn’t just visit the farms. We also got to experience a bit of the work that goes into farming. We spent one morning in an upland farm in Marantao, immersing in the farm life with the Peace Crops, chopping up herbs and vegetables to make organic herbal nutrients which serve as natural pest control, spraying crops and casting vermi-compost on fields of sweet corn along with local peace farmers.
After the farm activities, we gathered for a shared community lunch of pater with the peace farmers. Peace Crops aims to counter the threat of violence and extremism by engaging at-risk youth in productive agro-enterprise activities. Their motto: “Drop seeds, not bombs.” Their Voluntourism Program lets visitors get their hands dirty in their demo vegetable gardens while mingling with locals as they work on their farm lands. In exchange, they ask visitors to pay with vegetable seeds, or useful farm tools, which are donated to farmer partners.
Livelihood programs come in different forms and aim to help the most vulnerable sectors, including children, out-of-school youth and mothers. Project SIYAP (a Maranao term that means protection) is a livelihood program for families of indigent detainees in Marawi by providing capital and mentorship on how to manage micro-enterprises.
We met one of the community partners who used the start-up capital to add higher value products like agri-feeds to her family’s small sari-sari store. Aside from running sari-sari stores, other partners are engaged in small businesses like sewing traditional Maranao house decor items and selling street food. The program trains members in financial literacy and entrepreneurship, to grow their savings in banks.
The visits to the communities around Lanao provinces were both heartbreaking and inspiring. I can’t deny the fact that there’s a lot of damage everywhere. My roommate Habiba, a resident of Marawi was there when the firefighting broke out; her home was ruined. Along with us, she saw Ground Zero for the first time since the conflict.
But what’s inspiring is how people are finding ways to go on during this rehabilitation phase. I had my own doubts and fears visiting some places we went to because of the news surrounding them. I was expecting the provinces of Lanao to feel like a conflict zone, but most places felt pretty ordinary, with locals going simply about their lives and kids playing outside.
We even visited a few unexpectedly scenic spots. After visiting the school in Butig, we took a brief side trip to Butig Nature’s View, a sightseeing spot in Brgy. Sandab, Darul Iman. I was happy to see locals enjoying picnics in the cottages nearby and posing for photos.
We spent a night at a local beach resort in Lanao del Norte. It wasn’t a touristy area, but kids were happily swimming there even at noon and during sunset while a group of locals were blaring Aegis songs on the videoke in the common area, making it hard for me to sleep.
We all wanted to get near the Lanao Lake since it’s the largest lake in Mindanao and is counted as one of the 15 ancient lakes in the world. When we visited the lakeside in Marantao, locals were swimming, going for boat and raft rides, and washing clothes in the water with a view of beautiful mosques in the distance.
We visited a torogan, a traditional house that remains a symbol of high social status in the the Maranao community. The Kawayan Torogan in Marantao is the last remaining habitable torogan, declared as a National Cultural Treasure by the National Museum of the Philippines in 2008.
Even dining out in Marawi, we ate mostly in modern restaurants inside the Marawi State University (MSU) Campus. In Bourse, a diner decorated with biker and road trip memorabilia, we had pizza, nachos and fries, and avocado and durian shakes. Except for the fact that they don’t serve beer (Marawi is an Islamic City and the restaurant is located inside a campus), it could be a restaurant in any province. Students were just hanging out with friends, eating or having coffee.
You rarely read positive stories about the beautiful destinations, rich culture and inspiring efforts on the ground in the provinces of Lanao. But these ordinary, everyday scenes felt reassuring. I can only imagine what the lives of the residents were like during the conflict, but it was good to feel a sense of normalcy in Marawi and surrounding areas.
If you look back at the figures and statistics listed above, the most important number to remember is Zero. There are ZERO winners in this war or any war.
Beyond looking at the images of Ground Zero, there’s another Zero in Marawi. Kilometer Zero is a landmark signifying the Original Reference Point of All Roads in Mindanao. I guess both are symbolic for the people rebuilding their lives in Marawi. When you start from zero, there is no way to go but up.
NOTE: This trip to Lanao del Norte & Lanao del Sur was made possible by #ForMindanao, a program of NAAWAN Helps, Inc. and the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines that provides funding and technical support to locally-led projects that mobilize communities in Mindanao. For more information, visit: http://formindanao.com/
thanks for sharing the pictures of marawi.