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OUR MARAWI: Marawi rehab to be offered as investment bond?

MARAWI CITY (MindaNews / 12 August) — Is this some sort of mockery out of our miseries and an insult to us displaced majority Muslim residents of Marawi City, that their city will be rebuilt from riba (usury)?

Why can’t this government just directly allocate budget from the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for the rehabilitation of Marawi?

The Philippine Star on July 19 reported that the Department of Finance is “eyeing to float about P40 billion worth of bonds for the five-year rehabilitation of Marawi City.”

Forty billion pesos out of the 62 billion pesos estimated budgetary requirement for Marawi Rehab will be offered in the market by the Department of Finance as Retail Treasury Bonds (RTBs).  Where would the Government get the interest rates?

Are we up for sale? Are our miseries an opportunity for some as an investment? The Government if it is really sincere in Rehab projects should reflect from GAA. As of now, most of the Government spending is on Relief and Information and Communications not on actual rehab. Their priority is building military camps and government housings for AFP and PNP Personnel inside and around Marawi City? Are they also planning to build a wall inside the MAA (Most Affected Area / Groun Zero) so that we can never return?

What happens to Bagong Marawi Consortium? Power China? Why does the Government now want to activate an Army Engineering Brigade for Marawi? Who is really going to build MAA? Private contractors or the Army Engineering?

Why is the Department of Social Welfare and Development now issuing bloated figures? Sixty four thousand already returned to Marawi but you only served more than 47,000 of Kambalingan kits? Even if you add those living in the temporary shelters you will never reach that 64,000 claim. What’s the purpose? To make it appear that you are doing a great job when in reality you can only afford to serve less than 10 per cent of the still displaced families?

We demand Transparency and Accountability from the National Government! What happens to the loans from Japan and China? Publish the Terms of Reference if there’s any so we can be sure that our home, our city will not be used as collateral!

We really want to help! The Government if not serious, could just leave Marawi and allow us to return and slowly build our home, our city! (MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. OUR Marawi is open to anyone who wishes to share his/her thoughts on what is happening in Marawi. Drieza Linindin is chair of the Moro Consensus Group. This is a slightly revised version of a post published on his Facebook post on 10 August 2018).

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