By Carolyn O. Arguillas
Mindanews

1st of two parts

ILIGAN City – The public hearing of the Senate’s Special Committee on Marawi City Rehabilitation on Friday started an hour late and took all of two hours and four minutes, 39 minutes of that spent on introductions, acknowledgment of participants and opening statements of five senators, 17 minutes on the briefing by Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM) and ended at 5:07 p.m. with committee chair Sen. Ronald dela Rosa declaring that the “final solution,” the “ultimate solution” was to meet with President Duterte.

“We don’t have a solution but the imprimatur from President so the rehabilitation can be finished,” dela Rosa said at the public hearing held at the gymnasium of the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology.

The “final solution,” proposed by Sen. Christopher Lawrence Go, committee vice-chair, is a meeting on the first week of March in Malacanang, between Duterte and heads of national government agencies involved in the Marawi rehabilitation, local government officials and leaders of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country’s lone Islamic city.

“So that once and for all,” Go said, the problems will be threshed out and solutions provided so Marawi’s rehabilitation can be completed within the remaining two years and four months of President Duterte’s term.

It has been two years and four months since Duterte declared Marawi “liberated from the terrorist influence” on Oct. 17, 2017, and two years and nine months since thousands of residents of Marawi fled their homes.

The Committee, according to the Feb. 12 invitation sent by dela Rosa, was to conduct a public hearing and inquiry, in aid of legislation on Senate Resolution 66 filed by Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri on Aug. 5, 2019, reconstituting the Special Committee that was created in August 2017 but failed to fulfill its mandate until the 17th Congress adjourned in June 2019; and Senate Resolution 29 filed by Senator Ralph Recto on July 24, 2019, for the committee to look into the status of the rehabilitation “and the utilization of funds for the purpose, with the end in view of ensuring that Marawi residents affected by the siege will benefit form the program.”

The senators did an ocular inspection of Ground Zero and the temporary and permanent shelter sites in other areas in Marawi City for two hours on Friday morning.

In his opening statement at the hearing, dela Rosa said the Committee held its organizational meeting and briefing on Sept. 30, 2019, to carry out its mandate under Adopted Resolution No. 8 and to conduct an inquiry in aid of legislation “on the status of Marawi City rehabilitation and utilization of its funds” under Resolution 29 by Senator Recto and a similar resolution, 182 filed by Senator Imee Marcos on Oct. 29 last year.

As complaints are mounting over the delayed return to the 250-hectare Ground Zero which used to be home to residents in 24 barangays, the limited time left in the Duterte administration and the specter of the failures of the Yolanda rehabilitation from 2013 hounded the Committee members present – all five of them party-mates and allies of President Duterte — dela Rosa, Go, Marcos and Francis Tolentino who is also vice-chair of the Committee, and Zubiri.

Three other members of the Committee were absent: Emmanuel Pacquiao and Aquilino Pimentel III and Risa Hontiveros, the lone opposition member.

“Marawi is a key to fight violent extremism,” Zubiri said in his opening statement, adding that “if we will not do our best in the rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts here, discontentment and disgruntlement will pervade in the air which will attract extremist elements. We do not want that to happen to Marawi. Its people have suffered more than enough.”

“We don’t want another Yolanda here, where years after the devastation of Leyte, resettlement housing are still unfinished, or if they are fully constructed they are not livable or the people do not want to relocate there,” Zubiri  explained.

“We don’t want President Duterte to leave a legacy for the people of Marawi, a legacy like Yolanda,” he stressed.

Go said they want to know how the rehabilitation can be completed because “we don’t want the responsible officials to be negligent now and then put the blame on the President later on when his term ends.”

“Let us not allow Marawi to be like Tacloban. It is not President Duterte’s style to leave unfinished projects. The President and I will not allow this to happen,” he added.

Marawi Mayor Majul Gandamra explained the difficulties of getting funds released to the local government.

He reminded the public that the Task Force Bangon Marawi consists of 56 agencies.

There is a need, he said, for the President to intervene.

Go asked for suggestions on how to hasten the process, as he acknowledged the problem of passing through so many agencies for signatures, a process that he said Duterte detests.

“The President has only two years and four months,” Go repeated.

Gandamra pointed out the need for stronger powers for the executive branch to fast-track the downloading of funds to implementing agencies.

Del Rosario said the prevailing process on how to access Marawi rehab funds lodged with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), is for implementing agencies to submit to the Office of Civil Defense which will then elevate it to the NDRRMC then the Office of the President then to the Office of the Executive Secretary for approval

He recalled how last year, 1.9 billion pesos of funds were released to the Department of Public Works and Highways instead of directly to the implementing agencies, causing further delay. (To be continued)