By NG Seruela
Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM) assured the completion of the rehabilitation of public infrastructure in Marawi City after President Rodrigo Duterte asked them to expedite this in his final State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 26.
He said the TFBM had to speed up the city’s rebuilding for the sake of families still without homes.
“To Task Force Bangon Marawi, we need to race against time. And you have to finish the necessary work to rehabilitate the war-torn city and bring its [displaced] families back home,” the President said.
In a statement on Tuesday (July 27), TFBM Chairman and Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) Sec. Eduardo del Rosario guaranteed that the Marawi rehabilitation will be finished within Duterte’s term.
“On behalf of Task Force Bangon Marawi and our 56 implementing agencies, I would like to assure our President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and our Maranao brothers and sisters that we will complete the rehabilitation of all major infrastructures in Marawi City within his administration,” he said.
The TFBM chief said the overall rehabilitation works in the city are 70 to 75% complete, noting that by December, a “substantial number of projects will be completed as embodied in the master development plan.”
Del Rosario said they have awarded 279 permanent shelters since February and two mosques in the most affected areas have been inaugurated.
“More housing units will be awarded soon while other projects are scheduled to be inaugurated in the coming months,” he added.
Meanwhile, President Duterte extolled the “Filipino patriotism” manifested in the five-month-long “Battle of Marawi,” where military forces defeated the Islamic State-linked Maute rebel group in Lanao del Sur in 2017.
“Our victory in Marawi is also a testament to how the Filipino’s patriotism is far stronger than any extremist group. As I have said before, many times, there is no room for lawlessness in this country,” he said. – jlo
