IN A three-kilometer stretch of road littered with debris and blood, fighting between government forces and Islamic State-inspired militants who besieged Marawi City since May 23 ceased for some four hours Sunday, June 4, giving way for the rescue of civilians still trapped in homes and buildings for about two weeks.
The four-hour ceasefire, from 8 a.m. to 12 noon and specific only to the place, was mutually agreed by both warring parties upon the joint auspices of the peace panels of government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The three-kilometer space, which cuts across the city’s Banggolo district, has been dubbed the peace or humanitarian corridor where civilians needing to be rescued can be brought, free from being harmed.
Retired Colonel Dickson Hermoso, who is now assistant secretary in the Office of the Presidential Assistant on the Peace Process, said they established contact with the Maute group, through an emissary, last Saturday to negotiate the terms of setting up the peace corridor.
Hermoso added that they were in direct contact with Abdullah Maute, younger brother of Omarkhayam. Both run the militant group which was said to have formally submitted to the leadership of Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon under the IS banner.
While not identifying the person, Irene Santiago, chair of government’s peace implementing panel, said the emissary is someone who is respected by both the Armed Forces and the Maute group.
“He has been involved in the peace process, doing monitoring work, and peace education. We know him, we know his work; and we trusted him and the MILF has confidence in him,” Santiago explained, adding that the emissary was jointly identified by the implementing panels.
She credited the emissary for the ability of the MILF and government to make the peace corridor work.
Hermoso said the gunfires that were heard while the peace corridor was in effect were only in the periphery.
Given this initial success, Santiago said the peace corridor will be there in the days ahead, until its avowed goal has been achieved.
“We will take it one day at a time. If we did not start it, it wouldn’t have happened. But because we started it, something happened. Are we going to stop now? No, we will not,” she added.
The peace corridor and rescue missions associated with it are being overseen jointly by the government and MILF peace panels, in keeping with their mechanisms for ceasefire coordination, joint actions on law enforcement, and civilian protection.
On Sunday, some 134 civilians were hauled to safety by volunteers from the MILF who rounded up houses in sections of the city outlying the designated corridor.
Wearing either green, blue or pink shirts, the volunteers walked through the alleys of the deserted and devastated city, and with a megaphone, urged civilians to come out of their hiding places and be rescued.
Hermoso said those rescued on Sunday were children, women, elderly, some of whom were wounded or were sick.
Hermoso said they are looking into hauling to safety some 2,000 civilians. The rescue effort got slowed as vehicles cannot be used to round up the city sections because of the debris.
Hermoso vowed to improve on their procedures on the next days.
The corridor is divided into five segments. The rescue mission for the outlying area for each segment is being run by a team of 10 volunteers, all MILF members.
Hermoso said the Maute group asked that those who will comprise the rescue teams “should be a Muslim, preferably a Maranao; who knows the Quran verses.”
Hermoso lauded the MILF volunteers for taking on the challenge.
“We should not forget them; they are the heroes who sacrificed and took the risk in going inside (the outlying communities),” he said.
Arjani Mimbantas, an MILF volunteer, said what drives him is the thought of helping the civilian, many of whom could have been deprived of enough food and water for the past 12 days.
“Anyway, the AFP and the Mautes gave assurance that they will not fire,” Mimbantas said.
“We established already the confidence,” Hermoso observed.
Santiago assured that the Maute group’s consent to the peace corridor did not come with any condition.
“This is a process, I guess, of negotiations. When you’re negotiating, you try not to offer anything, and we didn’t,” she said.
She further said the government panel negotiated with the Maute group on purely humanitarian grounds.
“We are not negotiating anything political,” she added.