THE mantra of government and military officials and their propagandists in the past two years is this: Martial Law is needed to bring peace and security.
Two years have passed, more than 100,000 Maranaos are still living outside of their city in Marawi. No homes. No work. No peace.
There are plans from the government’s Task Force Marawi to rebuild the city. But when does it start? When can the residents return and help see the rebuilding? There’s no clear answer. Or as the Maranaos lament, no one in government seems to listen to what they are asking.
For the past two years too, nearly a thousand Manobo Lumad from Talaingod and Kapalong have remained in a sanctuary of a church here in the city.
The threat from the President in his post SONA interview that their schools and villages will get bombed still resonates in their minds. The past two years, schools have indeed been closed on mere suspicion that they are fronts of rebels.
The Lumad have learned to live in hardship in sanctuaries. They have asked when martial law will be lifted so they can have peace in their ancestral lands.
A week ago, foreign ambassadors visited Davao City during the Davao Investment Conference. Impressed by the potential for business in the region, they have one request to the city mayor and presidential daughter Sara Duterte: Can Martial Law be lifted so that travel bans in their countries can be lifted?
With just that one request, Mayor Sara said she would write an appeal to her father, the president, to exempt Davao City in the scope of martial law.
Not all areas are threatened of their peace, Davao included. Davao needs a good climate where the tag of Martial Law is lifted for the haven of investors.
When the marginalized wanted peace, wanted to return to their homes of their births, why hasn’t the government responded affirmatively to them?
Some say Davao seems to think like it speaks for all of Mindanao when it went strong for Martial Law. Now, why does it feel like the city officials wants an exemption, and in the process it exempts the marginalized from the peace, security and growth they claim to be working for?