P6-B fund allocated for Marawi Siege victims

Roughly P6 billion will be set aside by the government to compensate the displaced victims of the five-month siege that ravaged Marawi City in 2017, a Mindanaoan lawmaker announced Sunday.

The amount is on top of the initial P1 billion in programmed appropriations for the Marawi Siege Victims Compensation Fund in 2023 and another P1 billion under this year's national budget, according to Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel, a member of the House committee on public accounts.

"We all want the residents of Marawi to heal and succeed in rebuilding their lives, and we all want the city to fully recover and prosper," Pimentel remarked.

The P6 billion, he said, will be sourced from the unprogrammed funds of the current fiscal year, which stood at P731.4 billion, according to the Department of Budget and Management.

The unprogrammed funds are typically tapped by the government in cases of emergencies when infrastructure projects and social programs are required.

This may be utilized in specific cases of surplus revenue collections, new revenue collections, and authorized loans for foreign-assisted projects.

Marawi City was stormed by Islamic State-inspired homegrown terrorist Maute, leaving homes, properties, and businesses wrecked after a five-month-long armed conflict with the government security forces, leaving thousands of the city's civilian population displaced.

Then-president Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao in 2017 amid the clashes. It ended after two years in 2019.

The government has been assisting siege victims to get back on their feet by compensating them, particularly to the lawful owners of properties torn down or partially damaged by hostility.

The Marawi Siege Victims Compensation Law of 2022 (RA 11696) established the reparation fund and the Marawi Compensation Board (MCB), which is responsible for receiving and processing compensation applications and awarding monetary compensation to eligible families.

As of September last year, the MCB reported over P17 billion in claims filed by siege victims.

The MCB has since started paying P350,000 each to the heirs of dead victims.

Last month, the board also announced that it would soon start paying approved claims for structures lost or destroyed at a rate of P12,000 per sqm for concrete structures, P9,000 per sqm for mixed concrete and wood, and P6,000 per sqm if made of light materials, or mainly wood.

The DBM initially allocated P1 billion to compensate the displaced victims but vowed to earmark another P4 billion amid a petition from Mindanao lawmakers, who deemed the amount insufficient for the city's recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction.

In July 2023, the House Ad Hoc Committee on Marawi Rehabilitation reported that Marawi City, which was once a battlefield between government troops and Islamic militants, is on its upturn, with several projects that aim to raise the city from ashes nearing completion.

This includes the Marawi Public Market, Marawi Convention Center, the Sarimanok Stadium and Children's Park, the Marawi Mosque and the heavily damaged Bato Mosque, which were reportedly at the same level of completion.