On the morning of 23 May 2017, the peace of Barangay Basak Malutlut, Marawi City was broken by staccato artillery fire and bombs. Hundreds of Muslim devotees attending a congregation in a nearby (markaz or center) Masjid Abubakar As-siddique scampered to safety. Government forces assaulted an apartment house to serve an arrest warrant on a leader of the Abu Sayaff Group who resisted, countering with a volley of gunfire.

Thus began the horror of the five-month siege on a bustling city officially called an “Islamic City,” a tagline normally denoting a peaceful, religious place. The psycho-social terror scars and infrastructure destruction approximated that of the present-day holocaust in Gaza. It has no equal in the military history of our country.

Tomorrow that fateful day will be commemorated, marking the 7th year since the war broke out.

Perhaps activities will be lined up to enliven the occasion and assuage the revulsion for what happened.

Honestly, my initial reaction to the commemoration was negative. Why commemorate a gruesome chapter in our history? It will only rub salt on wounds still unhealed. Why recall the unfettered and reckless carpet-bombing of a place whose structures were flattened to ruins, denting our memory shells which still haunts us to this day? There must be a reason for it.

We will mark the day with activities perchance to draw lessons from it. True, we suffered from the battle. Nobody wins in a war anyway. But recalling the event could give us a panoramic review of the circumstances, what and why it happened. And from this we can map out or strategize on a set of actions to confront a future similar tragedy. We can hopefully minimize, if not stop, its recurrence.

A feeling of guilt is felt by residents because of their nonchalance. If truth be told, they are partly to blame for the catastrophe. Months before the terrorists attacked, their presence was already noticed by some residents. They did not come in droves. The information about their presence in the city came in dribs and drabs. Residents noticed unknown persons bearing long firearms. It did not cause alarm because the scenario was a common sight. They could have been peace officers without uniforms or the bodyguards of politicians. In fact, in our barangay my son, Amor, told me that men clad in black were seen at night. But black shirts and pants were in vogue among the youth.

Our sensory antennas should have alerted us to report this to the uniformed authorities but we dilly-dallied. And we paid a high price — the deaths of scores, including non-combatants, and the destruction of our prized possessions. Lesson learned: the security of a town should not be left to government forces alone. Residents should share in the task. In fact, the latter should be on the frontlines of intelligence gathering and other aspects of defense and security.

Residents must always be on the alert. They should not put their guard down. Any sign of suspicious looking non-residents should be reported to the authorities. Any word or action by anyone that tends to denigrate the government and the authorities should not be ignored but conveyed to the authorities.

The barangay governments should take the lead in protecting their places. They are the sentinels on the ground. They should be the first responders. If it would compromise their lives, they should inform pronto the military and police who have the training to deal with it.

Could the destruction have been avoided? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? There were surrender feelers but these were ignored. Government had its reasons with its arsenal of intelligence reports.

Burning the house down to remove a rat defies logic. Many government troopers died from bombs dropped by government jet fighters, indicating the need for more training for pilots. Marawi should not have been the training ground for novice pilots. Breaking in the newly acquired planes should not have been done over Marawi. There are a ton of lessons we can learn from.

And so we commemorate not to recall the pain and agony but to bring hope to everyone that together in band we can suppress any aborning designs to create a similar siege. And that mistakes of the past should instead encourage us to prepare for any future tragedy.

amb_mac_lanto@yahoo.com