THE FATE of the Internally Displaced Person (IDP) is one of transition: caught within the confines of their country yet locked out of their ruined city, IDPs find placeholder homes in government evacuation centers.

Among the over 350,000 displaced persons, many have not returned after fleeing the city under siege. The spray-painted markings of the Maute Group linger on the homes of families while vandalized religious sites house defaced icons. Broken glass and bullet shells greet visitors who walk into the skeletal remnants of buildings.

The Battle of Marawi marked its first anniversary on May 23, yet the city center remains the stuff of post-apocalyptic fiction. Given that only a handful of citizens are allowed to visit the site after securing a permit with the local government, the rest of the former residents are unaware of what is left after the dust has settled.

Tent city transience

The city, once filled with the deafening shrieks of soldiers and flying shrapnel, is now in silence. After the war, neither citizen nor troop remains in the ruin. Many evacuees have stayed in either rehabilitation camps or the residences of relatives living in the outskirts of Marawi City.

The internally displaced, once united under one municipality, are now found strewn across Lanao del Sur, with differing conditions in their respective evacuation centers. In Barangay Bito Buadi Itowa, IDPs reside in large, rectangular tents across a program hall and a field where they can grow their own produce.

Plumbing and water sourcing is stable in Barangay Bito, while “tent cities” such as Sarimanok are not as fortunate. With no irrigation or water distribution pipes, the people of Sarimanok wait around for water to be delivered to them by government trucks twice a day.

Many in the mountainous area are unable to afford groceries, as government funding initially offered to them has run out over the course of a year. Food rations from the Department of Social Welfare and Development have also begun to dwindle according to the evacuees, despite assurance from the local government that distribution would soon resume.

Even under these conditions, there is a divide between IDPs who plan on settling down permanently in the relocated areas and those who still wish to return to the devastated city.

A report by UNHCR’s Protection Cluster outlines cases of possible eviction. Complications in ownership of housing units and the building of more relocation sites are said to create problems for the IDP on the move. Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan President Roberto Yap, SJ, says that it is likely that those who have moved further away from Marawi City will relocate permanently.

Given that the government-sponsored rehabilitation camps are short-term and on transitory basis, the question of how IDPs will handle their transition into living permanently outside the city surfaces.

Yap contemplates the state of transitional centers, saying, “In Sagonsongan, it’s really supposed to be transitional, but if the rehab doesn’t go very well in ground zero, people might say they’ll just stay there. So the [question] of, ‘Is this really transitional housing or not?’ could be a problem.”

Before the IDPs are able to plan their return or permanent departure from the city, however, they must first find out when there will once again be a city to call their old home.

Rough road to rehab

Despite the fact that the clash between the military and extremists ended after five months, the displaced citizens of Marawi still remain in the dark as to when the rehabilitation of the city itself is to start.

While evacuees who fled from the outer areas of the city are slowly able to return to their old homes, those from the center are prohibited from visiting the Most Affected Area (MAA). The sight of the rubble is likely to stir animosity between the old citizens and organizations in charge.

A comprehensive clean-up and rehabilitation plan is yet to be finalized by the government regarding the MAA. The government is planning to course the rehabilitation plan of the MAA through a Swiss challenge, where an interested party will propose an unsolicited bid, and this will be put up by the government for other parties to match or exceed. The Bagong Marawi Consortium, composed of selected Chinese and Filipino industrial companies, was the initial party tapped for rehabilitation and was organized in early April.

But since then, proposals for the clearing of debris and rebuilding have been kept from the public eye. The Bagong Marawi Consortium’s failure to procure necessary legal documents is another pothole in the road to rehabilitation.

Even citizens outside of the MAA have voiced their dissatisfaction with the slow progress. As IDPs attend talks hosted by Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM), there are complaints of lack of proper discourse between officials and evacuees wanting to voice their needs.

Alumni from Mindanao State University (MSU) who are among those displaced by the war relay their experiences with the forums hosted by the government task force.

“Ang result ng consultation ay hindi siya consultation. Briefing and orientation [ito],” a former MSU graduate claims.

(The result of the consultations reveal that they aren’t consultations. It’s a briefing and orientation.)

Complaints from IDPs are seemingly left unheard, and even those who have begun life anew in relocation camps find their identities still shadowed by the past.

Rebuilding a life

Noriya, a mother of twins, has spent six months living in a bamboo hut situated in Bahay Pagasa. She and her children often find themselves in Barangay Bito Buadi Itowa in order to participate in psychosocial projects and feeding programs.

Bito Buadi Itowa itself houses an approximate 300 to 500 evacuees, a majority of them were tradesmen—Noriya herself included. As the war has left nothing but rubble where the family shop had once been, she has resorted to undergoing the livelihood programs provided by the government. The former shop owner now finds herself planting crops alongside other evacuees in the barangay’s communal garden.

While adults like Noriya are preoccupied with the new areas of specialization they have been thrown into, the displaced children of Marawi still carry traces of the siege with them.

The Barangay Bito Buadi Itowa’s psychosocial projects are geared towards the children, whose traumatic experiences and susceptibility to extremist ideals are urgently addressed. Within the community, children are either playing with toy guns or running from them.

According to Noriya, “Karamihan sa mga bata, naging laruan na nila ang baril-barilan. Ang mga bata kasi, pag napalaro, nakakalimutan. Pero pag may naririnig sila [na malakas na paputok], bumabalik din..”

(Most children like to play with pretend-guns. When children play, they forget. But when they hear something loud, it all comes back.)

The children of Marawi City are not the only ones who remember. Among the 350,000 former citizens, many have not forgotten the war and the escape. A year after the siege, many still await their homecoming—either to rubble or rebuilt structures—and continue to endure the conditions of transition camps with the willingness to move onto the next phase.