The Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives on Wednesday filed a resolution directing the House Committee on Human Rights and Committee on Muslim Affairs to conduct an inquiry on the government’s post-Marawi siege rehabilitation projects as these will be exempted from the required public bidding.
In House Resolution 1973, the bloc said many are now concerned that Marawi rehabilitation projects will be exempted from the required public bidding especially with reports that the pre-selected contractor, Bagong Marawi Consortium, “consists of companies with little to no experience in public contracting in the Philippines, and a lead Chinese entity with a checkered history of being blacklisted, investigated, and sued for collusive bidding, fraud, bad projects, tax evasion, and political lobbying in the country and overseas.”
“It is, thus, questionable how Bagong Marawi Consortium was selected, and how the people of Marawi and the Filipino people will be affected by the yet undisclosed revenue model of Bagong Marawi Consortium or plan for recouping the billions of pesos it will pour into Marawi rehabilitation projects,” the resolution said.
On June 28, 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte issued Administrative Order No. 3 creating an inter-agency task force for the recovery, reconstruction and rehabilitation of the City of Marawi and other affected localities to be known as Task Force Bangon Marawi, chaired by the Secretary of National Defense.
AO No. 3 was amended by Administrative Order No 9 series of 2017 issued on October 27, 2017, that designated the Chairman of the Housing and Urban development Coordinating Council as Chairperson. The government has pledged to roll out a total of 892 programs, activities, and projects for Marawi under an ambitious “master plan” targeted to be completed by 2022.
But the lawmakers said on February 5, 2018, President Duterte issued Executive Order No. 49 exempting the National Housing Authority from the National Economic and Development Authority Guidelines on Joint Venture Agreements to “expedite the commencement of rehabilitation projects.”
By virtue of EO 49, Task Force Bangon Marawi has implemented the “Swiss Challenge,” instead of the Revised Guidelines and Procedures as provided for in Executive Order No.423 (s.2005), which required open and competitive public bidding. As such, Task Force Bangon Marawi has questionably pre-selected Bagong Marawi Consortium over five other proponents.
The lawmakers, citing the May 23 hearing of the House Committee on Muslim Affairs, representatives of Task Force Bangon Marawi admitted that while the rehabilitation project will be awarded and will start by June 2018, there is still no final rehabilitation masterplan and that the proposed plan with private Bagong Marawi Consortium is still subject of negotiations.
“Displaced Meranao residents of the 24 barangays identified as mostly affected areas (MAA) in Marawi City held a march protest on March 30, 2018 calling for a permanent return to their communities, still considered by the military as off limits to civilians. The residents criticized the government’s rehabilitation plan which excluded them and reserved 250 hectares for the construction of a military base and an economic zone,” the resolution said.
According to the lawmakers, many Marawi residents are gravely concerned that there is no clear and comprehensive rehabilitation plan for internally displaced persons, no recognition and accountability over the government’s failure of intelligence and failure to stop the entry of terrorist groups in Marawi.
“There are growing concerns within and outside Marawi about the people’s land ownership amidst the government’s debris management and infrastructure building program, the government’s military reservation claim, the profiteering of the private concessionaires in the rehabilitation plan, and possible heightening of human rights violations,” the bloc said.
May 23, 2018 marked the first anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law, following the bloody siege of the Islamic City of Marawi. It was a tragedy that resulted to the unnecessary loss of lives and had ravaged the livelihood of many, not only in Marawi, but also even in other parts of Mindanao,
Human rights
In the same resolution, the Makabayan bloc also asked the two committees to look into the reported human rights violations in Marawi.
The lawmakers said a National Interfaith Humanitarian Mission (NIHM) in June and July 2017, respectively, documented several cases of rights violations, including cases of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and torture of Marawi residents, who were accosted by soldiers while in the process of evacuation.
“There were also several complaints of looting, by soldiers who forced their way inside abandoned homes and took household items and other properties,” they added.