Marawi, Philippines – Maisara Dandamun-Latiph’s office is located on a hill overlooking the ruins of Marawi, the southern Philippine city that was destroyed during a five-month battle with hardline fighters linked to the ISIL (ISIS) group in 2017.
Dandamun-Latiph was appointed chairperson of the Marawi Compensation Board in 2023, after years of promises to rebuild the city came to nothing.
Now, Marawi residents are finally starting to receive payments, in a compensation process that must also address frayed and fragile trust.
“We want people to support us,” Dandamun-Latiph told Al Jazeera. “People deserve nothing less than a very good service after what has happened.”
Marawi was completely destroyed after Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups launched an attack in 2017, holding the city for a five-month siege before the Philippine military recaptured it.
Of the more than 1.1 million people who lived there, most have not returned.
Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration spent more than $200 million to rebuild Marawi, but instead of spending it on new housing, the money went mostly to public infrastructure projects, such as a new lakeside stadium and convention center, which now stand alone in the ruins.
“It is normal that [residents] “We should not trust the government so much, especially with what happened,” Dandaman-Latiph said.
The Marawi Compensation Board was created by an act of Congress in 2022 to handle claims for wrongful death and damage or destruction of property. Last year, President Ferdinand Marcos appointed Dandaman-Latiph, a respected lawyer and civic leader, as its chairperson.
The junta has received 14,495 applications so far and approved 596, totalling $16.8 million for destroyed structures and civilian deaths. Some 87 civilians have been killed in the siege, and Amnesty International has accused IS-affiliated fighters and the Philippine military of human rights violations.
All claims are processed in batches in the order they are received, said Dandaman-Latiph, who stressed the need for fairness in both determining compensation and staffing the office.
“It has to be based on merit,” he said. “Otherwise, this office will fail.”
A hopeful process
Dandamun-Latiph's office is packed with applicants every day, many of whom she knows by name. As she walks down the hall to her office, she chats with an older woman, then turns and bends down to greet a young boy.
“Everyone here knows each other,” he said.
Faisah Dima-Ampao, a Marawi native, had just returned to the city in 2017 after working in Saudi Arabia for 36 years.
When the fighting began, her mother did not leave, thinking – like many at the time – that it would only last a few days. Her mother was never found and the family home was completely destroyed.
After the siege, Dima-Ampao’s family received about $1,400 from a government task force, along with bags of rice, chicken and food that “was only enough for a month for a small family,” she said.
Dima-Ampao compares her situation unfavorably to that of survivors of the conflict in Syria and Lebanon, where she says governments rebuilt homes within a year or two. “But in Marawi, it didn’t happen,” she says. “They didn’t give us anything.”
Now, she feels somewhat vindicated by the compensation process, which she says has been straightforward. She has received $6,100 in compensation for her mother's death and is waiting for her family's claim for the lost property to be processed.
The compensation board has taken a data-driven approach, plotting damaged and destroyed properties on a 3D map and comparing them to claims.
It also allows residents to prove ownership of the property through other means, such as inviting witnesses, if their documents were lost during the siege.
“They just carried them, their families and their clothes on their backs,” Dandaman-Latiph said. “We don’t want to overburden them.”
'A dead city'
But even as residents begin to receive compensation, the payments will not rebuild Marawi City, which remains largely in ruins.
Marawi's old commercial centre lies empty. Weeds and wild flowers have invaded vacant lots and made their way into the ruins of buildings.
Near the city's largest mosque, which was quickly rebuilt after the siege, a family was rebuilding their home. Three blocks away, a man was selling dodol, a glutinous rice cake, at a street stall.
But the shops and restaurants that once made Marawi popular as a commercial hub and culinary destination have not returned, giving residents little incentive to return.
The newly built stadium and convention center sit on the shores of Lake Lanao, the jewels of the Duterte administration’s reconstruction project. Yet they have rarely been used and have become the target of those who wish the money had gone to housing and job creation.
“Do you think that is the priority of people who do not have the means of livelihood to play tennis, run, jog, do athletics or play football? What they need is to have a means of livelihood,” said Acram Latiph, a professor at Mindanao State University.
“A lot of resources were wasted,” he said. “All they did was prolong people’s agony.”
Last December, a bomb attack during a Catholic mass at Mindanao State University was a reminder of the threats that persist in the region.
Four people were killed and at least 50 injured in an attack claimed by IS.
“It’s not a question of if it will happen, but when,” Latiph said. “They’re like cockroaches.”
Still, many residents blame authorities for what happened in Marawi and question whether the siege had to happen in the first place.
“They said let’s sacrifice Marawi and compensate the people later,” he said. “It was a difficult decision.”
Latiph is hopeful the compensation board will provide residents with long-awaited relief, but is skeptical whether Marawi will ever be rebuilt.
“It’s a dead city already,” he said. “I don’t expect the city to go back to what it was before.”
