The mirrors of Marawi

ON MARCH 23, 2023, Marawi will painfully remember the sixth year since the Battle of Marawi, a five-month-long struggle to bring down the Islamic jihadists in Lanao del Sur took place.

The tragic event has exposed the government’s lack of intelligence and, thereafter, the failure to compensate victims of the violent atrocity. The mirrors of discontent, if you will, has haunted the Islamic city until now and there are no indications the reflections or refractions of the mirrors will eventually be resolved in favor of the victims.

What was once a beautiful a city is now a ruined settlement that continues to woefully redeem itself from the destruction of the jihadists, forces that sadly identify themselves with Islam which, universally, has been embraced by most of the Muslim world as a peaceful religion.

Piecing together the broken mirrors takes more than just the declaration of rebuilding a flattened city. The State must also take into account the haste with which developments are reintroduced into the city. The people of Marawi cannot live on promises alone and they cannot recoup their livelihood by imaginary proposals worth only for propaganda.

The siege left over 200,000 refugees. Despite the humongous number of displaced people, the Duterte administration was nonchalant in inviting the Meranaos to ‘rise and move forward’ even in the absence of the promised assistance. As a result, there are still thousands who remain without permanent shelter and have no money to rebuild their lives, homes, and businesses.

How beneficial is the RCEP?

Despite reservations aired by some sectors, the approval of the Senate resolution making the country part of the regional comprehensive economic partnership (RCEP) augurs well for the archipelago’s economic stability, especially in developing the potentials of Mindanao.

parties interested in the geopolitical borderless trade arrangement, the triangles, first introduced in Singapore, slowly lost its luster.

Discontent is something the government must take into account seriously. Even if there exists already the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), the peripheral treats this new entity extends is very limited. Much of its efforts is only on reintegration and administrative support. A whole of government’ approach is necessary is ensuring that Marawi, in the next decade, can rise from the ruins and regain its pride as the country’s only Islamic city.

As a contiguous island exclusive of the Sulu archipelago, Mindanao can only project stability if its troubled parts are shared the value of development in terms of concrete undertakings. Political assurances, no matter how embellished and finely worded, do not define anything but personal aggrandizement on those who make them. The people of Marawi cannot live on pledges nor can they thank the government for things that are not tangible. Auditory words simply suck.

There is so much to do in rebuilding Marawi, and it s a fact of life that such responsibility requires a collective effort. In the absence of a spirited support from the State, the delay in the delivery of services and development may only trigger another of displeasure that anti-government elements can always exploit to rekindle their agenda of destruction.

Aside from addressing the needs of a displaced population, the State must be determined also in reintroducing progress to the city in the name of those soldiers and cops who sacrificed their lives in defending the city. In reliving their memory, the best tribute is to bring back normalcy to Marawi so people can meaningfully participate in the struggle of uniformed men in liberating Marawi from the claws of another future conflict.

If the government has no qualms in investing in billion-dollar infrastructures that solely benefit Luzon, it does not take rocket science to understand that Marawi, as part of a developing Mindanao, must rise again to redeem lost opportunists. No matter how painful the Battle of Marawi has scarred its people, the city, even if its voice is faint and unheard, should be a part of the priorities. Instead, remove pork barrels and intelligence funds and give it to Marawi.

(AVF)

Like the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA), approved in 1992, whose main objective is to “create a single market and an international production base; attract foreign direct investments; and. expand intra-ASEAN trade and investments,” the regional accord carries similar objects.

RCEP, though, is a much larger trade organization composed of 15 signatories, namely Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. The accord was signed on November 2020 in Hanoi, Vietnam, and required the ratification of at least six of 10 ASEAN countries and three of five non-ASEAN signatories.

Benefits drawn from the partnership vary from country to country, especially in the short term. But in the long term, with some adjustment allowed under the framework of the organization, the expectation is to create a healthy, borderless arrangements among stakeholders with an intent of becoming a critical player in the global trade.

RCEP reminds us of the earlier triangles that inspired the formation of the BIMP-EAGA in 1994. Under the concept, three players with distinct products or expertise agree to form a three -way covenant with an intent to complement each other’s commercial needs, including the promotion of specialties a player can offer for distribution or trade in another player’s domain.

But with the creation of the BIMP-EAGA, originally known as The Polygon during its initial stage of conceptualization given the multiple

The RCEP, however, is a bigger pursuit given that it also includes five ‘outside’ industrialized countries, namely Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, Japan, and China. The only nation in the ASEAN arrangement that can be equated with the five first-world nations is Singapore.

Creating RCEP, a trade society of neighboring states, creates a zone that involves an area of 22.54 million square kilometers, roughly 14.91% of the earth’s habitable surface, and 2.29 billion inhabitants, the equivalent of 29.09% of the world’s population.

Free trade, however, is not an entirely ‘free’ arrangement. Because actions such as this are formalized by the decisions politicians make and ratified by Congresses that host politicos, issues like human rights become belligerent subjects in the long run. Given that most of the nations that are ratifying the partnership are also signatories of other trade treaties, the clash of interests arising from the charters of other trade agreements can be prickly.

Free trade agreements, moreover, can become tools of protectionism. When a first-world country insists on putting its interest over the collective effort of the organization, an impasse is expected. This stalemate, if not resolved, can eventually results in the exit of a discontented members, which is reminiscent of British exit from the European Union.

The rise of discrepancy within the partnership is not unexpected. Each country has its own level of tolerance when it comes to trading. For instance, in agriculture, borderless trading can surely affect price stability for local produce when the imported items command lower prices in the absence of tariff and other exemptions.

(PMT)

PHILIPPINE MUSLIM TODAY, the country s first Muslim digital newspaper, is committed to a steady, highly developed, and diverse Southern Philippines.

Credits

INSIDE LOGO: The stylized Philippine flag on the left of the masthead is a creation of April Perez of jsonn.deviantart.com, while on the right is the official logo of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) where this paper is principally circulated. Plans are afoot, though, to distribute the Philippine Muslim Today throughout Mindanao and outside.