Wild, Wild Philippines

With its bullet-riddled buildings and toppled lampposts, poor Marawi City is starting to look like the Afghan capital Kabul after the US bombardment to flush out the Taliban.

This is an entire city displaced. Because of lingering security concerns, it could take longer and prove tougher to rebuild Marawi than post-Yolanda Tacloban City.

It’s a humanitarian and economic disaster that the nation is ill-equipped to handle. Unlike in Tacloban and parts of Samar and Leyte after Super Typhoon Yolanda, there isn’t going to be the same avalanche of assistance from the international community, whether for the evacuees or for the Philippine government. Not that the Duterte administration cares; it thinks it can rely mainly on Beijing and Moscow for all sorts of assistance.

In the Yolanda-devastated areas, the mantra was building back better. As experts in post-disaster reconstruction cautioned, the work would take many years. Building back is not yet complete in the typhoon-hit areas.

It would be even more complicated in Marawi, a city that will likely continue for a long time to be a battleground between the government and violent groups trying to set up a base in the Philippines.

With Marawi now looking like a ghost town, government forces can flush out the Maute and Abu Sayyaf militants. Once residents start returning and the city tries to get back on its feet, however, it is both the strength and weakness of democracy that troublemakers can trickle back into the city, hiding in plain sight and preparing to again sow deadly mayhem.

Keeping out the troublemakers should be a sustained effort with grassroots support. But recent developments indicate that the Mautes and Abu Sayyaf in fact enjoy a measure of support from political and moneyed individuals who have their own followers at the community level in Marawi. The terrorists are also known to have extended family networks. They buy public support using their impressive finances – raised mostly through criminal activities such as kidnapping and drug trafficking, with additional funds possibly sourced overseas.

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Marawi is a prize catch for any self-respecting Islamist terrorist group trying to set up a base of operations in Southeast Asia. It is the capital and largest city of Lanao del Sur, and one of the few predominantly Muslim cities in this country. It is far more prosperous and developed economically than any city in Sulu and Basilan, island-provinces where the Abu Sayyaf operates.

With some effort from the local government and support from national agencies, pre-siege Marawi could have positioned itself as a unique tourist destination in Catholic-majority Philippines, and as a center for the peace effort with Islamic groups.

Economically, it could have been developed as the country’s center for halal food production and export. There is a massive global demand for halal food products.

The potential is still there, of course. But first, this battle has to be out of the way, with some reassurance that no armed conflict of the same scale can happen again in the city at least in the near future.

That reassurance is needed if rebuilding and commercial activity are to resume in the devastated city.

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The damage extends even outside Marawi. I’ve been told that tourism outside Mindanao has taken a hit.

Tour cancellations started when several countries issued travel warnings about the risk of kidnapping by the Abu Sayyaf in Cebu and Bohol. This was during the peak of the travel season earlier this year.

Before the country’s travel industry could catch its breath, the Marawi crisis erupted.

Reliable sources told me that even the bizarre attack on Resorts World Manila by a casino addict prompted tour cancellations from several of the Philippines’ top sources of foreign visitors. Never mind if it turned out that the Islamic State had nothing to do with Jessie Carlos’ rampage. The lax security in an upscale hotel complex, which made the tragedy possible, has spooked foreign visitors. Our tourism authorities need to work double-time to reassure the world that what happened was an exception and measures are being undertaken to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

What sort of reassurance might work? A foreign diplomat suggested a strong display by the government of tighter gun control. The diplomat noted that among Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines is the most lax in gun ownership, and it’s no coincidence that we have one of the highest homicide rates.

Apart from the Mautes, Abu Sayyaf, New People’s Army, Moro Islamic and Moro National Liberation Fronts and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, crime rings easily build private arsenals. Drug dealers, carjackers, jueteng lords, kidnappers and smugglers have amazing firepower.

I told the diplomat that unfortunately, holders of loose firearms in this country also include politicians who want to surround themselves with heavily armed private armies. Any attempt to part them with their guns will die a natural death, whether in Congress or local government councils.

With the exception of Corazon Aquino, all our presidents since Ferdinand Marcos were gun aficionados. Clint Eastwood will feel right at home in the Philippines.

And we will always have the image of a Wild, Wild West in the Asia-Pacific. Marawi is just reinforcing that image.