A new Marawi

As of yesterday afternoon, the military was aiming to clear by day’s end the last building in Marawi still occupied by Maute gunmen. This was after the last of the hostages, about 20 of them, were freed over the weekend.

The images of destruction in Marawi are depressing, but there’s opportunity in a crisis. The government must decide early on whether it wants to simply patch up what’s been destroyed, or turn Marawi into a model for a well-planned, sustainable city that is uniquely Muslim Filipino.

After serving as a battleground, parts of Marawi can also be developed into a zone dedicated to peace and a multicultural, interfaith community. A memorial can be set up for the hundreds killed in extremist violence, including 165 soldiers.

Displaced residents are trickling back into liberated zones even as sporadic gunfire continued until yesterday afternoon. The Mautes enjoyed a degree of political and grassroots support, which allowed them to stage the surprise attack in May and engage the Armed Forces of the Philippines for five months. It’s hard to tell which civilians returning to Marawi are among the Maute supporters, and there’s the persistent risk that the group can continue staging violent attacks while the city is trying to rebuild itself. Even President Duterte is tempering the AFP victory, warning of more terrorist attacks.

This kind of environment complicates any effort to build a well-planned new Marawi. In the first place, we’ve never been good at planned development.

Just look at property development in Metro Manila and surrounding areas. The best laid plans for sustainable communities end up by the wayside once the major developers decide to maximize land use. Everything eventually ends up like a concrete jungle where every available space, whether vertically or horizontally, is squeezed out for stratospheric rental.

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What’s a sustainable city? One that’s clean, green, with efficient mass transportation so fewer people feel the need to use their own cars so there’s less traffic and pollution. The sidewalks are wide enough to include a bicycle lane, with space left over for people to jog or walk their dogs. There are enough parks or green recreational areas where people can freely congregate, with areas set aside for vendors and weekend flea markets featuring local products and artwork.

Because of its higher elevation, Marawi enjoys cooler weather. Tourism can take off from the city’s Sacred Mountain National Park, which features an extinct volcano.

Marawi reportedly has an extensive underground sewerage system that the Mautes used (not tunnels that they themselves supposedly dug up). This can be expanded for a subway that can become the first in the Philippines, ahead even of the one planned for Metro Manila that will likely become derailed in another corruption scandal for the next half century.

The city faces a lake where water sports can be promoted, and the lakeside can have a wharf and cruise stop for tourism. Marawi can be a hub for halal food production and the cuisines of Muslim-majority countries.

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All this may sound quixotic, given the persistent security threats and the violence engendered by drug trafficking – now believed to be a major source of funding for Islamic extremists. But which big city does not face a terrorist threat?

Marawi evacuees now returning to their communities don’t have the luxury of time to wait for well-planned development. They need solid shelters ASAP that can withstand typhoons and floods. They need the speedy restoration of basic services: water and electricity, telecommunications, mass transportation, food supply networks and markets. They need employment and livelihood opportunities. The children need to resume their education.

Realistically, however, everyone knows swift recovery is unlikely. The areas devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda have not yet fully recovered, and those disaster zones don’t face threats from the Mautes and Islamic State. “Building back better” – the buzz phrase for the post–Yolanda reconstruction – is moving along slowly.

Since rebuilding is expected to be slow anyway, why not plan it well, and create a truly better city?

President Duterte, who keeps saying he hates corruption, can see to it that the Marawi rebuilding effort will be supervised by competent officials.

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Wealthy Islamic states can be tapped for assistance or cooperation in the reconstruction effort. It will be in their self-interest to see Marawi built back better and resistant to the attractions of extremist violence. The Islamic State is on the run in Syria and Iraq – and militants tend to find followers in unstable, unsafe societies where public discontent runs deep. If IS manages to set up a new base of operations in Mindanao, it can use the base for exporting terrorism around the world.

Other cities and countries have made remarkable recovery from the ravages of war and blood-drenched internecine conflict. Hiroshima is a lovely, peaceful city, and Tokyo is consistently rated as a favorite travel destination including of the well heeled. Germany is home to several of the world’s most sustainable cities. South Korea, although technically in a state of war, is one of Asia’s economic powerhouses.

That kind of recovery is no longer possible for Manila, which was one of the most devastated cities during World War II. The city – including the neighboring cities and towns that would constitute Greater Manila (later Metro Manila) – simply kept expanding in an anything-goes way, with little attempt to prevent urban blight.

In recent years, there were ambitious plans to turn Bonifacio Global City into a model for sustainability, but now it’s just another area where the privileged .001 percent is engaged in maximizing real estate profitability.

Marawi, flattened by armed conflict, has a chance to be a model for sustainability.