Are We in the New Era of Marawi?

Last June 30, Marawi City inaugurated its new mayor, Atty. Majul Usman Gandamra, and Lanao del Sur Governor Bombit Adiong turned over the seat to his mother Bae Bedjoria Alonto Adiong while he himself took over the vice-gubernatorial seat.

These are some thoughts that are playing in my head:



1. The provincial government and the city government has very good relations. Coming from the same party, the city and the province are now a team as opposed to the years gone by when the city was like a separate entity from the entire Lanao del Sur.

2. Although Bombit is now the vice, who are we kidding, he is still our governor, right? I suspect that I will still be referring to him as Gov for the next 9 years.

3. With a local government that is popular and close to the people, there is an ongoing revival of the spirit of volunteerism in the city as I have talked about earlier in this post.

4. With the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte whose main platform is the eradication of illegal drugs, rumors has it that lists of drug pushers have been written down already. I heard one big politician who is known by everyone as a gigantic drug lord is interested about 'who are Duterte's people in Ranao.' Bakit kaya siya interesado?

Although we at least have a reason to be hopeful, many are still dubious. How about we wait a little longer for the #changeiscoming to be felt? It did not take a day to build Rome.

I did tell you in my previous post that I got an apartment in Iligan City. Staying in Iligan opened my eyes to things that I haven't seen before. You see, I have lived all my life in Marawi. My tolerance for shitty governance and crappy community life is high. Staying in Iligan made me see how bad our quality of life in Marawi is. And Iligan isn't a very good city at that. Is that how low we have sunk?

In our apartment complex, we all pack our garbage well and hang them properly so that dogs won't come to scatter them. At night, I don't worry very much if I am still out at 8pm, in Marawi, 8pm feels like the witching hour already. The wet market is okay. It's not as stinky and as unorganized as our Padian. I haven't experienced a power outage so far. The internet is fast. Traffic is not that bad. And I don't hear of news of military men being ambushed everyday with a few civilians becoming casualties as well.

We people of Marawi are not asking for too much, really. Just the basics.