Marawi: The story of the Philippines’ Lost City

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2019

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Marawi in the southern Philippines is a ghost town. In 2017, it was taken under siege for five months by supporters of Islamic State who wanted to establish a caliphate in the predominantly Muslim city. After a fierce and prolonged battle, the Philippine army regained control – but Marawi was left in ruins. Two years on, reconstruction has barely begun and over 100,000 people are yet to return home. Philippines correspondent Howard Johnson tells the story of Marawi from the siege to the present day, through the eyes of two of its residents: a Muslim who risked his life to save his community and a Catholic priest who was held hostage by extremists.

Producer: Josephine Casserly

(Photo: Marawi's Grand Mosque pockmarked by bullet holes and small artillery fire - in the area that the authorities call the Most Affected Area (MAA) or Ground Zero of the siege of Marawi. Credit: Howard Johnson/BBC)

Transcript

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0:00.0	We have an armed escort of two soldiers carrying rifles.
0:08.0	They're riding a moped ahead of us in a convoy style, taking us through this devastated area.
0:14.3	Everywhere you can look, you can see piles of rubble.
0:18.6	There are lots of buildings that are on their last leg,
0:20.5	some that are leaning at very awkward looking angles.
0:24.0	Just destruction as far as the eye can see.
0:27.0	It looks like a lepo, Raka or mozle, but I'm not in the Middle East.
0:31.0	I'm in a city called Morawi in the south of the Philippines.
0:34.7	And we're moving along a street that's completely desolate. There's no one here,
0:40.0	there's no visible life. There's stories here that the soldiers hear people crying during night time like
0:47.8	ghosts. This really does feel like a ghost town. I'm Howard Johnson and this is assignment on the BBC World Service.
0:56.3	I'm with local resident Tong Passacum and I'm driving into a one square mile area that people here call ground zero or the most affected area.
1:05.8	No one lives here anymore.
1:07.4	You need security clearance just to enter.
1:10.6	You can see disintegrated concrete, the metal skeleton of these buildings hanging out of the building.
1:18.0	Most striking of all is a lot of vines and wild grass growing in the spaces between these devastated buildings.
1:25.4	The city is being reclaimed by nature after this man-made mess.
1:31.0	P perched on the banks of Lake Linal, this was a beautiful city with tall, densely packed houses and ornate mosques.
1:39.0	Tong's family lived here for generations.
1:42.0	Yeah, it's really is heartbreaking.
1:45.0	All the houses here are from relatives.
1:48.0	This one is my cousin's house, my uncle's house,
	...

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