CHRISTIANS CAUGHT UP IN URBAN BATTLE WITH TERRORISTS IN MARAWI
ILIGAN CITY— Bishop Edwin de la Peña was sipping coffee after dinner here on Tuesday when he received a phone call: It was from one of his diocese priests, who sounded panicky and distressed.
Fr. Teresito “Chito” Suganob, the vicar general of Marawi City, had been taken hostage by Islamist terrorists along with about a dozen of his parishioners.
“He was given only a few lines to deliver, and it was simply echoing the demands of the kidnappers—for the troops to withdraw,” De la Peña said.
If the demand was not met, he was told, “something bad would happen.”
There has been no further word from the group of Christians since they were caught up in a ferocious battle that has raged between Islamist terrorists and government forces in Marawi for the past week.
As many as 180,000 people, or about 90 percent of the Marawi population, have fled the usually bustling lakeside city nestled in lush tropical hills that, almost overnight last week, became a theater of urban warfare.
President Duterte declared martial law across Mindanao as troops outside Marawi closed in on Isnilon Hapilon, leader of a faction of the terrorist Abu Sayyaf group which had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq and Syria.
Regional IS stronghold
Mindanao has long been a hotbed of local insurgencies and separatist movements. But now, Islamist fighters from Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries have converged in Mindanao, stoking fears that it could become a regional stronghold of IS.
More than 90 percent of the Philippines’ 100 million people are Christian, but in some parts of Mindanao, Muslims are the majority.
In 1980, Marawi proclaimed itself an “Islamic City” and is the only city in the country with that designation.
For its small Christian com- munity, however, life had until recently been peaceful and prosperous.
“We don’t consider ourselves Muslims or Christians, we are just friends,” said De la Peña, who has lived for 17 years in Marawi but was out of town when the violence broke out.
That peace was shattered some months ago, he said, after the Army bombed an encampment of Islamist groups some 50 kilometers away.
“They said they pulverized the whole camp, but these people simply transferred their base of operation from the jungle to the urban center, to the city, Marawi,” De La Peña told Reuters in an interview from Iligan, 37 km from Marawi.
“They came in trickles, a few people at a time. They have relatives there. They lived, they recruited,” he said, adding that authorities appeared to have missed the looming threat.
Cathedral attacked, torched
Chaos was unleashed upon Marawi when troops searching for Hapilon were ambushed by heavily armed terrorists.
More than 200 local and foreign fighters from the Maute group and others allied to IS fanned out across the city, seizing the main hospital and prison before attacking the Cathedral of Maria Auxiliadora.
Inside, nearby residents told De la Peña, Father Teresito Suganob and a group of worshippers were decorating the church for a holy day to celebrate the life of Mary, a sacred figure in both Christianity and Islam.
De la Peña said Suganob and the worshippers ran to the nearby bishop’s house, hoping they would be safe there, but the terrorists burst in after them.
That evening, after bundling their captives into vehicles, the terrorists torched the church, according to the residents.
Photos showing the priest, a young man and a woman slumped against a wall have circulated on the internet.
De la Peña believes Suganob and the worshippers are being used as human shields by the terrorists.
“I cannot imagine. I have no words to describe it,” he said.
Still, De La Peña remains hopeful that the city can unite again.
The vast majority of Marawi’s residents, whatever their faith, are appalled by the violence and disruption, he said.
“I think we can begin something more effective in terms of working together, in terms of dialogue, in terms of peaceful coexistence,” De La Peña said. “After all, we have shared the same predicament.”