Beleaguered Marawi

The social network has allowed conspiracy theories to thrive. For example, the recent event in Marawi City in Lanao del Sur has everyone speculating.

It just had to happen while President Rodrigo Duterte was in Moscow, Russia for a historic visit to the former bastion of communism.

In a way, it was Duterte showing the world that the Philippines has an independent foreign policy. That the country, specifically his administration, does not automatically toe the line of Washington. Hence, the raised eyebrows. Meanwhile, some netizens are outraged by the turn of events. They believe the government has overreacted.

I read on one Facebook post that the Maute “were warring clans under a rido situation.” In other words, they’re not exactly terrorists that the mainstream media and authorities have painted them out to be.

Usually, when the violence (as a result of rido) spills into the community, local leaders like the sultans, imams and village elders try to contain the situation or resolve the conflict.

If this is the case, then Senators Ping Lacson and Miguel Zubiri have got it wrong. What happened in Marawi was not a case of “failure of intelligence.” It was never on their radar because the situation was supposed to be an endemic squabble.

It just so happened that last Tuesday, one of the groups involved, who may or may not have connections with someone higher-up in government, decided to seek the latter’s assistance or had decided to call for outside reinforcement.

According to one speculation, the terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) was never even part of the equation. The waving of the ISIS flag on Marawi’s streets by these so-called local terrorists didn’t mean that ISIS was in control of the city.

In fact, if you look at the photos, the ubiquitous black banner of ISIS was just “seen atop at least two vehicles roaming the streets.”

Maybe they were trying to catch the attention of ISIS with the hope of getting funding. After all, it’s no secret that ISIS is only able to sow terror in different parts of the world because it has deep coffers.

Anyway, had the ISIS been involved, it would have claimed responsibility for the incident, as it had done in similar situations. But it had not.

I’d also like to point out the obvious. Government troops had no choice but to intervene because the retaliatory violence between warring clans—if that was really the case--was endangering public lives.

At any rate, the President, who had declared martial law in Mindanao, is now home to see to the situation.

Meanwhile, we should just pray that our brothers and sisters in Marawi are all safe and well.