SAGUIARAN, Lanao del Sur”•Most refugees in Barangay Pagalamatan here have hardly received relief assistance that government and humanitarian agencies usually give displaced families in evacuation centers.
But Maranao families affected by the devastating war in Marawi City have turned this unfavorable situation to show they have not lost the pride and sense of independence of the “People of the Lake,” as they are called.
The Maranao nature is to help each other especially in hard times, said evacuee Amir Sab Paisal Macatanong, who had offered his family’s parcel of land in Barangay Pagalamatan to 45 families that have sought refuge here since the start of the terrorist-led siege in Marawi in May.
Macatanong said he has engaged other internally displaced persons in “regular sessions of discussion on their available options” to overcome a situation in which the supply of food”•either for sale or given free”•was scarce in the community.
At the height of the conflict, Macatanong said the evacuees only received food from the Provincial Social Welfare and Development Office of the Lanao del Sur provincial government.
Lanao del Sur Governor Soraya Alonto Adiong, however, sent three women officials”•Bai-a-Labi Mariam Naik, municipal agriculture officer of Saguiaran, Marilou Sopocado, provincial coordinator of High-Value Crop Development Program, and Senior Agriculturist and Alfreda Te”•to help develop a model self-reliant relocation site for evacuees hosted by residents of Pagalamatan.
Macatanong said these women brought the first sign of hope the evacuees could survive by tilling the land in the village, even as fierce fighting slowly tore Marawi apart. He then asked the evacuees to sit down and listen to the women talk on vegetable farming, and how to make a reasonable profit from this small endeavor.
Usually, only IDPs in designated evacuation centers are regularly rationed with food and water and receive relief goods. Sopocado said in meetings convened by Task Force Bangon Marawi, a number of plans were drawn up, but they could hardly move forward with the conflict still raging in the city.
With Saguiaran being safe enough from crossfire risks, Sopocado said they started guiding the evacuees on vegetable farming. Keeping themselves busy could also be a therapeutic experience for the people who lived through a full-scale war, she added.
Macatanong said some of the evacuees came from Marawi’s ground zero, including Barrios Naga and Banggulo in the city.
“So we held meetings with IDPs, and we agreed to start with vegetable farming in the 1.8-hectare land owned by Macatanong,” said Sopocado.
Naik said after they conducted quick-mentoring forums on vegetable farming and nursery, her group distributed vegetables seeds to five groups of evacuees from the original 45 families that have sought refuge here.
Senior Agriculturist Jalika Mangakop said the seeds were provided by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Naik said the office of DAF-ARMM Secretary Alexander Alonto Jr. had shouldered the cost of a farm-tractor rental to prepare the 1.8 hectares of land owned by Macatanong’s kin for vegetable farming.
Alonto said other home-sheltered evacuees also developed self-reliance community projects in 12 other villages: Poblacion (Saguiran); Bubong I-A; Sunggod; Bubong Pened (Marawi City); Buadi Ituasa (Marawi City); Dilausan; Pantaon, Pantao Raya; Panggao; Bubong I-B; Pantao Raya II, and Pawak.
Seeds of fast-selling vegetables like pechay, string beans, okra, cucumber were sown and the evacuees maintained their own seed nursery, from which they have already transplanted twice in a cycle of two harvest seasons.
They were getting into the third yield when President Rodrigo Dutete declared the liberation of Marawi on Oct. 17.
Naik said she closely monitored the project, even doing some accounting and marketing. She said the garden in Pagalamatan initially earned about P20,000 in almost two months from their first harvest of string beans, okra and tomatoes.
An elderly evacuee, Jamil Pangcoga, said that with the healthy diet of vegetables and fruits more often served in meal, life could be better on the homestead than for those in evacuation centers.
“We do not have access to meat and fish. We sell our vegetables at the (Saguiaran) market and to as far as Iligan, but instead of buying meat or fish we buy rice and salt from our sales,” Pangcoga said.