Senate Majority Leader Migz Zubiri on Thursday cited the need for the Marawi Siege Compensation Act to be approved for Marawi victims.
Senators on Tuesday approved on second reading Senate Bill No. 2420, or the Marawi Siege Compensation Act.
“We thank our colleagues for passing this bill on second reading. We need this to give social justice to the victims of the Marawi siege,” said Zubiri, principal author and co-sponsor of the bill.
“The fact of the matter is, when you go to Marawi and Lanao del Sur, many of our kababayans there are still without homes, and still have no means of renovating or rebuilding their homes that were destroyed in the siege,” Zubiri said.
In 2018, Zubiri also authored and sponsored the landmark Bangsamoro Organic Law, in response to the Marawi Siege.
“We saw that if we did not address the concerns of just and lasting peace and social justice for our brothers and sisters in Muslim Mindanao, these acts of terrorism would keep happening in other cities later on,” he said.
He also considered this bill as one of the best, as “we put so many game-changers in it, particularly on the management and governance of the autonomous region of Muslim Mindanao.”
The Marawi Siege Compensation Act creates a Marawi Compensation Board to facilitate the tax-free payment of reparations to persons displaced by the Marawi Siege.
“With the BOL and the Marawi Compensation Act, we are giving our brothers and sisters in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region the tools and mechanisms that they need in order to truly recover. They will receive just compensation or financial assistance to help them recover from this tragedy,” noted the Senate leader.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros said the Marawi compensation bill is long overdue. “I am very happy that we are finally getting closer to its passage,” she said.
She committed to help this bill be passed during the 18th Congress because “our brothers in Marawi have long been waiting for it.”