Understanding the Marawi Siege through a museum visit
MARAWI CITY (MindaNews / 26 January) — When a non-Meranaw visits this Islamic City these days, the obvious destination is Ground Zero or the former Main Battle Area between government forces and the Islamic State-inspired Maute Group and its allies, its ruins from the five-month Marawi Siege of 2017 similar to those of cities anywhere in the world devastated by war.
But most of the visitors are there for the selfie — their teeth glaring as they smile for their smartphones, the images instantly posted on Instagram and Facebook (or a short reel on TikTok), accompanied by an “I was here” caption with #groundzero and #marawisiege hashtags — yet not really understanding what the ruins stand for.
The Ministry of Trade, Investments, and Tourism (MTIT) of the Bangsamoro Autonomous in Region in Mindanao (BARMM) and the provincial government of Lanao del Sur want to change that through the Tales of Ranaw Tourism Hub.
It is a museum focusing on the Marawi Siege, maybe some kind of a war museum akin to those in Hiroshima in Japan or Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, but with a twist. It is curated by the renowned Marian Pastor Roces, whose body of work curating museums spans five decades.
The Tourism Hub, located in the compound of the Lanao People’s Park in the heart of Marawi City, had its soft launch December last year. The formal launch was held on Thursday (Jan. 23), which was also the turnover of its management from the MTIT to the provincial government of Lanao del Sur.
Attracting the young
While museums may bore many people, Roces made sure it will attract visitors, especially the young, by “blend[ing] extraordinary traditional art with extraordinary digital technology.”
The GenZ, for instance, would love to explore the digital part of the museum.
Three giant monitors, maybe 60 inches diagonally, stand side by side.
The two monitors on the left show the timeline of the war, day by day, which can be controlled with a smaller touchscreen monitor in front for an interactive experience.
The third large monitor shows important landmarks of Marawi that played key roles during the war, places like the Grand Mosque and the devastated house of the late Senator Domocao Alonto. Manipulate the touchscreen monitor below it like a tablet so you can see the structures in 360 degrees.
In the same darkened room are back-lit blow-ups of images taken during the siege by Meranaw photographer Najib Alyhar B. Zacaria, showing all the devastation in downtown Marawi. “The photographer actually has a vast archive of photographs of the Marawi Siege. And he lived in Ground Zero, so it is personal to him,” Roces pointed out.
There is also a ceiling-mounted projector in the room, throwing aerial images of Marawi—alternating the before and after—on the floor. Around the circular projected image are concrete debris from Ground Zero.
The rest of the display are a showcase of traditional Meranaw art but current creations: hand-woven langkits, landap malong, panolong with carved okir, gadur brassware, and wooden sarimanok.
No antiques
“As the curator, I deliberately did not put antiques. I put exquisite art made today,” Roces stressed. She said that she chose to exhibit newly made items to make a point: that current Meranaw artists can still create traditional works of art at “the same level of skills as the past.”
In the case of the panolong, which is the most distinctive feature of the torogan (Meranaw royal house), Roces commissioned okir carver Lantong Pangcoga from the municipality of Tugaya, where most of the Meranaw crafts are made ever since. She brought Pangcoga to the Aga Khan Museum inside the Mindanao State University campus and told him to copy the 150-year-old panolong on display. “It is incredible,” she said of the carver’s output.
Roces recruited another artist from Tugaya, Gaffar Panumpang Deca, to make gadur, a brass ceremonial vessel traditionally used to store rice and tobacco. Deca used spent bullet casings collected from Ground Zero for the two gadurs he made for the museum. “That’s why there are no more bullets, because [they’re] all being made into gadur and kulintang,” Roces joked.
But there are two small antique items that Roces included in the exhibit—the lakub, a cylindrical bamboo container used by the Meranaws to store betel quid or tobacco leaves. It was brought home by a US soldier who was assigned in Marawi in the early 1900s, given to his great grandnephew, who later decided that it should go back to where it belonged.
To curate with honor
Roces pointed out that when she was asked to curate Tales of Ranaw, she wanted to do it with honor, like “sticking to accurate data,” going out of their way to collect stories.
“We put together all the data from Ma’am Jenny Alonto’s record of day-by-day [events]. Plus the record of the military, the record of oral interviews, the record of newspapers and wire agencies,” Roces said. (Jenny Alonto Tamano is the provincial information officer.)
“Honor is insisting on the complexity of the story. You cannot simplify. Honor is the ability to see the scale,” she added.
Roces said she needs people to understand that “tourism has to be different in a place like this,” not just welcoming people to have them look at wonderful places.
“You have to understand what happened here. You cannot just go to Ground Zero and be stupid or silly. You have to understand that you have to respect the memory of the people here,” she explained.
She lauded the BARMM and the local government for “rethinking what tourism is” and for the “pioneering” effort not just in the Philippines but also in the rest of Southeast Asia. “You are telling a story in tourism that is not mababaw(shallow),” Roces said.
Like the Hiroshima Shrine
Robert Alonto, commissioner of the Bangsamoro Commission for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage (BCPCH) for Lanao del Sur, likened the Tales of Ranaw Tourism Hub to the Hiroshima Shrine, which he visited in 2012 as member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front Negotiating Panel.
What he saw in Hiroshima, he said, left him “dumbfounded and in dreadful awe at the horrific scale of loss of life and property caused by the atomic bomb.” But he admired the people of Japan who, despite the great tragedy, were able to steer their homeland into becoming one of the most developed countries in the world.
“The Tourism Hub reminds us of the horrific tragedy that is the Marawi Siege that totally destroyed Marawi City in 2017. And yet, it also tells us the poignant story of the Meranaw people’s resilience in the aftermath of this tragedy and their indomitable determination to survive in the refugee camps and go on with their lives given the loss of their homes and loved ones,” Alonto said.
BTIT chief tourism officer John Lomboy seconded Alonto, saying the Tourism Hub is “a significant step in narrating the story of the Marawi Siege through the theme of rebirth and hope amid conflict. The Hub offers quite an inspired narrative that highlights resilience and renewal in the face of adversity.”
Roces herself witnessed the resilience of the Meranaws when she visited the adjacent municipality of Saguiaran during the siege. “I could see Meranaws were selling already on the road. It didn’t happen after the siege; it was happening during the siege,” she said. ( Bobby Timonera / MindaNews)
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