Filipino architect likens Marawi to Hiroshima

October 18, 2017

MARAWI CITY--  A Filipino architect sees a "connectivity" between this city, which is the scene of a nearly five-month battle between the Philippine military and Islamic State inspired militants, and Hiroshima, one of two Japanese cities where the US dropped the atomic bomb,

“I’ve been in post-disaster rehabilitations, big earthquakes, tsunamis, and big floods. Marawi is the worst. Manhattan where the World Trade Center was destroyed was just two buildings. We still believe that grand zero should be preserve as lesson for future generations,” Felino Palafox Jr told reporters.

Palafox suggested that Marawi's ground zero should be preserved to show people how terrorism can destroy a peaceful city.

“This morning they took us around the ground zero and it makes you cry. I celebrated my birthday in Hiroshima in Japan. A lot of tourists going to ground zero where the atomic bomb was dropped. And they build modern cities around it. There’s connectivity to Marawi,” he added.

Palafox said "places of worship, education and significant buildings" may be rehabilitated.

“But the damaged ones, they can be retained, especially those full of bullets as a lesson for the future how terrorism can destroy a peaceful city,” Palafox said.

Palafox said when he told local officials about his recommendation they accepted it in principle.

Palafox said it may take 70 years to bring back the old city, which is the center of Islam in the country.

President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday declared the city liberated from the terrorists even as a small group of local terrorists are still resisting and holding hostages in an area of about a hectare. DMS